One of the big arguments for making sexuality more prominent in modern novels and movies is that it is artificial to conceal what everyone knows. The argument was that there was something immature about not dealing with something that has such a large place in human life.
Now, it's hard not to suspect that much of this concern that we stop hiding what we all know is happening was mostly fueled by prurient interest. Nevertheless, I took that as a legitimate argument for years until one day I found myself watching a woman I knew play tennis. I won't say too much about the what and the how but I realized watching her that there was nothing you could learn by having sex with this woman that you couldn't learn by watching her play tennis.
It's not that people aren't that different in bed. But that difference showed when she played. There was a moment in the game when she lost all self consciousness and started just responding to the game with a pure physicality that was graceful, powerful and irresistibly beautiful. Knowing details about her sex life would have added nothing to our knowledge of her. All it would have added was titillation.
I'm not adverse to titillation. But I don't buy the notion that sex adds anything to a work of art. All it adds is sexual stimulation. That might be appropriate in some circumstances but it is never necessary.
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ReplyDeleteYou're probably right. I guess it depends on what the artist is trying to portray or what message he/she is trying to send. Goya did two paintings of the same woman reclining, in one she's clothed and in the other she's unclothed. I don't know that the rendering of the woman unclothed tells us anything more about the woman that we need to know than the clothed rendering. But its nice to look at. Maybe sometimes sex in art is a statement of the artist in defiance of a sexually repressive culture.
ReplyDelete"But it's nice to look at."
ReplyDeleteIt sure is. I wonder how it feels to be the woman being looked at? All I can say for sure is that not all women feel the same about it.
That's right, all women don't feel the same about it. I also don't know how to define porn anymore. I don't think many people realize that since the internet there has been a proliferation of dating/hookup sites, where people--men and women, gay and straight--can post pictures of themselves naked and in the most provocative poses, alone and/or with others. One of the historical arguments against porn has been that pornography exploits women. The people who post these pictures of themselves in a personal ad do it willingly and receive no remuneration for it, and in most cases adults can access these sites and the photos for free. So does this qualify as porn, and are the historical arguments against it still valid? I honestly don't know why anyone would pay to access a porn site when so much is available for free, and they're real people not actors or models.
ReplyDelete