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Porn vs. Art

JFrankA said:
Have you seen the start of Superman?

There was a naked little boy in there, arms outstretched.

I enjoyed that scene without being sexually aroused........
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Probably because there was no intention to sexually arouse, and that was reflected in the way the image was portrayed. Hey ho.
 
Southwind17 said:
Oh, some people are, or at least were, I can assure you.
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The article you cite in the OP never states all porn is art, only that some art might be porn.
Subsequently, artists are obliged to have their work checked by some sort of morality police, at a hefty price, probably to discourage artists from depicting naked children at all.
Where does anyone claim that if it's sexually explicit, it must be art?
 
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Cainkane1 said:
Photographing nude children is wrong. The child may not be able to say no. I feel that this is wrong even if the parents are present. Who exactly would enjoy looking at these pictures? I wouldn't. I'd feel sorry for the exploited child.
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So you are strongly against the stereotypical baby in the bath pictures?
 
Southwind17 said:
You're looking at the wrong side of the coin - flip it over. If somebody seriously claimed that porn is a sport you'd find that an interesting viewpoint, I suspect, and worthy of discussion. Is porn art per se? Get it?
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You are mixing up art with artform. War poetry, battle paintings and millitary sculptures are all (usually) art, they are not an artform. Writing, painting, sculpture, film and photography are artforms- the fact of their subject (violence, sex or pretty flowers) does not change that. Porn describes the subject, not the artform.
 
JFrankA said:
I have seen some porn that fits that description.

Can you dispute that?
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Of course there are a lot of Renaissance masterpieces that are basically BDSM pictures. Remember the line, if it is expensive and for the rich it is art, if it is cheap and for the masses it is porn.

That is why porn is unacceptable and art is fine.
 
ponderingturtle said:
I would say all porn is art. The problem is that art is such a vague and subjective term.
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It is.

So, to the OP, what kind of point is to be made in saying a certain product might or might not fit into a certain ambiguous and ill-defined category?
 
Idiot Wind said:
It is.

So, to the OP, what kind of point is to be made in saying a certain product might or might not fit into a certain ambiguous and ill-defined category?
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Clearly if it is not art, then it is not covered by freedoms of artistic expression.
 
I say this as a firm supporter of the arts and defender of the ability to offend:

Some things are easy to define in the extreme, but lack a clear line separating middling cases. But if you're an artist and there's some question whether your work is art or CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, err on the side of not doing it at all.

In all seriousness, would someone provide an argument why its necessary for an artist to be including naked children in their work? This isn't Michelangelo vs. the Pope, this is a world where we're well aware what naked bodies look like. Artists can have long, successful careers pushing the limits of society's prudishness on many fronts. But let's just leave kids out of it.

Put another way, if whatever you want to express requires the presence of naked children, I think we can live without your input.
 
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Art becomes art when the person creating it call it such… If I take a picture of “anything” and call it art than that’s what it is… Porn producers make porn. Artists make art. Sometimes these things overlap. There are lots of stuff I’ve seen that I do not consider art and I disagree with its validity, but if the “artist” says it’s his/her art than I say good for them. All art begins and ends in the mind of the artist.

just my two cents
 
TraneWreck said:
I say this as a firm supporter of the arts and defender of the ability to offend:

Some things are easy to define in the extreme, but lack a clear line separating middling cases. But if you're an artist and there's some question whether your work is art or CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, err on the side of not doing it at all.
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So shut up and obey, that is what artists need to do. It doesn't matter if the laws are dumb or not, obey them don't challenge them.
 
Southwind17 said:
OK, I'll post a recognised dictionary definition of each, for the purpose of discussion. I don't necessarily subscribe to these in all respects, but don't see them as particularly objectionable:

art n practical skill, or its application, guided by principles; human skill and agency (opp to nature); application of skill to production of beauty (esp visible beauty) and works of creative imagination, as in the fine arts; (in general use) the visual arts, drawing and painting and usu sculpture ...

pornography n books, magazines, films, etc dealing with or depicting sexual acts, in a more or less explicit way, intended to arouse sexual excitement
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If those are your definitions then almost all of what is usually referred to as pornography is art. Creating porn, be it in the form of text or video or photographs, is an application of skill and creative imagination. It might be really bad art in many or most cases, but that is a different argument.

Perhaps more importantly, anything which would be put forward by artists to be rated under this new legislation is virtually certain to be art by your definition, whether or not it is also pornography.

This makes your initial post's accusation that people who thought that porn was art are misguided and self-indulgent quite curious, in the light of the definitions you have posted. It seems to me that if you accept your own definitions of art and pornography then it follows that you must consider yourself misguided and self-indulgent.
 
TraneWreck said:
I say this as a firm supporter of the arts and defender of the ability to offend:

Some things are easy to define in the extreme, but lack a clear line separating middling cases. But if you're an artist and there's some question whether your work is art or CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, err on the side of not doing it at all.

In all seriousness, would someone provide an argument why its necessary for an artist to be including naked children in their work? This isn't Michelangelo vs. the Pope, this is a world where we're well aware what naked bodies look like. Artists can have long, successful careers pushing the limits of society's prudishness on many fronts. But let's just leave kids out of it.

Put another way, if whatever you want to express requires the presence of naked children, I think we can live without your input.
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I take it that you aboject to all the cherubs and other naked children in much classical art? Or is it only art made today which is wrong when it depicts naked (but not sexually explicit) children? One very good reason to include naked children in art is to underline the fact that nudity isn't allways sel.
 
TraneWreck said:
Put another way, if whatever you want to express requires the presence of naked children, I think we can live without your input.
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Cainkane1 said:
Photographing nude children is wrong. The child may not be able to say no. I feel that this is wrong even if the parents are present. Who exactly would enjoy looking at these pictures? I wouldn't. I'd feel sorry for the exploited child.
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Here therein lies the problem, only fifty-one posts into the thread: A picture of a nude child does not mean child pornography.

Let's go back to the Superman movie. Clearly, SW, you don't think it's meant to be sexual, but if one person finds it sexual, is aroused by the scene, does it become child pornography now?

If there is a chance that someone might see that scene and get aroused by it, does it become child pornography?
 
I'll try to answer all the challenges at once to save space.

If you want to draw a picture of a naked kid, fine. If you want a naked kid to model, we have an issue.

Imagine a related first amendment hypothetical: say a group of people immigrates from a nation and establishes their religion in America. Part of their custom is to have all children under 12 attend service naked. There's no hard evidence that anything illegal or immoral is going on, but how do we deal with that?

I would argue that protecting actual children trumps first amendment claims made on behalf of both free expression and religion.

And sure, the line is difficult to find, but why find it? Do we need naked child models to draw cherubs--the medieval versions of which were comically unrepresentative of actual human anatomy. Did that affect the ability of those artists to express themselves?

Again, once actual children are involved the issues become very different from mere first amendment claims.
 
JFrankA said:
Here therein lies the problem, only fifty-one posts into the thread: A picture of a nude child does not mean child pornography.

Let's go back to the Superman movie. Clearly, SW, you don't think it's meant to be sexual, but if one person finds it sexual, is aroused by the scene, does it become child pornography now?

If there is a chance that someone might see that scene and get aroused by it, does it become child pornography?
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By this my parents are guilty by making a picture of their grandkids in the bath as babies their desktop. And forget family photos if you are say nudists.
 
TraneWreck said:
I'll try to answer all the challenges at once to save space.

If you want to draw a picture of a naked kid, fine. If you want a naked kid to model, we have an issue.

Imagine a related first amendment hypothetical: say a group of people immigrates from a nation and establishes their religion in America. Part of their custom is to have all children under 12 attend service naked. There's no hard evidence that anything illegal or immoral is going on, but how do we deal with that?

I would argue that protecting actual children trumps first amendment claims made on behalf of both free expression and religion.

And sure, the line is difficult to find, but why find it? Do we need naked child models to draw cherubs--the medieval versions of which were comically unrepresentative of actual human anatomy. Did that affect the ability of those artists to express themselves?

Again, once actual children are involved the issues become very different from mere first amendment claims.
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So you would prosecute anyone who took a picture of their baby in the bath?

And what if everyone attended service naked, what is the issue. As for that whole thing, it would be covered either way as freedom of religion, provided no one took pictures, then it is child porn I guess.
 
ponderingturtle said:
So you would prosecute anyone who took a picture of their baby in the bath?

And what if everyone attended service naked, what is the issue. As for that whole thing, it would be covered either way as freedom of religion, provided no one took pictures, then it is child porn I guess.
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Just because there are vagarues on the border between art and porn does not mean we cannot distinguish between obvious examples.

No, a parent/grandparent/close relative taking a picture of their kids in a bath is not illegal. Now, if they post it on the internet for everyone to see, it raises issues. And human kind will not be set back if people know they shouldn't put naked pictures of their kids on the internet.

Freedom of expression and religion have limits. Most notably when there's a compelling state interest involved. Safety of children, I would argue, is one such instance.

If I had to sum up my argument, I would simply state that there's no opposite compelling reason for people to include live naked children in their artwork. The potential costs vastly outweigh the benefits.

Now, if you want to argue that 18 is too high of a limit and a 16 year old could responsibly consent, that seems like a reasonable position. But anyone who has spent any time around 8th grade-ish kids (13,14) should recognize their absolute immaturity.
 
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