Porn vs. Art

The objection was to my comment that porn has no socially redeemable value. An example given was it has harmful effects on children, and this raised objections. Yet when asked if anyone would show pornography to their own kids, not one person said they would.

How about actual sex? A good thing or a bad thing? I'm going with 'good thing', and not just because I enjoy it. But I don't want to do it with my children. Or anyone else's. I suspect if you asked this forum, not one person here would say they would engage in sexual activity with their children...so, sex: no socially redeemable value? Should we stamp it out?

Pornography is like all other forms of expression - some of it is more valid than other examples, some of it is execrable, exploitative, nasty trash...like some examples of all other forms of expressions. Some of it is art.
 
Your kidding, right? You read these articles that talked about the connection of child pornography and child prostitution, of sexual offenders and their use of pornography, and you see absolutely no relevance?

No, because child molesters also use candy and toys and games as well. We've been through this in another thread. And let's not mix up child porn with adult porn. If a person is using a child for both porn and prostitution it isn't because of porn and prostitution: it's because that person is doing something wrong.

Let me put what I think you are saying another way: If a person is robbing banks and mugging people to get money then that means that there is a connection to thieving and money therefore money is wrong. I mean, most people use it, but some people use it to break the law or break the law to get it, so money has no redeeming value.

Your read about an article about Pompeii and the pornography in the brothel, but the conditions and the low amount of return (two loaves of bread) for women who were initially enslaved and then later could find no other means of income, and this has no effect on you?

Appealing to emotion. If someone is enslaved now a days for something like that, how is that pornography's fault? If someone enslaves a women and uses her for pornography that is the fault of the enslaver, not because pornography exists. The enslaver could use her and sell her for many many other reasons. The slavery would still be happening.

The objection was to my comment that porn has no socially redeemable value. An example given was it has harmful effects on children, and this raised objections. Yet when asked if anyone would show pornography to their own kids, not one person said they would.

But there was a post where a person shows it to his wife and it DOES have a redeeming value there.

The problem with your logic is that it seems to say "if you can't show it to children, it has no redeeming value". That's utter bull. "Redeeming value" is different for different people for different reasons. I would not give my child a bottle of expensive champagne, but does that mean it has no redeeming value?

With good reason, child molesters do try to seduce kids with pornography. As one person stated in the thread, art is meant to evoke an emotional response, and in the case of porn it is meant to evoke arousal.

Child molesters use ANYTHING to seduce kids. A lot of them use nothing but force. That fact that a molester would use it is moot.

Nobody in their right mind with a shred of decency wants to make their own kid get turned on with them there beside them. We all know it happens, teens get curious and want to look in private, but not in front of their parents. But to try to evoke that? Yeah, there's some problems there, that's pretty weird. To what end?

Your making no sense. I don't arouse my child because I don't want to have sex with him. I don't show him porn because he's not ready for it.

That is why I said it has no socially redeemable value. I'm not out to fight against porn. Whatever floats your boat, but you do it in private, and if your teen does it, they do it in private. You don't pack up the kids to go to the museum of pornography, you know that theater with the sticky floors and people who don't get out too much.

But one can pack up their spouse and go to such a place and have a good time. There is no redeeming value in that?

Does it make people happy? Sure it does. But it ain't for everybody, it's not a socially viewable thing. Sure, there are clubs devoted to it where people socially view it and engage in it and all of that. But you don't take your kids there, hopefully.

Anyways, is it art? Well, I answered that. I guess it is, in the absolute sense of the word, but it is a negative art. It'll get you off, and that's great, but it's not going to make for a great family event where your kids expand their minds from human accomplishments of the largest gang bang or the furthest ejaculation.

But you still have your porn and I'm not taking that away from you.

That doesn't mean porn has "no redeeming value". It only means it's not appropriate in all instances. Your argument seems to be "if you can't share this with your child, it has not redeeming value." Or "if child molesters use it, it has no redeeming value". Both are ridiculous stand points. Porn has redeeming value, it just isn't appropriate for all instances.
 
Last edited:
I did read the last 4 or 5 pages, and that's pretty much all you've been saying. I don't agree with it. Would you consider me a video of me taking a dump art?

Me ? Perhaps not. Someone else ? Who knows ?

That's the thing about art. No two people will agree on what constitutes art and what doesn't. This thread is a perfect illustration of that fact. The only logical conclusion is that art is entirely subjective; this doesn't mean there can't be a definition of art, just that agreeing on what fits the definition is a matter of individual tastes.

Pretty much self-explanatory. It has a negative effect. Is art required to have a socially redeeming value? Not if it is negative.

That's not an answer. What is a negative art form ? And how do you determine if its effects are "negative" ?
 
No, I don't misunderstand. I talked about that in my first two posts in this thread. At first I considered porn not art. After some thought, I considered it art but a negative form. I said it had no socially redeeming value. To explain that, I said it effected kids negatively.

But one doesn't follow from the other.

I wouldn't show a lot of things to young kids. It doesn't follow from some inherent "negativity", but simply from the fact that it's inappropriate for children.

If porn can be art, then it can be "positive" art as well.
 
Honestly, I don't think that children having access to any knowledge, including carnal, is inherantly a bad thing. It is the lack of oversight and communication by their parents that is the problem.

As to the OP? Porn is art. It is a nasty, dysfunctional type of art, but it is art nonetheless.
 
Honestly, I don't think that children having access to any knowledge, including carnal, is inherantly a bad thing. It is the lack of oversight and communication by their parents that is the problem.

I agree with you there.

As to the OP? Porn is art. It is a nasty, dysfunctional type of art, but it is art nonetheless.

I'm sorry, though, I have to ask, why "nasty" and "dysfunctional"? There's a lot of porn out there that's absolutely beautiful and quite a lot of people in the biz who are very well adjusted, happy people.
 
Do you show pornography to children?

No. I also refrain from showing pornography to my boss. I have never shown pornography to my mother. Now that you mention it, the only person I have ever shown pornography to is my wife. That turned out pretty cool.

Right, the result of watching pornography with your wife was pretty cool, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt you wouldn't think it was cool if you got the same result from a child.

Or my boss.
 
For the record I was thinking of Khajuraho rather than Pompeii. In this case the explicitly erotic stuff is on the outside of the temples. I found a pretty spiffy site arguing that these images, though explicitly sexual, should not be interpreted as pornography, because culturally that isn't the intent. I lol'd. (not because I think he's wrong, just because of how it resonates so nicely with our debate here.) One can find more of the explicit art from the temples with some google fu.

http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/erotica/khaju.htm
 
I'm sorry, though, I have to ask, why "nasty" and "dysfunctional"? There's a lot of porn out there that's absolutely beautiful and quite a lot of people in the biz who are very well adjusted, happy people.
I second Frank's calling you on this. How is it nasty or dysfunctional ?

Well, I don't call mere nudity porn, I might add. For me to call a thing porn requires actual sex and/or bodily fluids. I know this doesn't match with some people's definitions, but this is what I was talking about here. In any case, all generalizations are wrong, of course. Some porn is obviously more tastefully done than the common junk you get on the internet.

By dysfunctional I mean the desire to have an erection when you have no way in which to use it properly. I find some people's willingness to actually pay money for such things to be a bit bizarre.
 
Last edited:
By dysfunctional I mean the desire to have an erection when you have no way in which to use it properly. I find some people's willingness to actually pay money for such things to be a bit bizarre.

I must ask, when was the election for High Arbiter of Erection Propriety, as I believe I missed my chance to vote.
 
I must ask, when was the election for High Arbiter of Erection Propriety, as I believe I missed my chance to vote.

It's not so much a matter of propriety for me as it is a matter of dysfunction. The question is not whether it is proper or not, but the purpose it serves. Point in case: sex sells. It is a form of power which can be used regardless of its pertinence. Admittedly, we are going into issues that go far beyond pornography here. I am left wondering why we males allow no-contact sexuality to have such an overwhelming power over us. Pornography is just a small example of the overall reality.
 
You may not see any useful purpose for porn, how does that lead to nasty and dysfunctional?
Can't you just accept that other find it entertaining?
 
It's not so much a matter of propriety for me as it is a matter of dysfunction. The question is not whether it is proper or not, but the purpose it serves. Point in case: sex sells. It is a form of power which can be used regardless of its pertinence. Admittedly, we are going into issues that go far beyond pornography here. I am left wondering why we males allow no-contact sexuality to have such an overwhelming power over us. Pornography is just a small example of the overall reality.

How does your definition of dysfunction as "the desire to have an erection when you have no way in which to use it properly" not raise the question of of what is proper or not?
 
You may not see any useful purpose for porn, how does that lead to nasty and dysfunctional?
Can't you just accept that other find it entertaining?

Sure I can. I can also describe my own reasons for generally staying away from it. I'm not really anti-porn -- you can look at all the porn you want, for all I care -- but for personal reasons, I find it rather pointless in my own life.
 
How does your definition of dysfunction as "the desire to have an erection when you have no way in which to use it properly" not raise the question of of what is proper or not?

Well, I suppose I deserved that in my use of the word "properly" but never have I put any "shoulds" or "should nots" in these arguments. Pornography as a means to power, money and manipulation might suggest a "should not" but I have not directly made the suggestion. I leave you to make your own conclusions.
 
Last edited:
Well, I suppose I deserved that in my use of the word "properly" but never have I put any "shoulds" or "should nots" in these arguments.

Well, no. You didn't. I don't think anyone said you did. The conversation that I've seen has been asking you to defend 'nasty and dysfunctional'.
 
Well, no. You didn't. I don't think anyone said you did. The conversation that I've seen has been asking you to defend 'nasty and dysfunctional'.

Nasty: bodily fluids, exposure of that which is normally done in private, the use of words like "nasty" and "naughty" in many of the videos and advertising... need I go on?

Dysfunctional: That would depend on the function, no? If the function is to give money to the porn industry, then perhaps not. That is the function for them, certainly. However, from the point of the viewer... ?

My other objection toward porn is that it doesn't have to stand up to the normal standards of quality that we use in art. Merely showing the vagina or copulation, etc is generally enough. A more conservative view toward art would require that it be "tasteful" and require a certain aesthetic value. I don't buy that, myself BTW. Such a requirement is so ridiculously open to interpretation that the word "art" loses its meaning. Basically, it suggests that, "what I like is art, and what I don't, isn't."

Porn is not noticeably different from some examples of "shock art" you see in galleries and museums. I find such "shock tactics" to be rather silly, myself... but they very much exist in the art world... and even THESE things can be done tastefully or otherwise.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top Bottom