Can porn really be acceptable?

After browsing the Bimmer Chicks and feeling slightly soiled I remembered the Guardian posing the question Can porn really be acceptable? and I think the answer may well be a resounding yes. Read the Media Guardian link, visit the Fleshbot site and see what you think. Is it porn or is it art and are the two mutually exclusive?

Auric

 

porn is allways art as is pictures of anything tbh,

But every one has there oppinion of what art is when really it is what art they like.

 

if 1/2 a cow in formaldehyde or some of the other more offensive or pointless things that have been offered as art can truly be called art then yes i think pornography can be called art.
one of the artists i used to work with classified art as anything that provokes a reaction, good or bad.
cheers

julian

 

Pornography cannot be art, because the moment it becomes art it stops being pornography. Art elevates, pornography debases.

 

Ron,
The point where something changes from pornography to art or art to pornography may not be the same for each person. Should their be a standard set of images that define art and another set that define pornography if so who then sets the standards?

Auric

 

Interesting how you chaps debate this from YOUR point of view.

Surely it's more a question of how your missus reacts to it when she catches me looking at any on the net.
Usually that results in some serious ear bending.

So I'd like to suggest that "Porn is acceptable, just as long as you've not been caught looking at it".

 

I'm arguing that there is a very definite line between pornography and art. The definitions of the two words at least demand that. But that's not to say a picture of a woman with her legs open can't be art. It really depends on the context, and how that woman is portrayed to the viewer.

As for whether pornography is acceptable, it's really up to the people taking part and the people using it. If both are participating willingly then it must be acceptable. However, the industry is notoriously exploitative of women. The men who use it are complict in that exploitation, and are themselves being manipulated (but not in the ways they would like).

My view is that pornography can be good, but that the vast acreage of it is appallingly bad. And whether good or bad, it should remain illicit. Its gradual ascent into mainstream life can only be detrimental to society.

 

How?

 

I would also ask how?

It has been in main stream society for hundreds and hundreds of years.

You religous by any chance?

 

also......

How?

whats wrong with people viewing porn?

 

my missus never catches me checking out porn, normally, sites like this... hmm...

 

are you sugesting that a painting is no longer a painting when it is art or that a sculpture is no longer a sculpture when it becomes art.

so pornography and photography are only that untill they become art.

I think you are confusing the fact that anything can be art is doesnt have to stop being what it is already.

 

Not my sort of subject, but here's a bit of relevant Tom Lehrer for those whose subject it is:

Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut,
If it's uncut,
and unsubt- le.

I've never quibbled
If it was ribald,
I would devour where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he
acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."

Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.

(Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties,
samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!)

Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers,
Lurid, licentious, and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
(Let's face it, I love slime.)

All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder,
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
(I could tell you things about Peter Pan,
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)

I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will,
If it is swill
And really fil
thy.

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all
away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand
we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words,

Smut! (I love it)
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut,
I don't know what
Compares with smut.

Hip hip hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!

 

the definition of pornography

the definition of art

according to websters dictionary http://www.m-w.com/home.htm

i can see nothing contradictory in the 2 definitions. in fact one could take the stance that from the above definitions pornography is the depiction of anything in such a way as to engender an emotional response. if this is indeed the case then art, advertising, tv news, documentaries and newspapers are in fact pronographic. even this response is pornographic as i hope to engender some sort of emotional response you f*ckers.

also as for pornography being exploitative of females.
the porn industry is on of the few where female payscales are greather than males'. if the actors, or whatever are willing then how can there be exploitation?
cheers


julian

 

I visited this

So it is supposed to be art.

And this is probably art teatching.

Yeah, right.

 

I think she is a work of art

 

Oh god, I knew my male modelling career was over the moment I made that movie for the pornelf site!

I feel degraded knowing that youve all seen me in the flesh.

eeuurrgh:JPS:

 

Naah.. Don't be shy, you're an artist, now.

 

Ooh luvvie daahlings, you must see my next work. Its based on DVDA:JOEL:


(you all know what that acronym really means)

he he he

 

art it seems is just as subjective a term as hi-fi or musicality or mana.

to be honest i don't consider this (be warned some may be offended)
http://www.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/ws200/Menstrual Art.html
to be art but some do. however i do consider the right of this person to express themself to be improtant. as long as they aren;t forcing me to look at it and they aren't hurting anyone then go for it.
cheers


julian