Artistic Nudity vs. Porn

• Artist: Bluest Blueberry
• Description: The differences between artistic nudity, erotica, and porn, since there seems to be some confusion in the Gaian community.
• Date: 12/09/2008
• Tags: artistic nudity porn

Due to the controversy surrounding my picture, "Motherhood", which I submitted into the arenas, I felt this topic needed to be brought up.

Artistic Nudity
Artistic nudity is, simply put, tasteful nudity incorporated into the art world. This isn't something to be afraid of. The ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks all revered the human body as something to be celebrated, and thus it was incorporated into their artwork. Even now, artistic nudity is still practiced, and can make for wonderful pictures. Depending on the artist, parts that society finds offensive may or may not be incorporated. For example, "Motherhood" is an example of artistic nudity with offensive parts either omitted or hidden within the artwork.

Erotica
Erotica is artwork that depicts sexual acts, but normally in a tasteful manner. Once again, ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks all felt this needed to be celebrated. The work may be too risqué for children under fifteen to sixteen (or just depending on your maturity level), and while it may show some anatomy that society finds offensive, usually lower portions of the body (both male and female) are usually hidden.

Porn
Porn is different than erotica due to the fact that it typically is "sex for the sake of sex", not "sex for the sake of art". Porn didn't really surface publicly until the late 1800's to early 1900's and didn't really start getting popular until the mid-1900's and when the internet started to be readily available for public use. Porn usually includes parts that society finds offensive in extremely detailed sexual acts. Normally, this stuff isn't for kiddies and more geared towards those that are eighteen and older (and even then, some still find it squeamish).

Why were there no examples of the last two?
Gaia is a community with a PG-13 rating. It just wouldn't be appropriate for me to post examples of the last two (especially the last one).

So, as you can hopefully tell by now, artistic nudity is not porn (though porn can incorporate artistic nudity). heart

Comments

[Sera Kyoi]

so true. last semester, some guys were looking at a artists book in (art) class, and the teacher was like,"uhh guys that isn't porn," because they thought it was but it was only artistic nudity. good work pointing the differences out

[abby712]

you made me confuzed but your right theres a difference between porno and just being naked this opend my eyes to gross piggy guys and real guys

[Alexrose]

Very true, and I'm glad someone in the community touched on this issue. People need to mature and look at art as more than just an "explicit picture"