Master Thesis
Whatever Happened to Sexually Explicit Art?
Definitions in Action throughout the Modern AgeStudent: Neja Kaiser Student number: S3493261
Master’s degree programme: History of art, architecture and landscape Thesis supervisors: dr. Ann-Sophie Lehmann & dr. Thijs Lijster
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ii
List of Illustrations iii
Acknowledgements iv
Introduction About Sexually Explicit Art 1
PART I Definitions 8
On Pornography 9
Philosophical Positions 9
Legal Definitions of Obscenity 16
Defining Erotic Art 20
The Idea of the Pornographic Art 26
PART II Definitions in Action throughout the Modern Age 29
Chapter One The Aesthetic Disenfranchisement of the Erotic and Pornographic 29
Pornography as Sexually Explicit Material 32
Egon Schiele: The Confronting Nudes 33
Chapter Two The Aesthetic Rehabilitation of the Erotic 40
What is Erotic Art? 41
Normative Definition of Pornography and the Miller Test 42
Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment Controversy 43
Chapter Three Contemporary Aesthetics and the Problem of Pornographic Art 51
Pornographic Art 53
Elin Magnusson: Skin 55
Conclusion 57
List of Illustrations
1. Man Ray, Anatomies (1929) 21
2. Egon Schiele, Reclining Male Nude (1910) 22
3. Meret Oppenheim, Object (1936) 23
4. Barbarini Faun (ca. 220 B. C. E.) 24
5. Robert Mapplethorpe, Eggplant (1985) 25
6. Egon Schiele, Schiele’s Room in Neulengbach (1911) 32
7. Anton Kolig, Poster Design for the Exhibition (1910) 37
8. Egon Schiele, Observed in a Dream (1911) 38
9. Caricature of Prosecutor Formanek (1923) 40
10. Protest against the gallery’s cancellation of the exhibition (1989) 45
11. Robert Mapplethorpe, Mr. 10½ (1976) 46
12. Robert Mapplethorpe, Jim and Tom, Sausalito (1977) 49
13. Elin Magnesson, Skin, Still (2009) 56
14. Otto Dix, Three Women (1926) 60
15. Carolee Schneemann, Fuses, Still (1964–67) 61
16. Jeff Koons, Made in Heaven (1989-1991) 61
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, dr. Ann-Sophie Lehmann. This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance I received from her throughout the writing process. She has set an example of excellence as a mentor, instructor, and role model. Secondly, I would like to thank my second reader dr. Thijs Lijster. He immediately understood my ideas and gave me important and incredibly helpful feedback just before the finish line.
Thirdly, all my gratitude also to Johana Kabíčková, Anne de Lierop, and my other fellow students for all of their support through this semester; the discussions and ideas you have shared with me have been very valuable.
Lastly, I could not have made it this far without the tremendous support from my family, boyfriend and friends. Dear mother, father and little sister, thank you for all your love, optimism, and comfort. Especially when I cannot find my way and start to push my panic button. Egbert, my safe haven here in Groningen, I cannot be more grateful for your absolute faith in me and all the time you spent adding the articles. My faithful friends from Slovenia, especially Barbara Lešnik, I will never forget about your implacable encouragements. I am truly lucky to have all of you.
To my mother, Henrika Kaiser, and my father, Janko Kaiser. Thank you for everything you are and everything you are not.
Introduction
About Sexually Explicit Art
It has become something of cliché to say that sexually explicit art is as old as art itself (Burt, 2010: 1). What is certainly true is that numerous artists throughout history decided to include in their visual creations that are widely viewed as being works of art explicit representations of reproductive organs and/or sexual activity.
The vast majority of these artists are anonymous to us, as their names have been lost to history – from painters of Pompeian wall frescoes, created in rooms designed for the Bacchanalian orgies, to Japanese woodcutters of bridal books in the age of Bric-a-Brac-o-mania. Nevertheless, primarily, but not exclusively, the ability to identify artists from the Western world who have lived in the last two centuries is fortunately possible for us (Burt, 2010: 1).
In the modern age, the development of modern aesthetics created a few specific circumstances that were necessary for new definitions to be contributed by scholars, mainly coming from three different disciplines. The definitions, proposed by philosophers and art historians, believe it or not, had a real-world effect on sexually explicit artworks of both known and unknown artists—especially when they were widely understood as definitions in culture. The definitions serve a range of functions, and their general character varies with it. The objects of my research are definitions that, throughout the modern age, have become necessary in order to draw dividing lines. While some of the definitions drew such dividing lines unsuitably, which caused the problem that some sexually explicit art was characterized incorrectly and consequently did not receive serious critical or deserved academic attention, most of these definitions set the boundaries in the direction that righted past wrongs. It is obvious that in order for something to exist between art and the outrageous, definitions are particularly important.
Some of these definitions, usually proposed and discussed by philosophers, occasionally later inspired legal definitions, which is why it is not strange that some legal definitions also drew dividing lines inappropriately. However, this did not only cause inaccurate characterizations of sexually explicit art and, consequently, the marginalization of it. Worse, this affected the permissiveness of sexually explicit art.1 The artworks became victims of
1 Prohibitions or regulatory laws such as the infamous Lex Heinze of 1900 amending Germany’s Reich Criminal Code, which prohibited the public display of the obscene in works of art, literature, and theatre, have essential roles here as well. If one publicly displayed sexually explicit artworks, one was accused of a violation of the Lex
censorship and were banned from galleries and museums, sometimes even confiscated and destroyed. However, some legal definitions set the boundaries that awarded the sexually explicit artworks with a status of erotic art, which more or less successfully brought social prestige and institutional recognition. They became a legitimate object of interest for the mainstream press and world of academia.
So, while new sets of boundaries of freshly created definitions have repeatedly been introducing stages in evolution of the characterization of sexually explicit art, newly drawn lines of freshly created legal definitions have again and again been triggering events in the evolution of the permissiveness of sexually explicit art. How exactly have both deeply connected evolutions been developing chronologically throughout the modern age? Why specifically in the modern era? Have there been many definitions with new sets of boundaries that characterized sexually explicit art and influenced the permissiveness of sexually explicit art—if so, which? Could these definitions be evaluated as good or at least adequate? Can some be recognized as key and, if so, how have they characterized sexually explicit art? How have they affected the permissiveness of such art? Do we still need to create new definitions, which will better fix existing limits, or have the evolutions reached their final steps?
The historical method will not only help me to i) provide information about specific moments in the development of modern aesthetic that set conditions for new definitions to be realizable, but also to ii) identify those definitions. Meanwhile, the basics of argumentation will allow me to critically evaluate them in order to find the most appropriate definitions.
In addition to this evaluation, other questions are raised, such as: i) how specific definitions have been drawing dividing lines and consequently designating a side of the line to special sexually explicit art in particular historical moments, and ii) what kind of real-world impact this designated side of the line had on a sexually explicit artwork. These questions will be answered through the process of writing with the help of the study case methodology.
Heinze law. However, before one was deemed guilty, the prosecutor needed to prove that the exhibited artworks were obscene by means of the legal definition of obscenity. While laws prohibit or regulate pornography and/or obscenity, legal definitions define what pornography and/or obscenity is.
The plan is to focus on three different study cases:
Egon Schiele’s confronting nudes illustrates i) how the simplest definition of pornography, which defines pornography as any material that is sexually explicit, drew dividing lines in a way that all sexually explicit artworks were without any question considered to be pornography and ii) what kind of real-world impact the corresponding characterization had on sexually explicit art at the beginning of the 20th century;
The Perfect Moment controversy not only reveals i) how the Miller test, also called the three-prong obscenity test, implied that some sexually explicit artworks were recognized as erotic art, and ii) what kind of real-world impact the corresponding characterization had on sexually explicit art at the end of 20th
century. Moreover, it shows how the art world started to hide pornographic under the hypernym ‘erotic’;
Elin Magnusson’s 14-minute-long feminist pornographic short film Skin (2009) draws attention to i) how the definition of pornographic art drew dividing lines in a way that a specific sexually explicit piece, primarily created as pornography, came to be recognized as pornographic art.
In order to examine to what extent art history already answered the questions I am interested in I will: i) survey the literature of art history about sexually explicit art; ii) synthesise the information from that literature into a summary; and, iii) critically analyse the information gathered by identifying gaps in current knowledge.
Prior to the 1960s, publications on sexually explicit art were rare and were usually released in restricted limited editions. Fewer still were serious scholarly texts; the outstanding exception was the pioneering multivolume surveys of erotic literature and art by the German scholar Eduard Fuchs, first appearing in 1908 (Fuchs, 1908; Fuchs, 1923; Fuchs 1926; Burt, 2010: 3).
After the Sexual Revolution, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there emerged a cluster of books on the subject of sexually explicit art that can be seen as a paradigm of the sexual libertarianism. Most are little more than picture books with reproductions of artworks, with any text or image captions generally of questionable validity and rarely with supporting evidence. However, the publications discussed below were more or less essential for the establishment of small but growing body of scholarly research on sexually explicit art (Burt, 2010: 3–4).
The resulting two-volume catalogue of the first international exhibition Erotic Art in 1968 was distributed throughout Europe and the United States. While it inspired a lot of authors to write on the topic of sexually explicit art, the catalogue itself represented Western sexually explicit art, primitive sexually explicit art, sexually explicit art in India, China and Japan only visually. In the introductory essay organizers mostly concentrated on explaining the background of exhibition.
Poul Gerhard’s book Pornography or Art?, which briefly and poorly represents the chronological history of sexually explicit art, was published for the first time in 1968 as a response to the first international exhibition of erotic art. Gerhard comments that the organizers failed to explicitly acknowledge the word pornography, and instead labelled the exhibited art as erotic (Gerhard, 1968: 9). Gerhard deems any artwork that is sexually explicit as pornographic. As an example, up to 6000 year old prehistoric paintings of a man with an animal mask and erected phallus during the ritual that should be understood in the context of the fertility cult. Furthermore, paintings on ancient chalices and other simple items for broad day use, which portray the perverse demigods Satires, should be seen as symbols for life’s pleasure, wine and fertility.
Studies in Erotic Art, published in 1970, displays essays presented at the conference on sexually explicit art. While Paul Gebhard’s essay is commentary on Peruvian erotic pottery, Robert Rosenblum’s essay excursus into the symbolism of Picasso’s sexual imagery. There is also Otto Brendel’s broad historical study of the artistic eroticism of classical antiquity, Theodore Bowie’s essay that portrays an approach to Erotic Aspects of Japanese Art, and more. Edward Lucie-Smith’s Eroticism in Western Art (1972) and Robert Melville’s Erotic Art of the West (1973) provide both a chronological history and a classification of sexually explicit art in terms of its base themes and symbolism. While the first half of Lucie-Smith’s book is quite convincing and richer than the short history of Western sexually explicit art in the Melville book, the second part of Lucie-Smith’s book is somehow flat and lacking in comparison to Melville’s. This may be the result of the too-easy Freudian speculation and frankly unsubtle assessments.
The art historical essays presented at the College Art Association Symposium on women and the 19th century were published in the volume Woman as Sex Object: Studies in Erotic Art
(1972). They inform the reader not only about eroticism and female imagery in 19th century art
erotic. This includes depictions of Caritas Romana, created after 1760, Courbets’s bathers, Manet’s Olympia (1863), Renoir’s sensuous women, sexuality of the femme fatale and her sisters, and many more.
Volker Kahmen, author of Erotic Art Today (1972), which examines almost four hundred sexually explicit artworks, representing a wide spectrum of modern art including Picasso, Dali, Magritte, Mondrian, Hockney and others, wants (in separate chapters devoted to symbols, likenesses and associations) to illuminate the artist’s hidden and less conscious intentions. I am not so sure if this was done successfully.
Peter Webb’s The Erotic Arts is probably still one of the most exhaustive attempts to trace the history of sexually explicit art. The book begins with an introduction to the study of eroticism, which attempts to put the subject into some form of brief historical perspective related in particular to the then contemporary debate regarding sexual freedom. The first chapter explores the essential differences between erotic art and pornography. The following few chapters examine in some detail the incidence and relative importance of erotic art works in various ancient and modern civilisations, from the prehistoric world to Greece and Rome and from the Orient to Western Europe. The emphasis is on the West, with special consideration being given to the 19th and 20th centuries, and in these periods certain crucial topics are singled
out for more extensive treatment.
At the end of 1980s, the reference book Erotic Art: An Annotated Bibliography with Essays was published. In addition, art historians and archaeologists such as John Clarke at the University of Texas and Catherine Johns, formerly of the British Museum, have written on the sexually explicit art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome and are among the best representatives of this research trend. This same period has seen a worldwide proliferation of sexually explicit art exhibitions, festivals, galleries, and museums that have produced accompanying catalogues. The collectors like Charles G. Martignette in the United States and Hans-Jürgen Dopp in Germany have researched their collections and made them public via publications and gallery or museum showings (Burt, 2010: 3–4).
Lynda Nead’s (1992) The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality is not a historical survey of the female nude. The book is rather an attempt to examine the female nude as a means of gaining access to a much wider range of issues concerning the female body and cultural value, representation, feminism, and cultural politics, and even the definition and regulation of the obscene. Finally, the category of the obscene is raised in art historical literature. Indeed, it
is raised not only in a theoretical and philosophical context in Part I, but also in Part III. This part does not only discuss how distinctions between pleasures of pornography, defined in terms of motivation, promiscuity and commodification, and pleasures of art, seen to lie in contemplation, discrimination and transcendent value, have been embodied in legal definitions of obscenity for a long time; Part III also considers legitimization of the female nude through the medium of erotic art that happened after the Sexual Revolution.
Helen McDonald’s Erotic Ambiguities: The Female Nude in Art (2001) is a study of how contemporary women artists have re-conceptualised the figure of the female nude. The author shows how, over the past thirty years, artists have employed the idea of ambiguity to dismantle the exclusive, classical ideal enshrined in the figure of the nude, and how they have broadened the scope of the ideal to include differences of race, ethnicity, sexuality and disability as well as gender.
In Eroticism & Art (2005) Alyce Mahon provides a concise history of art in the twentieth century through the lens of eroticism, offering original insights into works of art that do not sit easily within popular notions of taste, and that have provoked controversy and calls for censorship. Her discussion includes the work of such European and American artists as Egon Schiele, Hans Bellmer, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nancy Goldin, Orlan, Franco B, and Annie Sprinkle.
Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now (2007) was published with reference to, and in parallel with, a major international exhibition at the Barbican Gallery, London, with the same title. It consists of around 250 sexually explicit artworks, spanning over 2000 years, including Roman marbles, Indian manuscripts, Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures, Chinese paintings and prints, Japanese woodcuts, 19th century photographs and
contemporary videos drawn from unique public and private collections from around the world. Burt’s alphabetically arranged Dictionary of erotic artists (2010) registers painters, sculptors, printmakers, graphic designers, and illustrators known to have created sexually explicit artworks. Each entry offers basic biographical information, including the artist's name and any variants, birth and death dates, and geographic focus. Each entry also includes a description of the artist’s media, training and the nature of their artistic output, supplemented in most cases by a list of published reproductions of the artist’s erotic work and a bibliography of articles and books, which focusses on the artist's erotic art.
There are many other studies dedicated to sexually explicit art, especially in other languages. However, since I have focused on English publications, I am going to finish the review with 30 Millennia of Erotic Art (2012). In order to illustrate how the representation of these pleasures of the flesh testifies to the evolution of different civilisations and their histories, it assembles one thousand images of sexually explicit art, from all eras and all continents. While eroticism abounds today in advertising and in the media, this book offers an exceptional view into the archives of sexually explicit imagery and emphasises their artistic value.
There are many publications on sexually explicit art that have been left out, but I believe an image of what has been done so far can be illustrated. The first thing one can notice is the large number of books with chronological history of sexually explicit art. Since most of them are little more than picture books with reproductions of artworks, some scholars decided to do more. The first group of scholars decided to combine a simplified chronological history of sexually explicit art with classification of sexually explicit art in terms of its base themes and symbolism. Whereas the second group decided for thorough analysis of the chronological history of sexually explicit art, usually created in parallel with an exhibition. In combination with incredibly important studies in sexually explicit art represented at different conferences, such as the College Art Association Symposium on women and the 19th century, and other
extremely important contributions by art historians such as John Clarke and Catherine Johns, publications from the second group of scholars provide quite thorough art historical analyses of certain artistic phenomena, connected with sexually explicitness.
What we also gain from literature reviews is that there is apparently no such thing as sexually explicit art. There is, however, erotic art. When art historians are writing about sexually explicit art, they are writing about erotic art, but with complete ignorance. As if all sexually explicit art is, and can only be, erotic. Do they even ask themselves what erotic art is? Or, whether the definition applies to the artwork they are dealing with? Apparently not. This is very big problem in the body of scholarly research on sexually explicit art. If you identify all sexually explicit art as erotic, you ignore and miss the opportunity to discuss the questions I am asking above.
However, I am glad to say that there is one scholar, Lynda Nead, who actually recognized the important role of definitions that draw dividing lines. In The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (1992) she discussed legal definitions of obscenity (without really focussing on their practical implications on the female nude, let alone sexually explicit art) and inspired me to do something similar with all definitions with sets of boundaries that
characterized sexually explicit art and influenced the permissiveness of sexually explicit art, also those coming from other disciplines.
In Part I of this thesis, I am going to: i) identify definitions with sets of boundaries that characterized sexually explicit art and influenced the permissiveness of sexually explicit art, and ii) critically evaluate them in order to find the most appropriate definitions. In Part II, I am going to explain whatever happened to sexually explicit art throughout the modern age. Each chapter of part II contains i) information about the specific point in the development of modern aesthetics that set the conditions for the new definition to be conceivable; ii) a precise description of the new definition; iii) review how it drew a distinguishing line and consequently designated a side of the line to special sexually explicit art in particular historical moments; and iv) check what kind of real-world impact on a sexually explicit artwork this designated side of the line had.
In the conclusion, I am going to represent how things are for sexually explicit art now and give a hint of how things should be for sexually explicit art. Considering the simplified illustration of evolutions of the characterization and permissiveness of sexually explicit art in Part II, I am going to discuss the current characterization and permissiveness of sexually explicit art. On the other hand, partly having in mind the critical evaluation of definitions from Part I, I am going to discuss how the characterization and permissiveness of sexually explicit art should be.
PART I Definitions
Scholars mainly coming from three different disciplines contributed definitions identified and critically evaluated in Part I. Definitions are combined in three different clusters. This does not, however, mean that each discipline is responsible for one of them. It is much more complicated than this. While law was concerned with legal definitions of obscenity, and while art history sometimes tried to define erotic art, philosophy took part everywhere. Naturally, creating definitions has been a philosopher’s subject of interest since ancient times when Plato’s early dialogues, which portray Socrates raising questions about definitions (e.g, in the Theaetetus, “What is knowledge?”)––questions that seem at once profound and elusive, were written.
On Pornography
We have the German scholar, Karl Otfried Müller, to thank for term ‘pornography’. He borrowed the Greek word pornographos, which literally means a whore-writer; that is, an author who wrote about the famous, accomplished prostitutes of the time, known as pornai, and changed its sense, inventing the German word, Pornographie, meaning obscene writing (Clarke, 2013: 141; Easton, 1994: xi–xii; Kendrick, 1987: 1; Montgomery Hyde, 1964: 1).
The word pornography first appeared in English with its modern connotations with the English translation of his posthumously published book called Ancient Art and its Remains: or, A Manual of the Archaeology of Art (Müller, 1852: 619; Clarke, 2013: 141).
After that, Müller’s idea slowly caught on, but only in 1909, when the fifty-year project of the Oxford English Dictionary reached “P”, the term was finally included in a dictionary for the first time. While the first meaning of pornography is “a description of prostitutes or of prostitution, as a matter of public hygiene”, the second meaning gives us a definition that corresponds to a more modern use of the word: “the expression or suggestion of obscene or unchaste subjects in literature or art” (Clarke, 2013: 141–142; Copp, 1983: 17; Kendrick, 1987: 1; Montgomery Hyde, 1964: 1; Sigel, 2005: 6).
Some argue that if we cannot define the term with precision, then we cannot, or should not try to, say much or anything about it (Jensen, 1998: 3). This is probably the reason why scholars have been trying to improve frustratingly odd and complex definition of pornography for more than a century. However, there is still no one unitary definition of pornography but rather a struggle for predominance between several definitions. These definitions work within a context defined by several forces – also the general mobilization of various philosophical positions, discussed first and the particular form of the laws relating to obscenity, discussed second (Ellis, 2006: 27).
Philosophical Positions
“What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another,” wrote D. H. Lawrence in his essay, Pornography and Obscenity (1929) (Lawrence, 1929: 5; Montgomery Hyde, 1964: 2). Even if D. H. Lawrence is right and the definition of pornography is subjective, that does not mean it is totally idiosyncratic or that there are as many definitions as there are peculiarities among individuals. There are quite a few shared perspectives (Linz, Malamuth, 1993:1; Easton, 1994: xi).
Indeed, according to the literature, the term pornography is discussed in six different ways in everyday discourse and debate as well as in philosophical circles: i) as being merely material which is sexually explicit; ii) as a form of bad art; iii) as material portraying men or women as, as only, or only as sexual beings or sexual objects which are sexually explicit and objectionable in some particular way; iv) as a form of obscenity; v) as a form of (or contributor to) oppression; vi) as material that is intended to produce or has the effect of producing sexual arousal (Rea, 2001: 123; West, 2013).2
The simple definition, which represents the first category of definitions of pornography, discloses pornography as any material that is sexually explicit. Due to a very diverse understanding of sexual explicitness from culture to culture and over time, the definition may pick out different types of material in different contexts. For example, while a display of a woman’s uncovered ankle counts as sexually explicit in some cultures, on the other hand it is not seen as such any more in most Western cultures.3 However, some material seems to be recognized as sexually explicit without doubt in many contexts: in particular, all kinds of representations of exposed body parts such as the vulva, the anus and the (erected) penis, and sexual acts (West, 2013).
Philosophers quickly recognized that this simple definition is not quite right. West succinctly puts that “sexual explicitness may be a necessary condition for material to count as pornographic, but it does not seem to be sufficient” (West, 2013). And why is this? Because, by the same logic, anatomy textbooks used by medical students are sexually explicit as well. They explicitly illustrate exposed genitalia, but are rarely, if ever, considered to be pornography (West, 2013).
Some scholars believed that a way of distinguishing between pornography and other sexually explicit material is needed. Their aim was to create a new necessary condition, which is also sufficient. As a result, pornography came to be defined as bad art or literature. The most recognizable definition of this kind is given by Fred Berger. According to him, pornography is “art or literature which explicitly depicts sexual activity or arousal in a manner having little or no artistic or literary value” (Berger, 1977: 184; Maes, 2011b: 390; Maes, 2012: 29; Rea, 2001: 124).
2 Some definitions fall under more than one of these six categories (Rea, 2001: 123).
He is far away from an accurate definition. Focusing on sufficiency, a man who draws, exclusively for his own private viewing pleasure, a quite amateurish drawing of his wife between masturbation solo, no doubt, is an author of bad art. However, according to our general intuition of what pornography is, we could hardly accuse him of producing pornography. At the same time, now keeping in mind necessity, phone sex calls are almost certainly not art, but actually count as pornography (Rea, 2001: 124–125).
Thus, scholars had to look elsewhere for the defining characteristic of pornography. It is common for people to criticize pornography on the grounds that it portrays its subjects (or, indeed, women or men generally) as mere sex objects. Some philosophers have gone to such an extreme as to define pornography as material that depicts men or women as sex objects, only as sex objects, or as only sex objects (Rea, 2001: 125). While Wendy McElroy defined pornography as “the explicit artistic depiction of men and/or women as sexual beings” (McElroy, 1995: 51; Rea, 2001: 125), Margaret Smith and Barbara Waisberg defined it as “sexual imagery which presents the human subjects as only sexual objects for the use of the viewer” (Smith, Waisberg, 1985: 5; Rea, 2001: 125). There is also David Linton, who proposed an only-as definition. According to him, the defining feature of pornography is the fact that it portrays its human subjects only as sexual beings or even as sex objects (precluding a significant number of their other particularly human qualities) (Linton, 1979: 57; Rea, 2001: 125).4
Again, there are problems with the definitions in this category. First of all, there can be pornography that fails to portray anyone as a sexual being or sexual object (Rea, 2001: 126). So-called feminist pornography, which is committed to treating the male and female performers, or their characters, as equals, and not to present male-female sex as something penises do to vulvas. The intention was to show sex as something that people do, at least most of the time, in the context of a larger relationship; this makes kissing, touching, and caressing important, because that is what real lovemaking is like (O’Connor, 2013). According to our general intuition of what pornography is, this still counts as pornography. Regardless, the definitions in this category not only fail to give necessary conditions for something as being pornography: they do not provide sufficient conditions either. There can be non-pornography that characterizes someone only as or as only a sexual object (Rea, 2001: 126). A girl might describe herself as only a sex object in her Tinder profile. If this is the first and only entry, the
Tinder profile will portray the girl as only a sex object, but according to our general intuition of what pornographic is it will not be pornographic.
The belief that the defining feature of pornography is its obscenity – its violation of community standards for what counts as offensive or not – is not uncommon among philosophers and non-philosophers (Rea, 2001: 126; West, 2012).
One of them is George P. Elliott, who defined pornography as “the representation of directly or indirectly erotic acts with an intrusive vividness which offends decency without aesthetic justification” (Elliott, 1970: 74–5; Maes, 2011b: 390; Maes, 2012: 28–29). Similar thoughts were presented by Louis Zurcher and George Kirkpatrick at the beginning of their book:
We begin this book...by acknowledging our assumption that the term pornography is a value judgment.... At the time of our study (1969-70) the legal test (determined by the Warren Supreme Court) of whether or not sexually explicit material could be prohibited constitutionally rested on four criteria, all of which reflected the centrality of value judgment. Material was pornographic or obscene if: (a) to the average person (b) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appealed to prurient interest in sex; (c) the material was patently offensive because it affronted contemporary community standards, relating to the description or representation of such matters; and (d) the material was utterly without redeeming social value... During the writing of this book (1973), the Burger Supreme Court modified the legal test for pornography... Primarily by removing the 'redeeming social value' criterion and by emphasizing the determination of 'contemporary community standards' (Zurcher, Kirkpatrick, 1976, ix; Rea, 2001: 127–128).
The legal tests are not the same as real definitions and that is why they must be evaluated appropriately. Nevertheless, the legal tests described above are considered as able to express the very nature of pornography for scholars such as Zurcher and Kirkpatrick. They do not see pornography as something sexually explicit, but rather as something sexually explicit in a way that offends (Rea, 2001: 128; West, 2013). 5
However, what needs to be mentioned about definitions in this category as well is that they are utterly ruined by the observation that pornography can be sexually explicit but in the
5 Other examples of definitions in this category can be found in Kronhausen, Kronhausen, 1959, and Sagarin, 1969 (Rea, 2001: 142)
way that does not offends, e.g. softcore feminist pornography. Pornography, therefore, can be also something that is not obscene.6
Various definitions of pornography, plausible or not, fall into a fifth category. The common idea present in all of them is that “the defining feature of pornography is the fact that it subordinates, degrades, or oppresses its subjects or women generally or women and men generally” (Rea, 2001: 129; West, 2013).
The most precise version of this type of pornography involves a certain kind of oppression. Frequently, pornography is seen as just the type of oppression that is and/or can be caused by specific display of human sexual organs or sexual behaviour (Rea, 2001: 129). Thus, for example, Catharine MacKinnon together with Andrea Dworkin defines pornography as:
/…/ as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; enjoying pain or humiliation or rape; being tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt; in postures of sexual submission or servility or display; reduced to body parts, penetrated by objects or animals, or presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture; shown as filthy or inferior; bleeding, bruised or hurt in a context which makes these conditions sexual (Held, 2010: 126; MacKinnon, 1987: 176; Maes, 2011b: 391; Rea, 2001: 129–130).
There is one notable problem with the MacKinnon/Dworkin suggestion. Using that definition, something counts as pornography only if it is a depiction that subordinates somebody. But, unfortunately, it is not evident what it is required in order for a depiction to do this (Rea, 2001: 130).
Despite some scholars believing that it would be too easy to disregard a definition such as the above, solely on the ground that it does not offer an immediate ‘checklist’ to determine whether or not a picture is pornographic, the problem was acknowledged by many feminists. That is why they prefer definitions according to which pornography is “merely the approving representation of subordination or oppression or degradation” (Rea, 2001: 131). One of the
6 Other difficulties are present as well. There are two ways of taking obscenity definitions: i) normative (“pornography is whatever sexually explicit material a person should be offended by, whether she is in fact offended by it or not”), or descriptive (“pornography is whatever in fact offends those people in our society who are considered average or decent). While Elliott's definition seems to be normative, a definition represented by Zurcher & Kirkpatrick appears to be descriptive. Regardless, both definitions have problems. Why? While normative definitions are problematic in general because they are uninformative, descriptive obscenity definitions are problematic because they have obvious counterexamples (Rea, 2001: 128–129).
most influential definitions of this sort was proposed by Helen Longino, who agrees with Dworkin and MacKinnon that pornography does at least contribute to the oppression of women. However, she decides not to build any of this into her definition of pornography (Longino 1980, p. 46; Rea, 2001: 131).7
Still, the definition of pornography proposed by Longino has its problems. It is namely not able to count many of the pictures that most of us think of as paradigmatic instances of pornography as pornography.8 Despite the fact that for many of films published on Bright
Desire, the site that embraces the philosophy of feminist and ethical porn, there is no obvious sense in which they subordinate, degrade, oppress, or depict the subordination, degradation, or oppression of anyone, they are according to our general intuition of what pornography is widely recognized as pornographic (Rea, 2001: 132).
The definitions of pornography in the previous two categories that are the most suitable are quite familiar. Nevertheless, by far the most common definitions in the literature on pornography are those that suppose that the defining component of pornography is that “it is intended to produce sexual arousal or in fact has the effect of producing such arousal” (Rea, 2001: 132). While Jan Narveson believes pornography is “the depiction by visual, literary, or aural means, of subject-matter intended to be sexually stimulating, when that depiction is for the purpose of such stimulation” (Narveson, 1993: 226; Rea, 2001: 132), Alan Soble focusses on both intention and effect, saying that
/…/ pornography refers to any literature or film (or other art-technological form) that describes or depicts sexual organs, preludes to sexual activity, or sexual activity (or related organs and activities) in such a way as to produce sexual arousal in the user or viewer; and this effect in the viewer is either the effect intended by both producer and consumer or a very likely effect in the absence of direct intentions (Soble, 1985; Rea, 2001: 133).
In a familiar text on contemporary moral problems, there is another version of this kind of definition of pornography, introduced by Jeffrey Olen and Vincent Barry. They write that pornography is “erotic material that is intended primarily to cause sexual arousal in its audience or in fact does have that primary effect” (Olen, Barry, 1992: 115–116; Rea, 2001: 133). Whereas
7 For other examples of definitions in this category, see Brownmiller, 1975; Dworkin 1981; Kramarae, Treichler, 1985 and Osanka, Johnson, 1989 (Rea, 2001: 143).
8 Nor it is capable of taking these pictures as pornography “without very controversial assumptions about what counts as subordinating, degrading, or oppressing somebody, or about what counts as depicting the subordination, degradation, or oppression of somebody” (Rea, 2001: 132).
for Soble intention and effect have both great importance, for Olen & Barry, either intention or effect counts (Rea, 2001: 133). 9
Imagine a producer of pornography, who decides to produce a video of a room full of balloons in order to sexually stimulate or arouse the audience. Could we consider the video as pornography? Our general intuition of what pornography is says “no”. Nevertheless, could we characterize the very same video as pornography if it would be seen by a ‘looner’, a balloon fetishist, and made her/him sexually aroused? Our general intuition of what pornography is provides a negative answer again. That is why I am assuming that the answer to the question— that being of the same video of balloons, this time created in order to advertise a brand of balloons, but still used by looners for sexual arousal, is viewed as pornography—is because of our general intuition of what pornography is negative for the third time.
That means that none of the three subclasses of definitions in this category, provide a satisfactory definition of pornography: i) those that take pornography to be those materials that are intended to arouse (whether or not they in fact arouse); ii) those that take pornography to be those materials that both are intended to arouse and in fact arouse; and iii) those that take pornography to be either those materials that are intended to arouse or those materials that in fact arouse (Rea, 2001: 133).
Some definitions of pornography fall under more than one of six categories (Rea, 2001: 123). However, let me focus only on one definition of pornography that falls under two of six categories, since I think it comes closest to how most of us understand the term pornography.
While discussing the simplest definition of pornography, it became clear that sexual explicitness may be a necessary condition for material to count as pornographic, but it does not seem to be sufficient. However, it is a good start. The only thing is, something needs to be added to the definition. What else might be required? Here it comes:
The term “pornography” always refers to a book, verse, painting, photograph, film, or some such thing—what in general may be called a representation. Even if it is associated with sex or cruelty, an object which is not a representation—exotic underwear, for example—cannot sensibly be said to be pornographic (though it could possibly be said to be obscene). We take
9 For other examples of definitions in this category, see Beis, 1987; Burgess, 1968; Garry, 1977; Gebhard, 1965; Gould, 1991; Nalezinski, 1996; Orser, 1994; Scoccia, 1996; Tynan, 1968; van den Haag, 1967 and Zillman, 1989 (Rea, 2001: 143).
it that, as almost everyone understands the term, a pornographic representation is one that combines two features: it has a certain function or intention, to arouse its audience sexua lly, and also a certain content, explicit representations of sexual material (organs, postures, activity, etc.). A work has to have both this function and this content to be a piece of pornography (Williams, 1982: 137).
This definition, which has two necessary conditions that, taken together, constitute a sufficient condition, deals with the problem of anatomy textbooks of medical students and balloon videos produced by producers of pornography. However, still, according to Maes the definition seems to be too inclusive. He explains himself: “suppose a film or novel contains both an erotic but non-explicit love scene and an episode in a gynaecologist’s office that is explicit, but not meant to be arousing. That film or novel would combine the two features listed above, but it would not count as pornography” (Maes, 2012: 32). However, despite the definition’s vagueness he admits this is still one of the best definitions to date.10
All discussed philosophical definitions of pornography have drawn different dividing lines and consequently characterized sexually explicit art in a certain way. While some of the definitions drew dividing lines unsuitably, which caused the problem that some sexually explicit art was characterized incorrectly and consequently did not receive serious critical or deserved academic attention, some of the definitions set the boundaries in the direction that righted past wrongs. Only specific definitions that later inspired legal descriptions will be seen in action hereinafter.
Legal Definitions of Obscenity
Prior to the early 18th century, when the obscene became essentially an area of the common law courts instead of an object of confession or an issue before the ecclesiastic courts, there was little formal regulation of pornography (Belavusau, 2010: 257). As every country has its own history of development of laws and obscenity paragraphs, and as it would be impossible to discuss them all, the following paragraphs will only investigate some.
During the 19th century, the developments of obscenity laws were written as the
embodiments of the conservative-moralist’s belief about the harmful effects of sexual
representation and associated rationales for regulation.11 The Obscene Publications Act, the first
anti-pornography statute introduced by Lord Campbell, was enacted in 1857 in order to protect people from the predominant effect of exposure to sexually explicit materials, which tended to “deprave and corrupt those minds open to immoral influences” (Belavusau, 2010: 257; Easton, 1994: 123; Linz, Malamuth, 1993: 8).12
Whereas no definition of obscenity was given in the 1857 Act, a few years later the English courts managed to elevate the conservative-moralist idea about harmful effects to the level of a legal test in the case Regina vs. Hicklin (1868), which addressed the issue of obscene material: an anti-Catholic pamphlet titled “The Confessional Unmasked” and published by the Protestant Electoral Union (Easton, 1994: 123; Gould, 2010: 3; Linz, Malamuth, 1993: 8). The judge, Sir Alexander Cockburn, defined the test for obscene libel as the tendency to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to immoral influences, and into whose hands these kinds of materials may fall. Whether the artwork had artistic merit was irrelevant (Easton, 1994: 123; Gould, 2010: 3).
The Act not only provided the first legal definition of obscenity ever given. Simultaneously it became the first piece of legislation enabling police constables to seize obscene material and seek its destruction before magistrates (Belavusau, 2010: 259).
After England incorporated pornography into criminal law, a trend of construing the obscene as a legal category appeared not only in continental Europe, as we are going to see, but also in the law of European colonies(Belavusau, 2010: 257, 259).
At least in some parts of Europe, the test remained as the basis of common law prosecutions and was eventually adopted, with some modifications, as the statutory definition of obscenity when the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was enacted (Williams, 1982: 14).
The 1959 Act, which finally introduced the protection of artistic merit in obscenity trials, “enshrined structural distinction between the harmful effectiveness of obscenity and the intrinsic value of art” (Nead, 1992: 90). The perceived artistic merit of the work made sure that the physical, moral or spiritual harm believed to be caused by obscenity was now to be weighed
11 Sexually explicit representations are in the conservative-moralist’s opinion harmful because “they fly in the face of timeless rules for behaviour laid down by religious authorities who represent the ultimate authority: God” (Linz, Malamuth, 1993: 7).
12The Obscene Publications Act has survived two modifications, one in 1959 and the other one in 1964, which
again. This is why artistic value of material was viewed as a justification or amelioration of obscene material (Nead, 1992: 90). The court found that Ulysses, the novel by James Joyce’s that chronicles the day of a struggling artist, a Jewish advertising canvasser, and his cuckolding wife, contained explicitly sexual passages, some of which were obscene. However, the court also perceived the artistic merit of the book and decided that obscene passages were necessary to develop the book’s characters (Cusack, 2015: 38).
United States trial courts used the Hicklin test, developed in the case Regina vs. Hicklin (1868), as the standard for obscenity cases arising for the rest of 19th and the first half of the
20th century (Easton, 1994: 123; Gould, 2010: 3; Linz, Malamuth, 1993: 8). Indeed, the United
States Supreme Court rendered its first authoritative decision on obscenity in Roth v. United States (1957) (Gould, 2010: 6; Linz, Malamuth, 1993: 8). The Court ruled that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which ensures individuals the right of freedom of speech and freedom of the press (DuBoff, Burr, Murry, 2004: 575; Gould, 2010: 3; Linz Malamuth, 1993: 8–9). In Roth, Justice William Brennan considered obscene materials to be those that appeal to a “prurient interest” in sex and that are presented in a “patently offensive” way. While the prurient interest component of the test identifies materials that incite “an overemphasis on sex and individual sexual gratification and that may encourage illicit fantasies and acts”, the patent offensiveness requirement, recognizes “materials thought to be offensive because of their portrayal of that which is repugnant or disgusting to the senses, filthy, foul, repulsive, or loathsome”(Schauer, 1976; Gould, 2010: 3; Linz Malamuth, 1993: 8–9).
Government intervention played a key role in forcing liberal modifications onto the conservative moral legal test for obscenity, particularly as applied to erotic art. Already in Roth, Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo Black, prominent liberal members of the court, warned that the problems of conviction were numerous (Linz Malamuth, 1993: 10).
In order to reflect on liberal objections to the suppression of erotic art, the Roth test was refined thought out the 1960s. In Kingsley International Pictures Corp. v. Regents (1959) the Court estimated that a film version of the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was not obscene with the help of the Roth test. The Court remarkably expanded the scope of permissible sexual material in Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966), where the literary work, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure a.k.a. Fanny Hill, was questioned because of many described sexual activities. The Memoirs case is namely the case, when Justice William Brennen ruled that “the prosecution also must prove to the jury’s satisfaction that the work in question is utterly without socially redeeming value” (Linz Malamuth, 1993: 10).
However, is there anything without any redeeming social importance? As it was remarked in Ginzburg v. Ohio (1964): “Redeeming to whom? Importance to whom?” Obviously, people do find importance and value in some works others might consider obscene (Held, 2010: 122).
In 1973, ruling Miller vs. California, 413 US 15 (1973), the Supreme Court recognized this problem of the Roth test and set out three criteria that need to be met for a work to be found obscene:
(a) whether 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value (Gould, 2010: 113; Held, 2010: 122).
This new guideline rejected the assumption that a work must be utterly without redeeming social importance to be deemed as obscene. Instead, it required that the work lack serious value. However, the problem is that this new criterion, just as the old, gave the judges/jury illegitimate power to assess the value of a work and rule against it if they do not see the serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value in it (Held, 2010: 123–124). Until recently, this problem caused many situations in which judges described works with doubtless artistic value as pornographic.
In addition, a logical breakdown of this test, according to Stanford law professor Kathleen Sullivan, unfolds as follows; the image must be agreed to be a “turn on,” at least to someone; the image must be agreed to “gross out” another party; but in the end, if it possesses value of another kind than sexual, it is acceptable (Lang, 1995: 90; Strossen, 1995: 54). More simply put, Miller writes into law that what drives arousal is subjective, so one had better look to other criteria to judge an image’s social value. Sexual arousal, a state experienced and enjoyed by most human beings, is apparently not socially valuable in and of itself, at least not in pictures brought to the courtroom (Lang, 1995: 90).
Indeed, just as modifications of the Obscene Publications Act are still in force in England and Wales, the Miller test is still United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labelled obscene.
While philosophical definitions of pornography have drawn different dividing lines and consequently characterized sexually explicit art in a certain way, discussed legal definitions have drawn different dividing lines; these legal definitions have consequently characterized sexually explicit art in a certain way and influenced the permissiveness of sexually explicit art. The artworks became victims of censorship and were banned from galleries and museums, sometimes even confiscated and destroyed. However, some legal definitions set the boundaries that awarded the sexually explicit artworks with a status of erotic art, which more or less successfully brought social prestige and institutional recognition and made them a legitimate object of interest for the mainstream press and academia. Only specifically the legal definitions inspired by philosophic definitions of pornography will be seen in action hereinafter.
Defining Erotic Art
Since the erotic describes the space of permissible sexual representation, there is a great deal at stake in deciding where the boundaries of category erotic art are placed. This is why philosophers, art historians, cultural critics and other scholars are not focused on defining erotic art straightforwardly but rather drawn up in a constant battle for the differentiation of erotic art and pornography (Nead, 1992: 104).
In 1968, the first international exhibition of sexually explicit art was held in Sweden and Denmark, where radical legislative moves had eliminated censorship of obscene materials and had legalized all forms of pornography. The resulting two-volume catalogue, which was distributed throughout Europe and the United States, the organizers, Drs. Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen, attempted to distinguish between erotic art and pornography on the following basis:
Certainly it could be argued that an intercourse scene or nude by a true artist would contain an interpretive, creative element which the amateur drawing or simple pornographic photograph might not contain at all, or at least not to the same extent (Kronhausen, Kronhausen, 1978: 3).
But, when does something contain enough evidence of interpretive, creative elaboration to be art? The definition does not provide information where the dividing line is.
Peter Webb, art historian, also wanted to isolate a category of erotic art from that of pornography in his authoritative study The Erotic Arts (1975) focusing on visual arts exclusively:
Although some people may find a pornographic picture erotic, most people associate eroticism with love, rather than sex alone, and love has little or no part to play in pornography /…/ Eroticism, therefore, has none of the pejorative associations of pornography; it concerns something vital to us, the passion of love. Erotic art is art on a sexual theme related specifically to emotions rather than merely actions, and sexual depictions, which are justifiable on aesthetic grounds. The difference between eroticism and pornography is the difference between celebratory and masturbatory sex (Webb,1975: 2).
In order to make a clear distinction between erotic art and pornography, Webb relies on a set of oppositions that make sense.13 This is why some would say his definition of erotic art
is close to the mark. However, he does not succeed in spelling out the necessary and sufficient conditions for erotic art (Maes, 2014). Man Ray’s photography Anatomies (1929), for example, which shows only collarbone, extended neck and chin of a woman and depicts no human emotions nor relations, is widely considered an erotic masterpiece anyway.
1. Man Ray, Anatomies, 1929, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
In the essay Erotica vs. Pornography, published in 1977, Gloria Steinem, feminist, journalist, and social political activist, also distinguished pornography from the erotic.14 While
pornography is described as sex being used to “reinforce some inequality, or to create one, or
13 Philosopher David Linton (1979) also defines erotic art in terms of the depiction of the pleasure of sexuality within a positive emotional relationship and believes that pornography on the other hand dehumanises and degrades sex, by separating sex from love and treating people as things (Linton, 1979: 57).
14 According to most scholars, erotica differs from erotic art. However, Gloria Steinem does not seem to make the difference.
to tell us that pain and humiliation /…/ are really the same as pleasure”, the erotic is explained as sexual representation of “expression between people who have enough power to be there by positive choice” (Steinem, 1977: 37).
The second of two vital differences between erotic art and pornography, presented by art historian Alyce Mahon in 2005, is clearly inspired by Steinem's essay. She argues that while pornography is “graphic connection between sex and violence, hatred, pain, and humiliation, erotic art is about sexual representations with equality between members of the opposite and same sexes” (Mahon, 2005: 14–15).15
Steinem and Mahon both offer necessary conditions for erotic art, which as I understood are supposed to be sufficient at the same time. However, there are sexual representations that are violent in a certain way or represent members of the opposite and same sexes unequally, such as Andy Warhol’s Sex Parts (II 178) (1978), but are according to our general understanding of what kind of erotic is erotic art. Moreover, there are also sexual representations of only one member of one sex and sexual representations without any member at all, which means a hierarchy or equality between members is not present. Take for example Egon Schiele’s Reclining Male Nude (1910). This means that both of the definitions of erotic art are simultaneously too wide and too narrow.
2. Egon Schiele, Reclining Male Nude, 1910, Private Collection
15 The first vital difference between erotic and the pornographic lies in the intent. While she is pretty clear that intent of pornography is to stimulate sexually, she does not explain what is intent of erotic art (Mahon, 2005: 14).
The philosopher Roger Scruton, who distinguished erotic art from pornography by their viewpoints, at the first glance offered a smart solution to the problem. While the pornographic point of view is voyeuristic, the erotic artwork is one that invites the audience to re-create in imagination the first-person point of view of someone party to an erotic encounter (Nead, 1992: 104; Scruton, 1986: 139).16
Scruton therefore also offers a necessary condition for erotic art that is sufficient at the same time. But, there are a lot of artworks that do coincide with our general perception of what erotic is erotic art, such as Meret Oppenheim’s Object (1936), but do not put the viewer in the position of identification with someone in an erotic experience, which means that Scruton’s definition of erotic art is too narrow.
3. Meret Oppenheim, Object, 1936, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Instead of claiming that erotic art is one that invites the audience to re-create the first-person point of view of someone party to an erotic encounter, one could say that erotic art elicits sexual feelings or desires (Maes, 2014).
16 Scruton in his later writings (2005, 2009) provides even more differences between pornographic representations and erotic artworks. He argues the pornographic representations are sexually explicit and rich in anatomical detail. On the other hand, erotic artworks rely on suggestion and, instead of focusing on certain body parts, try to capture the individuality, personality, and subjectivity of the represented person. According to Scruton, not the sexual organs but the face, as “window to the soul,” provides the focus of attention in Venus of Urbino (1538) (Maes, 2013: 10; Maes, 2014; Scruton, 2005: 11; Scruton 2009: 149). On the contrary, a pornographic representation “is like a magic wand that turns subjects into objects, people into things—and thereby disenchants them, destroying the source of their beauty” (Scruton, 2009: 163). In order to rehabilitate beauty as the central aesthetic and artistic category, Scruton also addresses the distinction between “the nude” and “the naked”, which was originally made by Kenneth Clark (Clark, 1956). Since persons in pornographic representations are deprived of clothes, and as such exposed in an embarrassing way, Scruton believes that persons in pornographic representations are not nude, but naked. Furthermore, while the Venus of Urbino retains a detached serenity, pornographic representation arouses the audience, which is always “an aesthetic defect, a “fall” into another kind of interest than that which has beauty as its target” (Scruton, 2009: 160).
But this characterization would also be too broad. The life sized marble statue known as the Barberini Faun (c. 220 B.C.E) may elicit sexual feelings or desires in some people, but that should not make it erotic art. Why not? If the Barberini Faun would be considered erotic art because it elicits sexual feelings and desires, then everything would be. Imagine a shoe fetishist standing in front of Vincent Van Gogh’s A Pair of Shoes (1886). Could we say that the painting is erotic art, if the painting elicits sexual feelings or desires in our viewer with a psychosexual disorder? According to our general intuition of what erotic is, I highly doubt it. As Jerrold Levinson acknowledges in his definition of erotic art as art which “aims to engage viewers sexually through explicit sexual content, and that succeeds, to some extent, in doing so”, the intention to be sexually stimulating appears crucial (Levinson 2006: 252).
4. Barbarini Faun, ca. 220 B. C. E., Glyptothek, Munich
Levinson’s definition almost goes hand-in-hand with an older definition of another philosopher, Bernard Williams, who sees the erotic as a milder alternative to pornographic, with regard to both the content and the intention: “the content is by this interpretation more allusive and less explicit, and what is intended is not strong sexual arousal but some lighter degree of sexual interest” (Williams, 1982: 138).
Nevertheless, does erotic art need to be sexually explicit? Take Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography Eggplant (1985). It is, according to our general intuition of what erotic is, highly
erotic, although it has no explicit sexual content; this means that both definitions, the one proposed by Levinson and another introduced by Williams, are not broad enough.
5. Robert Mapplethorpe, Eggplant, 1985, Princeton University, Art Museum
The most adequate definition of erotic art describes it as “art that is made with the intention to stimulate its target audience sexually” (Maes, 2014). But, what sexual stimulation does it precisely entail? According to Guy Sircello, it is the inducing of sexual feelings in (1) our sexual parts, or (2) other erogenous parts such as lips (Maes, 2014; Sircello, 1979: 119). It is true that erection of penis means a certain feeling, but not of the sort that erotic art is supposed to bring about. This means an important qualification is needed (Maes, 2014).
Presumably, the sexual stimulation is the best understood as “the inducing of sexual thoughts, feelings, desires and imaginings, that would generally be regarded as pleasant in themselves” (Maes, 2014; Levinson, 2005: 260). Another option is to embrace Matthew Kieran’s definition of erotic art as art which “essentially aims at eliciting sexual thoughts, feelings and associations found to be arousing” (Kieran, 2001: 32; Maes, 2014).
Just as philosophical definitions and legal definitions of pornography, have done, so too have definitions of erotic art drawn different dividing lines and consequently characterized sexually explicit art in a certain way. Only one definition of erotic art, developed in the time of early 70s when the differentiation of erotic art and obscenity took on a heightened importance, will be discussed in detail hereinafter.
The Idea of the Pornographic Art
While most art historians, such as Webb and Mahon, assume that pornography and art, unlike eroticism and art, are incompatible17, the scholars to be explored next represented the
opposite idea: the idea of pornographic art.
The fact that, at least at first sight, there appears to be no substantial intersection between art and pornography helps to explain why philosophers of art have ignored this idea for so long. It has only been since the beginning of the 21st century that the question of pornographic art has summoned a lot of attention among philosophers of art.
Everything started with the provocative essay Pornographic Art, in which the author, Matthew Kieran, argued for the existence of pornographic art as a subclass of erotic. At the beginning of essay, Kieran exposed the important consideration that “pornography is by definition non‐artistic, or without artistic interest,” to which he responds that “pornography is just highly explicit erotic, and since all admit that erotic can be art, there is thus no conceptual bar to pornography being art as well” (Levinson, 2005: 266). Let me slow this down and focus on Kieran’s argument for pornographic art systematically.
Kieran starts his argument for pornographic art by answering how the pornographic stands in relation to the erotic. While
pornography as such seeks, via the explicit representation of sexual behaviour and attributes, to elicit sexual arousal or desire, /…/ the erotic clearly need not involve sexual explicitness. Corregio's Io, Degas's portraits of ballet dancers, Robert Mapplethorpe's flower studies, for example, are devoid of sexual explicitness and yet they successfully solicit sensuous thoughts, feelings and associations, which are or may be arousing. The erotic essentially aims at eliciting sexual thoughts, feelings, and associations found to be arousing. Thus, there are many things, which are erotic but not pornographic–such as a representation of someone suggestively eating strawberries–, but things, which are pornographic, are also erotic. Pornography is a subspecies of the erotic /…/–it seeks to realize the aim internal to all that is erotic, but via the distinctive means of sexually explicit representation, which many other erotic representations do not utilize (Kieran, 2001: 32).
