giving offense
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that what I find tasteful someone else finds offensive to women. Here's what furious had to say in her last comment: I'm sorry to read and see that you're jumping on this bandwagon. Up until now I had enjoyed your blog, feeling like it was a place where women were more than objects.I'm not sure what "bandwagon" I'm jumping on. Is there a breast blog bandwagon?
This is what happened. I'm playing with Spanish, trying to see what I can pick up. I bought a Musical Spanish program online, which is why I now know all the words to La Bamba.The main vocalist is named Jorge Parra, and I liked his voice, so I googled the name. I didn't find him. What I found instead was www.JorgeParra.com -- the website of a photographer.
I liked his work and wanted to put one of his images on my blog.
Oh no, you can't do that!Don't worry I'll link back to his site.
But you can see that woman's breasts!So?
So you can't do that!Why the hell can't I do that?
People might take offense!At which point I pummeled my superego unconscious.
Meanwhile, that story came back to me from high school: "I did what they call 'nude scenes' -- but I don't consider that nudity because it was art."
I thought the combination made for an interesting blog post, and I thought I'd succeeded in keeping it on the safe side of an R-rating, but I guess not. I never intended to offend anyone (I try to save that for www.DailyApology.com) but I obviously knew it was a risk. I didn't anticipate whom and how. I thought if anyone took issue it would be social conservatives. Live and learn.
6 Comments:
live and learn indeed. not by their own faults, some people cannot recognize what they are. thanks to the truth in art a person can feel objected to the truth without asking for it. blunt naked truth can hurt.
your response to the concerns, as delicately laid as they were, should express more than defense for your actions. extend the arm of the knowledge and understanding that you hold for art to those who need it.
i have never seen beauty greater than a naked woman.
admission of beauty is love for what beauty means. to defend beauty insists that it is yours. as in love, what you keep is yours and cannot be shared. what you give can be shared by all.
peace,
Jason
Whoa, I'm surprised that Matthew Bryan took my comment so hard. I find that interesting, that a simple expression of concern about different ways of talking about bodies got me a "GTFU."
And let me also note, bk, that your point about the problems with suggesting that in "art" such is not pornography is right on: some of the finest nude paintings--the Titian Venus of Urbino, for instance--were commissioned for rich men's bedrooms. And after all, it's pretty much the consensus of the art world that she is masturbating.
But here is the trick. I read this blog as an intellectual atmosphere. It is a venue I often visit to be presented with ideas I don't completely agree with, or that challenge me, or that affirm something I believe to be deeply true. It is a venue where I get to think, to engage in conversations with thinking people.
But a post like the one in question subtly changes the nature of that environment, as I think was made evident in the comments posted (and I am really not speaking of Mr. Bryan's surprising rage here).
It's like stepping into a classroom or a boardroom filled with pictures of naked women, only to be reassured by all the men present that, no, it's OK, we'll take you real seriously, sweetie.
It is not the posting of pictures that is the issue. If I am not mistaken, bk, you have done that before. And your commenters are right: breasts are beautiful things, naked bodies are beautiful things.
What I objected to was the tone of the warning, that this is not a blog that shows breasts. As a speech act, what that warning said, was, bring on your churlish and sexualizing responses to breasts. And readers did! What all this said to me as a reader is, This is a space where I can either take it or get out.
So what I meant by bandwagon was, O great. Another one of those.
And what is even more interesting is that in expressing this concern, I elicited such a pissed off response. So simply saying that there is something problematic with *how* our culture looks at pictures of naked women gets me a "grow the fuck up" while comments about popping woodies and yowzas about full-frontal scenes are the mature discourse? And elsewhere I am described as "an uptight, collectivist thinking shrew" with "delicate, testicle-stomping, 'feminine' sensibilities."
And his response to my concern? To flash me a hot rack, while clarifying the intended violence in such an act.
I am truly sorry, Mr. Bryan, that my response piqued your rage and, I'd add, proved my point.
And bk, thanks for your clarification. I didn't mean to intend that the piece needed an R rating. All such things do is signify the *presence* of such things as nudity. I'm more interested in how it is used.
Responding with the usual cavils to the "objectification" of women is NOT a "different way of talking about bodies."
If Ms. Furious is concerned men don't take her seriously because she has breasts, perhaps it is HER rage, yet unacknowledged, that is the problem.
"How" are we to look at pictures of naked breasts, Ms.? Are we to take a museum posture, no puerility allowed? Please stay behind the ropes, cads! Your Beavishness arouses our peevishness!
And again with the standard Dworkian response to a pair of bare breasts: "...while clarifying the intended violence in such an act." My God, "furious", get over yourself! My response to your overcooked feminist rheotoric proves nothing aside from my own utter distaste for hypersensitive, politically correct hothouse flowers like yourself.
Note that one of the better french libertarian blogs, Copeau, often publishes delicious posts about his favorite pornographic stars...
Thanks to Faré : I share his comment !
As Hable said, I've never seen beauty greater than women's one.
Doing research on a Titian and objectification paper and it brought me here. I keep going back and forth on what I will argue: can women be beautified/objectified and empowered at the same time? Feminist articles and ideals frequently take the role that if a female wants to be taken seriously, she can't try to be beautiful. I think this furthers the problems in our society. Why can't a woman be beautiful AND seen as a worthwhile human being? I would like that to happen. Pictures that show women as objects have been around for a very long time, and they are not going away. Is this altogether a bad thing? There are people who believe that naked women are the most beautiful thing they have ever seen. In this form of appreciation, I don't think women are devalued, but rather elevated to a worshipful status. How is that degrading, even if it is based solely on the exterior?
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