Explore Greatness In Art by Lincøln
April 9th, 2008 12:00 AMI find that every woman's body is beautiful. Truly a work of art. I haven't yet seen a female body that was unappealing. I can always find something beautiful about the female form. It is truly amazing to me. And I suppose that I, being a human male am hardwired to find the female attractive. But I find it more than just the evolutionary instinct, women aren't just attractive, I truly think of the female form as a work of art.
So to fully explore the greatness of this truly magnificent piece of art, I have decided to do everything this task asks. I have both purchased and created replicas of this work of art.
****WARNING****
(obviously)This praxis contains adult themes.
The purchases:
The replicas:
10 vote(s)
The Actor
5
The Animus
5
Haberley Mead
5
Soren THREEdux
5
chaos shard
5
Your PinUp
5
GeneShark Tom
5
Scarlett
5
GYØ Ben
5
Red Star
Favorite of:
Terms
(none yet)187 comment(s)
(no subject)
I agree whole-heartedly with you on this, Lincoln. I kinda wondered if it was my childish ego that stopped me from appreciating the male body as well ("Don't be gay, fag!"). I'm starting to think that it's more objective than it seems, and that there's something inherently beautiful about a woman's body.
Now go make me my dinner, woman! :: grins ::
Also, impending waves of doom are impending.
Don't get me wrong, I think the male body is amazing as well, and I'd like to see everybody in the world naked.
But I have no desire to touch a male body.
I just think the female body has so much more going for it, in terms of interpretation. This is probably just biased symbology, but males typically represent strength, and stability maybe, and.... Well, hmph. Albeit a product of society, the female body is much more adept at representing sexuality, comfort, fashion, beauty, sophistication, and alternative means of empowerment. I think that since the female body is so much more open for interpretation, people take it as they see fit, and thus garner respect for / attraction to it.
Plus, cocks are ugly.
I find it very interesting that you talk about the female body like it would be an object.
How many points for that?
Aw, dammit Lincoln. Ditto babe hawaii.
Well, I am talking about it like an object. I am completely objectifying the female body with this task. Maybe there'll be another task where I can explain why I love the mind of women and everything else, but this is a task from the University of Aesthematics and it's about appearance, product and technique. Were this an HC task, I'd have tackled it from a completely different perspective. But I'm here to show just the body as a work of art. I am separating the body from the rest of the woman, from the mind, the soul if you will. I'm metaphorically placing just the form on a museum wall. There is no soul in any of this except what you bring to the art from experience with the object. So the only life it has (like any piece of art) is the life that you, the viewer breathe into it.
I love women so much on so many levels, and this is just one of those levels. I am a proud feminist and think there is nothing wrong with objectifying a woman's body, or anything really. I'm right now working on objectifying my own desires. And I find nothing wrong with that. This is art people, not real life. We're supposed to look at things critically and objectively.
When I read this very male dialog of you and the Animus I just found that there is the need for another perspective.
You shouldn't take this too serious. It's just a comment.
I'm no native speaker, so I might have got this wrong, but the word art is very related to the word artificial, so I always thought that art has to be something that is created and not given.
and:
I still somehow like this completion, because it has lot's of LOVE in it, but it's a difficult topic that YOU started. I would find it strange if this little discussion we have would not take place here and all the comments would just be about how amazing the female body can represent sexuality and fashion.
Y'know, Lincoln, I don't have a problem with objectification either, as long as i know, as i do in your case, that that's not the whole story. Desperately in love though I may be, i still love to look at my beloved like a piece of meat.
Here's what makes me a little itchy though:
THE Female body.
Now I know my body is one featured here, and your images do have some variety... But still, most of these images are of bodies that are unattainable by real women without surgery, corsets, and zero gravity. Its not every female body as you said. Its one kind. And a fake kind at that.
It just sucks to always be fed fed fed (by all of society, i don't hold you solely responsible) the idea that thats what i'm supposed to look like, that being an object of beauty is my purpose for existing.
Especially when i actually have saggy tits, cellulite, stretch marks, knobby knees, spider veins, saddle bags, ugly toes, armpit hair, scars, bruises, arthritis, crowsfeet, and wear enormous, tattered underwear and a hideaous sweat suit all day.
What about other female bodies? Are they not art? Are they not women? Old women? Middle-aged women? Clothed women? Fat women? Thin women with small boobs and hips? Pregnant women? Children? How narrow must our idea of female beauty be? I'm only 28 and I'm already often made to feel useless because my beauty is fading.
My body is one featured here and i still feel alienated from this idea of beauty. Its a good question you asked in the caption of my picture: "Does this still count?"
Is the only way a woman can become art if she also becomes sexualized?
Sorry for the rant, I just join this conversation because i trust that you understand where I'm coming from and certainly have no ill intentions and i'm interested to hear yours and others' responses.
Hmm. That's interesting. I've had this argument in my head for quite some time. When I was caught by my step mother many many years ago with a stack of stolen Playboys, she got mad at me for looking at them, and added the one killer line that has stuck with me till today "And that's not what women look like anyway!" and it got me to thinking. The women in these magazines were real women, right? Sure, they were picked for their beauty, but still women. And they are attractive, so why not have them in magazines for others to enjoy? And I've been thinking about this question for twenty years now. And now that I'm a photographer and photograph nude women on occasion, I think about this. Every picture that I take I try to make the woman as beautiful as she can look. And all of my models thus far, all have stretch marks and scars and cellulite and all kinds of things that aren't typically "desireable". Should I accentuate or minimize these traits? I choose to minimize. And when I show the models the pictures you don't see here, they agree.
I don't know why people want to look their best, but they do. Everybody wants to look their best. If they didn't MAC would be out of business. As would Guess and Abercomie & Fitch and Revlon. But as long as humans have an ego in them, they're gonna wanna look their best. I see no problem as an artist perpetuating that.
And yes, I chose you and anna one to duplicate for this very reason, you are both real people with real bodies. As for the other models, I should show you some of the out-take shots. These are not what you would typically consider beautiful women. Yet I find them beautiful no matter what. And the photos I have posted, I feel make them look their most beautiful. I think that is a fine thing.
I don't want to be minimized!!
I don't want people to look politely the other way when I'm not being a perfect specimen of a narrow definition of beauty.
I don't want to be beautiful in spite of my armpit hair, age, size, etc. I want to be beautiful with it, because of it even.
My armpit hair and man-hands tell you way more about who i am than my thin waist. The things that make my body art to me include the ways my varicose veins cross each other on my thighs. They do not include the way I might look when I stand sway-backed, spread-eagle, pouting my lips, and gently stroking someone's labia for the gaze of a camera.
This kind of sexuality tells me more about how someone else would use my body than anything organic to who I am. And anyway, sexuality, even more empoweringly defined, should not be the end of the story on my beauty.
Why can't women "look our best" just as we are? Not edited, cropped, airbrushed, minimized, make-upped, lingeried, dieted, surgeried, styled, posed, photographed, and photoshopped?
MAC and Revlon shouldn't be allowed to dictate how we define beauty or how we define woman.
I think as artists our responsibility is to challenge the hegemonic concepts we're spoon-fed and create new possibilities for the meaning of beauty.
Lincoln: I think it's interesting that you're drawing a distinction between beauty and sexual attractiveness (or at least I think you are). Presumably you're not sexually attracted to every woman's body (this would be a rather overwhelming existence), but you say you always find beauty in them. So on the one hand, while still very much locating the female in the corporeal, this mitigates Bex's criticism somewhat.
But I say "somewhat" because, really, is every woman beautiful to you? While I know you don't mean to condescend, this is such an over-generalization that it can't possibly be accurate. And if such a generalization were made based on racial rather than gendered characteristics, this would be more obviously problematic.
I CERTAINLY agree with you that "the female body" as an abstract ideal is beautiful; and furthermore that many, many, many actual female bodies are beautiful even/especially when they don't look like the ones in Playboy. And there is definitely something about "the female form" that makes it more appealing naked than "the male form" (in my opinion). But I guess I take issue with the notion that all females somehow essentially are/look the same. Oooh, just writing "are/look" made my heart go pitter-pat with nostalgia for my undergrad Sociology days...I'll stop myself here.
In summation: I heart boobies in general, but not all boobies in particular. :)
Agreed Scarlett. With just about everything you say. There is a very very large distinction between beauty and sexual attractiveness. I have found maybe a dozen women sexually attractive in my life thus far, but have found every woman beautiful. And I was not being hyperbolic, I can find something beautiful in every woman. Or at least in every woman I have seen thus far in my life. Granted, I have seen a very very small percentage of possible women that exist and maybe I'll see one that I find nothing beautiful about someday, but for right now, all of them are beautiful to me.
Ms. Defiler is moving us in the right direction, I think. I didn't mean to open up a can of worms here. I was really comparing society's choice of the female body over the male body to represent the things I listed (notice that sexuality and beauty are listed separately). Granted, I don't think any one here really agrees to what they've done to that choice (by completely mutilating 'models' into unattainable forms by an average standard (and that, in itself, completely ignores the concept of diversity)).
So, to clear things up, I was really questioning society's basic preference (mine included) of the female form over the male form for things such as art (realistic or not -- hence the 'flower' picture, perhaps?).
Bex, you made a really good point about being real. You have to remember, though, that
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It's perfectly alright if you don't want to conform to society's twisted ideals. I commend you for that. And though honestly, I don't have an eye to take in the beauty of every woman, in no way would I ever try to hold you (or any one) to those fucked up standards. So you can go ahead and take pictures of your rolls, your cankles, your uneven saggy tits, and I wouldn't think less of you. If its tasteful, it'd make beautiful art.
I was right about the waves. :: grins ::
I have about five different things to say, but I'm simplifying down to this for now.
Lincoln, you say:
There is a very very large distinction between beauty and sexual attractiveness. I have found maybe a dozen women sexually attractive in my life thus far, but have found every woman beautiful. And I was not being hyperbolic, I can find something beautiful in every woman.
So. Sexual attractiveness is one thing. Beauty is another. Implication being this praxis, since it is about greatest work of art in the history of humanity, is about beauty.
Yet earlier you said:
Don't get me wrong, I think the male body is amazing as well, and I'd like to see everybody in the world naked.
But I have no desire to touch a male body.
You are not sexually attracted to the male body. Rock on. But does that mean it is not beautiful?
It's hard to see how you can on one hand separate sexual attractiveness from pure beauty, and on the other explain that there are only women's bodies in the praxis because you don't want to touch a male body.
How does this not imply that the inclusion of these images (which are predominantly ones with heavily emphasized sexual characteristics) is driven not by their beauty, but by their sexualized nature?
The throw-away line about not wanting to touch a male body is just a little insight into my phyche and has nothing to do with the task. And I shouldn't say "no desire" as I do have a small desire creep up on me from time to time (like that one time I met Brad Pitt, who by the way is the most beautiful human I have ever seen, but he's small and pretty like a girl, so...).
I was speaking objectively and aesthetically about women. And this task isn't Truth. It is my opinion. If I were a woman, or a gay man, perhaps I'd feel differently, but since I am neither of those (or maybe despite that fact) I think the female is a more beautiful piece of art, than is the male. Both are beautiful, but the female wins.
And I agree that women, drawn or displayed by men historically have far overshadowed men (displayed by women). But I'm not talking historically here, I'm talking personally. Personally, I find the woman's body (objectively) to be the greatest work of art in the history of humanity. Which you (SFØ) don't have to agree with, it is just my opinion. And I have thought about it a lot.
i'll leave it to SFØ Latium (ahem!) to explicate more completely on this one, but...
ART. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin ars, art-; see ar- in Indo-European roots.]
ARTIFICIAL. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin artificiālis, belonging to art, from artificium, craftsmanship; see artifice.]
interesting... i didn't realize they do have just the same root, and the most important usage actually comes from the "human-created" meaning of the word, rather than the "false" meaning. id est, often people say 'that's artificial,' meaning false and/or inferior to 'the real thing.'
for y'alls info, 'artificial' is otherwise known in...
Norwegian as: unaturlig
German as: künstlich
Well it is nice to see some adult sexuality on a site that often seems to be existing in the world of Peter Pan and Wendy, but that said ....
The perception that the female body is the greatest work of art in the world is a vision of those who desire them, and who have historically held the gavel, the pen, and the paintbrush. So women are not out of line in noting objectification: however friendly.
I will say that when het women share the perspective that they kind've enjoy male gay porn, (not all do, of course, just some) that often does not make many straight men incredibly happy.
I'd guess the women here are more or less responding the same way to objectified desire.
I am fascinated by art and have chosen to make it the focus of my professional life. I am still in the fledgling stages, but offer this as a sort of humble qualification to the following statement.
The question, "what is art?" has a fantastic and hilarious ability to fluster freshman who are unaccustomed to examining anything other than Facebook. There are 2 facets to my personal definition, which also happen to be the 2 reasons for my perennial infatuation with the stuff:
1. The production of art is a uniquely human activity, and one that is not necessarily tied to our moral or rational powers (I should cite Kant here. As a little known fact he was none-too-shabby as an art historian).
2. It exists in our lives for no other purpose than to be seen. It is capable of conveying the imaginative life, among other things, but it is only when an object exists for no other purpose than to be seen that we really look at it.
Some of your reproductions feel like art, but the human body- male, female, and even transgender- doesn't qualify. My body might be a pleasure to behold, but so is a sunset. Call that art and you start to sound like a Christian fundamentalist.
POST SCRIPT EDIT:
Sometimes I fear I come off as overly-critical. So I collected these out of guilt.
ODALISQUES FOR YOU!
Titian. Venus of Urbino. 1538. A virtuous wife, signified by the inclusion of Fido, her modest gesture, and the fact that she's about to be dressed.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Le Grande Odalisque. 1814. A harem girl, signified by the inclusion of exotic objects. This can be read like a still life, the girl being just one more owned object. Note the opium pipe. This becomes more a portrait of the master than of the girl.
Eduard Manet. Olympia. 1863. A prostitute, signified by the black choker and the flowers from an obviously pleased "client." I like Manet because he reversed the dominating male gaze.
I thought the task was to get/make replicas of one specific work of art. Am I right?
Anyway, as a straight man who's been selling gay porn for years, I have to second Ms. Defiler's points (and Sparrows', and Myrna's, and those of most others here). Human beings are hard-wired with sexual desires such that viewing other human bodies can fill us with elation and the desire to copulate. But yeah, not with everyone. Usually with only one gender. And a certain age group, and body type, etc. Nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to a specific type, just as there's nothing wrong with being gay. And lemme tell ya, there is a lot of objectification of male bodies in the world (not as much as of women's bodies) as far back as the Greeks and further, I'm sure.
I had a great moment years ago at work. I had stack of porn titles in front of me and a gay male co-worker sifted through them, commenting on how hot the guys were. He then hit a straight porn title with naked ladies on the cover (which I thought was hot) and he reacted like he had just seen a picture of a disembowelment. "EWWW!"
It's okay to celebrate what you find physically attractive in people (woo hoo nekkid lady butts!) It's also okay to celebrate the beauty of Nature or the Creator of your choice (woo hoo that jellyfish is gorgeous!)
But art is not necessarily beautiful. I'm not going to attempt to define art, but there's a reason why pornography is not art and it's not just the quality of the images. The Annie Liebovitz show currently at the Legion of Honor is very moving (go see it!) partly because she displays her classically "beautiful" flawless magazine-cover portraiture of celebrities alongside some very candid, flawed and very human shots of friends, family, un-famous folks, and even some of those same celebs. And some landscapes.
As far as objectification goes, that's a spiritual matter, IMHO. If you don't think of yourself as a thing, then you're within rights to disagree if you're called art. Because artworks are things.
No one really wants to feel unattractive. Displaying a specific body type and calling that "art" implicitly says that others are "not art", or "unworthy" somehow, whether or not that's how you feel. I could diatribe for hours on how individuals and and society are massively warped over the concept of physical beauty, but I've already written enough.
Okay, I agree that this is your praxis, and here I am mucking around in your comments section with my take on things. It is, as you say, your opinion, not Truth, and it's not like you're charging onto my computer screen forcing me to look at it. So I'm gonna try to back off this conversation, and quit, well, looking at it.
But I just want to say - and this may just be my personal take on things, and not an opinion shared by anyone else - I find it jarring to see women's bodies so emphatically referred to as works of art, and for that description to be used as the main support for your argument. It's a description that seems on the surface to be a tremendous compliment, but actually is not. Art has an artist - a creator. It is something made, whether through an actual act of creation or through definition ('found art', etc.).
There is one, very unsettling, take on this that works with the 'art' metaphor. Given the amount of plastic surgery and body modification done by models and porn stars today (not to mention the distortion often involved in drawing comic book women) to meet artificially elevated standards of attractiveness, it could be argued that 'art' is not an entirely inappropriate term. Those bodies are materials that have been acted upon - cut into or altered like paint or stone - to meet that standard. Carried to the extreme, this take on the female form ('perfected' in terms of sexual attractiveness, rather than, for example, strength), evaluated only as an object completely without personality and intelligence, produces Real Dolls.
I feel like this praxis was well-intended, that it is meant to be complimentary. But that doesn't mean there isn't a hell of a lot of nasty subtext in it.
Sorry Lincoln. I think of you as a really creative person with an original take on things. You've done amazing praxes in the past, and I've voted for several of them, and looked forward to seeing more. So reading this one was like unwrapping a good brand of chocolate and finding it riddled with maggots.
...and then Lank says it better than I can while I'm editing.
You know I love you, Lincoln, but I've gotta call foul on this praxis.
There is so much to talk about here, so much I want to dive into and say, but I'll keep it to what I think is the most important thing here... did you complete the task according to the directions. I feel you did not.
This has made me have to do something I haven't done in years... re-define the term "Art" for myself. Since High School I have defined "Art" as simply whatever an Artist says it is. This begs the question, "What is an Artist." The answer, simply, "Someone who creates "Art".
But there's something I hadn't thought of. I don't think that you can point to another person and say "he" or "she is Art". I do not believe it is valid for one person to define another person so narrowly. A person can define themselves, or just their bodies, as Art, but for another person to do that is automatically invalid in my book. Equally so to sweepingly define an entire gender, race, or other section of humanity. It just isn't valid.
So, you're saying that female bodies are art, and I'm calling foul, because I do not think it is valid for you make that claim for them. It is beyond objectification, and it demeans all women, I think.
Now I have stated before I'm not a flagger, and I'm not starting here, but I really think that the praxis does not sufficiently meet the words of the task.
One other note. Lots of talk about separation of beauty and sexuality, but I want to point out that all of the images you chose, Lincoln, are highly sexualized (with perhaps 2 exceptions... bex, which is still nude, and the pen drawing, which I just don't understand), which tends to go against the claim of separation of the two. I know the discussion about the separation came after you chose your images, but I was curious why you chose ONLY sexual images.
Again, I love you Lincoln, but this proof doesn't cut it for me.
I have to jump in here about defining someone else as art running afoul of our notions of autonomy or of art. The definition I found most useful that separates pornography and art has been a subjective one, dependent on the audience, without being so useless as an "I know it when I see it" standard. It was always a matter of possession to me -- pornography you possess and take dominion of, as men typically do through sexual conquest, whereas art you appreciate without needing to make it your own and a part of you. I liked that working definition because it meant a group of adults could stand around looking at images, and one such group would consider the painting artistically and deem it so, while the other would revile and dream of it longingly and make of it pornography, and the definition be consistent. In the same way, for some people a Denny's commercial of sizzling sausage bouncing out of the pan is pornographic, and the literary trick of using feasts and food-a-plenty in place of sexuality in children's tales as an alternate apetite for the hero (or "lecherous" villain) still jives. It makes the themes of Francis Dolarhyde eating The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun comprehensible to those of us without degrees in psychology (or psychonomy).
At this point though, I hit upon my problem -- pornography is dependent upon the notion of making a person into a sexual object. As a feminist myself, I take great issue with the majority of the practice and industry of peddling female flesh as a multi-billion dollar industry, and even more-so with the mindset of those who treat women accordingly, even women treating themselves solely as objects. But objectifying a person sexually is not itself a negative thing. I am against the culture of female subjugation founded on the ideal of the objectified woman, but the act itself is not "bad" in itself. And yet somehow making someone else art is.
I'm struggling to decide whether a person can be art, and if they can what my framework is missing. The discussion of art being limited to representations when art cannot be a platonic ideal itself is completely wrong to me, when as a mathematician I know both a painting of a triangle, and triangleness itself devoid of representation are both art. An equation is not art for it's series of lines on a page, but as a thing that is eternal and real in a way arguably more real than you or I or the universe we live in. e^(pi*i) + 1 = 0 is the most beautiful thing in mathematics as a thing itself, not as the representation. The most beautiful representation in math is surely Tupper's Self Referential Forumla. Art cannot also be whatever an artist deems is art, because Art as a principal reflects social understandings and interplays between the intention of the artist and the reception by the audience, or perhaps because we can call things art without knowing the intent of the creator, whether there even was a creator, or in total absence of an artifice that can be said to have a creator (as I deny the existence of a God, let alone her profession as an artist).
At this point I can only imagine that someone proclaiming someone else to be art strikes unease through us because of the impulse to assume they are possessing the person in so doing, and thereby violating both the person and the notion of art itself as something appreciated from afar. Maybe this just reflects my personal inability thusfar to honestly separate an appreciation of a person from the egotistical drive to be important to them and cyclically be appreciating a part of myself.
The best I can do is consider this under the guise of authorial intent, which is only a partial answer. It is very difficult to consider something that was intended to be pornographic as art, without considering the work in terms of the artistic choices and so forth that accompanied the making of the pornographic piece. Assuredly we could sit around and analyze Deep Throat as an artistic commentary on perceptions of sexuality and mortality, or as a commentary on elbows and dandelions if we cared to, but the piece itself wouldn't be art so much as the piece as viewed through our analysis is art, and in that case is only so by our transmuting the artist's intent into some other element of the intent -> message -> medium -> interpretation -> understanding chain of events. Making the artist's intent to possess and dominate Linda Boreman into a part of the message, and imputing to the deranged director Gerard Damiano an intent to make the commentary is twisting the piece out of context, and making it just another Shakespeare in the Bush.
So then, calling a person Art may seem wrong to us, because we don't believe that in so doing any "artist" intends their labeling of a person or their body as art is done without a pornographic and possessive intent? We can paint an apple and not want to eat the apple, we can paint a person and not want to fuck the person, but can we call a person themselves art without belying an appreciation that is personal and therefor possessive? In theory we can, and there are people I am willing to believe could do it, but do those of you who this classification has bothered find the problem is that you can't believe this is the case for Lincoln?
Personally, from what I have seen of Lincoln's taskings, and my recollection of meeting him when he had not slept in days and was ragged around the edges from exhaustion, Lincoln is possibly one of those people who can point to a person, call that person art, and not be putting his foot in his mouth. You're still culpable for unleashing a can of worms, but here is the sort of place I could imagine opening that can, and not bringing safety goggles and a whole lot of prefacing and accounting for yourself before doing it either.
Many others have made the points I want to make, but I also wanted to make another point that I think has been brought up but deserves to be highlighted.
(I'm not even getting into the whole "is the female body art?" thing. I mean, I don't think it is, but yeah. Regardless, there is plenty of art *depicting* bodies, of all genders, out there and I focus on that here.)
It just rubs me the wrong way to have the female body declared as the most beautiful art whereas the male body is not, and I say that as someone who is pretty much only attracted to women myself. It just too strongly plays into the fucked up social dynamic in which women's bodies are valued for their beauty, while men's bodies are valued for other things (their physical strength, is usually the unspoken assumption).
It reminds me of when I was a freshman in high school looking at yearbooks with my friends. All of my friends were straight (and I still thought I was, too) and we were counting how many girls in our class were hot, vs how many boys. Our calculated percentage of hot girls was ridiculously bigger.
For us to calculate those percentages in favor of our own gender was only possible because we were girls. No boy would have been caught dead telling his friends he found more boys hot than girls, even though it was fine for girls to find more girls hot than boys. We are socialized early on to believe that men are unable to judge one another's hotness, and if they ever do, it's automatically considered gay. Women who judge one another's hotness are NOT automatically, or even most of the time, labeled as lesbians. It's one of the forces behind the greater revulsion/horror at gay men, while lesbians are held up as more acceptable (as long as straight men get to watch/join in, of course). neither of which is a particularly great attitude. Personally, I'd like to see less revulsion/horror directed at everyone, and while i doubt straight mens' enjoyment of watching two women get it on is going anywhere, I'd love to see straight women's enjoyment of watching two men get it on come out of the fandom community and become as prevalent as its counterpart.
Hmm so back to my actual point... basically, the "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's bodies" thing is really not a helpful attitude and is doing nothing other than propping up the existing gender stereotypes that are bad for EVERYONE, regardless of gender. It keeps women's bodies objectified, it keeps men from being allowed a full range of expression of what they find beautiful, it props up revulsion and homophobia, etc.
It's all just water-cooler-talk from here on out, but hey, we all have our opinions.
So that means I'm not here to offend or change anyone's minds.
I agree that the images for the praxis are highly sexualized (but wait, what is sexual!? People have varying tastes, fetishes and perspectives -- ah, nevermind). However, I think it's unrealistic to ask any one, epic SF0 tasker or not, to present the infinite scope that is the human female (or the broad expansive topic of their bodies, for that matter).
Calling some one art doesn't narrowly define them at all. Think of it as adding a tag to a YouTube video. It's simply a faceted description of the video itself. It doesn't define the video, it's just one of the many possible parameters. If the female body is art, it also can be sexual, it can be ugly, it can be anything the interpreter wants it to be or sees it as. That 'art' tag doesn't make the female body less than what it is (unless you really don't like any art -- and again, that's subjective), so I don't find it objectifying or demeaning -- generally. Has that tag been added in a demeaning, 'womanizing' fashion before? Most definitely. Has Lincoln? I don't think so.
JTony talks about the artist a little bit, but is kinda sketchy when it comes to defining art. From what I understand, the artist can call themselves (and perhaps by extension anything they own) as art, but not 'things' belonging to other people, including those other people?
Realistically, any one can call anything art. I can go on about how an artist discerns what they create as art or failures or conventional structures or logical constructs, but I'm not going to.
Given that any one can put this 'art' tag on anything (or anyone), I personally try to find meaning in that tag by attempting to solve the artist's intention. It seems to me that it's the factor that separates the 'demeaning' art from the 'classy' art.
Now, applying that perspective to Lincoln's task: What was Lincoln's intention in reproducing this 'art' (across various media of which he had varying control)?
There's most likely different reasons for each picture, but the general gist, to me, was a positive one. It wasn't a "Look at these hot bitches!" -- it seemed really respectful and reverent to me. Thus, I think he completed his task.
Julian, for the record, I was the one that brought up (and open-questioned) that "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's bodies" thing, and I just didn't have answers to it. I don't think Lincoln upholds that view, so don't hold it against him.
I was looking for some bounce-back on the subject, so I appreciate it.
Julian... I think that's why Robert Mappelthorpe was such a boogeyman to the right-wing agenda back in the 80's... I defy anyone to take a decent sampling of his work and sit down and really look at it and not call it beautiful. I find his depictions of men... although idealized in similar ways to the "perfect" beauty of women... simply magical.
AAAHHHH! I just got the pen and ink picture... it is AnnaWon, like you said (I didn't connect it). Nicely done, too, now I've got my glasses on.
On further reflection I'd like to withdraw my questions about sexuality and beauty and Lincoln's choices. A good, logical argument can be made that several of the choices are not sexualized depictions and are only sexualized by their proximity to other items in the group.
I think most people here have missed the point, and I know this because a lot of people have said that they disagree with me or my interpretation or ideas or whatever, but I agree with just about everybody here (I did disagree with Myrna Minx, but her edit makes me no longer disagree fully). I understand and feel the same way most of you feel. But you're mostly talking about a subject that has nothing to do with this task.
I don't think of women as objects any more than I think of monkeys as objects, but when contextualized as I have done here, by putting them in a frame and holding them up to you, makes them objects. And again, it's not the woman with her thoughts and ideas and attitude that is objectified, just the form. And that form is art. There are no women in this praxis. Ce n'est pas une femme. So is this demeaning to women? Are you somehow offended by these pieces? Why? You don't think they qualify as art? They're not artistic enough?
Is this art?
Is this?
Is this?
Is this?
Is this?
What's the difference?
In terms of the task, Lincoln, I feel like you are trying to have it both ways. Your opening gambit states:
The greatest work of art in the history of humanity is without question the female human body.I find that every woman's body is beautiful. Truly a work of art.
You are not talking about depictions here, but about living, breathing, human bodies. The pipe, not the painting. You then bring out representations, depictions of that pipe, but the Art which the task is asking you to interact with through purchased or created replication you are stating is the female human form itself.
I take issue with the idea of calling a female human form, or The Female Human Form in the Socratic/Platonic sense, a work of art, as I believe it demeans the human inside that form. I take issue with saying a monkey is a work of art, (even a genetically engineered cyborg monkey, destined to ruin the coming ape/robot war by being the living representation of simian/cyborg union). Living things are just not art.
That said, I do leave room for things such as body modification/ body sculpting/ use of the body in works of art, but those are the self determinations of those who own those bodies to make them art. But I do not believe that an artist can make or claim another being as art without thier self determined will. Or if they can, it is highly unethical to the point, I think, of negating the value of the art.
I got what you were trying to do, Lincoln, I just disagree with it and I don't think it meets the criteria set forth.
Well, Zm:
You are completely on-point that "artificial" shares its root with "art". Technically, it comes from artifex (one who makes art). Interestingly, an artifex fingit; that is, the verb associated with the actual creation of art is fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum (to fashion/mold). This verb is also associated with the creation of lies/manipulation of the truth, and is where we get the word "fiction".
And we do "fashion" our bodies, with or without plastic surgery. The body is a constant project, shaped by our activities or lack of them, our diets, our clothing, our depilating or letting grow. We are all our own artifices.
To weigh in on the men vs. women beauty thing: beauty, as has oft been said, is in the eye of the beholder. There is a difference between the Male and Female Form, and it's ok to prefer one to the other aesthetically. I'd rather have the Venus Pudens than the David in my atrium. I don't think that denies or disparages Male beauty.
JTony, I mean the female human body as art. Not as person. As art. I mean the thing painters paint, the thing poems are written about, the thing scuptures are made for, I mean the thing that launched a thousand ships. I mean the form, not the person. Not the soul. I mean the art. Do you see the difference? Maybe you do and just don't agree, but I just feel you don't see that I mean the art. The form. If my wording is unclear or puzzling, know that I am refering to the art not the woman. I want to have my mind changed, but I think the vision is so myopic here that the point is being missed. This conversation reminds me a lot of scienceguru's first rant about ArcticZero where she was just missing the point. She was so upset with the military presence on the continent that she couldn't see the fun. I think everybody here can see that I don't mean to objectify the entire gender of woman, but rather the form. Because if you all think that by me taking a photograph of a nude woman and calling it art, that I am somehow demeaning women in general, then I just don't understand. Maybe you all need to feel heard and to show that you're all feminists and for equality and you hate women used to sell T-shirts by not wearing T-shirts or whatever this praxis has brought up in you about women being treated like objects outside of the confines of art. I don't know.
Well, whatever any of you think, I think I've made my point.
Dismissing the validity of historical and current societal implication, as well as everyone's personal experiences within that, and chalking this all up to "us all" being issue-laden, attention-seeking, and thick-headed shows a lack of understanding that is really disappointing.
Lincoln, you're an amazing tasker, but this makes me uncomfortable and honestly angry.
I don't think I am missing your point. I just don't think it's "fun."
And its not because I'm pmsing
and its not because my daddy mistreated me
and its not because Toulouse-Lautrec liked to paint panties
and its not because playboy airbrushes out labia
and its not because i don't love to look at naked female bodies
and its not because art is a long history of men holding the brush and women subject to the control and limitation of thier gaze.
Its because this task is not taking responsibility for its own representations, meanings, and power implications.
And it ignores the validity of those other factors. To pretend that this task can exist outside of them is erroneous.
And to think that you can show an collection of images about The Female Body without saying anything about women is also erroneous. Just because you think you are honoring women, does not mean that you are. Just because you don't mean to objectify them does not mean you are not doing so.
Narrowly defining beauty and The Female Body while broadly defining art and then conflating them is problematic to say the least. Can you see how if you claim to love every female body and that they're all beautiful and all art but then show only one kind of body, you're implying that all others don't count somehow? Either they're not female or they're not art or ...? If you do think more than one kind of woman is beautiful, then put your money where your mouth is and include some representations of them. If not then don't make such a statement and own up to exactly what you do mean.
I am the last person to disparage female nudity and sexuality especially as subjects of art. But the way its done makes the difference between empowering-and-lovely or violent-and-offensive. But by the reactions you are getting, your take on this obviously leaned more toward one side of the scale than the other. John Berger sums this difference up concisely and cannonically in his book Ways of Seeing. Please, please read it.
And lastly, even if this completion were not offensive, and even if it were well done to the standards we've come to expect, its relation to the original task is tenuous at best.
Lincoln,
You say that the female body is the greatest work of art in history.
1. there is nothing like "the female body", what should that be?
2. As I said before in my understanding art has to be created, not given and I know that that's the common understanding of art within capable art theory. There is the possibility to declare something as art, but then the act of declaring would be the actual artwork, the creation of an idea, a concept.
3. If you say that you objectifie the body and put it in a frame the actual work of art is not the female body, but the image of the female body, what brings me to the point, that the pictures you posted might be images of the female body and some of them could be defined as art, but defenitly not as the greatest works of art in humanity. I don't know what that should be either, but I'm sure that these don't make it to the top ten.
I don't know why you decided to do this task in that way, but for me it's just not very well done. Without any reflection and point, thats just a macho thing, nothing else.
But: I really enjoed reading all these comments !!
Hello and thanks to everyone with attitude!
Lincoln - I think you are misunderstanding me, actually. I am not complaining about any of the pieces of art you posted. I agree and accept that all of them are art. If you take a picture of a naked woman, however titillating, however pornographic, and call it art, then it is valid art. The act of an artist pointing at some THING and calling it art brings us into a new way of seeing that THING, which, by my definition makes it art. It also makes it something to be criticized, and often harshly. I don't think anyone here is saying that the items you present are not art.
But you go further. Although we all agree that the picture of the pipe (even when it says it is not a pipe) is art, you hold up the pipe itself and say that form is the art. I am saying a form cannot be the art, especially when that form is living and breathing.
We are all stuck in the Socratic cave, looking at shadows of the Platonic forms, but we can't turn around and see the real thing. And that's really what you are talking about, here, is the Platonic Form of a female body, the embodiment of all that is female beauty. I am saying that Platonic Forms are not art. The art is the process of pointing to a THING, a representation of one of those Forms. Calling the human form Art is dragging it down to a THING, and that breaks it.
If we get out of philosophy and into the "real world" and talk about the ideal of the human body as it lives and breathes, there are still problems. Idealizing the physical human body as art in and of itself, without the addition of the representation, makes the human body a THING by my definition, and that makes it no longer a Person. Making the sweeping gesture of saying all human bodies are art makes them all THINGS and makes them not People (Soylent Green is People). And we are at the same impasse.
I don't think anyone is attacking your art, Lincoln, but I do think that your definition of the human form as a work of art, which is the basis of your thesis (and which you seem to have stopped arguing from) is flawed and also does not meet the requirements of the task. I get it, Lincoln, but it doesn't fly for me.
Oh, and I resent the comparison to the early scienceguru arguments. No where here have I been insulting or demeaning toward you or your efforts, which was a defining part of sg's comments. If it stings to be criticized, I'm very sorry. My intention is not to sting. My intention is to address the praxis you've presented, and do so with respect, which I think I've done. Bringing sg's early works in was a cheap shot, and hurts.
As a woman I don't really feel the mind and the body can be separated in this way. Perhaps it's an over-active sense of empathy but I definitely feel the weight of expectation, standardization, and connotation when I see highly sexualized (and impersonal) images of women. Especially when it is repeated so many times. We are not empty vessels and to attempt to make our forms abstract is worrying because one has to wonder where it stops.
This is a really great book about the male body.
Lincoln, while I am supporting your right to appreciate women aesthetically, and in the abstract Platonic sense, I still don't think it's fair to lump all women together -- even under the same compliment. Again, would you feel comfortable making an assessment of the beauty/lack of beauty of every single member of a particular racial group? I don't see how what you're saying is any different.
That being said, I hope you don't take all this discussion too personally - it's an interesting subject, and I for one am starved for opportunities to discuss theory with intelligent people.
But enough of all this gender talk, I've got a thief to catch!!! Stay tuned...
Mr. Lincoln, I appreciate that you love women, and individual women, and the beauty of the female form. And I believe that you think that calling something "art" is a compliment.
But you are making a lot of people very upset and I think you should try to figure out why.
For one thing, the female form (which suffers every time that phrase is bandied about here) is a subject of artwork, not artwork itself. It seems that what you keep insisting is that women's bodies are "art", not the women themselves. I think that this insistence is not helping you.
Idealized bodies are a separation from real bodies. Those who modify their bodies toward some ideal often do so in order to make their body, as an object, be more appreciated. Body modification is an art in which the body is the medium, a canvas of sorts. Those who choose to do this are making a statement in one way or another, choosing to use their bodies as objects.
Bodies are obviously very personal to each of us. Our bodies are a large part of who we are. It's what we use to express ourselves, it's how we are physically seen (and sadly, how we are judged by others to a large degree), it's how we make love, how we bear children, how we fall down and hurt ourselves. It's where our personalities live.
It's fine if you choose to separate yourself from your body. But doing so for others, especially ALL WOMEN, is disrespectful. I know you don't mean any disrespect, but that's how it's coming across.
"I want to have my mind changed, but I think the vision is so myopic here that the point is being missed. This conversation reminds me a lot of scienceguru's first rant about ArcticZero where she was just missing the point. She was so upset with the military presence on the continent that she couldn't see the fun"
Oh no guys and gals, you're being myopic and you're not seeing the FUN!
Here's a question:
What do the images provided in this task say about female bodies?
:: sighs ::
They could say anything. They're open for interpretation. As is the world and everything else. But hey, if we ignore Lincoln's interpretations, we can extrapolate this task into something it's not!
I'm sorry, Lincoln. For some reason, I feel like I started this, with the use of the words 'objective' and 'beauty'. What was supposed to be near-pointless banter turned into every-one-needs-a-point-stronger-than-the-rest. This is how my family communicates, so I know how it is when something (anything) doesn't get through.
I enjoyed your task completion.
For no reason at all.
I disagree Animus:
1. Yes things are open for interperetation, but that means there are some right and wrong interperetations. I'm not saying there is A right and A wrong interperetation, but that some will definitely be wrong by the very nature that they ignore either the text, the context, or both. Some interperetations will be "righter" than others. By examining Lincoln's "text" (by which I mean both the words and images he provides in the task) we can come up with some things that they say about women's bodies, and some will be more right than others and will extend the dialog. That's what Lank is saying, I think.
2. You didn't start this. The discussion would have happened with or without you. You are not a linchpin (or a lynchpin).
3. Just because you are frustrated with what people are saying, frustrated with the criticism of something you like, doesn't mean those people are not getting it, or that folks are trying to one-up one another point wise. The people writing here, myself included, have, I think, important things to say about this praxis. If you were less interested in feeling bad for Lincoln because his praxis is being criticised, less interested in defending him, you might hear some interesting things about art, bodies, women, and representation. Same goes for Lincoln.
I love all of this discussion.
It's like fuel.
But I'm not going to respond here any more. My points have been made, and so many people are talking on so many different points, that it's difficult to respond to everybody in a thoughtful way. I'm just going to read now.
I like that Lincoln....
Except that I'd like to see some sort of response to the discussion within the praxis. For instance, if you have changed from talking about the female form as art in-and-of-itself, I'd like to see you change the praxis to show that. If the discussion calls for you to upgrade your praxis to better meet the word-and-spirit of the directions of the task and you find yourself nodding at all, then please reflect that in the praxis itself. I wouls so love to take my thoughts away from the flag button and instead put my finger firmly down on the vote button.
My points have been made
The points you think you made are not the points you actually made.
WAKA WAKA WOO WOO
SAID THE HAPPY KANGEROO
FOR HE HAD FOUND A GREAT FIELD OF GRASS
WHICH SEVERAL HOURS LATER, GAVE HIM GAS
TIRED OF GRASS HE LOOKED FOR A TASTY SHRUB
THEN HE WAS EATEN BY AN ELEPHANT CUB
You know, I shot a rabbit like you once...
And I can do it again. Meat anyone? Rabbits also make good Soylent Green
Lincoln said: "Because if you all think that by me taking a photograph of a nude woman and calling it art, that I am somehow demeaning women in general, then I just don't understand. Maybe you all need to feel heard and to show that you're all feminists and for equality and you hate women used to sell T-shirts by not wearing T-shirts or whatever this praxis has brought up in you about women being treated like objects outside of the confines of art. I don't know."
OK, up until now, it seemed as though your posts were well-meaning but coming from a lack of understanding.
But a response like this is quite offensive, more so than anything in your praxis. Bex's response to this was excellent and I don't really have anything further to add, I just wanted to make sure she was not the only one posting that she was offended by that statement.
I see that you have decided to stop posting, and just keep reading the discussion without comment. I don't think this is a bad idea. Removing from yourself the possibility of posting negative reactions might help to read the posts in a different light and consider what is being said in a new way.
The Animus said: "Julian, for the record, I was the one that brought up (and open-questioned) that "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's bodies" thing, and I just didn't have answers to it. I don't think Lincoln upholds that view, so don't hold it against him.
I was looking for some bounce-back on the subject, so I appreciate it."
While I see your point that you are the one who specifically said "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's bodies", Lincoln basically did uphold that view as well - his entire praxis can essentially be read as one giant uphold of that view, whatever his intention was. That's how it came across.
But regardless, if you are looking for bounce-back on the subject, here are some questions to think about:
-How do women benefit from the societal concept that "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's"?
-Which women benefit most from this assumption? What do their bodies look like?
-How are women harmed by this assumption?
-Which women are most harmed by this assumption? What do their bodies look like?
-How do men benefit from this concept?
-How are men harmed?
-How are the benefits and harms different for straight people vs queer people?
-How are you defining "benefit" or "harm" as they relate to the above questions?
-How is this concept upheld? What social rules enforce it?
-What are the consequences for men who find men's bodies beautiful?
-What are the consequences for women who find men's bodies beautiful?
I'M A FERRET. I'M SO COOL
I MAKE THE LADY FERRETS DROOL
EVEN THOUGH THERE'S LITTLE I CAN DO
OTHER THAM MAKE A LOT OF POOPOO
This proof has been flagged by 7 of your fellow players (for the benefit of all, flags are anonymous). As such, it has been automatically disapproved. Most likely, they've posted comments explaining why they're displeased. If you think you may be the victim of a bug, injustice, or a gang of Rubins, hit up the contact page.
How about that? Lincoln's first big red X.
1. Yes things are open for interperetation, but that means there are some right and wrong interperetations.
Wait, what?
I'm not saying there is A right and A wrong interperetation, but that some will definitely be wrong by the very nature that they ignore either the text, the context, or both.
This is iffy. How I see it, interpretations are expressed back to the task as opinions, in the form of comments. Seeing as they're opinion, and thus, subjective, I don't see how they can be right or wrong, as they were formed from the praxis' existence, thus not ignorant of the text.
And then we hit that 'context' word.
Let's go back to things are open for interpretation. We agree, awesome. So this context -- it's a thing. It exists in some form or another, even if only in our minds. It's, then, also open for interpretation.
A similar yet completely different comparison to why we need to interpret context is as follows.
Two people walk into a bar. One orders a burger. The other says "How could you!?"
Now, one could infer that part of that burger was once a cow. That inference has context! Yay! One could interpret that the cow has served a greater purpose than its own by sustaining the life of another. For those of you skimming, that's the interpretation of the person that ordered the burger. Another interpretation could be that the cow deserved to live its life to the fullest, and that being turned into a burger is not a method to do so.
Now, is any one able to say either of these are correct? No. Why? Because even if cows could talk, they too would be spewing opinions. I'm gonna be bold and say
There's nothing objective about context
without thinking through every possibility. So forgive me if you find a problem with that.
2. You didn't start this.
It's good to know. I'm not taking responsibility for this mess (::grins::). It was just a feeling. Moreover, I feel that what I said in the beginning was unrefined and opened up a lot of negativity and that I (or my topic) should've been the subject of all this criticism, not the task itself. After all, he did complete it.
What I should've said:
SF0 IS ABOUT BEING RIGHT.
FLAG.
FAIL.
So, depending on your perspective of flagging and opinion of what a good task is, this discourse we're having wouldn't have to render consequences for it.
3. Just because you are frustrated with what people are saying, frustrated with the criticism of something you like, doesn't mean those people are not getting it, or that folks are trying to one-up one another point wise. The people writing here, myself included, have, I think, important things to say about this praxis.
Hmm.... This praxis, or a subject that was brought in by a particular interpretation of the possible context of this praxis?
Also, it was more of an apology to every one. I'm not trying to get people to shut up by any means (this is fun). And I agree, there's lots of people with important things to say. I don't feel frustrated at all, however a lot of people do, and so this apology can be interpreted as a way of saying : nothing personal. All these comments aren't in defense of Lincoln (in fact -- we disagree. His eye for beauty is way more generous than mine. But I've accepted that, and don't hold it against him as a character, nor this task. Just putting that out there.), nor are they spawned from my appreciation of this task or the subject matter. I initially wrote to express my opinions, like we all are doing here.
Plus, cocks are ugly.
After the conversation picked up, I realized that a lot of these opinions about the conversation itself seemed to be interfering with their opinions about the praxis. "What, we're not allowed to infer context, now?" -- of course you are, so now, an exaggerated recap of how it went wrong.
"LINCOLN! YOU WOMANIZING ASSHOLE! HOW DARE YOU SAY YOU APPRECIATE WOMENS BODIES!"
A not-so-exaggerated example:
Just because you think you are honoring women, does not mean that you are. Just because you don't mean to objectify them does not mean you are not doing so.
See that, right there? That's taking this context you infer (it's yours, now!), and placing it on the praxis (not yours!). To me, that's logical fallacy. But what do I know? So, just remember, that's my opinion.
If you were less interested in feeling bad for Lincoln because his praxis is being criticised, less interested in defending him, you might hear some interesting things about art, bodies, women, and representation. Same goes for Lincoln.
I've been on the internet long enough to know that this = flame-bait. Moving on.
While I see your point that you are the one who specifically said "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's bodies", Lincoln basically did uphold that view as well - his entire praxis can essentially be read as one giant uphold of that view, whatever his intention was. That's how it came across.
Can. See that word in there?Can. It can be read. Not "It reads out like" or "the one way to view this task is". The only thing that quote needs is a 'to me' at the end. Of course, that's just my opinion.
Now, to the fun little questionnaire!
-
How do women benefit from the societal concept that "women's bodies are more beautiful than men's"?
I'm not sure. I'm not a woman, and as I said before, I've always felt like I upheld this view because my ego or other personification of my sex drive or subconscious or whatever it was that made that decision did so to avoid the opposite, or any of the alternatives. When I look at a male body, especially naked, I think "What is he capable of (physically)? How many of him would it take to build my fortress of doom?" and after some interpretations of their facial expressions, if any, I realize that this choice of mine has inhibited me from looking at the beauty of male bodies. Instead it becomes a matter of function to me. I question this particular instance of perspective of a lot, especially in discussions like these. I question it, but I don't get any answers. I then come to the conclusion that I'm a dumbass, and that changing what I like will only make me more politically correct, not any happier. So, by asking for feedback, I was really making sure I'm not missing anything.
-Which women benefit most from this assumption? What do their bodies look like?
Woah! It looks like I didn't answer your first question at all. Perhaps I'm saying it doesn't need to be answered. The general argument that the 'ideal image' of a woman in society's terms can be distorted, unrealistic, unattainable, disgusting -- I can agree with. Or, even if I disagree, it'd be by coincidence rather than supporting society. Us vs Them mentality is never a good thing, and just makes flame-bait (see above).
-How are women harmed by this assumption?
Though to be honest, I don't think any women are directly harmed by societal choices. Some girls strive to be something they're not, and some of those destroy themselves over it. Should we point the finger at society or the girl that actually did the destruction? Ethical issues aren't my thing, to be honest.
-Which women are most harmed by this assumption? What do their bodies look like?
For the record, an assumption is the proposition of a fact. I don't know if the term 'proposition' covers opinions as well. Because my opinion, that women's bodies are more beautiful than men's, isn't a fact, by any means. And the correlation that I drew, that society holds that same opinion, isn't fact, either.
"That means you made a generalization! That's logical fallacy!"
I know. I apologize. Then again, a lot of people made the same mistake here.
-How do men benefit from this concept?
And I know you're probably pissed already for me dodging all these questions, but I think for me to answer these, I would need to know the 'why'. As in, Why does society like boobs so much? I don't know that, and there are lots of theories out there I can pick, but it's just like religion -- I just can't. There's no substance in lottery.
"Do NOT bring religion into this!"
Good call.
-How are men harmed?
We're like, called idiots, and like, mean, and stuff.
-How are the benefits and harms different for straight people vs queer people?
This one sounds like it would be worth answering. But you're asking me to define consequences for personal choices, and I'm of the opinion that the choices should define the consequences. And also, if we're looking into sexuality this much, I might as well point out that even people that, for example, love boobs, don't love 'society's perfect image' of boobs. There's big ones, small ones, some the size of your head! And they're all adored in their respective fashions, by people that choose what they like. I can't make an account for the pros and cons of each of these individual choices, so again, I can't answer your question. After all, being straight is a choice, right? Kinda like a transitive opinion.
-How are you defining "benefit" or "harm" as they relate to the above questions?
Not Applicable. Sorry. But I commend you, for this would be a good question to ask.
-How is this concept upheld? What social rules enforce it?Call me socially inept, and I'm sure they're out there (zomg fuck teh medya!), but I'm of the opinion that these social rules can be ignored, bent or broken. Yes, America is losing its liberties one by one (another opinion), but as human beings, we have the ability to choose what we do, say, and (if you'll believe it) think. Of course, that's not verified (zomg, determinism), but it's a thought.
-What are the consequences for men who find men's bodies beautiful?
They get flagged to death and sent to Hell0?
-What are the consequences for women who find men's bodies beautiful?
:: shrugs :: Could be anything.
I just want express my opinion that these questions were very bold, in that they suggested many straw men and coerced the answers. Let me also reiterate that if I answered these questions not giving a rat's ass about logic, I would've come to the answers you wanted me to: Society is a womanizer, men can't think men are beautiful without being ostracized, and so on. However, if it was your intention to change my view on beauty, I want to apologize for wasting your time. If it was your intention to make sure I wasn't ignoring your interpretation of context, then you did an admirable job.
So, incase you just tl;dr'd, I want to point out that every one has their opinions. They're a bit disorganized here, but they're for the most part educated, and agreeable.
I did not read one fucking comment saying "Let's demean women! Yeah, go men!". I think we all agree that society is a hideous tool. I'm of the opinion we've all seen its effects and disagree with many of them. Now, that being said.
Is one entitled to their own vision of beauty? Is one entitled to thei