A few posts down, I wrote a piece about Stanley Kubrick, which was illustrated with a famous shot (parodied on The Simpsons) of a actress named Virginia Wetherell. The mere sight of her unclad nipples caused a feminist nutcase to go nuclear. Said nutcase, adopting a variety of personas, inundated the Confluence with messages claiming that Cannon is the greatest monster since Godzilla.
Sisters! We will no longer be exploited by the patriarchy! Our bodies belong to us! Yada yada. You know the drill.
Well, I like and admire the folks at the Confluence, but their site has nothing to do with mine. What astounds me is that the mere sight of breasts can cause outbreaks of psychosis. Our culture is awash in imagery of gore, vomit and excrement -- but nipples are still considered pornographic. Can you explain that situation to me?
At any rate, I've always scoffed at psychos who use feminist cant as an excuse for foisting their own puritanism and/or personal insecurities on the rest of society. As an artist, I've had to deal with that nonsense incessantly, and I'm sick of bluenoses using politics as an excuse to tell me what to paint.
Many feminists despise the voluptuous lovelies in Frazetta's art, yet men who don't look like Michelangelo's musclemen never resent his David.
"But that's different!" No it isn't.
"Women in this society have low self-esteem because the patriarchy teaches girls that they are judged by their appearance..." Save it. Heard it before. First heard it around the time Clockwork Orange came out. You have nothing new to say. If you scratched your skull until it bled, you still couldn't think of a fresh way to word the Ancient Lecture.
Fuck all variants of the Standard Self-Esteem Diatribe. Every person (male or female) who blathers on about "self-esteem" is pathetic and neurotic. You want self-esteem? Accomplish something. Don't just bitch at others. Don't try to force the rest of society to say and do only those things which make you feel good about yourself. Go out into the world and actually do something. Do you think Joan of Arc or Florence Nightingale or Mary Cassatt would have given a damn about some semi-obscure '70s starlet's nipples?
Fuck puritanism when it wears a feminist disguise. Every feminist who goes into rant mode at the sight of a painting featuring a pretty young woman is really saying this: "Why do men want to fuck her? Why don't they want to fuck meeeeeee?" No sane person would want to buy a painting featuring a nude Joseph Cannon. And guess what? I don't give a damn. I know how to make a good painting, and that's enough to make me feel terrific. If you feel so bad about your looks that you go into paroxysms of insecurity every time you catch sight of someone lucky enough to be more sexually attractive than you are, see a shrink.
24 comments:
You know what's worse than a male chauvinist pig like yourself? A woman who won't do what's she's told. Sorry, not a very good joke but it's late. Here's a better one:
How many Freudians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two, one to screw in the light bulb and one to hold the penis ... I mean ladder.
The taboo against showing women's breasts in public originates from the same place as the burkha. The message is identical - there is something sinful and bad about the female form.
Kinda strange message from a feminist.
A while back I took the position that pornography was a bad thing and women should be discouraged from participating in it. This really angered some feminists who told me that women are free to make that choice and that I was wrong (and a sexist pig) for saying otherwise.
So then I suggested that if women were free to pose naked for men's magazines then I should be free to look at the pictures in those magazines.
As you might guess, they didn't care much for that argument either.
Mercy....
Someone really yanked your chain this time!
“Our culture is awash in imagery of gore, vomit and excrement -- but nipples are still considered pornographic. Can you explain that situation to me?”
In a word, No, I cannot explain that. It is not rational.
“The taboo against showing women's breasts in public originates from the same place as the burkha. The message is identical - there is something sinful and bad about the female form.”
myiq2xu – True. And that is why women have to be beaten into submission whether it is the Mid-eastern physical beating and stoning, etc.,or the American kinder and gentler version of sharia where we just berate and treat strong women badly like what happened to Hillary in the primary.
I think we can all agree on nipples.
But there is something about the objectification of people (and of women's looks, as a particular variant) that is entirely accurate.
Societal standards of beauty make many very attractive women quite insecure, to the point of harming their health and sometimes, dying as a result. All to reach out for mythical unattainable evanescent perfection.
Remind me, how many women in this society go for breast enhancement?
XI
"So then I suggested that if women were free to pose naked for men's magazines then I should be free to look at the pictures in those magazines."
I don't see anything wrong with that statement. I think women (and men) should be able to work in porno if they want, and I think women (and men) should be able to buy, look at, and enjoy porno. I think the same about any kind of sex work (excluding animals and children, of course).
There's a lot of puritanism and a strong element of classism in the feminist debate over porno/sex work. As one woman put it, "I never had a poor woman ask me why I worked in porn." Then there are women (and men) who genuinely enjoy this kind of work and wouldn't do a "straight" job even if it paid the same. Or wonder why it's considered "degrading" to work in porno but not to work in a soul-sucking job at low pay and a boss who screams at you. I think most feminists who talk about it have never actually talked to women who do this kind of work and don't have the first clue why they do it or how they feel about it.
I must say, when I saw the nipples I thought they would be very good ones for breast feeding. OK, my point is we all see things from our perspective and respectively so.
I don't think that women that complain necessarly are saying what Josepi there said; 'Why blank, meee'. I for one, wouldn't have a cup of tea with some men, and am not looking to get etc, etc... OK, I am a granny, ;-).
So, if anyone complains again, we will threaten to post a sketch by Josepi of myiq2xu's nipples or mine...and y'all will have to guess who's breasts you are looking at (just nipples). Of course that is if Josepi there survives the sitting/sketching session, but being that he is a professional I think he just might. ;-)
WV
A while back I read a article on the different reactions of the audience to a male review where the women were cheering, laughing and clapping as compared to men intently watching a stripper, not a sound to be heard. There is something there but I'm not sure what.
"...I've always scoffed at psychos who use feminist cant as an excuse for foisting their own puritanism and/or personal insecurities on the rest of society.
...Fuck puritanism when it wears a feminist disguise."
Thank God for guys like you, Joseph, who go boldly where angels fear to tread. puritanism began strangling the shit out of feminism in the 60's and never let up. In the 60's in college I researched the suffrage movement at the turn of the last century where it took a different form because of the association with the temperance movement, but was part and parcel of the attitudes of the day. Sadly, things change soooooo slowly. All I can say is thank God for guys like you who yank us back into the real world.
It's the exploitation of female children that is at the root of feminist antagonism towards porn. Every study ever done finds that the bulk of women who work in the sex industry were sexually abused as children. Of course, feminists are going to object to any industry that springs out of that exploitation.
Porn objectifies women and that has ramifications through out women's lives - the men they love trying to push them in to something they don't want to do, harassment on campuses and lastly, and least, the impact on self-esteem.
I once had a girlfriend who was gorgeous and had her PhD in some science from Cornell. This was the eighties and she was out interviewing. She had this amazing hair - long, thick, shining and wavy. Just beautiful. She'd always tuck it up for job interviews. And because she was working in science,all of the interviews were with men. She was amazed at the number of times she was asked ON A JOB INTERVIEW to take her hair down. Also, they were always asking her if she lived with a boyfriend. Those men couldn't see past her appearance. Now she wasn't doing anything outrageous. She just happened to be a drop dead pretty girl with or without make up, with great hair and a beautiful, 20-something body. Men don't experience that crap.
All of that stuff plays into the feminist opposition to porn. To pretend that it is simply jealousy and prudishness is to not acknowledge the high cost that sexual exploitation costs women.
And I have never known of a woman objecting to a nude photo of another woman wondering why men don't want to fuck her. Women simply do not do the math like that. Men want to fuck us - regardless of what we look like. We aren't interested, that is, unless we are. And if wants to fuck some other woman - great, let her deal with the risk of pregnancy.
You need to spend some time with some actual feminists as opposed to hysterics. I think you would find that you really don't have the issues with feminism that you think you do.
I second Lori's take on porn, especially on the children aspect. Also, I may be jealous but I don't resent or hate gorgeous women...and beauty is not always a factor in men's rutting instinct. Sarah Jessica Parker (heaven help us) is proof positive that men don't really care what a woman looks like. Women know this. I grew up hearing my mom tell me that "all cats are gray in the dark" so I never had trouble believing I could attract a man.
Possibly off-topic, but I was sorry to see Joseph leave a feminist site I adore, even tho I was guilty of teasing him a little. People there who didn't know his full views definitely lit into him. I don't get what's fueling his venom and/or passion on this topic, but I do know his perspective is interesting and deserves a give and take. And I agree with him on the politics of nipples. Power to the nipple! Down with puritans!
Jesus, lori. You go from one of Kubrick's most famous low-angle shots to a discussion of porn (about which I know a lot more than you do -- and no, not for the reason you think). The fact that this progression seems logical to you...
...well, you DID use the word "hysterics"...
You know, I never understood why so many feminists despise the Catholic church. They both prioritize manipulating men by making them feel guilty over getting hard-ons.
"Societal standards of beauty make many very attractive women quite insecure..."
More acurately (I think): "Societal standards of beauty make many very insecure women feel quite unattractive."
That's damned right, jackyt. It's time women everywhere understood: Your insecurities about your looks are YOUR problem. You can't blame society. You can't expect everyone around you to do and say things to make you feel better about yourself. That's not how the world works. Get a therapist and work on your own issues. And stop making men feel guilty for their hard-ons.
It's not the hard-ons, Joseph, it what men DO with the hard-ons that's a problem. That we live in a rape culture, where men feel entitled to do what they want to women's bodies, cannot be denied.
Does pornography feed the rape culture? I don't know, but I know many feminists think that it does. I do think certain types of porn appeals to rapists, but that's not the fault of pornography makers.
What bullshit, Aeryl. We weren't talking about porn, and certainly not child porn, as lori presumed. Again: The fact that this progression seems logical to you is the quintessence of hysteria.
Pretty much the entire point of feminism these days is to make men feel guilty about getting erections. That's the sum of it. And many young women are alienated by feminists because many young women LIKE dick, and they see it as not just cheap and manipulative but also counter-productive to try to turn men into subservient guilt-ridden quivering docile subby-boys.
Sorry to be crude, but you know I'm right.
I like dick just fine, thank you very much. (I'm barely 30 btw, have been a loud and proud feminist since my teen years, I can't imagine who these women are you say are "turned off" by feminism. My feminism led me to my current appreciation of dick)
Dick of MY choosing. (There's that darn feminism again!)
Unfortunately, men, generally speaking, don't understand that(even men who don't rape don't mind the bonus points they get for not being rapists). That's why 1 in 4 women are rape survivors. And those millions of women weren't raped by the same hundred men. There are millions of rape survivors, and there are a fewer million rape perpetrators.
I don't think porn causes that, but I can understand women who do. And I can see how treating women's bodies as a commodity has contributed to the rape culture.
I'm not saying that such pictures that you have posted are porn, and agree with you that anyone who calls such postings "porn" is full of it.
But at the same time, you seem all to eager to discount the true cost of the commodification of women's bodies as public property. And trying to make all about your boners, instead of the trauma women suffer.
Which makes you an asshole. Sorry to be so crude, but you know I'm right :D
My personal feelings on nudity is that the more we see, the less we care. And I totally agree that our society's concern over the alleged corruption that sex causes, over the very real damage that our accceptance of casual violence causes, reveals a truly fucked up set of values. I'm a sex positive feminist who supports sex workers rights, including the right to do sex work legally.
I also totally object the idea that seems really prevalent here that sex workers are somehow "broken" and "damaged" people. That's truly fucked up coming from the mouths of a feminist, considering it denies sex workers agency, something that most feminists get a mite but pissed about when done to other women, but I guess sex workers who have agency are agents of the patriarchy or something, and hence the enemy.
The truth is, people have been looking at pictures for sexual arousal since the 1st cave paintings, and it ain't going anywhere, anytime soon. The line between pornography and art is truly in the eye of the beholder.
The problem has never been the images people look at, it's the concepts that people walk away from those images with, that they feel the need to impose upon reality, whether it be unrealistic and highly unattainable beauty standards, to an outright disregard for consent.
Aerly (sp),
You make some very good points. I must confess, the statues in my home are nude, but most artistic and represent the love of two people, the others are of a woman, naked in her emotions (also naked, viewed from the back, with maybe a hint of her breast visible, while she looks out into her future, the other is of a woman saddened by a loss and in interspection mourning the loss.
The naked couple in love was a present for a soon forgotten marriage and was representative perhaps of years past, when you realish the love aspect of your love.
I do recall as a child seeing the calendars with the half nude women at the auto shops and feeling weird. Today it is very clear that it would be creating a hostile environment and wouldn't be acceptable.
I must confess to Josepi, that as much as I find him most intertaining and provacative (thought that is...by his insights), I got lost in the 'D@ck and H@rd on' bit. The photo he posted I thought was rather artistic, (being a bit of an artist myself in my youth) and to me, didn't seem sexualized.
Maybe Josepi might know of which statue I am trying to recall, the Roman one of a woman carrying a jug of water, with half of breast exposed. That is truly a beautiful statue and to me relates the aspect of honoring the beautiful aspects of being a woman, the woman of the home, but also the woman as a love (loving, being a lover in its natural sense).
OK, enough from the granny section.
WV
Well, the hysterical objection to nude imagery is usually that it's porn. I'm simply saying that the feminist objection to porn is rooted in the number of women who work in the sex industry who were abused as children.
There is literally nothing hysterical there. I don't regard the shot as pornographic. Heck, I did a production of The Bacchae where I got naked on stage with 30 other women and staged an orgy. The footage is on Brad's website, if you want to see it. Nudity doesn't bother me.
Being a filmmaker in the SFV, I have known a lot of people in porn. Some of them are really fucked up narcissistic assholes. A lot of them are unbelievably fragile. And some of them are having fun.
Lori, for the record, I read your comment on porn as part of the discussion in these comments. It never struck me as a reaction to the original Kubrick image.
I've had my own run-in with the nipple police. I wrote a performance piece in reaction to Ashcroft's draping of the bare-breasted Spirit of Justice statue, and was going to perform it in Boston, when one of the WIMPS involved ask the venue if I were allowed to bare a breast. Of course they nixed it, on that very night. I was irate. I said, I will run down to 7-11 this minute and buy a damned band-aid to put over my nipple, but they still nixed it. I didn't speak to the wimp who put the kabosh on our piece for years after that.
http://www.sai.msu.su/cjackson/delacroi/delacroix5.jpg
Liberty leading the people
another famous case of nipple invasion
leloup/France,
Oh, yes, the female figure and especially her breasts are a sign of survival,sustenance,perseverance, the will to live and love.
Viva la mamelle ;-)
WV
"Every feminist who goes into rant mode at the sight of a painting featuring a pretty young woman is really saying this: 'Why do men want to fuck her? Why don't they want to fuck meeeeeee?'"
Joe, this has to be one of the dumbest things you've written. Are you really under the impression that feminists are driven by a need to attract Joe Cannon? Do you really believe that a woman's self worth is based on how you rate her fuckability?
Most woman grow up in a world similar to mine, with men and boys trying to get into their pants since prepubescence. Most men will screw anything. Trust me, a large percentage of women don't care whether Joe Cannon thinks we're hot. As a 51-year old grandma, I wish guys would stop checking me out. I'm not flattered. At my age, it just pisses me off (even more than the cat calls pissed me off when I was younger).
And comparing Frazetta to Michelangelo is the second dumbest thing you've ever written. Geez, does the topic of women's breasts really make your brain go soft?
FWIW, Clockwork Orange was one of my favorite movies. I'm not a movie buff but I've seen it several times (though the rape scenes are difficult to sit through). I think it's probably one of the best film adaptations of a great book. (Usually it's the other way around, bad books make great movies.) And the funniest thing is that I don't even remember the scene you chose to illustrate your post. My favorite sex scene is when Alex takes home the two girls he meets in the record store. (It's right up there with the sex scene in My Own Private Idaho.)
My point being that many women could care less about other women's breasts. And we would like to be acknowledged as consumers. Either give us equal time with male nudity or leave the nudity out. Adding male nudity to film should not interfere with any artistic statements. If anything, it should enhance them. But the truth, which you fail to accept, is that most male consumers don't want male nudity. (And most male actors don't want to reveal their shortcomings.) Witness the uproar over Dr. Manhattan's big blue penis… and it wasn't even real.
~gxm17
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