Well, let's see if this works ... 
IrritatedThis is coming in on the back end of the discussion, but one comment struck me: the notion that an artwork is porn if - and only if - it's intended to elicit a sexual response. Now let's leave aside the absurdity that we’re psychic and somehow "know" an artist's intent. I have a premise to suggest, a question to ask and an observation to make.
The premise is this: that the purpose of "art" is to elicit an emotional response. Can we agree upon that? Whether a feeling of contentment or delight upon seeing beauty, of unease upon seeing something stark or grim, of approval upon seeing technical excellence, of revulsion or fear upon seeing horror, the failure to provoke an emotional reaction from the viewer means the artist has failed. There is nothing in the message, and therefore no message.
The question is this: would someone tell me why - uniquely - sexuality is the one human emotion exempted? We can feel pleasure in the iconic "The Kiss" by Alfred Eisenstaedt, we can realize the horrors of war in the famous photographs of Nick Ut, Robert Capa and Matthew Brady, we can see the despair leaching from the work of Jacob Riis. What makes these right - makes these art - but when the emotion felt is desire, suddenly that's out of bounds? I don't understand that.
Now the detractors usually work by a couple tacit assumptions. The first is that a dividing line between art and porn is the technical skill of the photographer: that an out of focus shot, or one made by a phone cam, is somehow not "artistic" thereby. But that's a crock, and moreover I doubt most of them would care to be held by the same standard. The deviations of one poster to this discussion, for instance, are - in my own opinion, mind - amateurish cartoons bettered by many a junior high school student ... is that poster "not an artist" because the work falls short of the standards of a pro? Do we debar any photo not executed by a full-time photographer using thousands of dollars of expensive equipment and extensive post-production retouching? Of course we don't. Come to that, how many famous artists were reviled in their own lifetimes - the Cezannes, Gaugins, Van Goghs and Pollocks of the world - as talentless dabblers?
The second assumption's even sillier: that "art" is somehow dependent on what body parts aren’t shown. Over and over, we see comments along the lines of, well, I got nuttin' against nudes, but when the photo's full frontal (or a penis, or showing pudenda, or parted legs), now that's smut. This I've never understood. A backside is a body part. A bared female breast is a body part. Most public places you get arrested for flashing them bare. What makes breasts less "pornographic" than genitalia?
Shall I join in the speculation? It’s because a lot of folks out there are puritans. Open sexuality bugs the hell out of them ... that is, any display beyond which they’d feel comfortable doing themselves; I've long believed, by way of example, that the unspoken definition of "slut" is "a woman who's slept with two more people than I did myself at her age."
Alright, so noted. But that's not a statement of principle. It's a statement of Idon'tLikeIt. Well, so what? Hell, I don't like Pollock's work, come to that: I think he was a vastly overrated hack. Quite a few art galleries and art historians would, of course, disagree with me, and I'm not quite egotistical enough to imagine that whether or not Jackson Pollock was really an artist depends on my approval.
Perhaps some other folks on dA could rein their egos in as well.
Winter Downs
Tired
