Ok, bear with me for a moment. This is a bit difficult to explain.
OK, I'm returning to the OP on this cos I got quite tedious about this with Aussie first time round, and it's still a good question.
So bear with, Aussie, if you will: Take Two —
There are times when we view our works as purely innocent, while others view them as wrong or even sinful.
It's all in the eye of the beholder, innit?
If the intention of the photographer is to slake the salacious appetite then yes, the intention is porn and it is porn, regardless of any other merit.
Are Pirelli Calendars porn? Yes, in that sense they are. Not shock, full-on dick-in-mouth or whatever, but WTF has naked women to do with tyre technology? And why always beautiful women, never not-so-beautiful ... so it's just woman as eye candy, woman as sex object ...
Our attitudes to women, and young women especially, as vehicles of men's sexual fantasies are a lot more fine tuned today, as women begin to recover the grounds of the debate, after not being allowed or even assumed to have a valid opinion. Yet the fact is that stuff like
Game of Thrones has a lot of boobs flying around for no real reason, other than — if you'll excuse the pun — titillation. Cut those scenes and the show would lose nothing thematically or dramatically.
But ... this is from me, and we have Robert Mapplethorpe pictures on the walls, which a lot of people would claim to be pornography.
So ...
... Especially if it involves a young lady in a state of undress ... I'm talking something along the lines of an open blouse or a raised skirt. Still, there are those who will automatically view it as such.
Yes there are.
When I was as art college, I was doing an album cover as a photography project. It was
Symphonie Fantastique or something equally airy-fairy. So I wanted a combined image, a women's head in the clouds. Solution: Shoot clouds, shoot woman's head. Luckily found the clouds. Girlfriend agreed to headshot. We're using 10x8 cameras. To get head and shoulders, ideally girl removes blouse, bra-straps, etc. Photog lecturer agrees to close studio, so just me, him and girlfriend. She's happy to do it. We're both happy that the tutor is not a dirty old man.
Course Tutor and Head of Dept got wind — result: A definite no-no. Scandalous.
+++
Sometimes there is good reason to question whether the 'view as pornography' is because of what's in the mind of the viewer, rather than what's in the view. I think is the nub of this discussion.
On a broader note, there are those who take 'art studies' to supply the addiction of the pornographically inclined, and then you can say, that's porn, regardless of the framing, technical virtuosity, blah blah blah. Some might argue (I doubt it) Playboy as Art, but it would be hard to defend Hugh Hefner against the accusation of sex for money ...
But this is it — I've dumped the Hamilton book because, as good as they are, I don't think the shots are enduring art pieces. There were a lot of very good togs shooting a lot of the same stuff at the time. But I'll keep the Mapplethorpe pics.
On my bookshelves I've got (somewhere)
Lady Chatterley's Lover. Porn in its day. Social comment now. Bought it because of its history. Browsed it, but never read it. I've got
Last Exit to Brooklyn, and an imprint of 25 titles published under the 'Banned' heading, although many are widely acceptable now:
All's Quiet On The Western Front, Slaughterhouse Five, Fahrenheit 451 — the latter the author things grossly misunderstood, it's not about oppressive government, it's about rampant mindless consumerism.
So, my answer is, it depends on the intent.
Now we get into a discussion of the Female Form as Art — and in the History of Art it unquestionably is —
BUT is that because the
accepted view, the
normal view, the
informed and scholarly view, is the Male View?.
That is, old chum, a whole other ballgame.
