Pornography, Erotica, or ... Obscene?

Explicit nudity and sexuality have been a part of art, literature and human culture for as long as mankind has had art, literature and culture. One if the remarkable (?) things about very earl cave paintings is that along with stylized images of the hunt and animals are a HUGE wealth of very basic, very crude sexual imagery. Most of the earliest statuary that survives is of fertility symbols, often pregnant women with legs splayed wide open, proudly displaying their vaginas.

I chose the images I did to start this entry for a reason. David is perhaps the most sublime example of the reproduced human male form in history. Michelangelo is responsible for some of Mankind's finest works of art, and few, if any, rival David in form, substance, or life and soul. The Kama Sutra, on the other hand, is an ancient celebration of the joy of sex. Compiled hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, it represents wisdom and knowledge that is centuries older than that even, combining an obvious desire to teach with a clear intention to arose the senses of the lovers who looked at the images.

Its clear that we accept nudity and even hardcore sexuality as artistic parts of our lives. No rational person would call for the banning of David, or expect Venus de Milo to put on a shirt. No sane person today calls for the censorship of Kama Sutra as obscene pornography, despite the clear explicitness.

So where do we draw the line, in the real world, on the ground? There are legal places where we've made clear stands ... Underage porn, or bestiality are swiftly dealt with by the criminal code most places in the world. Other areas of consensual contact between adults are less clear, however, and one wonders where you draw the line of obscenity with two (or more, for that matter) consenting adults.
An image like the one of Cameron on the left here isn't too far off a lot of the ancient fertility statues found. There are MANY people who find such an image obscene, or question the value of it, and others who might see art, or pleasure, or excitement in it.

What is it that prompts our call of much of the 'pornography industry?' (notice we even use a name that suggests obscenity, rather than something like the erotica industry that might suggest more artistic ideals) What makes us call some things obscene, but not others? Does your decision on whether Cameron's picture above is obscene rest partly on whether she is your daughter, or sister, or niece?

For me, the human body is one of the most beautiful artistic creations in nature. The shapes, the textures, the colours, the lines ... Every inch of well formed male muscle, or milky white female beauty, is a natural work of art. And when humans come together for consensual sexual pleasure, the art is truly breathtaking at times. Beyond the enjoyment of sex, and the recording of humans at pleasure, exploring each other in intimate ways, sex is also the very continuation of the species. It is invested with huge amounts of meaning and beauty simply due to its place as the way we will still be here in 500 years, likely having debates about obscenity and sexuality.

There is obscenity out there. I'm not sure if I'm any more qualified than anyone else to point at it, but for me its anything that the beauty, and the humanness of the people involved. Sex and nudity is the supremely human thing, two of the ONLY things you share with everyone else on the planet. I, for one, am very cautious about attempts to regulate sexual speech and imagery, and worry when people talk about 'pornography' as a wholly negative, exploitive, obscene thing.

I think we need to move forward with more open views of sexuality, and more explicit porn that, like the Kama Sutra, highlights the joy and sublime pleasure of sexual contact. Our sexuality is a divine gift, one we are expected to enjoy. There's nothing wrong with enjoying it in pictures.