[quantified]

I'll get downvoted massively, but porn is by definition art (meant to be viewed and evoke reactions, just as advertising art is), and has been some of the most important creative outputs for as almost as long as humans have been creating art.

[UncleEntity]

> meant to be viewed and evoke reactions, just as advertising art is

And when they mix the two things get interesting. Having topless women selling (cow’s) milk was a very strange experience as a “prudish” American.

[Jach]

Sometimes I think a single change that would have an outsized improvement on American culture would be to make the mandatory high school art class include a week of sketch-drawing naked models, as actual artists do, both male and female.

[quantified]

Try modelling for art classes.

[throw_m239339]

> And when they mix the two things get interesting. Having topless women selling (cow’s) milk was a very strange experience as a “prudish” American.

Yes, and the guy who took these "porno chic" pictures was outed as a creep and harasser.

[llanowarelves]

It isn't art. But neither is decoration, nor craft.

Things can be "artistic" or contain art within them, but it doesn't make them art.

I don't buy that something done/created for the purpose of being viewed and evoking (even strong or many) reactions is enough of a criteria.

Otherwise things from trolling to 9/11 are "performance art" (an already barely hanging-on category), the latter of which was very "successful" at meeting this minimal set of rules.

[quantified]

So you know art when you see it, and there is no intersection between porn and art? Your definition is the generally and legally accepted definition? Is David art? The Rape of the Sabines?

The corpus is of art, not Art.

[throw_m239339]

> but porn is by definition art

No, that's why it's called pornography, very much to differentiate it from something "noble" like art, it's vulgar and trivial, by the very definition of the word it isn't art.

[quantified]

Etymology is "writing about prostitutes" [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography]. So you got me there. In the realm of visual depictions, it's just as much art as cave art. Art is a broad classifier. Still lifes are art. Landscapes are art. Audubon's drawings of birds are art. Porn is film, photography and drawing, with a specific subject matter. If Iron Man comics are art, it is too.

"Noble" is nowhere in any working definition of art. Some academic snob might use it with their in-crowd. Damien Hirsch's shark parts is considered art.

[throw_m239339]

> Art is a broad classifier.

"everything I say is art is art", you basically. Well anything I say isn't art isn't art. Especially pornography in general, which sole purpose is sexual gratification of the audience through sexual exploitation, rape via human trafficking.

There is nothing snob is saying that. There something egregious and dehumanizing in saying what you say on the other hand and trying to normalize the very definition of vulgarity.

[claudiawerner]

>which sole purpose is sexual gratification

Not necessarily; plenty of pornography contains serious artistic contents and merit beyond the simple aim of sexual gratification, and they raise interesting questions on their own. This is why some have attempted to make another classifier of 'erotica', which IMO isn't needed.

>through sexual exploitation, rape via human trafficking.

Even if this were true for all porn (and it isn't), that dosen't make it any less art; it may make it 'lesser art' from a moralist perspecitve on the value of art, but this by no means of widely accepted relevance to aesthetic value nor to the property of being 'art'.

>the very definition of vulgarity.

A rude gesture or crass words seems vulgar. A video of a penis being sucked doesn't. "Vulgar" is the sort of word you might hear a shrill, paternal sitcom character use to describe a minor inconvenience or faux pas, and it's just as hilarious when people use it as an argument in real life.

[throw_m239339]

> A rude gesture or crass words seems vulgar. A video of a penis being sucked doesn't. "Vulgar" is the sort of word you might hear a shrill, paternal sitcom character use to describe a minor inconvenience or faux pas, and it's just as hilarious when people use it as an argument in real life.

In the mean time you can spare people gratuitous, graphic descriptions of explicit sex acts, AKA pornography, and keep your depraved fantasies for yourself.

[claudiawerner]

"gratuitous, graphic descriptions of explicit sex acts,"

If you think a blowjob being described in seven words to make a point about vulgarity is 'gratuitous', 'graphic', or 'explicit', your moral compass is severely out of whack.

[quantified]

My fantasies aren't depraved in any way, but they are well-represented in pornography.

[quantified]

Hmmm. Define art for us then? I don't see your views reflected in [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art] for example.

Only some people define porn as degrading and rape-ful. Galleries are full of paintings of slaughter, is art about snuffing out life? Is all erotica porn? Where do you draw that line?

You sound anti-sex in dismissing sexual stimulation as non-artistic. I could stimulate rage and sadness in you with a painting of two girls stabbing a kitten in the eyes, why is that painting less art than a painting of two women making love to each other? Sex is a good thing, even outside of marriage imho.

[throw_m239339]

> You sound anti-sex in dismissing sexual stimulation as non-artistic.

Pornography isn't sex, it's a gross caricature of sex, usually shot from the perspective of male subjects involving the degradation of women, other men or children, purely for commercial purposes in order to give a false sense of sexual gratification. This isn't art, this is akin to butchery, with human bodies as meat ready to be consumed by incels and all kind of other frustrated males and depraved individual.

The former certainly like claiming pornography has any artistic merit as a way to justify their consumption of depraved content and their lack of any actual sex life.

[quantified]

Art has nothing to do with merit, does it?

Sex with another person is difficult to come by for many, and only comes sporadically for many more. You don't sound like you've been married for 20 years and bound by oath to not have sex with anyone other than someone who's physically lost all libido. I recommend some empathy.