Sex vs. Erotic Beauty

If you've been paying any attention at all to my writings, or the nature of my photography, then this will come as no surprise to you - but, it's such a fundamental part of my philosophy on eroticism that it bears repeating, again and again.

I want people to understand the difference between sex and erotic beauty. Yes, they are related. But they are not equivalent. Sex is an activity that people can participate in. Erotic beauty is an idea, a concept, that can be explored through media (in my case, the visual medium of photography). If you lack any semblance of critical thinking skills, you might think that erotic beauty is intrinsically linked to sex in that it cannot exist independently of the sex act. Any intelligent, rational mind, however, will realize that this simply is not the case. Sex can be a source of erotic beauty (though it can also be devoid of erotic beauty), but though eroticism is intimately related to sexuality, it extends far beyond the limited domain of what constitutes "sexual activity".

For example, a picture of an attractive person nude can be a source of great erotic beauty, even though there is no sexual activity involved. This is the realm of "sensuality" that I've talked about before - the part of 'sexuality' that exists outside sex itself. Frankly, I think this realm is infinitely fascinating, but it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and I think it's because they don't know what to do with it.

Take nudists, for example. Nudism has nothing to do with sex. And because of the stigma against sex, nudists often feel compelled to legitimize their lifestyle by correcting people's misconceptions about nudity and sexuality. But what about erotic beauty? Nudism is not about erotic beauty, but it is about people getting naked, and when attractive people get naked, that is a potential source of erotic beauty. I sense that for some nudists, this is cause for great frustration. They are likely the people who confuse sex with erotic beauty. They fear that if they admit that there can be (not intrinsically, but incidentally) erotic beauty present in nudism, that this is the same as admitting that there is sex in nudism. Hopefully you're intelligent enough to realize how ridiculous that is. Unfortunately, many people aren't. I have no problem with nudists drawing a sharp line between their lifestyle and the sexual act, but it bothers me when I see them contorting themselves into pretzel twists of self-deception and hypocrisy in an effort to try to convince themselves that naked people [that are not having sex] can (and should) never be erotic.

But most of all, it's the people who embrace the creeping restrictions on sexuality into the realm of erotic beauty that raise my ire. People who would denounce, decry, and censor images of erotic beauty using arguments that are only relevant to sexual activity. People who believe that pictures are just as (or in some cases more - see the common discrepancies between age of sexual consent and legal age for participation in pornography) dangerous as the physical act of copulation, even when the pictures do not actually depict (or suggest) the actual physical act itself. People who would call you a slut and a whore for engaging in the artistic pursuit of beauty, as if this were the same thing as selling your body on the street.

Sometimes, sex is involved in the creation and exploration of erotic beauty; and I will absolutely not avoid exploring that angle for fear of losing the badge of "wholesome purity". I refuse to censor myself in that way. But sex is not always (and is frequently not) the source of erotic beauty. The stereotype of the porn industry is that it draws women in, objectifies them, uses them up sexually, and then spits them out. In some cases, this may be true, but I'd have to be short-sighted and narrow-minded to blame all of pornographic speech for this problem. Still, the pursuit of erotic beauty is another thing entirely, and this is where the controversial porn vs. art argument becomes meaningful. The goal of erotic art is not to get people off at whatever cost. If people get off, that's a good thing, but it's not all there is to it. It's about pursuing beauty - just like the rest of the aesthetic disciplines, except this one covers a specific type of beauty that is related (but not equivalent) to sex. It's not about exploiting models for (sexual or monetary) profit. It's about finding what is [erotically] beautiful in the world, and honoring that.

As a photographer, I see people complaining about pictures all the time. These are people who don't really understand pictures. And what they're really concerned about is behavior, which they mistakenly attribute to the pictures. On further thought, I think this is what David Hamilton was referring to when he said the following, which I've quoted before, elsewhere:

"A distinction must be made between eroticism and pornography; the media have blurred the disparity to an unforgivable degree. For those intelligent enough to recognize the difference, erotica will continue to hold a unique fascination. Social evils should not be confused with the pursuit of true beauty."

As a defender of pornography, I am sensitive to platitudes given out by erotic artists who denounce porn seemingly in an effort to distance themselves from the stigma of porn (much like nudists who seek to "purify" themselves by denouncing eroticism). Nevertheless, there is a meaningful difference between artistic eroticism and pornography - even if that difference is subjective, and notoriously hard to pin down. But what I think David Hamilton is saying here, in reaction to his detractors, who would argue that his photographing the erotic beauty of young girls in some way degrades or exploits them, is that there is a substantial difference between respectfully honoring the physical beauty of a model, and taking sexual advantage of her. This is something that, remarkably, some people seem incapable of understanding. We feel compelled to take up a drastic, black-and-white perspective on the issue - if your appreciation of a model's beauty is not entirely and perfectly nonsexual, if there is even the slightest hint of eroticism behind it, then you may as well be raping her on camera. In this perspective, erotic beauty - and its virtues - is entirely thrown out and subsumed under the broadening realm of "sexual activity" (deemed pure vice), which apparently now includes taking nonsexual pictures of attractive models, on the basis that you or a hypothetical member of your audience may entertain vaguely sexual thoughts at some point. If you ask me, I think this is just insane. And it needs to stop. Not all sex is bad, and not all erotic thoughts constitute sex.