The Power and the Glory, Part II (see last May for Part I)

luis_g · May 6, 2010

Fred, I'm also getting a muddled picture of Lannie's thinking, but it's an honest portrayal of a knotty, complicated jumble of conflicting personal energies. Everyone doesn't have their ducks in a row, in laser-like coherence. I don't.

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When someone (Zoe?) asked why women tend to photograph nude women, my first thought was "marketability". Nudes of men not aimed at the gay market have no market to speak of. Women's magazines are full of pictures of women, just as men's magazines are. The art nudes I see of women made by either gender are mostly interchangeable. There seem to be more variations within photographers of either gender than between them.

___________________________

The nude and naked business is complicated by the body's capability for natural, autonomic arousal via visual fetishes. That doesn't happen (for most viewers) with other genres in photography. Maybe my module is defective, but I don't drool when looking at pictures in foodie magazines or menus.

___________________________

I have spent many days with friends in nudist camps. They tell me they begin to disassociate nudity from sex, that they become somewhat desensitized to it . I think there's truth in that, though I confess to not getting very far with the process.

This is clearly visible in Jock Sturges' work, though he did marry one of his subjects (one that he had photographed as a child).

____________________________

Don - " The imagination fills in, or completes, the picture, bringing something more to it."

Yes, and blind-spotting things out of it. It's part and parcel of human post-retinal visual processing.

_____________________________

Norma Desmond · May 6, 2010

Luis, you know me well enough to know I don't seek for myself and don't ask from others a laser-like coherence. I've said on more than one occasion that I enjoy posts that are genuinely thinking out loud and not full of solutions from the beginning. I like murkiness. But I also call it what it is when I encounter it. What I'm bringing up to Lannie is somewhat different than that kind of murkiness and I'm surprised you don't see the difference. I see Lannie quite consciously weaving and dodging and masking some agendas here. He has tried to make it sound like he was talking about something from the very beginning that it seems so clear to me he was not. A man is allowed and encouraged to change his mind or reframe his thoughts. But I question the rewriting of one's own history of thought within a thread. "I've changed my perspective" or "I'm unsure" is very different from "That's what I meant from the beginning." This is about avoidance as much as coherence. I'm willing to risk being wrong in order to say this. It may completely be my own mistaken judgment. If that's the case, then it's my own shortcoming and projection. But it's an honest appraisal of what I've taken away so far from both these threads. I may be overstepping my bounds in trying to point out what I perceive here, but I'll risk it. That's because I respect Lannie enough to be honest and blunt with him. It puts me on the line as much as him. I know he's gotten upset with me several times in this thread, yet we seem to work through that each time. I think we're doing just fine.

luis_g · May 6, 2010

Fred - "I see Lannie quite consciously weaving and dodging and masking some agendas here. He has tried to make it sound like he was talking about something from the very beginning that it seems so clear to me he was not."

You may well be right, Fred. Maybe I'm naive, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt -- and the possibility of genuine confusion, vacillation, and jumping among conflicting views as opposed to disingenousness. Maybe it's because I was raised Catholic, too. I don't think Lannie had a very clear picture in his own mind of where he was at with all this at the beginning -- or now.

Norma Desmond · May 6, 2010

Luis, I was raised Jewish. Though there are some significant differences, especially institutionally, the two religions are not all that different in many ways. I long ago stopped using what I learned as a kid as an excuse, justification, or explanation for what I think now. College, reading, and life experience has put my childhood religious training into perspective, though I'm sure I'm still influenced by it to a degree.

Norma Desmond · May 6, 2010

In the interest of full disclosure and fairness, I do want to make explicit in this thread (though those who've read me in other threads where it's come up already know this) that I am skeptical and pretty judgmental about religion and religious thinking. That has little to do with my childhood and lots to do with what I've seen and read as an adult. I was going to post a response to Lannie's quote of Jesus about adultery and Don's thoughts on it, but decided at the time that we were covering a lot of territory here and it might sidetrack the discussion. But, it's probably relevant to my own harshness when it comes to the genuineness of some religious thought.

I began by wondering what metaphysical implications Lannie sees in "lusting" and "non-sexual looking" as related to what Jesus has to say about adultery.

Here's what I wrote earlier this morning but hadn't yet posted:

"The only metaphysical implication I can see is in the church's (or Jesus's) statement that lust in the heart is equivalent to actually committing an act of adultery. That is a move from thinking to being and would be metaphysical indeed. I don't know about Jesus himself, but the church has always had an interest in making people think of themselves as sinners. Indeed, if every "unwholesome" thought about a woman other than one's wife is an act of adultery, it sure keeps the likelihood of sin alive and well in most of the flock. To me, that's more about asserting power over masses of believers than it is about metaphysics. This is one of my big problems with this whole line of thought . . . it denies the innocence, reality, ubiquity, humanness, and benign nature of most impure thought. In doing so, it tells us to think of the natural state of humanity as sinful. I find that kind of thinking destructive and, in many cases, intentionally authoritarian. In any case, I don't know the context in which Jesus said what you quoted him as saying, but I trust Jesus more than the church or the "christian religion" which often willfully misinterprets the better nature of Jesus in order to foster an institution which seems to me mostly about power, mind control, corruption, and moral hypocrisy (even while doing much practical good in the world as well)." --Fred

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luis_g · May 6, 2010

For me, the thing about asexual looking is that it dis-integrates the body. It denies our humanity and removes the (very religious) idea of free will, that one elects to take sides in the endless battle between good and evil, and/or get closer to or farther from God, and significantly, decide our own fate (which parallels secular ideas as well) . I see a lot more virtue in acknowledging our sexual being, dealing with it in platonic relationships, and giving it its proper cultural/social/religious/artistic/personal due.

[Disclaimer: I should say here that I've not been a practicing Catholic for over four decades.]

I was not positing one's upbringing as a universal excuse of any kind, but simply as a reality of being alive, a substrate, if you will. As the saying goes, that which we love first, we love best. I cannot realistically disregard my upbringing any more than I can switch off my sexuality. Both are part of me. This is not to say either justifies anything. In Lannie's writings I see an ongoing struggle between many ideas, some opposing, to which he is giving near-equal weight.

don_essedi · May 6, 2010

"in any case, I don't know the context in which Jesus said what you quoted him as saying"

The context is a collection of sayings (including a few expansions by an editor) attributed to Jesus. There's no context in the sense of a connected discourse, although there are themes. The one under discussion I'd call 'prophetic speech' which purpose is to intensify and stress. 'You've been told adultery is against the law, but even *thinking* about it is adultery' . 'You've been told to love your friends and hate your enemies, but you I tell you to love your enemies, too.' 'If you're compelled to walk a mile, walk two'. etc.

Trying to work out the logic of it, or to base real-world behavior on it is to have missed the point of prophetic speech.

Norma Desmond · May 6, 2010

Luis, what you say is familiar to me. We seem to share many ideas on nudity and sexuality. Not only because we agree, but objectively speaking, your thoughts are quite coherent. That, despite the fact that I'm sure it's not completely black and white for you and you may have some uncertainties and could express some murkiness on the subject. I don't think coherence and lack of overtly contradictory assertions, on the one hand, and murkiness of thought, on the other, are mutually exclusive.

don_essedi · May 6, 2010

Lannie "There is also the possibility of enjoying the nude in a way that is to some extent free of sexual considerations. In any case, I have been assuming that nudity (or nakedness, for that matter) does not necessarily have sexual implications."

You noted several kinds of nudity that don't have sexual appeal for you, but I don't think you enjoy them non-sexually, either.

Norma Desmond · May 6, 2010

"Maybe my module is defective, but I don't drool when looking at pictures in foodie magazines or menus."

Luis, good place to go! Yes, there is a drool factor. But let's tease it out a bit. I wonder if there's a personal experiential drool factor and a somewhat different but related empathic one. Women don't make me drool. Men do. Yet, I appreciate female nudes and appreciate the sexuality involved. Sometimes more sensual, but sensual and sexual, though different matters, are cousins. How do I appreciate female nudes? Empathy, I suppose. I get it, though I don't experience it directly. A good photographer of a female nude will take me with him/her. I assume that's how many straight guys are able to appreciate male nudes. They get what it's about, they even feel something, though it's not the same kind of sexual response that a gay guy might have.

Empathy, for me, can extend to non-human subjects, like peppers. I can find myself drooling over a well-photographed, sensually lit, provocatively shaped and positioned pepper. I can see something sensual and, yes, sexual in a vegetable. Interestingly, I think of a pepper this way but not a cucumber. What does that mean? Maybe I will take on sexualizing the cucumber as a project, a gay male homage to Weston's pepper. Maybe it means Weston was that good. He gave the pepper his all. And brought me right along with him.

Again, thanking Lannie for the provocation, for the last couple of hours I've thought about Beauty and Truth and what they're about photographically. They seem resolved, final . . . solutions. I prefer the imperfection of exploration, tension, struggle. I would find myself taking murkiness and running with it. My ambivalence about some sexual matters, the gray areas I might find regarding nudity . . . those would be the things I'd photograph and I'd want to express. Beauty, not that challenging for me. It's so ultimate. Feels distant, not intimate. The thing I love about the pepper is that it asks What and Why. What is it? And why does it work? Beauty doesn't ask, it seems to know. A photo of a fabulously colorful sunset or a wholesome, "bea-uuu-tiful" woman or man don't so much ask questions. They often just seem easy. The Beautiful often seems to me like the "good" photograph I talked about with my mentor above. As a result of an exploration or a genuine expression of wonder, Beauty can amaze. As the goal in itself, I more often find it a pretense and a distraction.

luis_g · May 6, 2010

[On the drool factor...]

I think there's levels to the drool thing, and there's, of course, other things happening simultaneously. Men don't make me drool, though I had a brief period when my orientation wasn't so certain, I drooled, and although I didn't act on it, I can empathize and to a very limited degree, understand, but when I look at a Sutcliffe, Von Gloeden, Mapplethorpe, etc. I can easily empathize, am moved by their sexuality and sensuality, and appreciate them at several levels.

Fred- "A good photographer of a female nude will take me with him/her. I assume that's how many straight guys are able to appreciate male nudes. They get what it's about, they even feel something, though it's not the same kind of sexual response that a gay guy might have."

Exactly.

I am in agreement with Fred on the beauty thing as well, although I think there are many kinds of beauty, and the consensually pretty and the ideal are the easiest two.

Landrum Kelly · May 6, 2010

I regret that the (non-nude) photo that I took and posted yesterday has been removed by me--and so the above link to that photo is dead. The woman who was the subject of it asked me to take it down from PN because it made her look "too old." I reluctantly did so. I actually liked the photo, which was a facial portrait cropped out of a larger photo.

As for all the replies, I have been in meetings all day long, as well as an end-of-year banquet this evening (where I teach), but I have briefly gone over the responses posted today.

I can only say that I had no agenda from the beginning of the thread, nor have I tried to write a philosophical treatise here. If there are inconsistencies in my opinions, I would not be surprised. Those are difficult enough to work out in an actual formal work which one can return to many months or years later--prior to ultimate publication. Here one gets about ten minutes to offer revisions, qualifications, caveats, etc. I have as I indicated earlier offered more or less "unfiltered" thoughts as they have crossed my mind. I would be very surprised if my thoughts had not moved around a bit--although I do not know that they have moved very far.

As for religion, I have no doubt that my fundamentalist upbringing has colored my views on such matters as we have been discussing. Beyond that I am unwilling to speculate. Thanks to those who have participated. Since I have one more day of meetings tomorrow, and I am already tired, I shall not respond point by point, although no doubt there are many valid points and issues worth responding to.

In spite of my own failures and the occasional lapses of others, I think that we have done pretty well with some really controversial material.

Would I post another question on similar topics? Not likely, and especially not just before final exams and end-of-year paperwork, meetings, etc. I am frankly exhausted.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 7, 2010

For example, in the Christian religion there is the teaching attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, "He who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his own heart." (Matthew, chapter five, verse unknown to me at the moment) The possible implication of Jesus' teaching (assuming that he actually did say it) is that it is possible to look at a woman and not to "lust after her," which implies the possibility of non-sexual looking.

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I should have said "non-lustful looking" as it relates to the scriptural teaching cited: "He who looks at a woman to lust after her. . . ." (My strong emphasis)

That is, the implication of the biblical quote is that it is possible to look at a woman (nude or otherwise, I presume) without lusting after her (whatever that means--and I think that we all know what it means).

But "non-sexual" looking? That really makes no sense, does it? Yet, I did say it, did I not? One never forgets when one admires a woman that she is a woman, for example (again, nude or otherwise). So, Luis, I am sorry for that gaff. It is more a logical gaff than merely a matter of poor word choice. The numerous times that we talk past each other are confusing enough without an error of this magnitude. I apologize for the error.

Most of our differences derive not from outright errors of the above sort however, but from the fact that many words have a number of very different meanings.

Analytical philosophy does not satisfy my appetite for metaphysical speculation, but it has helped to remind me and many others of the myriad linguistic hazards that exist. Only by sustained conversation can we resolve some of these problems--often only to find that, on this or that issue, we were often closer together in our thinking than we knew. Or, as Wittgenstein said in part I of Philosophical Investigations, we can by such analysis thereby"shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle"--the trapped fly being the philosopher confused and thus trapped by the ambiguities of language. I personally think that Wittgenstein erred in thinking that the proper province of philosophy is only the resolution of such linguistic confusions and quandaries, but there is no doubt but that "clearing out the conceptual underbrush" (the primary function of linguistic analysis) is absolutely essential for clear and productive discourse--what we purport to be doing here, whether we call it "philosophy' or not . None of the above is meant to minimize the very real substantive differences that remain, or that have manifested themselves on this thread. Sometimes we do manage to understand each other, only to find that we still disagree. We are mere humans, with imperfect knowledge and understanding. How could it be otherwise than that we continue to disagree? Consensus as an ideal keeps receding from our vision even as we move forward.

Will we ever attain consensus on such difficult and controversial matters? I have no idea. It certainly will not occur during my lifetime.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 7, 2010

Lannie "There is also the possibility of enjoying the nude in a way that is to some extent free of sexual considerations. In any case, I have been assuming that nudity (or nakedness, for that matter) does not necessarily have sexual implications."

You noted several kinds of nudity that don't have sexual appeal for you, but I don't think you enjoy them non-sexually, either.

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My previous post immediately above is perhaps relevant to your concerns as well, Don. The "sexual" and the "lustful" are surely distinct, and yet I made no distinction. That is sloppy work on my part. I wonder how many times I used the word "sexual" when it was not really the right word.

How many of our differences are due to such sloppy uses of language, of failing to recognize the ambiguities of meaning inhering in a given term?

Misusing "sexual" in a thread about perceptions of nudity and nakedness caused countless confusions and protests. Again, I apologize for the ambiguity. Other substantive differences no doubt yet remain.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 7, 2010

I see Lannie quite consciously weaving and dodging and masking some agendas here. He has tried to make it sound like he was talking about something from the very beginning that it seems so clear to me he was not.

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That's your problem, Fred, and I will leave you with it: you're dead wrong. I have acted and spoken in good faith throughout. The ad hominem strikes again. You're old enough to know better, Fred. Assume the integrity of your interlocutor when possible. Otherwise you will always be prone to the ad hominem attack. Stick to the issues and respond to the arguments. Do not make it personal. You will be more happy and productive.

--Lannie

je ne regrette rien · May 7, 2010

There are two issues:

<ul>

<li>in such long threads you often loose track of the original raised issue;</li>

<li>there are often reactions to mid-way posts, picking out one statement and reacting to it.</li>

</ul>

Philosophy should aim at some kind of universality. No ad hominem.

As I said before, even if I subscribe a lot of what Fred, Luis, Don, Lannie have posted, there is a lack of a definition activity.

But I believe we have made one important hit:

viewing nudes has some sort of sexual implication, which is extremely variable from individual to individual. This might be the most important obstacle to reaching some universal explanation to how we view photographs of nudes.

don_essedi · May 7, 2010

Lannie "There is also the possibility of enjoying the nude in a way that is to some extent free of sexual considerations. In any case, I have been assuming that nudity (or nakedness, for that matter) does not necessarily have sexual implications."

Don "You noted several kinds of nudity that don't have sexual appeal for you, but I don't think you enjoy them non-sexually, either."

</blockquote>

"My previous post immediately above is perhaps relevant to your concerns as well, Don. The "sexual" and the "lustful" are surely distinct, and yet I made no distinction. That is sloppy work on my part. I wonder how many times I used the word "sexual" when it was not really the right word."

It makes no difference. My comment stands. You already look at male nudes non-lustfully, so it is obviously possible. But that won't satisfy you because you want to have your cake and eat it, too. You identify the medium of the divine via lustful looking (lustfully, sexually, whatever you choose) and upon identifying the medium, want thereupon to look upon it non-lusfully, non-sexually, whatever word you choose. Or, you want your looking to be transformed so that the medium of the divine that you find by lustful looking, is found instead by non-lustful looking.

Norma Desmond · May 7, 2010

"Philosophy should aim at some kind of universality."

Indeed, Luca, most philosophy does. When we discuss what "Being" is, the aim is to reach consensus, even if by vehement disagreement. There's the aim and there's the method. The aim may be a universal notion of Being, one that doesn't apply personally, but rather applies universally. The method is often to put together different points of view over a historical period in order to arrive at "what something is."

In this philosophy forum, the philosophy of photography, I don't see consensus or universality as a very worthy goal or method. Yes, it will help to reach general consensus, for example, on definitions or at least usages, but this kind of discussion is more personal (for me) than academic philosophy. This is more about photography than philosophy. I want not to reach consensus. This stuff is mostly very individualized. My approach to photography and to these discussions is very much wrapped up in who I am and it is very personal.

Since our personalities and who we are is so intimately intertwined in what we create photographically, I will continue to discuss motivations and style of argumentation as well as substance. I won't be the first philosopher who sees that stuff as significant. I certainly won't be the first photographer who does. I think we can see in our photographs, in many cases, more of the style with which we express our ideas than what the words themselves say. I think sometimes the words we say are much less telling than the way we get them out. Kind of like the subject of the photograph is less significant, in many cases, than how it is photographed.

_________________________________

As for ad hominem attacks, as I said earlier there are ad hominem attacks and there is getting personal. I have substantial precedence for the way I've approached Lannie here in the history of philosophical debates. Often the style of one's argumentation must be up for discussion in getting at the deeper meanings of their words. Wittgenstein's and Popper's famous incident with the fire poker didn't occur because they were being genteel or polite with each other. More famously, every decent classroom study of Plato discusses Socrates's style and whether he was being genuine in his professing of ignorance or intentionally ironic in his manner. What I've questioned about some of Lannie's approach pales in comparison to what's considered relevant to a thorough understanding of Socrates and Plato.

An ad hominem attack is NOT when one takes apart the method of argumentation of another, the style, or suggests possible motivations for a certain way of arguing. It is not just any personal argument. An ad hominem attack is the sole use of a personal characteristic in debating someone else's argument, absent any substantive backup.

<a href="http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html">THIS</a> is a very interesting and also a bit humorous read. I'll quote some particularly relevant parts:

One of the most widely misused terms on the Net is "ad hominem". It is most often introduced into a discussion by certain delicate types, delicate of personality and mind, whenever their opponents resort to a bit of sarcasm. [i wasn't being sarcastic. I was being quite serious, which doesn't make what I said any more ad hominem.] As soon as the suspicion of an insult appears, they summon the angels of ad hominem to smite down their foes, before ascending to argument heaven in a blaze of sanctimonious glory. They may not have much up top, but by God, they don't need it when they've got ad hominem on their side. It's the secret weapon that delivers them from any argument unscathed. In reality, ad hominem is unrelated to sarcasm or personal abuse. Argumentum ad hominem is the logical fallacy of attempting to undermine a speaker's argument by attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument. The mere presence of a personal attack does not indicate ad hominem: the attack must be used for the purpose of undermining the argument, or otherwise the logical fallacy isn't there. It is not a logical fallacy to attack someone; the fallacy comes from assuming that a personal attack is also necessarily an attack on that person's arguments. Therefore, if you can't demonstrate that your opponent is trying to counter your argument by attacking you, you can't demonstrate that he is resorting to ad hominem. If your opponent's sarcasm is not an attempt to counter your argument, but merely an attempt to insult you (or amuse the bystanders), then it is not part of an ad hominem argument. Actual instances of argumentum ad hominem are relatively rare. Ironically, the fallacy is most often committed by those who accuse their opponents of ad hominem, since they try to dismiss the opposition not by engaging with their arguments, but by claiming that they resort to personal attacks. [my emphsis]* Those who are quick to squeal "ad hominem" are often guilty of several other logical fallacies, including one of the worst of all: the fallacious belief that introducing an impressive-sounding Latin term somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument.

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*Note that on the couple of occasions where Lannie has accused me of an ad hominem attack, he hasn't addressed the substance of my argument at all. And note that when Luis, to his credit, questioned what I said about Lannie personally, he did deal with the substance of my arguments.

As you'll see if you continue reading this article, had I said something along the lines of "Lannie is wrong because he's being completely disingenuous", I could rightfully be accused of an argument ad hominem. But I pointed to what most people here, including Lannie, agreed were logical inconsistencies or downright contradictions and then, because I think these matters of photographs and nudes ARE personal, wondered about his motivations for arguing the way he has. If tallness has nothing to do with the subject at hand and someone claims that because I'm tall my argument must be wrong, that would be ad hominem. But, if we're discussing height and someone suggests my arguments may be prejudiced by my own height, while addressing those arguments as well, that would be as far from ad hominem as we could get and it would be personal and also a totally relevant thing to bring up. When I'm talking about creativity and photography, and I find someone dodging and weaving in an argument, an argument on an admittedly uncomfortable or at least controversial topic to begin with, an argument where the OP's very personal religious and ethical beliefs have been asserted again and again, by God I'm going to get personal and bring it up. You can't have it both ways. You can't make it personal (which I applaud, by the way) and then recoil when someone challenges you personally.

Norma Desmond · May 7, 2010

Qualification: I hope it's clear that the writer himself is being sarcastic and purposely over the top. When he says that the accuser of ad hominem has "nothing up top" I certainly don't want that to be read as representative of my feelings about Lannie. Though I do think there have been inconsistencies, etc. and an unnecessary and poorly used accusation of ad hominem attack, Lannie has put together some very good ideas and has a lot upstairs. Lannie doesn't need to resort to such accusations and he doesn't need to avoid my more significant substantive points. He's shown a lot of capability and engagement in many of his other responses.

JPPhoto1664880217 · May 7, 2010

Lannie, Regarding your original question of “naked vs nude” /emotional impact and how different people perceive the nude. It is useful to break the image down into narrative (the story or message) and form (compositional elements). On the basis of many of the posts here (in part), it seems that the narrative determines the primary viewer reaction to a nude and the form either enhances or detracts from the narrative. Since the narrative (or the message) of most of these images is conveyed primarily through the facial expression, it seems that the nudity per se does not contribute nearly as much to the impact as does the face. This is not to say that the nudity is unnecessary for impact, merely that it is not the primary cause of a specific emotional response.

Jim Phelps

Landrum Kelly · May 7, 2010

THE THREAD FROM [ETERNAL] HELL:

I think that the face has everything to do with it, Jim, but it occurred to me that something else is happening in perception of any kind--or might be.

That something might be this: we perhaps do NOT respond emotionally to the image, although we think that we do. There is perhaps a cognitive step in between: we respond emotionally to the IDEA that the image evokes in us. Since artistic imagination is never static, one never knows what idea will be triggered by an image, and thus one does not know in advance what one's emotional reaction is going to be upon a given viewing. In addition, different ideas are evoked by the image in the minds of differing viewers, which also accounts for their own varying emotional responses. The emotional response then triggers REFLEXIVE RATIONALITY to mirror ourselves and the work perceived, generating an esthetic and/or moral evaluation of the presumed work of art/image of a naked woman (take your pick)--as well as a self-judgment as to whether we really ought to be looking at such art/trash/garbage (take your pick) in the first place.

On the one hand, this sounds like a possible theory from psychology--I don't know enough about psychological theory to know what has been written on what is happening in our own minds during the process of perception. Philosophers of mind surely have theories and theories about such things.

The strangest thing, however, was that this idea hit ME by analogy with the idea of meaning in linguistic theory. For example, we like to think that we mean a specific chair when we say the word "chair," but linguists tell us that what the word "chair" evokes is the IDEA or concept of a chair, those attributes that all chairs have in common. It is not the ding in sich, the thing in itself qua the particular chair.. Rather, it is the idea associated with the empirical referent: the idea of a chair, not the chair itself. (I could do better with this, but i will leave it as it is for now.)

By analogy, if one perceives an image, and has an emotional response to that image, PERHAPS one does not REALLY respond to the image, but to the idea that it evokes. Thus for one person the idea evoked by Rebecca is "wholesome young woman doing a photography shoot." Another (perhaps me) sees a young woman sitting naked on top of a table in a dressing room right in front of me in the here and now. Yet another might see a fine art nude, etc., etc. (The image suggests something or another, and might even be deemed "suggestive" in the pejorative sense.)

I think that you can see where I am going with this: the esthetic and/or artistic value that we attach to the nude is often a further intellectual reflection that comes AFTER the emotional reaction--but the IDEA that provoked the reaction comes almost instantaneously upon viewing.

These are just some thoughts to ponder. I am a theorist, and I generate lots of theories and toss most of them. Someone once told me that I had a fertile imagination, and I was pleased at what I interpreted as a compliment.

Only later did it occur to me that they might have been suggesting that my mind was well-fertilized with manure, which is to say that I was full of, well, you know.

Certainly that theory (that my mnid is full of it) is the theory that I hear the feminists bandying about: if one looks at a picture of a nude woman and you are a male, then surely one is just drooling to do all kinds of unspeakable things to the poor objectfied model who is simpy trying to make a living in the corrupt capitalist order, etc. (Might be some truth buried in all that, too.)

On certain days they might be right--or at least one might feel precisely those kinds of [lustful] desires on a given viewing. Are they right all the time? Well, not for me. The same image affects me differently different days. (Why? Why did the nude Rebecca strike me as more "naked" than "nude" on tha fateful and now infamous day of April 20 when this Thread from Hell started?)

In any case, here is my newest theory, which has probably been offered and superseded by ten million psychologists and philosophers already:

PERCEPTION of IMAGE ---> IDEA ----> EMOTIONAL RESPONSE ----> REFLECTION AND EVALUATION ----> MORAL/ESTHETIC JUDGMENT There would actually be perhaps an earlier step: the construction of the conceptual lens (idea/s) through which the original perception (sense datum/data) is/are filtered during the actual viewing. (I see some of my earlier reflections on the dispute over direct perception v. sense data coming into play now. I was wondering what might be bubbling up when I first mentioned those things: surely what is bubbling up in perception itself is lagely our own idiosyncratic CULTURAL CONCEPTUAL BAGGAGE--the essence of the "conceptual lens")

Maybe the theory will come together at some point, and I can publish--beyond the limited venue of Photo.net. The only fly in the ointment is that about ten million theorists have surely already seen what I think I see, and more--and have already published on it.

Oh, well. . . a theory a day keeps the ad hominems away.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 8, 2010

GIVING THE [HORNY] DEVIL HIS DUE:

What determines that conceptual lens through which we view the image? Well, on the nurture side of the equation, the conceptual lens is about one's cultural baggage.

On the nature side of the equation, fluxing hormonal levels affect or distort or otherwise act upon the conceptual lens: horny people see different things from satiated people. Horniness then becomes the relevant variable in terms of the focusing effect of the "conceptual lens." (A better way of saying all this is that a given image SUGGESTS different things to different persons, depending on all the variables that go into what we might posit as the "horniess quotient." I think that we are getting somewhere now. . . .)

Two theories in one day! Well, so what? I am full of it, uh, them. Lots of theories float through this trash heap which sometimes passes for my mind. This could be my best theory yet.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 8, 2010

ERRATUM

In the last line of the next to the last paragraph above, I typed the "horniess quotient." I meant the "horniness quotient." Think of it as magnfiying power of the conceptual lens, really long lens stuff. Think "telephoto zoom."

I regret the error.

--Lannie

don_essedi · May 8, 2010

"For example, in the Christian religion there is the teaching attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, "He who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his own heart.""

Which one of the options in your "newest theory ("theories")" is what Jesus meant?

JPPhoto1664880217 · May 8, 2010

Lannie,

Regarding your "conceptual lens", more figures into this than "horniness". Academic research at the University of North Carolina in the late 1960's showed that young men tire of looking at pornography when they are exposed to it often enough. This implies that "novelty" is also a major factor.

Jim Phelps

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The Power and the Glory, Part II (see last May for Part I)

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