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

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Rebecca, I play with de-individualization and sometimes I genuinely and consciously objectify my subjects. I think Josh made an important distinction between objectification and degradation. The first doesn't necessarily entail the second, though it can. It's when we objectify without consciousness that we're usually in trouble. Many snappers of homeless people don't intend to objectify and have good intentions. But their unconscious objectification of people on the streets can be very degrading nonetheless. Better photographers may still objectify homeless people, but with intention and expression and move the viewer to an acute awareness about that objectification about the homeless person as a person. That's a different and not a degrading story.</p>

<p>Same with objectification of nudes. I think there's been a confusion in this thread between nude studies and other photographs that have nudity in them and a tendency for some to see nude studies as somehow automatically objectifying and therefore bad. The purpose of a nude study is, to some extent, to objectify. I don't see that as inherently bad. Much worse are the more narrative and story-telling photos that objectify the nude participant. Again, if it's done consciously and with intent and expresses something genuine, I have no problem with an objectification in a more narrative photo. But if women are being objectified in a narrative photo without a thought on the part of the photographer, it is likely to be a malignant sort of objectification, the lack of consciousness adding to the malignancy.</p>

<p>There are many examples, like your great gun story, of the kinds of role reversals among the sexes and orientations. I loved the reactions of a lot of guys about allowing gays in the military, the ubiquitous we-don't-want-to-shower-with-them reactions. First of all, as if they've never been in a shower with gay men already, like the ones who are forced to remain closeted in their very units. But beyond that, it relates to why we may not see men posing nude all that often. I wonder if many men -- especially ones who would balk at showering in public with a gay guy who might be among the many people they're already showering with -- prefer to do the objectifying and can't stand the thought of their being someone else's object. </p>

<p>When a lot of gay soldiers would get up and testify that they weren't turned on in the showers and that the straight servicemen had nothing to worry about, I often shouted at the TV, "yes they do!" We're looking and watching and enjoying. The shoe's on the other foot, guys. Deal with it!</p>

[mizore]

<p>Josh, the power and the glory of the nude is your idea of the nude. I read the earlier installment of this and thought it was often just so much male "her body is so intelligent and wise, why do we need her to have a brain, too. It's so unfair." I didn't see much power and glory for me in being naked even when I was young and weighed 130 pounds. You're reading your response into the woman's situation. Nudes to me are people being vulnerable, including vulnerable to their desires and the desires of people around them. That they're all sorts of other things, too, comes second for most women. Saying the naked/nude female body has power and glory is like you're speaking Martian.</p>

<p>Fred, the gay guys were bitching about the slash writers, too. "OMG, women are using us as fantasy objects and stealing our right to express our sexuality as we see fit." And some of the young guys do distort their lives pursuing beauty, much as women often do.</p>

<p>Enjoying watching, oh, yeah -- I think most of the viewers, regardless of orientation and gender, liked seeing Matt Bomer's pecs and navel (White Collar, USA network, and they've got episodes on line for free). A couple of straight women said they really didn't care if he was gay, they had no more chance of actually sleeping with a straight male star than with a gay one, and he is supremely good looking. Bomer takes his shirt off and everyone sighs, even if the pleasure is strictly aesthetic.</p>

[inoneeye]

<p>Hi Rebecca. "Josh, the power and the glory of the nude (photo) is your idea of the nude." indeed.<br>

"You're reading your response into the woman's situation." ? " Saying the naked/nude female body has power and glory is like you're speaking Martian."<br />I speak for no one. Male or female. model, photographer or viewer. Speaking a 'different language' (viewpoint) is not a bad thing to me. But I acknowledge that I speak Martian occasionally, and many men think I am speaking it to them also. In this case I wasn't talking about the model, the viewer or a woman's situation. I was talking about the nude photo, the genre of nude photography as I experience it.</p><p>When you posted ""... They're not showing themselves as real (I commented on one woman looking almost masculine in an otherwise somewhat erotic pose, her face wasn't saying what her body was)." My first thought was that you are describing a potentially enlightening nude, if well done.</p>

[mizore]

<p>Josh, do the nude photographs with guys show the same power and glory? If not, why not?</p>

[inoneeye]

<p>Rebecca,"... the same" no but are guy nudes imbued with power and glory, yes. I do attempt male nudes myself but with a few exceptions it has eluded me. My inability to tap it. I respond differently as a viewer also. and for those reasons I have a special affinity for male nudes and the photographers.</p><p>From Leni Rifenstahl to (talk about power and glory) to Ryan McGinley and many more have been very effective in photographing the male. The hangup I encountered in all early attempts was to approach the male like a female. Inexperience..., to this day I don't much enjoy female or male nudes that the model could have been either (with exceptions). I'm drawn to the the differences explored without ignoring the similarities. I have photographed my own body over the years, naked. I have given over my camera to a model a number of times to be photographed through their eyes. Usually very different than how I see myself.</p><p>I have also experienced the power and even the glory of my own body. Or to be an object to other males. I lived in a gay neighborhood for many years. I was very often the object of someones desires and lust (even forcefully). Granted that 18ish years in the neighborhood does not qualify as growing up female, - not the point, i did'nt learn the same lessons as you or others.. but I am not without some ability to speak rough Venutian if you prefer hearing what you already know. Of course it differs from your and anyone else's experience. All of this goes into the mix or in to the photography. Just look at the diversity and passions that nudity stirs up even in discussion form. How could we deny the power that may be tapped as a subject for photography. There is something so fundamental and intriguing ...</p>

[mizore]

<p>I have no trouble with it as a subject of photography, but I'm still not convinced of the power and the glory bit, or you mean different things with these words than I do.</p>

[inoneeye]

<p>I have not been using the religious doxology(?) 'power and glory'<br /> <em>power</em> for me is often found in the ability to move, control for better or worse. influence. energize or relax, stir, stimulate yada...<br /> <em>glory</em> - as i said before, 'The glory of something is its great beauty or impressive nature'<br /> just potential tools I find inherent in the genre.</p>

[mizore]

<p>Not all nude photographs are of beautiful people. Or are you saying they should be or that older people who are not so lithe and impressive can't do nudes, sort of like the Masai Harvard student telling Americans that their old people ought to wear more clothes at the beach?</p>

<p>Annie Leibovitz's photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono has a clothed Ono with a naked clinging Lennon. Power? Glory? It's a tremendously impressive photograph, in part because it reverses the cliche of clothed man and naked woman. But I don't think it's quite the power and glory you were looking for, or is it?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Rebecca</strong>, could you stop projecting for a minute here? Please!</p>

<p>Any studied person, academic or aesthetic, artist, Greek scholar, or just well read, knows that when one speaks of "great beauty" that is different than what you are taking to be the much more mundane and superficial use where it would refer to a beautiful person. Do you honestly think Josh is saying the power and glory of the nude lies in an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue or on an unclothed Hollywood red carpet? What the . . .</p>

<p>You aren't listening. You are totally on the path of your own agenda and you're letting it completely blind you to where others, particularly Josh, are coming from. You pegged Josh from the word go. Wrongly.</p>

[inoneeye]

<p>I don't really understand where your first paragraph is getting legs. Perhaps it is with the word beauty? a word that I use generously and genuinely. Clothes at the beach is a different equation in my book unrelated to nude photography. And age is not an obstacle to beauty for me.<br>

re. John and Yoko. sure it is an absolutely a sublime example of the power and glory one can tap with a nude. a reversal and I think more. It oozes and uses, even celebrates the power and glory. Now how would it differ with a visible penis? a shift of impact at least...and for a lot of people a significant impact. that implies power in the hands of the photographer and the viewer. as does taking a more nuanced approach by not including genitals. </p>

[s_j_goffredi]

<p>I must say I find this whole link fascinating, as much for the tangents that it has been taken on as for the original question posed. In answer to the original question of "Why do some nudes appear more naked than others" though I will add my two pence worth.</p>

<p>Traditionally we humans, especially in the "civilised" world associate nudity with sex - given. However, on a psychological level it goes deeper. Nudity also means privicy and vulnerability in the majorty of cases. We are, on the whole, only naked in private or in the precence of those we trust on an intimate level. Therefore the photographing of a nude is exposing them physically in an obvious way but also at a deeper psychological level. We are seeing something private and intimate. Dependent upon the posing and set up this can be increased. For example, if the nude is surrounded by others who are clothed it adds to the sense of vulnerability as we can empathise with the nude and react emotionally as if it were us (which is almost certainly differently to the reaction of the model). It brings forwards the common fear of being naked in public, to be strippd bare and seen for everything that you are, not just physically but your whole person. This is a common dream for many people - being in a public and often familiar setting e.g. work, shops etc but being naked and everyone around you clothed. It also extends to the theory of imagining those around you naked in order to add confidence in a situation such as an interview.</p>

<p>I think therefore, the reason some nudes appear more naked is due to the level of intimacy and discomfort we feel when viewing the image. Do we feel we are intruding on some private moment or does the image conjour up feeling of discomfort due to empathy in ourselves for the situation the model is in. The voyeristic sensation can be uncomfortable and therefore we become more aware of the nudity. This is different from the arrousal from the sexual stimuli of the image, though for some the two become interwoven. That is a whole different issue though, and not, I feel, for this forum:) </p>

[mizore]

<p>Fred, when males start talking about the power and the glory of female nudes, it doesn't make me immediately think, "oh, yeah, they're intellectuals and studied and aesthetic." I see males talking about the beauty of photographs of naked women especially when all the examples are of young women, with the exception of what your work.</p>

<p>Julie was witty about her comments; Zoe melted down and left; and I'm getting cross when you pull this third rate ad hominem dismissal. Does anyone wonder why the women are over in the bridal group?</p>

<p>If the guys want to talk about the pleasure they get from photographs of nudes, perhaps the women should just wait outside.</p>

<p>Power and glory go with politics and churches and Graham Greene novels. Words have associations -- mine are for the Graham Greene novel.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Rebecca</strong>, I'm glad you're getting cross. You should be cross. Maybe it will make you read more carefully. You're not the girl here. You're a participant. And we're not the good ol' boys. We're flesh and blood, just like you. If you PRICK us, we bleed.</p>

<p>Josh said clearly he's talking about nudes, not "female" nudes. Since I've posed nude for AND been naked in front of Josh on several occasions, I know he's talking more broadly than you seem to be willing to give him credit for. He's also intimately familiar with my own male nudes as well as the male nudes of many photographers and that informs his understanding as well. You are not listening. You're hearing what you want to argue against. You're making it up as you go along. Your attacks, your willful misunderstanding and false characterizations of what people are saying throughout this thread are as ad hominem as mine admittedly are. You deserve the return fire.</p>

<p>You know quite well that I'd get on the case and have gotten on guys' cases when I think they're pulling the same crap I think you're pulling here. So go over to the Bridal Group if that suits your sensibility, but you know damn well I'm not singling you out as a woman or because you're offering a woman's perspective. I'm singling you out because you're being disingenuous, you're misquoting people and misrepresenting what they've said, and you're not listening.</p>

<p>Josh and I are not talking primarily about "pleasure" we get from photographs of nudes (though I wouldn't deny a pleasure factor in some nudes). You yourself talked about Matt Bomer's pecs and your liking to watch and I don't reduce your stand here to "Rebecca's objectifying pleasure of the male torso".</p>

<p>As regards pleasure, please understand that people get <em>some</em> pleasure from looking at nudes . . . and I know you can because you've hypocritically stated you do.</p>

[Julie H]

<p><strong>Fred</strong>,</p>

<p>You're going to have to work really hard to convince me that a 6'5" 200+ pound man knows what it's like to be 110 in a tits and ass society. Rebecca's comments seem to me to be more or less right on target -- with allowance for her usual style of commenting (and I make the same kind of allowance for you -- as I'm sure you do for me and other frequent posters).</p>

<p>As Rebecca has pointed out, the title of this thread is problematic for women. "Power" equates to violence (and glory comes from power). Power/violence, for women, is the shadow of sex in this society. Men may say that a nude picture is not about sex -- but its <em>their </em>choice, and women have very, <em>very</em> good reasons not to believe them. I doubt very much that this or any discussion can or should override what experience has taught women. If that's going to happen, it will be in actions, not words.</p>

<p>Having said all that, I offer two pictures for discussion. First is one that, for me, is illustrative in an amusing way:<br>

<a href="http://www.c4fap.org/exhibitions/2008ArtfulNude/images/20080220174721a.jpg">http://www.c4fap.org/exhibitions/2008ArtfulNude/images/20080220174721a.jpg</a></p>

<p>Second one is to work from Rebecca's point about the age of models:<br>

<a href="http://www.joanmyers.com/Wom7.htm">http://www.joanmyers.com/Wom7.htm</a><br>

What difference do you think it makes that the last (second) one is nude? In what way would the picture be different if she were clothed?</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Julie</strong>, let me introduce myself. I'm <em>Fred</em>. I'm not the <em>"6'5" 200+ pound male"</em> you've abstracted or reduced me to. Pleased to meet you.</p>

<p>If I had said I know what it's like to be 110 lb. woman or even suggested it, I'd apologize, because I'd be ashamed of myself for doing that. Luckily I haven't done it. At least not intentionally. I allow for the possibility that I've done it unintentionally. If you think I have, please supply the paragraph and quote where I did and let's discuss it. These abstract claims about what I've done and whose perspective I've adopted aren't persuasive. I have a hard enough time maintaining a "male" perspective, let alone trying to adopt a female one. I'm aware that empathy or my attempts at it only carry me so far.</p>

<p>As for my size, I question its relevance. Though it probably has kept predators away because a tall guy can appear more imposing than a short female, in the real world it's had good results but with many qualifications. For much of my life I was called a sissy. Through Junior High and High School my big brother and my father had to run interference for me. Nevertheless I was beaten up several times. It's happened a couple of times since I've been an adult. My size hasn't helped a whole lot on that front since I'm not terribly adept at using it in a physically defensive (or offensive) manner. My tongue, on the other hand, is know to get sharp. Moving to San Francisco provides somewhat of an insular home from such violence, though even my own liberal state recently took away my right to marry the man I love. Mind you, I'm not playing victim competition here. Hate that game. And I don't doubt that many women (and men) have had it worse than my middle class, white, male upbringing has allowed me. I'm describing who I am in the hopes you'll stop stereotyping and, in that sense, objectifying me.</p>

<p>I agree with you, <em>"men may say that a nude picture is not about sex."</em> Why are you addressing that to me? I've said several times in this thread that I think nudes (certainly the ones I do) can have a strong sexual component, either in the making or in the photograph itself. You, like Rebecca, are confusing me with the stereotyped male you're upset with. It's hard to have a discussion when I'm being addressed as some generic male robot you've created instead of the guy sitting here at the keyboard. You seem not to be aware of my actual words.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>in a tits and ass society.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Society is probably a bit more complex, but Franck CJ Macky ( <em>Magnolia</em> ) would certainly agree about that one. Oh the power and the glory about seduction and destruction.</p>

[mizore]

<p>Julie, forget the email. I have the answer.</p>

<p>Fred, if the damn title hadn't been so turgid and so full of Catholic liturgy and Graham Green, and if you hadn't assumed that I couldn't possibly have as informed a taste as you, and if the initial question hadn't assumed that I found <strong>any</strong> nudes of women glorious, this wouldn't seem like possible hostile action against the wimmens. Goldin and Ono are artists for guys who want their women pretty in bruises and tears and cut off bits of clothing. They're not doing art for me. It's very much aimed at men.</p>

<p>I don't think I can remember <strong>any</strong> nude of a woman that impressed me as being one of the best photographs I've ever seen, same goes for nude paintings. They're mostly second tier work. Seeing a lot of Renoirs in Philadelphia made it clear that I wasn't the audience for that. If the examples here hadn't been all nubile women, I for one wouldn't feel that the guys were pulling a more sophisticated version of what happens in a number of venues where the guys sexualize the joint to make sure the women know their place.</p>

<p>Why do women photograph more women nude than guys nude? Because we can't be sure that a nude male model wouldn't use that as an excuse to rape us. </p>

<p>If I wrote about women with women as I wrote about men with men, I'd have straight guys deciding that I was going to put out for them. My publisher says straight guys get a little squeamish about the male/male sex, so my friends can dig it and I can feel that I won't have straight guys getting all hotted up about my writing and assume that I'm available. </p>

<p>I'd have to know a guy very very well before I'd photograph him nude, and more likely than not, I'd prefer to photograph a gay guy, not that I haven't had a pass from a gay friend that utterly confounded me. I know that a straight guy who raped me in that setting would get off in a lot of places in this country. Whole thing is very problematic since the guys who would pose nude for women are likely to be people who see nakedness, even their own, as erotic and asking them to pose nude as a sexual invitation. Easier to photograph orchids. They do their thing and I do mine. </p>

<p>"Hey, let's bring up something the women can't do comfortably without being very careful or already in a relationship with a guy who is willing to pose for her camera. It will prove we are cooler people than the women who just can't take this because they don't have good senses of humor about guys and are anti-sex."</p>

<p>That's the ungenerous view of what happened here. The generous view is that you didn't think this one through.</p>

<p> </p>

[zoewiseman]

<p>"Why do women photograph more women nude than guys nude? Because we can't be sure that a nude male model wouldn't use that as an excuse to rape us." ... and ... "I'd have to know a guy very very well before I'd photograph him nude, and more likely than not, I'd prefer to photograph a gay guy, not that I haven't had a pass from a gay friend that utterly confounded me. I know that a straight guy who raped me in that setting would get off in a lot of places in this country. Whole thing is very problematic since the guys who would pose nude for women are likely to be people who see nakedness, even their own, as erotic and asking them to pose nude as a sexual invitation. Easier to photograph orchids. They do their thing and I do mine." (Rebecca)<br /> Bravo for the bravery of putting that one out there.<br /> Thanks again for the fish... I've forgotten my towel... </p>

<p>And the answer to this entire thread is 42.</p>

[mizore]

<p>Zoe, sorry if any of this whole mess was triggering to you. I sent a private email to Julie asking if she thought I was out of line. I've got a friend in SF working on open source and trying to make that community more woman friendly and she's even gotten death threats (no, not all the guys make death threats but the climate and culture around that community is such that guys aren't calling guys on this). Hot button topic for me. </p>

<p>I know gay guys can be pursued by straight women with sexual obsessions about them. I don't know the frequency and I'm sure it's not pleasant but it doesn't have, except for rare circumstances, the risks that such an obsession would have for a women. Every gay woman, even older women with pictures up, has had at least one guy cruise her from a social site. I have no idea whether the same is true of gay guys with social sites. I think sane reasonable adult straight guys pick up the signals (or the lack of them) and never make passes, so every pass we do get is from someone who decided that his needs and ego were more important than our self definitions.</p>

<p>Zoe, in some ways, even if this is stepping on your feelings a bit, I think out and out porn can be more transcendent and beautiful than art nudes. It's not often that, though. The esthete pose that artistic nudes aren't really even about eroticism, which is a fancy name for sexually charged stuff upper middle class esthetes like (esthetes is now my trophy word) rather than that nasty porn rednecks drool over. </p>

<p>The higher better esthetically transcendental work supposedly is something refined and sublime that only a study of Plato and Aristophanes and Aristotle in the Original Greek, written without word breaks and as the ox plows, could possibly help one understand -- mheh, that's was what Oscar Wilde claimed about his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas -- that it had nothing whatsoever to do with mere sex and everything to do with rarified emotions and pure love of an older man for the promise of a younger one and if one was properly classically educated, one would understand this, and Wilde was lying to stay out of prison. Fred's excuses aren't quite as good.</p>

<p>Happy to take the bullet on this one, you seemed quite upset. Frankly, I'm not sure I agree with your arguments, but I've been known to get triggered by male aggression myself and lose the plot.</p>

<p>Julie, again, thanks for the humor and the support. </p>

<p> </p>

[zoewiseman]

<p>@Rebecca - I don't have time to waste in restating what I've already said in threads when people restate my words and say I mean something totally different than what I stated. Instead of dealing with that I chose to bow out. I was actually laughing at the entire escapade, not having a melt down or upset, it's par for the course. I think the most humorous posting was the accusation I was trying to copy two of the photographers I mentioned as examples of timelessness. That had me rolling. As for porn, to each their own. I've never seen a porno and don't intend to so I can't comment on it's perceived beauty. I didn't think we were talking about pornography in this thread, I came from the notion we were talking about art nudes, so that's the only genre I've been speaking about. ;) Meow. Z</p>

[mizore]

<p>I'm not sure I believe that art nudes are different from the best porn. I recommend this essay: http://www.personism.com/works-by-frank-ohara/personism/ to you. ;) O'Hara studied music and went to Harvard and University of Michigan for his Masters so these are not sour grapes he's expressing.<br>

My favorite bit, which I think applies to too many artists in any number of media:</p>

<blockquote>But how then can you really care if anybody gets it, or gets what it means, or if it improves them. Improves them for what? For death? Why hurry them along? Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don’t give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them. </blockquote>

<p><br /></p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Zoe typed: "</strong>I think the most humorous posting was the accusation I was trying to copy two of the photographers I mentioned as examples of timelessness. That had me rolling."</p>

<p> Zoe can roll and laugh her way to self-righteous oblivion, but she missed the point. I never suggested, let alone accused, she was trying to copy anyone. I've never even looked at her pictures.</p>

<p>All I was saying is that consciousness itself, the way we see things, is timestamped, whether with photographing landscapes, adwork, fashion -- or nudes.</p>

<p>Brigman's and Man Ray's work belongs to a certain era, <em>and that is why it cannot be copied (besides the fact that it is their own work). </em>Amusing as it might be to her, and apparently reinforcing to her stereotyping, I never suggested she was copying anyone. Rhetorical <em>"you"</em>, nothing more.</p>

<p>_____________________________________</p>

<p> This thread, in spite of its title and the outcome, had potential for insightful discussions on the nude. Rebecca, Zoe and Julie, we're far from perfect, but do not wish you will, nor are we (consciously) your enemy.</p>

<p>[Geezus, that sounds like what one might say when meeting an alien race]</p>

<p> </p>

[Julie H]

<p>"Geezus, that sounds like what one might say when meeting an alien race." -- <strong>Luis</strong></p>

<p>We know you're out there, no matter how clever your disguise.<br>

<img src="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mrtree03.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>[<strong>Fred</strong>: Peace. I've said what I want to say; not very well, but that's as far as I'll go on this topic.]</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"that's as far as I'll go on this topic."</em></p>

<p><strong>Julie</strong>, I do understand your not wanting to take it further. I can see why anyone would think we've had enough here. At the same time, it is difficult to stomach accusations you've made about me personally when, having asked for specific citations of my words, you prefer to let it rest. It leaves those accusations hanging in the air with a stench. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"and if you hadn't assumed that I couldn't possibly have as informed a taste as you,"</em></p>

<p><strong>Rebecca</strong>, without a specific citation of where my words questioned your taste, your accusation stinks as well.</p>