Establishing Conditions for Pornographic Art

Philosophy in Review, 2014

2015

A year after the publication of the first anthology of philosophical essays on art and pornography, Hans Maes’ second collection presents a somewhat different approach to the same topic. 1 Some of the essays continue the philosophical themes discussed before: can a single work be at the same time pornography and art? How should pornography be defined and what are its distinctive features? Is pornography immoral? But the larger part of the book explores more specific issues. Discussed are particular examples of pornographic works of high aesthetic value, artworks inspired by pornography and sex, explicit art from Ancient Rome and Mediaeval Spain, differences between mainstream, feminist and gay pornography, social attitudes to pornography and explicit art, etc. The authors come from diverse backgrounds: philosophers, artists, gallery curators, pornographers and art historians. Here lies the greatest strength of Pornographic Art: it gives voice to a variety of writers who approach por...

Philosophy Compass, 2011

Art and pornography are often thought to be mutually exclusive. The present article argues that this popular view is without adequate support. Section 1 looks at some of the classic ways of drawing the distinction between these two domains of representation. In Section 2, it is argued that the classic dichotomies (subjectivity versus objectification, the beautiful versus the smutty, contemplation versus arousal, the complex versus the one-dimensional, the original versus the formulaic, imagination versus fantasy) may help to illuminate the differences between certain prototypical instances of pornography and art, but will not serve to justify the claim that pornography and art are fundamentally incompatible. Section 3 considers those definitions of pornography that make an a priori distinction between pornographic and artistic representations. The difference between the ‘merely’ erotic and the pornographic is also discussed in this context. Section 4 provides a critical assessment of the most recent and elaborate arguments against the compatibility of pornography and art. Finally, in Section 5, a case is made for the existence of pornographic art, as a subcategory of erotic art.

The Oxford Handbook of Art and Ethics, 2023

This chapter offers a critical overview of recent philosophical literature on erotic art and pornography as well as some suggestions about new directions for inquiry, all with an eye toward ethical issues that arise in these areas. The first section surveys philosophical discussions of the purported distinction between art and pornography. The next section considers new areas of inquiry that arise once we shift focus to the connections and similarities between erotic art and pornography. Once we put the pornography literature and the aesthetics-and-ethics literature into conversation with one another, new areas of inquiry open up, including: the harms and benefits that come from engaging with libidinous representations, applications of speech act theory to libidinous representations, and philosophical and ethical issues pertaining to fiction, imagination, and fantasy. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of sex positivity and social justice issues related to libidinous representations. Before we begin, I would like to make some remarks about terminology. Unless otherwise specified, "art" is here construed broadly to include popular culture, and "pornography" is treated not as a monolith, but rather as a diverse category of representation that includes queer porn and feminist porn, to name only a few. I also construe "ethics" and "ethical value" broadly to include social justice concerns such as (listed in alphabetical order) ableism, classicism, fatism, homo-negativity, racism, sexism, and trans-negativity. Finally, there is a trigger warning for this chapter. At various points I will be mentioning rape and other forms of sexual violence, pedophilia, racialized violence, and eroticizing representations of these things, although I do not discuss any of this in vivid detail.

2013

European Journal of Philosophy, 2014

through our flesh, that makes us desire revenge not only for ourselves but also on behalf of others who have suffered; the more involved we feel with the bodies of others, the more we feel the atrocities committed against them as unsettling our own embodied selves. The 'dream of purity' has to be abandoned, again, with respect to the question of revenge and its presence in political judgments, since the other is never a neutral other, a disembodied, abstract consciousness, but rather a concrete other who rises within us embodied responses of hate or of desire. There are no easy answers, so it seems, to our questions regarding the principles which need to inform 'right political actions'; we are doomed to failure, since 'failure is a condition of life itself' (p. 181). Nevertheless, Kruks appropriately concludes her multifaceted book on a rather optimistic note, for Beauvoir's humanist philosophy calls not for despair but for an amplification of freedom in the world, even when the price of such an amplification is complexity and a lack of clear solutions. This must not discourage us, since ambiguity, even more than failure, is a condition of life itself, and Kruks does a compelling job in this book of convincing us that ambiguity is just the right place to live in.

The British Journal of Aesthetics 52.3, pp. 287-300., 2012

On the whole, neither those who hold that pornography can never be art nor their opponents specify what they actually mean by `art', even though it seems natural that their conclusions should vary depending on how the concept is understood. This paper offers a `definitional crossword' and confronts some definitions of pornography with the currently most well-established definitions of art. My discussion shows that following any of the modern definitions entails that at least some pornography not only can be, but actually is, art.

The British Journal of Aesthetics, forthcoming

A year after the publication of the first anthology of philosophical essays on art and pornography, Hans Maes' second collection presents a somewhat different approach to the same topic.

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 1999