Art versus Pornography

How do we draw the line and where do we draw the line between art and pornography? I consider myself to be a feminist, and oppose the exploitation of women. But is all nudity exploitive? Artists and sculptors have been portraying the nude body, both female and male for over two thousand years. Is the Venus De Milo exploitive? What about the Three Graces? Rodin’s Fallen Caryatid? Manet’s painting of Olympia? All include female nudity and all have been considered great art. What is the difference between Manet’s Olympia and a Playboy photograph of a woman in the same pose?

I think we can agree that a woman who was compelled or coerced into posing nude is being exploited. What if it is quite voluntary? What if the woman is decently compensated for posing voluntarily? To go a step further, is it exploitation to have a voluntary nude model for an art class?

I was on one feminist site which included feminists who were sex workers. I said that at its basis, sex work was exploitive, even when voluntary. I was banned from that site for that comment. At the same time, I’ve been on other feminist sites which excoriated pornography and those who consume pornography. How then do we distinguish artistic nudity and sexuality from exploitation?

And what about films? Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have a simulated lesbian scene in Black Swan. Brokeback Mountain includes simulated straight sex and gay male sex. The biopic about Frida Kahlo includes female nudity and simulated sex. There are innumerable instances of nudity and simulated sex in mainstream films. Are these art or exploitation? What about Pretty Baby or Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet? Given that the young women were under age at the time, those movies could not even be made in the US today. One art photographer has been roundly denounced for shooting nude photos of her underage children. Have we overreacted?

Have we so conflated nudity with sex that any nudity is tantamount to sexuality? Perhaps we could say that real photographed or filmed sexual contact is pornographic. But even that may be open to discussion by some however. Is simulated sex also pornographic? Where is the line? How do you protect people from exploitation without unduly limiting their freedom? If an adult willingly consents to nudity or sex on camera, is that truly exploitation? How do you protect those who do not wish to be protected, and who see your protection as infringing on their liberty?