I find that the pictures of NVIATWAS not offensive to view in a thumbnail when they are obviously poser made models. However I seem to be cringing a bit when I see a thumbnail from the Photography areas (and yes I know I can just see the poser posts), with boobs or sexual situations. I've even gotten use to some of the full frontal males when they are a poser model. Is anyone else finding this a bit offensive?

nope

Poser nude models don't bother me at all, but the real stuff does. I just choose not to look at it. Problem solved! :o) Laurie

I love real, nude bodies! It's violence I can't stand to look at - in any form.

Poser vs. Photography - It's probably the difference between seeing a fight in a movie and seeing one in real life. I can watch car wrecks all day in movies, but the few I've seen in real life bothered me for days, even if I only saw the aftermath of the wreck. If there's a picture that seems over the line, though, please let us know. MichelleA and starshuffler are really good about patrolling the galleries but even they're not perfect. As well, we do allow a certain amount of sensuality in photographs as long as they don't break TOS. Cheers!

Never have been offended by nudity... I don't see the female form as offensive, i wouldn't say boobs are offensive.. before i rant, i just really hate the way society has made breasts into something offensive and purely sexual.. I enjoy being female and never once have i thought of my body as offensive.. neither do i find male nudity offensive...hehe... My poser art is maybe on the erotic side, but mostly fetishy... and now i believe i have said the word offensive too many time and the result is i have offended myself so i'm walking off and ignoring myself with disgust.. LOL I think to each there own, if u don't like nudity/sexual subjects/erotic photography or porn.. then don't look at it, set the gallery filters so u won't see it.. and on a final note.. why am did i get up 5:30am... maddness.....

I think the human body is an amazing and beautiful thing. If I see something I do find offensive (maybe violence) then I simply don;t look at it. But nakidity - it is natural!

NVIATWAS is overdressed. The sword is completely unnecessary.

It's just you. Go watch some canible porno's and desencitise yourself. Then you won't mind a bit. (But then they may make you hungry.)

Its bizarre if you can be offended by a real naked body & not the computer generated image of unobtainable perfection. Maybe I'm bizarre, I kinda think I am.

How anyone can be offended by the a the human body, are we artists or not for to realy truly see we have to look and i mean look not just see. I find the human figure very beautifull to look at and wonderfull to try and recreat on canvas or digitaly, taking pictures is an art form and one must look beyond just seeing flesh in the raw but try seeing it as modle who has no sexuality and is there for you to look see and paint cheers dolly

I don't find erotic/model/art photography offensive. As far a NVIATWAS, I don't find those offensive either... just... anoying. Cheers, Axe.

Photo erotica offensive? I don't think so! It is almost as good as the real thing, well I did say almost. The variety of different bodies out there, all those curves. The different looks, textures and wow look at how the light falls on her hair! I can't afford to pay for the model to come and pose for me so I use photo references. Some of the references can also trigger that extra little bit of inspiration. Don't copy the photo exactly, just use references for their face, put them in a different situation, dress them or undress them. Put some of yourself into the image (some of the models I have seen I would like to put myself into!!) What I meen by this is, something caught your attention when you saw the image in the first place, work on it and build upon it, bring it to life with your feelings. Offensive is an emotion and without our emotions we would not be artists. For you to have taken offence, then the artist may have achieved what they wanted to achieve? You are after all discussing what you saw. What more could an artist ask for?

Damnit! If god wanted us to be naked we would have been born that way! nuff said.

I find hardcore pornography of any sort irritating and stupid, but that's about it. I'm not offended by the arrangement of polygons and pixels, though. At least, I haven't been yet. I think I've only ever once seen a picture that made me go, "Eeeuuuwww, that are YOU into?!" and even that was a mild reaction. I figured maybe the person who made it was just stupid and didn't get what they were implying with the image. So, no. Not offended. Sometimes annoyed, frequently bored, but not offended. One thing to remember is that no one can GIVE offence. You have to TAKE it. ;) bonni

I think maybe I should clarify myself from my previous post. I didn't mean to say that real naked bodies bother me, because they don't. I actually think humans are quite beautiful. It's the hard-core erotic stuff that makes me uncomfortable. Even hard-core Poser will do that. I prefer to keep bedroom activities in the bedroom, but then I AM female and females in general are not as visually stimulated as males ;o). Therefore, seeing the stuff does nothing for me. I feel more like an intruder than anything else...LOL. But seeing a naked body isn't offensive. Laurie

While we're busy banning images that turn people on, let's ban photos of men with large wallets. After all, that's what gets most women excited.

Yes some people thought it was a nine inch piece of plastic that kept them happy! Well how wrong they were, it only takes 3 inches of plastic, even better if it is gold or platinum coloured. ;p

There's erotica in the photo gallery? WHy didn't someone tell me sooner???!!!!??? Just kidding. Erotica in any form doesn't bother me at all, but I know it does bother a lot of people. My cousin's husband is greatly offended by real photography of erotica, but he loves to look at Poser nudes. By the way, multiple exclamation marks and question marks are the sign of a sick mind. I know.

Dale LaRoy Splitstone

Err, but is it really erotica? Just because there are nudes in the gallery does not mean that they are erotic in nature. /P

Nude, naked and everything like it is fine by me. No matter how explicit. Sex, fetish, whatever. Whether or not a particular picture or photo is in my taste is another matter. But that's just a matter of personal taste. Whether or not it's erotic is also another matter. Which is connected to your own personal taste. Just DON'T anyone here think that YOU can decide for ME what is erotic. I won't stand for it. Violence I can't stand. That's pornographic. But that's my personal taste, you can look at violence all you want. :] Fish - who hates anything even remotely related to or eminiscent of censorship, regardless of what principle it's based on.

Sounds like Western Prudishness to me.

As someone else indictaed, nudity isn't necessarily erotica or porn. For that matter, erotica isn't always porn. In a big community like this it's going to be impossible to define what those words mean to everyone's satisfaction. Anyeone who's been to a typical art school has probably had the experience of taking figure drawing classes with live nude models in the classrom. Maybe that's sort of what it's like for medical students...the nudity becomes a non-issue very quickly in the context of your craft or profession. If someone is focussing on genitals for their thumbnail when, say, the full photo is a typical artistic full-body nude, then yeah, that's vulgar, and as we all know plenty of Poser artists are guilty of exactly that: Trying to attract views by being crude. But what if the full photograph happens to be a lovely, artistically executed picture of a woman's breasts? Is that porn? Not to my mind, but there you go...to an extent, it's all in the mind of the individual.

I don't find most nudity offensive at all, certainly not most that I've seen here at Rosity. Those few images which I thought were gross were removed by the admins for crossing the line.

IMO we shouldn't call the person who started this thread a prude. They have a valid view, started an interesting thread, and most importantly, they weren't wagging fingers, ranting, or passing prudish judgement. We might not all agree on this issue, but I think all sides should be able to be heard without fear of name-calling.

I just took a look in the photo galleries-- not much there in the way of nudity or erotica-- not like Posers. However, what there was was slightly more uncomfortable because-- I think-- it had the appearance of being more objectified than your normal Poser pinup. Kind of a weasely way of saying I don't know if it was more objectified-- "woman there to turn on a guy and not as a person"-- or not, but it feels that way, to me, a woman. Problem was, these pics didn't come anywhere near to breaking the TOS-- one did but it was art and quite good, doesn't count. I'm just trying to figure out my own impressions. You see, I both write and read pornography, so obviously it doesn't offend me. Neither did the pics, but they were uncomfortable in a way that many fetish pics, and I have plenty of coffee table books of those, are not. I suspect I don't mind being slightly aroused and/or challenged in that way by a picture but I get uncomfortable watching the photographer get aroused. And two of the picts I saw were not good enough to get beyond this,uh, titillation, is a good word for it. No call for censorship or anything, just attempting to understand my own feelings and hoping that has some relevance to anybody else out there. Emily

Consider, until we get dials for warts, cellulite, wrinkles, freckles, love handles, sparse hair, dense hair, dry skin, etc., Poser is just going to show mostly the ideal form, as opposed to the camera-tells-all approach of photography. Sad to say, a lot of folks don't look better with their clothes off..;)

Thanks xoconostle....it definitely wasn't a judgement call I was making on the posts, because had I been offended then I would have approached staff. I guess to view it a different way, the imagery that I and others create in Poser desensitizes me to digital art, but some of the photographic imagery (and it is superb lighting and posing), somehow was just different.

It's quite easy to observe that the majority, not all, but the majority of images in these galleries are more hormonially driven than artistically driven. The fact of the matter is, it's still a form of expression, though a rather personal and perhaps, tasteless form of expression. Photographs from the galleries of Mapelthorpe always made me a bit uncomfortable.. well.. actually.. a lot uncomfortable. But, maybe that was what the artist was going for as well... to make the viewer get an "in your face" type of feeling. Hmmm... just random thoughts on the subject. I guess hormonally driven and artistically driven is what seperates the true artists from the wannabe's?

Either one does not bother me, but I think it is more impressive on Poser models, cause they are not real, it is harder to get realistic, so that is more interesting to me. Sharen

An author wrote......"there is no one truth. It is all true"

If you want to imagine being really uncomfortable, think about me as an infant being convinced that by suckling my mother's breasts I was engaging in incestuous sexual intercourse. This was the result of being conditioned to accept women's breasts as sexual objects. If you want to read about real objectification, I suggest that you go to fullgospelranch and read my presentation of the evolution of my own psychological aberration. I am offended by puritanical attitudes towards nudity, and I feel this is with very good reason. Dale LaRoy Splitstone

As both a Poser user and a photographer who produces work mostly including the female form, I have to say that I am not offended by nudity of any kind. What does offend me is the assumptions that are made against Photographers who shoot nudes (in particular, females) as opposed those who "paint" nudes - whether traditionally or digitally. When I show my Photographic Portfolio, I get quite a mixed reaction, from utter disgust to total awe. This surprises me as I don't consider myself to produce photographs that are that good, or that would cause someone to take offence. This then degenerates into "he's a pervert" or "why do he do that, he has a wife and kids". Am I missing a point with these people? (BTW - my wife is my worst critic!!) One interesting aside to this is that once, at a function, I and my "amusing sideline" were pointed out to some of the guests. As it transpired, by the end of the evening, most of the men were sat VERY close to their partners/wives. (This has happened to other photographers I know). Consequently, when I show my Poser/digital work, it is generally more accepted as I feel that people can distance themselves from a painting. So one gets the impression is that its more morally acceptable to be a "painter of nudes" than a "photographer" of them. What also adds to this interesting thread, is that Poser has a way of showing the "ideal" person lookswise. Real models can look stunning, but take it from one who knows, they often have zits, stray hairs, marks, bruises(?) and who knows what. The trick is being able to make it look like they have'nt. Take it from me - its a damn sight easier using Poser. The subject don't move till you tell it. There no wires/cables or equipment to fall over and your models always turn up. But I still love doing the photos!! Just some thoughts from a desperate photographer trying to justify why he takes pictures of women (and paints pictures soemtimes!!)

One of the differences between man and the other animals is that man is the only animal to wear clothes. Over time, this has led to nudity being seen as something unusual, which is a pity. I see nudity as a natural state, and I'm puzzled as to why anyone would be offended by it. I know everyone's different, and I'm not saying people don't have a right to their own views and reactions. I just don't see what the big deal is. LaurieA said, 'females in general are not as visually stimulated as males' No offence, but I have to disagree with you on that one. Statistics have shown that the sales of pornographic books and videos are almost evenly divided 50/50 between men and women. I can't think of any physiological or psychological reason for men and women to react differently to visual/sexual stimulii. And don't trot out the stuff about hunters vs nurturers. It only applies in certain limited areas. mac

agree completely, maclean :)) well, I'm female and yes... I find erotic visual stimulation highly arousing. I think perhaps, I never was socialised to find it unnatural. g I understand what Queri is talking about though... sometimes an erotic or pornographic picture seems 'objectified'. I like characterisation, a story going on, movement and feeling in the people portrayed. But the objectification is not offensive to me, just doesn't do it for me like a picture with strong characterisation telling a story. But this can happen just as easily in Poser as it can in a photograph, though. one of my favourite erotic photographers is Roy Stuart. He uses amateur models and tells a story in his photographs. I find his work hot hot hot. :))) and yeah... not much stomach for violence in an erotic context, with the exception of when there's strong characterisation and a solid story going on... I got nothing against murder mysteries etc.

Emily - "You see, I both write and read pornography," Am I the only dude in here who finds this arousing?

I find naked farm animals offensive. Now put them in pantyhose and garters and its a real turn on. "Are you my daaaddddddieieieieieieie".

naked furniture is so gross. stain it, please!

I am totally against that obscene naked MilDragon! Make that beast put some clothes on!!!! Personally I find Vicky, as she comes 'out of the box', way over dressed; Show Them Bones!

'I never was socialised to find it unnatural' I think that's what defines outlook. I was never socialised (programmed?) to see anything wrong with nudity either. Not that many people run around nude in scotland. It's a bit too cold for that. But if you offer me $10, I'll walk round the block naked. I have no problem. 'Emily - "You see, I both write and read pornography," 'Migal - Am I the only dude in here who finds this arousing?' Probably not, migal, although, contrary to popular opinion, there are plenty of women who read/write 'pornography'. And why not? No one's ever convinced me that women enjoy sex less than men do. It's just that for some bizarre reason, it's more socially acceptable for men to have a macho image and always be acting the gigolo. Ah well.... the topic is infinite.... mac

Queri, your post made me think about this a bit. Perhaps what is disturbing with some photographs is a sense of voyeurism? As if you're intruding on something private. The model, the photographer, engaged in something personal, and you're intruding? I don't know if that's what you mean (don't mean to put words in your mouth, either, of course), but I sometimes feel that way with certain kinds of erotic photography. Commercial porn is just sloppy and annoying as far as I'm concerned. But the photographs that genuinely look like you're getting a glimpse of something real... Hmmm. I've never thought of myself as particularly voyeuristic, but maybe we all have some of that... ? Just think out loud, and using your post as a springboard. ;) bonni