Attached Link: http://www.dearauntnettie.com/museum/museum-fochit.htm

There has been much frustration expressed by artists in this forum over hysteria about biologically correct images of humans and even other mammals!! I think about this sillyness frequently over here in Europe where the fountains, wall carvings, and even chruches are often dripping with anatomically correct images of adults and children, and even animals!! It would cost billions of dollars to remove them all, but there is no point in it because Europeans laugh at the notion that they cause sex crimes or whatever. Anyway I had to laugh when I came across the following artistic spoof on the web, and I thought some of you might enjoy it as well. I am checking violence because it does portray violence against art. "Fochit had been commissioned to execute a Madonna and Child for the tomb of Etienne Chevalier, treasurer to King Charles VII of France. As luck would have it he completed the painting one week after Paris had passed its landmark "zero-tolerance" legislation regarding child pornography. The artist was consequently arrested and used as an example by the courts, sentenced to 30 years in the notorious Bastille. He hanged himself shortly after his incarceration there. His model, Agnes Sorel, was given a 14-year sentence for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, procuring the use of a child for use in a pornographic setting, and operating a milk bar without a town license. Her child, Jean-Louis, was assigned to a foundling home where he perished of neglect."

:giggle: Good one!

As is always the case from those who automatically assume guilt, they pave the road to hell with good intentions. good link :)

Well, that is kind of silly .. that painting is of artistic quality. There is a fine line between whats legal and whats illegal ... and little room for interpretation. However, what seems to have become the norm is the over use of nude and half nude figures in art where the nudity is out of place. Slapping a naked poser figure into the picture is not always art and it doesn't always make sense.

The other webpages there are also rather humourous.

you forgot to cover the babies nipples, kiddy porn!!

I hope this doesn't degenerate into another puritan-bashing pogrom, although the text in message 1 is a bit humourous, I admit. they might allow such an image here, but it would be banned at 'rotica, interestingly.

New Age Puritans deserve to be bashed!!!

"They might allow such an image here ..."

Well the TOS does say
"No use of: transparent clothes, blurring of nude areas, or the use of blots or Censored wording or props to cover areas that are otherwise not clothed.".

Ducks and runs

Excuse me... what is a tit? what means 'nude'? what is a kid? (Casette with his new, improved and politically corrected brain)

How do I purge this image from my machine now? See what you've done!!!

Kid=baby goat. Nude=no clothes on (also "nekkid"). Goats do not wear clothes. Tit=teat=part of mama goat designed by Nature to feed baby goat (kid). ;-)

Yeah, I'm being silly. LOL! What else is new?

Message edited on: 02/26/2006 18:34

God cover America ... :P

.

That site gave me some serious giggles! Thanks for the link. As for puritan bashing, don't they say that suffering is good for the soul? They WANT it, the masochists!

I really am trying to figure all this nervousness about sex is about in the US when I walk out my door here in Europe, past all these centuries of anatomical honesty. If God gave you a child without genitalia, I doubt that anyone reading this would be grateful. And yet there is surely at least one person out there who is grateful that the DAZ babies do not have genitalia. I am sure that people exist who believe that if poser children (and even animals!!) were biologically correct then there would be more paedophilc priests and so on. So they feel a special right to try to restrict other people's freedoms. Personally, I am throughly repulsed and sickened by the sexual and other ways in which children too often get mistreated in our society. But I don't believe that this can be corrected by keeping their genitalia (or the genitalia of animals!!)out of sight!! Assuming that it can just seems irrational and hysterical. Moreover it seems too lazy to study, and also suggests people whoare fearful of looking more deeply into our institutions and ways of life, and the nature of political movements. The naked Manneken Pis or "pissing little boy" has been a symbol of Brussels since 1619. I would be very surprised to learn that there is more paedophia in "Brussels than in Boston. This is by no means my own personal idea of cute, but Europeans seem to think it is cute rather than something that might trigger immorality. This sort of thing suggests to me that there is some deeper problem in our society and that being nervous about genitals on meshes and the imaginary immages of artists who are struggling to keep up with computers is not being willing to think about the deeper social issues.

but then..here's a conundrum..I work for a German company that provides support for an English company, and if a single unclothed picture is found on my work machine, I'm escorted from the premises, never to return. Which explains my behavior between 9-6..;)

packled,that may have little to do with nudity and more to do with tgrying to keep tight control over employees. Germans are notorious for keeping to business etc. Here I am living in Germany and there are naked breasts in the newspaper every day, and you should see the ads on late night television!!! They go on and on and show just about everything you could imagine. I'm not saying I like this, but it is their culture and I am trying to better understand it. It works for them, and the streets feel pretty darned safe. The families seem tight and loving.

.

That site is addictive. M

I don't know if it qualifies as Puritan bashing, but a noted Christian apologist and current boxoffice draw said: "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C. S. Lewis

It might have to do with the "prim & proper" way we were taught growing up. I'm 26, my mom and dad are both in their 60's now .. they raised me in a very old fashioned way. So nudity was sort of tabo .. you didn't get naked around anyone other then your spouse or a doctor. And sex was learned about in health classes etc. Sometimes its not easy to undo generations of programing.

Message edited on: 02/27/2006 01:20

Cover the baby, cover the baby !! Seriously, that false American morality is getting on my nerves. We haven't reached that kind of paranoia yet - although Poland with our current government is getting closer and closer. Some of the politicians think about making condoms and pills illegal, to force people to make more children instead of "doing it" for pleasure O.O

This is nonsense. The painter's name is Jean Fouquet. He lived from around 1420 untill 1481. The painting was created in 1450, and is part of a dyptich. The Chevalier panel is in Berlin, the Virgin panel in Antwerp. After he completed the painting, he stayed one of the most influential painters at the French court. Agn Sorel died in that same year 1450 wen she was on the way to visit her lover-king Charles VII who was fighting to re-conquer Normandy from the English. Oficially she died from dysentheria, but, as has been proven recently, she died from poisening. It may well be that the king's son, the future Louis XI, was responsible for her murder. Despite some silly critiques by Huizinga and others, there was nothing wrong with a mother feeding her baby. Fouquet, having been in Italy, already shows some of the extravagancies of what, a bit later, is to become French Mannerism of the Ecole de Fontainebleau. As for the "recent" wave of intolerance: each nation gets the government it merits. That is the true meaning of democracy. You have the right not to agree, and to express that disagreement. But no one forces you to visit R. Or spend your money here in the MP. But please do not mix this up with the art of another era. Before the Christian missionaries came to Africa or, say, the Pacific islands, women did not (have to) cover their breasts.

Great site... and I love that Lewis quote.

I love the quote too. I tried to track it down, and so far as I can tell it comes from something called "God in the dock."

I'm curious where the "US" part comes into what you've posted?

My own nutshell explanation of America's "hysteria" -

1. The IDEA of a Puritan founding. Historically, the Puritains weren't quite the prudes they were made out to be, but American's have made them out to be so for a reason. It's part of the mythology by which we define ourselves.

2. Victorian Prudery. England and America have this in common, but to a different extent. "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree", or if you prefer, "Give me the boy until he is seven and I will show you the man." America saw its greatest expansion and the biggest formation of its national identity during the Victorian era, notorious for restrictive and vindictive attitudes towards the body in general and sex specifically. These attitudes still exert a powerful influence more than a hundred years later, especially when combined with the mythology of our "puritan founding".

3. America has ALWAYS been a Christian nation, since its birth, and Christianity, whatever else it may be about, has a strong bias against sexuality. From First Corinthians 7, 1-7: "...it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband... But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself. (i.e. celibate.)"

4. America has no history of animism, druidism, Roman orgies, pagan fertility rites, harems, etc. etc. as part of our national character that might counter the anti-sexual attitudes of Victorianism and Christianity. Nor have we ever had, at the highest levels of our society, the kinds of sexual debauchery and excess perfected by the European nobility.

5. Libido can be easily sublimated into consumer spending. Our country is awash in hyper-sexualized imagery, yet this is really more about making people feel inadequate and therefore in need of something - something which is right in this store and on sale if you act right now! Interestingly, even the puppets who feed this mania - the supermodels, the Hollywood actresses, the pop singers - often feel totally inadequate about their appearance and sex appeal. We're taught to pursue sex relentlessly and expect it to be this mind-bending experience, but we are also expected to feel guilty about paying too much attention to it and to be disappointed with the actual partners and experiences we do attain. Did somebody say "irrational and hysterical"? ;-) Being caught up in this merciless machine makes people feel angry, and anger has to go somewhere. Which leads to...

6. Many people deal with their own demons by projecting them onto others. In a country that is swamped with sexualized imagery and innuendo, but treats even normal sexuality as shameful and simple nudity as taboo, there are plenty of folks wrestling with demons. Much easier to put them onto someone else and lash out than to look inside and really face them.

7. Politicians like to get their names in the paper. Politically, this issue is always a win, because the public at large is NEVER going to rally to the support of the rights of artists, and NOBODY is going to go on record as being "in favor of p-nography" especially where children are involved. So the politicos get to look like they're dealing with an important issue without the slightest political risk or, in most cases, effort. And the newspapers sell more copies, too! Everybody wins!

• Jimdoria ~@>@

Message edited on: 02/27/2006 14:15

"I'm curious where the "US" part comes into what you've posted?" Europeans tend to think that the effots of the religious right in the US to make sex into a political issue over the last many decades (most aggressively since perhaps the mid 1970s) is very strange. They tend not to see it as the development of "magnet issues" by demagogues to get the population stirred up, and distract them from more important socioecoinomic issues, but rather as a sort of hysteria inherent in the American character. I guess I see it as a sort of hysteria in any event, whether it is really grass-roots, or whether the nation has been manipulated successfully in the cuture wars. People over here certainly don't want paedophia, or rape, or VD, but they don't by and large get hysterical about sex or try to blame complex social problems on sexual immorality. I am not saying that there are not individuals, and perhaps some communities and churches that get hysterical, but in general people's minds are not fixated on such things and they find the situation in the US bewildering. "My god, in the US you can't even change your clothes on a public beach!!" "You can't kiss babies anymore." True or not is not the point, that is the impression that is being left with travelers etc. and where there is smoke there is fire. What is going on in the US is certainly different from what is going on in Europe and I think Canada. They tell me that the age of consent, with some reasonable qualifications, is 14 in Catholic Italy, 15 in Orthodox Greece, and 13! in Spain, 16 Switzerland, and Germany etc. Look at this chart, and the US states are at the bottom. No state are down to 15 or 13! http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm I am an American and would have been uncomfortable with the low ages of consent before I started living in Europe. But what I see are tight families and well-raised generally mature children. People I talk with feel that they can trust their offspring to make mature decisions at those ages, and I can see why they feel that way. Believe me, their advertising and TV shows etc are every bit as sleazy as ours (many of them are ours), so the kids are by no means protected from knowing about sex!! Of course Muslim countries tend to be concerned about sex and nudity. I am not sure what is going on in Latin America or Africa or Asia. So I am thinking in terms of the US relative to the other Western industrialized countries.

Good points Jimdoria.

I understand the differences of opinions w/regard to how the US handles sex and nudity and how Europe handles it. What I fail to understand is how your posting of that particular image merits the title you gave it. How is that particular image, it's European artist and story (satire I'm assuming) relative to "US sex hysteria and art"?

Lessee, now... Sex started out several million years ago, and rapidly attracted a lot of adherents. Art started out several centuries ago, and slowly attracted some adherents, usually from the more well-off clients. Art has been trying to show itself to be better than Sex ever since, by shouting louder... It hasn't worked. Sex has retained a strong client base, whilst Art is still struggling to catch the market on the fringes..... Cheers, Diolma :-))

Kendra. You don't have to assume it is a satire. I said it was a spoof and the text in quotes is too exaggerated to take seriously in any event. Humor is difficult to explain to someone who does not "get it." I think you really have to know the person to try to figure out why they don't get it. And I don't know you, so I can't say much more. Sorry. Humor is a lot like art. Not every piece of art will resonate with every viewer. I will comment that the fact that artist of the altered painting was European is not relevant for most of us, because such a disfigured painting would normally be seen as "Western art" and part of the heritage of English and other European language-speaking countries. Hence some of us see it as a statement about art in a general sense. The hysteria about art seems to be largely a US phenomenon, and I put that in so as not to leave the impression that there is a general hysteria about various types of art. I don't know if this helps or not. Sorry.

Attached Link: http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm

pjbear Interesting link :) Also interesting to note many of the Islamic countries listed have NO age of consent. Is the law then still at the age of memses in those countries? 10 or 11 years of age?

The main reason that those countries don't have an age of consent is that sex outside of marriage is forbidden under any circumstance, so the age of consent is the same as the minimum age for marriage.

No, the humor I get. It's the using of a European artwork, artist and (supposed) setting to label (criticize?) "US hysteria" that doesn't mesh.

Kendra: Why s/he used a European painter,you would have to ask the web artist! I only ran across this and thought it made a statement and was worth a laugh. I did not make it. Now do I understand you? I will venture a guess but it is only a guess. I imagine that the website used it because it is a great work of art and there are many splendid paintings of Maria lactans showing a naked breast and Jesus as a biologically intact boy, and other naked boys (like John the Babtist) or angels around them. These hang proudly in museums and churches all over Europe and are treasured. (actually the reason I was searching on the web is that I had seen so many of them here and especially from the Renaissance and late medieval that I was trying to find out if there was a trend over time. They are a genre.) While in the US John Ashcroft had them cover the naked breasts of the statue of Justice. That really maked us look silly and backward to Europeans. And personally I think that it is silly (and sitting here in Europe even embarassing in principle)that Poser children and animals come without genitals, presumably because of fears about the political activists and trends in the US.Not because they make better art models.To me biolgically disfigured models look disturbing as would humans without noses, or dogs without ears.

martian- Traditionally all over the middle east the 'minimum age for marriage' IS the onset of memses. And the age of responsibality is 7. It's the time when your suppose to know right from wrong. Mary, mother of Jesus is thought to have been between 11 and 13. As was the tradition of that region.

"...whether it is really grass-roots, or whether the nation has been manipulated successfully in the cuture wars." Well, the manipulators certainly must have had fertile ground to sow. Convincing completely rational people that they need to start teaching religion in science classes at a moment when their nation's technological dominance is being threatened would seem to be a tough sell. Similarly, If you had told most people a few years ago that Americans would be boycotting a children's book because they feared witchcraft, well... Whether it's Islam or American Christianity, the fundamentalists have taken hold of the popular agenda. The Arab world, never able to regain it's past glory retreats to the past of Sharia and America, seemingly disenchanted with scientific and intellectual progress seeks to return to a world of Biblical literalism. To the rest of the world I can only say, be afraid, be very afraid.

geoegress, I know that, but my point was that there is no seperate age of consent because of the ban on premarital sex.

"Convincing completely rational people..." Completely rational people? Where ON EARTH do you find THEM? Scandanavia? But then how do you explain troll metal? ;-) - Jimdoria ~@>@

Attached Link: http://www.caedefensefund.org/

Imakenzi: No doubt there is some very dark stuff going on these days about art and the culture wars back in the US. Maybe the case of an art professor who was arrested on a "bioterrorisim" charge that turned into a quite unrelated pettty matter that is still being pursused as a felony will interest some of you. See the Critical Art Ensemble website http://www.caedefensefund.org/ This guy was preparing an art construction critical of biotech and it involved some pieces of lab equipt. Well, if you are interested read the details yourself. The point is that the folks just might not be crazy who suspect that the reason that the government is spending so much of our tax money to prosecute the guy is that they want to intimidate artists from challenging administration values and goals. Maybe it was even a test case to start out with, and then when that fell through they did not want to let up. I don't know, of course. But this is certainly one to watch.

A chilling read, that Steve Kurtz stuff. Anyone remembers the phrase "Entartete Kunst?" History has an unsettling way of repeating itself.

kathym, reading your post made me realize just how differently children can be raised, even in the same areas around the same time. I don't know where you grew up, but I am 30 and I grew up in the Southeastern U.S. and I was raised to believe that nudity wasn't such a bad thing. I was taught that wearing clothing in public was respectful of others (and obviously the legal thing to do!) But my parents believe that nothing was wrong with nudity in a natural setting. Prime example... my mother's co-workers were shocked to learn that my parents had allowed me to watch "The Blue Lagoon" when I was only around five years old because of the nudity in it, but my parents thought it was a beautiful movie and that the nudity was important to the experience. I watch the movie now that I am an adult and I completely agree. I did not see anything wrong or weird with it as a child, and I still don't. I should also mention that my mother was a Southern Baptist, and I attended a Baptist church from around age 5 until age 13. She was very religious, but she still knew that "God" made our bodies and that what he made is pure and good. I feel blessed to have been raised by liberal parents, and I hope my own children feel the same someday. :)

"While in the US John Ashcroft had them cover the naked breasts of the statue of Justice. That really maked us look silly and backward to Europeans."

See, now had you shown a picture of something that Ashcroft had covered and used your post title it would have made sense as a US issue. Using a European image and setting didn't make sense as anything more than a strawman arguement.

"Why s/he used a European painter,you would have to ask the web artist!"

The website didn't come across as making a statement on "US hysteria" on nudity and art like you were attempting with your post.

Attached Link: http://www.fepproject.org/fepp/aboutfepp.html

This thread got me curious and I did some poking on the web and ran across a site from the New York University School of law that has a lot of interesting information in it on censorship and art. http://www.fepproject.org/fepp/aboutfepp.html

I also ran across one that talks about something I had never heard of before called the Communications Decency Act, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act The author of the site is arguing that these British images that he likes would be violations of the US CDA. I do not agree or disagree with him, but I am simply passing this on because some of you are interested in this issue and may want to consider his views. http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/indcnt.html

Message edited on: 02/28/2006 14:21

Attached Link: http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/1724969.php

"Where ON EARTH do you find THEM?" True, rationality is relative though I would have hoped for more progress in 2,000 years :-) "...want to intimidate artists from challenging administration values and goals." Funny, some folks think people are getting on the no fly list for the same reason. Not so far fetched, considering what Nixon did with the IRS and FBI. I haven't seen this (link) mentioned in the mainstream media so it may be nothing, but still interesting. Of course, the fact that thses crook boyz are getting a contract for anything is pretty disgusting. Some expressed surprise when I posted this quote from prominent televangelist D. James Kennedy before. He was quite candid, speaking to the faithful. If you want to know what the agenda is, this is pretty much it. *"As the vice-regents of God, we are to bring His truth and His will to bear on every sphere of our world and our society. We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."* All your bases are belong to us...

Imckenzie: Yes the leaders have been working for nothing less than a cultural revolution.

One of the most distubing things is that if you read their literature they recommend stealth tactics. They say people are so brainwashed by liberals that they would not understand our (their) agenda if we (they) discussed it openly. So we (their followers)should focus on "hot button" tax issues, abortion, sex, crime, etc.to mobilize people. It is obvious that this is what they are doing but this is also what they write in their own publications. It makes sense in terms of subversive strategy, but it flies in the face of democracy.

The idea of free speech and assembly is so that people can lay out their thoughts so that these can be discussed by everyone. But these people are snippers who try to stay hidden so that they can take over an unsuspecting population, and they dupe a lot of good people into being followers. It is very troubling.

Your quote from Kennedy is the sort of thing that one can find if one digs. These are the elite with the money, organizational skills, psyop know-how, and important connections. Thank you for helping to let others know about this sneaky attack on our democratic institutions and personal freedoms.

Message edited on: 02/28/2006 17:13

Message edited on: 02/28/2006 17:18

Historically America is the one country that I thought had succesfully managed a separation of church and state (a good thing IMHO). Perhaps I have got it wrong.

gezinorgiva, yeah, we do have it (and it seems to work most of the time), but the different groups who oppose it are always looking for ways around it. Officially the US government is religiously neutral, and is not allowed to get involved in religius disputes.

The relationship between the current administration and a particular religious movement is certainly more pervasive and more open than anything I can recall. America has never had an official state religion. There always has been though, IMO, a tendency to conflate religion with nationalism. Every church seems to have an American flag displayed prominently next to its religious symbols and there is has always seemingly been a barely disguised notion that we are more virtuous by virtue of being God's chosen nation. I'm sure that's not unique but it seems a dangerous notion, especially these days. Once we've decided that we have God's mandate, we can justify doing anything, and do it, as Lewis said, with the approval of [our] own conscience.