I couldn't agree more. I didn't grow up in a prude house but the anti-nudity thing was/is deeply baked in to families. It's a mix of this judgemental social norm and if the person associates shame or insecurity with the human body, I think. Can't forget the misogyny tied to it, either.
Nothing quite like a vocal minority absolutely certain of what everyone else should or should not be able to do because of their own semi-psychotic self shame.
It's probably connected to them all being US-centred. In Germany we have a kind of saying that what we censor in media is the reverse to the US. We tolerate non-sexual nudity, but censor violence.
But in Germany we also have a movement called FKK (free body culture) which sees being naked as
a natural way to be. We have beaches were it's allowed for everyone (all ages, all genders together) to just be naked. Those are located in a way that you don't get jump scared by nudity, but they're not seen as shady.
And if we visit the sauna, it's normal to be naked and those are mixed, too.
So, even not being part of the FKK culture, I never understood why people see the naked body as something inherently sexual and why children need to be protected from nudity. Children seeing how vastly different bodies can be is only going to benefit them, especially during puberty.
Ive often said I wish my culture (east coast Canadian) was one with sauna or bathhouse traditions. I suspect there'd be way less self-hatred of bodies if we grew up seeing the full spectrum of what the human body looks like
I grew up in a pretty open minded family when it came to nudity. Nothing sexual about it, but I was used to seeing people naked from an early age, especially on hot summer days. Living close to the sea and a FKK beach certainly didn't make me question anything. Only in later years of school with
kids from more reserved families (and tons of bullying that made me ashamed of my body) I started seeing nudity as some sort of taboo. All the american movies didn't help either. I got ashamed in museums, didn't understand anymore why people would show something like that, even the naked statue
in our town made me cringe. It took me years of fellow artist friends re-teaching me that it's nothing sexual or taboo to draw nude models. And one little accidental trip to an FKK thermal bath to make me see again, that nudity is not an invitation for sex. Things I had forgotten up until then.
And it's no only because it requires extra steps, and can potentially hinder reach.
but as a concept.
I just don't understand WHY non-sexual artistic nudity should be censored at all.
And don't start the talk "but the children".
I grew up going to museums.
I saw tons of human painted nudes
It made me an artist and didn't hurt me even a tiny bit.
My dad, constantly taking me to see art whenever he could, is the best thing he did as a parent.
Pre-covid I would go to drawing meet-ups at a community college every two weeks (during semesters, they always have a summer break) and we always had real models. It would alternate between portrait sessions and acts.
Non-artists would ask me if it was "weird" or "awkward".
Um, no?
DAMN how I miss those live drawing nudes sessions.
I attended them for 2 years, once per week.
It immensely affected the way I draw human bodies. Like everything I know about human anatomy came from those sessions, not from books.
Ah the nostalgia.
It so hard to find ones now where I am.
I mean, maybe this is because I'm asexual but... when you're trying to capture the human form you have better things to do than to focus on 'ohoho naked person with me in the room'.
It's more like, 'ah damn what is the shape of this negative space' and other art-related worries.
Demisexual here.
Same thing.
I am never sexually aroused about my own drawings even if I draw NSFW explicit porn.
And when I was attending nude drawing sessions I was busy with getting the proportions not thirsting on models.
And as far as I remember, no one else in the class was doing this.
I s2g ppl have got weirder about skin in general in the last few decades. The # of times I had ppl apologise and skuttle away when I'm getting into ppe at work like?? I don't care if you see my legs, I'm changing my trousers in a public nature reserve ffs, you think I'd care if I was wearing shorts?
Aaaaand I kind of wished when viewing art that's just artistic nudity, people would also just think about how you captured the human form as an artist instead of 'ehehehehe nudity'.
In Germany it's totally normal to be naked in public sauna.
There's nothing bad or sexual about it (at least for me - and I'm not non-sexual). If someone still sees it as sexual, they keep it to themselves or they get kicked out.
No Problem with nakedness here. And in art, too, of course.
Yeah, I doubt that everyone in our drawing class (around 30 people) was on the Asexual spectrum.
But everyone was literally busy drawing. No one was staring or drooling, or behaving weirdly.
Imo easier to censor it all than sit and debate over each artist that wants to be excluded bc xyz art vibe reasons or go age hunting. People abuse it and it ruins it for others.
Also easy to simply filter if you want to see it or not if its properly labeled.
I don’t agree with that. I think it’s much better to destigmatise human bodies and put more effort into humanitarian education. Here in Belgium, neighbouring France, Germany people don’t have those paranoid issues with artistic nudity and everyone seems to be fine.
Also, you just have to look at the fat cock friday tag to see a LOT of nudity, uncensored. So I don't understand why art is being censored. Hypocrites everywhere!
It's not the children it's the prudes and those who want to dictate what kind art should be consumerable.
I'm a european on mostly US american socMed platforms and have to sit out this nonsense. Worse: prudes here start to feel encouraged to vomit the same bs.
Of course the US didn’t "start" anything but this worldwide backlash of conservatism evolved next to each others.
Still big tech influences the discussion and when FB licks peoples boots and declares hatespeech ok, but artistic nudity an offence others will follow suit...
My family used to show me pieces of antique art or buy me anatomy books when i was a kid. I think it's so sadly funny that for some people, human body = sexual. Doesn't make sense.
I wonder when this shift happened, because we learned about art in school and none of it was censored and none of it was sexualized either and we are talking about pre-teen boys in the class too.
I also feel like we are shaming the nude body as a whole, not just in art. Something that is natural.
And it feels like it's mostly an American thing in general (at least in English-speaking places of the internet) , but since social media companies are based in USA, it eventually affects everyone
This! Somewhere around 2016-17 this prude crackdown started.
Comming from trans spaces somewhere around 15/16 this started too and suddenly all us trans folks going to the bathroom for yeaaars are suddenly a danger to all.
It just went downhill from there...
I was notoriously offline around that time so it's a strange feeling having skipped the shift and come back to a new state of things lol
I always have to remind myself that I am from a country that shows nudity more freely in media and always had so there's less shame about it in general.
Again, I might have been in the right crowd but when I was with a medieval dance group for a few years, we didn't had gendered spaces. We changed in front of whoever was also there. And no-one made it awkward, nobody felt threatened and it was a non issue with mature people.
while I fully agree and will die on the hill that the human body should not be treated as inherently sexual and shamed, I will acknowledge that people (especially fems) have a lot of trauma around seeing peens show up uncensored on the timeline.
I think thhe only way around that trauma is consciously ddestigmatizing human genitalie in general. Because the "fear of a penis" is not only trauma related, but deeply rooted in culture that easily had female bodies on display but male bodies were not supposed to be perceived and always seen as
inherently offensive.
And it's a lot to unpack.
The stigmatization and fear of a penis is a very deeply patriarchal thing. Because it's the shadow side of the glorification of the penis.
Reminds me of that a Vulva is still seen as super obscene, when the same space allows for funny penis jokes.
C'mon it's just a bodypart.
Where the penis is glorified, the Vulva is mystified. Their shadow side bring shame and stigmatisation
I was on a queer flea market and the amount of super notmalized Vulva merch next to cutesy penis merch, it opened my eyes to how Normal a body part it is, but how shrouded in "never speak of it,never see it"when I grew up with penis grafitti and funny stylized penis merch for the more hearty joke
If you have "trauma" from looking at a penis that's a you problem. If you're reacting to a penis going "oh my god a penis penis havers wanna rape me" then you need to fuck off and work on your personal trauma until you can come back into public without being a little transphobic bitch.
that logical step is for people is to try and self-censor what they see online; curate their own space, but this is hard to do if artists don't tag their art with key words involved with artistic nudity and the naked body.
I know a lot of people who claim to be on the side of "artistic nudity isn't wrong" but only when it applies to fem bodies or censored genitals, which I find to be disingenuous and performative.
It’s my wild theory that it has to do with medium and “success”. Because my grandma can admire a nude classic in a museum but the second I do a comparable nude in my digital work she’ll talk to me about modesty. But that is because she doesn't see my digital art as real art, or me a “real artist”
The comment “but this is REAL art” comes out of her mouth a few times a year as she admires traditionally painted classics or modern traditional landscapes
I find that to be both a generational issue and an issue that she’s NOT an artist I’m not sure which contributes the most but its a team effort
I was just thinking about this going through Cara where I can't submit some of my art, but gore and horror can be uploaded with a label.
I mean, c'mon.
@[email protected] Some info if it helps: bsky doesn't restrict nudity setting to adults, anyone can change it to display nudity w/o clickthrough. Could press for the default to be changed, but it's unlikely due to app stores that infamously enforce guidelines unevenly.
All of this about destigmatizing the naked body and all this is completely true. However, I also do not want to get fired because the wrong person at work glanced over and saw a dick on my phone screen.
Because I can hardly imagine anyone can get fired here where I live if someone sees something other their shoulder in their private phone that is not illegal.
Looking at sexual (or even just nude)material on your own device on your break, on your own mobile network (not even on company wifi) is *expressly* against most sexual harassment policies at most companies.
I doubt it's the same in EU. AT least people whom I specifically asked and who work office jobs (I'm a freelancer, so I don't know) say it's not the case here.
Let's agree to disagree. I don't think it's anyone's business is workers can browse museum painting that include nudity in their phone and it should be a reason for anything over than conversation about art.
Growing up in Greece, even with our shitty educational system, we were still exposed to artistic nudity via classic art, ancient greek statues and amphorae, etc. We had detailed diagrams of human genitals in our biology books and received sex ed.
A pearl-clutching puritan is easily manipulated by people who want to exploit them and keep them ignorant and afraid. By religious institutions, the patriarchy, governments, etc.
So, dear reader, the next time you catch yourself saying any art should be censored, think about this.
Comments
But in Germany we also have a movement called FKK (free body culture) which sees being naked as
And if we visit the sauna, it's normal to be naked and those are mixed, too.
Even Deviant Art was more lenient on graphic violence and opposed to nudity.
I mean we walk on the streets that are full of nude statues and no one freaks out.
but as a concept.
I just don't understand WHY non-sexual artistic nudity should be censored at all.
And don't start the talk "but the children".
I grew up going to museums.
I saw tons of human painted nudes
My dad, constantly taking me to see art whenever he could, is the best thing he did as a parent.
Non-artists would ask me if it was "weird" or "awkward".
Um, no?
I attended them for 2 years, once per week.
It immensely affected the way I draw human bodies. Like everything I know about human anatomy came from those sessions, not from books.
Ah the nostalgia.
It so hard to find ones now where I am.
It's more like, 'ah damn what is the shape of this negative space' and other art-related worries.
Same thing.
I am never sexually aroused about my own drawings even if I draw NSFW explicit porn.
And when I was attending nude drawing sessions I was busy with getting the proportions not thirsting on models.
And as far as I remember, no one else in the class was doing this.
There's nothing bad or sexual about it (at least for me - and I'm not non-sexual). If someone still sees it as sexual, they keep it to themselves or they get kicked out.
No Problem with nakedness here. And in art, too, of course.
But everyone was literally busy drawing. No one was staring or drooling, or behaving weirdly.
Also easy to simply filter if you want to see it or not if its properly labeled.
I'm a european on mostly US american socMed platforms and have to sit out this nonsense. Worse: prudes here start to feel encouraged to vomit the same bs.
Still big tech influences the discussion and when FB licks peoples boots and declares hatespeech ok, but artistic nudity an offence others will follow suit...
I also feel like we are shaming the nude body as a whole, not just in art. Something that is natural.
And it feels like it's mostly an American thing in general (at least in English-speaking places of the internet) , but since social media companies are based in USA, it eventually affects everyone
Comming from trans spaces somewhere around 15/16 this started too and suddenly all us trans folks going to the bathroom for yeaaars are suddenly a danger to all.
It just went downhill from there...
I always have to remind myself that I am from a country that shows nudity more freely in media and always had so there's less shame about it in general.
while I fully agree and will die on the hill that the human body should not be treated as inherently sexual and shamed, I will acknowledge that people (especially fems) have a lot of trauma around seeing peens show up uncensored on the timeline.
And it's a lot to unpack.
The stigmatization and fear of a penis is a very deeply patriarchal thing. Because it's the shadow side of the glorification of the penis.
C'mon it's just a bodypart.
Where the penis is glorified, the Vulva is mystified. Their shadow side bring shame and stigmatisation
(Alt text does work for blocked words!!)
But this coming from your grandma sounds much worse.
I find that to be both a generational issue and an issue that she’s NOT an artist I’m not sure which contributes the most but its a team effort
I mean, c'mon.
Soon, simple personal hygiene like brushing teeth will become something indecent.🤡🤡
Nobody turned into a degenerate because of them.
So, dear reader, the next time you catch yourself saying any art should be censored, think about this.