Pr0n and Women

Pornography

We had this topic come up in church. There's an article in Christian Weekly (or something), about this site, www.XXXchurch.com. According the article, this church reaches out to porn stars and porn addicts. As opposed to condemning them, they're more "Hey, God loves you!" which I think is great!

We had a discussion about porn.

Porn is this thing that most Christians don't want to talk about. It's this big taboo. While people might openly admit to lying or stealing or envying, it's unlikely that people will admit to actively consuming porn. When someone says they're an alcoholic and going to AA meetings, we congratulate them, pat them on the back. When someone says they're addicted to porn, we suddenly have somewhere else to be.

No, I'm not leading up to a dramatic reveal, although I will admit to having actively consumed porn before (though, in truth, some of the stuff I've seen was just plain gross).

I wanted to bring this up, because I'm an artist.

It's no secret by now that I love the female figure; nude or otherwise; and that it's riveting to draw. So many curves; soft gradients; absolutely beautiful. But am I producing porn?

I heard somewhere that viewing artwork is a delicate procedure. Hold it too close, and it becomes pornography; too far, and you become cynical.

I guess that's a sad fact I have to deal with as an artist. Despite my intentions, there is always the chance that my work can be viewed in a way I did not intend. And sometimes it'll be a pleasant surprise, and other times it'll be "mor b00bs plz, kthx".

Aside: Kay, wow. Firefox recognizes "b00bs" as a valid word. Wow.

It's not something that I'll be able to solve, at least, not immediately.


Women

I suddenly remembered something from when I was about six or seven.

I used to catch the last ten minutes of some soap opera when I came home from school. Once, there was a scene with a man and woman arguing or something; and the woman was going to either kill him or break up with him or something like that. And I thought, "Wow, women are powerful and awesome!" And that idea stayed with me for a long time.

Then I saw Disney's Pocahontas.

There's this scene with, I think it's Governor Ratcliffe, and he's singing about having riches or something, and he's coming down this staircase with a bunch of poofy-dress-ed women waving fans and swooning around him. And this completely blew my mind.

I think, first of all, I went, "What's going on? Women don't like him! He's a jerk!"

My next thought was a little frightening: "Maybe it means he's more powerful than the women."

And my next thought was, "Man, I want to be so powerful that women flock to me!"

--Charissa

PS: If you check out that IMDb link, the plot outline reads: "The daughter of a Native American tribe chief and English soldier share a romance..."

At first I thought the word "share" was incorrect.