Walking The Fine Line Between Eroticism And Pornography

             It is every artist’s desire that works with the human figure to render it in the most honest way possible. Honesty is the operative word in that it encompasses all facets in what compels us toward it and repels us from it.

            See the work of Philip Pearlstein and to a greater extent Lucien Freud to catch my drift.

            If you ply your trade in the erotic arts a tightrope is often walked between the truly sensual and the overtly obvious. The key question here is: How do I get to the edge of the obvious without tumbling into the abyss?

            This writing is not a denunciation of Pornography, as I believe it has value. Porn fills a very human need certainly in a well-rounded life and a free society. It is human from all sides of the fence to lust in a purely animal way, and to forbid it by social contract or fiat usually leads to a negative return of repression followed almost always by destructive consequences.

            So how does the artist negotiate the journey between these 2 poles? For me if you believe that the cosmos always has the last word it is treating the human body as sacred, as the zenith of finitude. This is the great problem for all carbon based life forms the gradual slide into oblivion, but humans seem to take it to heart more than most. We deny it and attempt to control it with disastrous results.

            Finitude is the only thing that we can absolutely embrace with certainty. Entropy is our archenemy.

            When I was a young man and certainly no stranger to onanistic behavior I was more attracted to the Polaroid snapshots of naked women in the back of Hustler as part of a feature called the Beaver Hunt than I was to the offers of perfection in the general sections of the magazine. These were women I could relate to. They seemed eminently more human than the totems to excess and gynecology on the other slick pages.

            The women in the back were replete with maculations: scars, stretch marks, pimples all things human just like the girls I yearned for in 7^th period study hall…and yet were offering themselves to me the same way as the airbrushed perfection that I knew deep down did not exist. These were women who could fulfill all of my fantasies and still give a PTA meeting a good run for its money. This was the most erotic for me and still is.

            When I photograph a model there is no manipulation of the final image even after scanning the negatives. I do not remove anything that would render the sitter in an otherwise untruthful way. It is what it is and in my opinion no amount of chicanery rewards the viewer with a deeper erotic experience.

            Joan Crawford’s face was very heavily freckled but you could never tell after George Hurrell retouched the negative. What I try to accomplish is not Hollywood. Let Hollywood spend its days polishing the surface, us artists have deeper furrows to plow.