I am not entirely sure if you are correct in claiming that finding an image aesthetically pleasing is dictated by sexual urges; kids in elementary school are in a non-sexual phase of their lives, but they still find images of people pleasing. I think there is a dichotomy here, both sexual reasons and largely non-sexual ones which make an image of that sort pleasing. It goes down to the common schism between the notion of beauty and the notion of sex-appeal.
Babe and hunk threads - what are they?
- Thread starter Loppan Torkel
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I am not entirely sure if you are correct in claiming that finding an image aesthetically pleasing is dictated by sexual urges; kids in elementary school are in a non-sexual phase of their lives, but they still find images of people pleasing. I think there is a dichotomy here, both sexual reasons and largely non-sexual ones which make an image of that sort pleasing. It goes down to the common schism between the notion of beauty and the notion of sex-appeal.
Kraznaya
Princeps
Porn in denial.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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I'm not going to research it now (sexuality in kids is afaik a rather controversial and treacherous field) , but I dare say that which images they find pleasing changes when they reach puberty, and I dare further add that both threads under discussion reflect that post-puberty criteria - I don't recall seeing any nice old crones in either. That certainly seems to be the common idea about how those things work.
Anyway, Kraznaya put it beautifully.
I am not disputing that, we all have been through that change and obviously not only the images themselves change, but also the focus on parts of the body which previously were not deemed as significant.
However my point was that possibly part of that pre-adolescent sense of beauty survives or is amalgamated with the sexual sense.
ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
I've posted Nigella pics in the babe thread (she's over 50).
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
I'm sorry, but she's in another castle
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This is interesting reasoning - that the purpose those pictures serve in this context (on CFC) determines whether they're porn or not.
I think the working definition of the word "pornography" is "Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity."
I'd say the purpose of those threads are just to share pictures of attractive people; I don't consider any picture or description of an attractive person to automatically be pornography (so they're not porn by my definition).
But to you, because there's no other function to those pictures here on CFC, they're porn here. However, if the very same image posted on CFC was displayed in a swimwear catalog, then it would not be porn because in that context, the function of that image is to sell swimsuits, not to just observe an attractive person.
Definitely interesting reasoning.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
Well yes, that's what it is, it's a thread of pretty pictures. Some are titillating, sure. I wouldn't call a bellydance porn.
I don't think yours is a very good argument, though. Porn isn't just "sexy stuff". Heterosexual women and homosexual men can find women aesthetically pleasing with absolutely no sex impulse towards them - not sexual instinct.
Can you define porn please?
@SuperJay: Porn has to be without artistic or other merit to be porn. It differentiates erotica and education from material intended to arouse.
Gustave5436
Emperor
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What is a "guess the member to post after you" thread? What is a "corrupt a wish" thread? What is a "3 word story at a time" thread? What is a "funny screenshots" thread?
They're all just meaningless forum games. IMO the "babe thread" and variations thereof, due to being so common throughout various forums, is just another example of that phenomenon. Not porn, just postcount padding and idle chit-chat.
edit: in fact, come to think of it, the purpose of a babe thread is virtually identical to that of a funny screenshots thread. All you're doing is posting up pictures you find interesting, to stimulate discussion about them. It's about satisfying a need for socialization, not sexuality.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
It's not porn, it's more a discussion via pictures about you tastes. The main reason I click either one once in a while is to know my fellow posters better. It's kinda like how you become friends with other guys by talking about (preferably talking to) girls.
Japanrocks12
tired of being a man
porn is people having staged sex looking good (with notable exceptions), this is not hard to understand
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Oh, and you can't socialize about porn, is that it? Porn is by its nature excluded from being anything else, or being used for anything else? Porn must be exclusively about sex, for sex, right?
Wrong! What is it with people and their desire for binary distinctions?! It is porn, I maintain. And also all which you suggested. One thing leads to another, and another, and another... they're all related. The people who see no porn there are those who feel a necessity to compartmentalize porn away from regular human experience, perhaps because they somehow associate porn with "evil" (whether because of religious prohibitions, beliefs about "exploitation" or "objectification", or whatever).
@Japanrocks12: porn is only sex? Oh, please, you don't really believe that, do you? Countless works of art have been made about mere suggestions of apparently "innocent" portion of the human body and they were loaded with sexual content. Poems were written which for some were quite pornographic, for others naive. It was art, and it was porn.
Perhaps you'd call it "erotica". But that was a false distinction, a concept made up to overcome the hypocritical puritanism of the Victorian age. Even the origin of that word betrays the falseness of the distinction! It's way past time to bury that. Trying to isolate porn away from the broad range of daily human experiences, compartmentalize it, is silly.
Oh, yes, you can indeed. And back in the 19th century you wouldn't, because it would be "indecent". Because, then, it was not accepted. People take out part of their clothes to be more comfortable? Sure. But then... why do they do it on a resort and not on a big city? On city parks? Or only on some cities? Because it is also, or it can also be, depending on the individuals, to be attractive. Part of our "mating rituals". It's not necessarily one or the other, it can be either... it's a continuum, there's no border. Porn is natural, people, that's what I've been arguing all along! We see it and do it daily. This forum has a "no pictures of sexual organs" policy? Fine. But don't make that the border between porn and non-porn. There is no such border.
Japanrocks12
tired of being a man
Yes, that's erotica, not porn. One can serve the purpose of art, one is purely intended to arouse.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Erotica is porn, it has always been porn. A suggestion: find when the difference between "erotica" and "porn" was made up. When and why the concept of "erotica" was invented and separated from "porn". Then tell us.
Japanrocks12
tired of being a man
Since those words were formally defined? Erotica is "literary or artistic works having an erotic theme or quality." Pornography is "the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement" (Merriam-Webster). But since classical times, way before there were words for these things, there has always been a difference between depiction of naked humans artistically and smut intended to be consumed by the masses, so I'm not sure why you care about this so much.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Hah! Bullcrap, it's a silly legacy of the Victorian age. The distinction was coined then. When it was all right for the gentlemen to contemplate ancient statues displaying an erect penis, but they had to do it on secret rooms in the museums because the ladies and the working class plebeians couldn't possibly deal with that ancient "erotica". :
(when the works were not just destroyed - some of the objects excavated at Pompey at the time had that fate). When everyone was having sex (just as always!) but it was a scandal to be seen doing it, and especially doing it on any "unapproved" way! When anonymous diaries about sexual fantasies were censored on obscenity grounds but nevertheless published and circulated.
Were the painting son greek tombs of couples embracing meant to "cause sexual excitement" to the interred deceased? Or a work or art? Art or smut? You tell me!
Oh, I know: if the masses do it, it is smut. If the elite does it, it is art. And smut can be turned into art if someone wealthy enough comes up and pays a fortune for the piece! Brilliant, just brilliant! It comes right out of the victorian mindset: the proles were little more than animals, always ready to give in to their base impulses, unlike the educated gentlemen (that was also why they couldn't have any leisure time, for example, and should work all day long: they would only degrade themselves in their free time
)! Art for the gentlemen, smut for the plebeians! People still believe in this crap?
Japanrocks12
tired of being a man
What got lost in your silly bizarre rant is the fact that is what I meant by "common consumption," which just means usage by everyday people (not necessarily plebians). Erotica has literary or artistic merit, porn doesn't, Victorians are irrelevant, this is easy to comprehend for literally everyone except you. What on earth are you upset about anyway?
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