Ah, art.
In 2001, while a member of a new age forum on a community website – I caused a uproar (one of many I’ve caused in my life) because my website was linked to a post. Of the people who looked at the website, two completely *flipped* out because one of the shots showed a model topless, from the side.
Big deal. It’s a bare booby. Not even fully exposed. Just a side-boob.
But you would think I intentionally exposed this online community to under-aged girls being gang raped by weasels.
I was attacked by some self-righteous individuals who said there was no way *I* could be spiritual and be connected to higher self while also taking “those kind of pictures”.
Seriously?? “Those kind of pictures”??
All this from a community of people pledged to be non-judgmental.
At which point I proclaimed that I did not give a rat’s ass what their opinions were, as they have ousted themselves as no better than the very people they themselves abhorred – judgmental, self-righteous bastards of “XYZ” faith. How can they be the banner-carriers of the New Age if they act just like the wound-up tighty-righties of various religions and political parties, I asked.
This is just a symptom of a society that’s lost its collective ability to simply “chill”… We – the American people, have simply lost our collective minds. This was proven with the 2004 Superbowl and Janet Jackson nipple. With all the other crap we have to endure, why so much outrage over a nipple is beyond me.
I thought living in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area was stifling with the numbers of self-righteous, pompous asses wandering the malls… the online community has its fair share. This has also spread into the more liberal areas of Texas, like Austin. It’s spreading like a nasty virus.
Maybe my images can act as a canary in a mine. Maybe my images will expose the stealth prudes in our society.
I find the idea that a creator would create such a perfect human body and the exposure of such a body as “sinful” to be laughable. Some nudity is quite objectionable. A 300+ pound human is something you do not wish to see naked. There’s someone at where I work I’d never, ever wish to see naked.
BUT… the right to make and view photographs of nudity in no ways poses a threat to society.
The most enjoyable act a human can perform is the act of love. Yet there are people who find the simple act of love-making to be sinful.
Those same people will, and have, declared the human body’s nudity to also be “sinful”. Possibly, the same people who say on Sunday “do not dance or drink” after a long Saturday night of dancing and drinking.
There is a growing segment of our society who wish for us to roll back to the stifling 1950s, or further back to the puritans in New England.
As a society, we can’t be lazy. Those of us of more open-minded attitudes must let our voices be heard.
We can’t allow the prudes to, once again, control our thoughts, actions, tastes and morals.
Gays and same-sex marriage did NOT cause the Washington DC earthquake, nor Hurricane Irene, nor the wildfires in Austin.
Reading Playboy will not cause rising divorce rates.
However, simple-minded dolts running free to elect simple-minded people to important public offices will cause serious governmental issues.