They say that Italian master Titian is the go-to guy for the female nude. Looking at his works is sort of like flipping through Playboy, circa 1540. You have to wonder why Hugh Hefner doesn't credit the T-man for perfecting the reclining nude-the image of some gal in her birthday suit, chilling on a chaise lounge looking bored and, um, cold.
The thing about this art stuff is, without Titian around to tell us, we basically have to guess whether his painted ladies (ha) are manifestations of his innocent, acolyte-like worship of the goddess figure or-well, a man's one-track mind.
Fortunately for Titian, it looks like historians more often associate the former with him. He objectified women, sure, but in an endearing and perhaps respectful way, and so he's forgiven.
Still, were he 21st-century, I wonder if his portfolio wouldn't make it onto porntube.com.
Anyone who thinks the art argument hasn't been made about hardcore pornography-or, even better, the argument that watching pornography is comparable to Titian's gawky schoolboy adoration of the hourglass silhouette-is enviably out of touch with the college man.
"I was using [my boyfriend]'s computer. When I X-ed out of his iTunes, there in mid-job was Heather Brooke, porn deep-throater extraordinaire. I had never heard of her, so I obbb-viously watched [the clips]," a friend told me. "Very cheaply made. When I asked [my boyfriend] about them, he commented, 'Yeah, but they're really great camera angles.'"
What will the cinematographer for Heather Brooke's films, I wonder, wear to collect his due at the Oscars next month?
Then there's the education argument.
"[My boyfriend] believes everything he sees in porn-if it happens in porn, it must be true," a female friend said. "But porn is not a reputable source of information. One cannot cite ideepthroat.com."
Or can one? When The New York Times is writing about YouTube inanity as a farm system for the cinematic avant garde, is not now the perfect time to give porn its due? Isn't it time for prudish females (and their male counterparts) to embrace the artistic virtue of Butt Naked 2 (1994), just as we would an Antonioni masterpiece?
Or, if we can't justifiably exalt that particular sequel, can we simply let it escape condemnation?
The quality of art has always been relative, and the most important works of our time-from painting to film to that most generous of forms, "installation"-have been debated on the page and in academic forum. But online, analytical venues are not limited in number, and the space in which art can be displayed is infinite. We can create anything, display anything, access anything, comment on anything-and we do. In this deluge of imagery and surrounding comment, which lends artistic credence even to tattoo art, it becomes harder to weed out the junk.
Still, an elaborately conceived skull and crossbones, however painstakingly inked, is unlikely to alter personal relationships in the same manner as a gripping, graphic XXX film. While the perspective that such footage is harmless is a common one-"Who hasn't perused a few porn sites on a slow Saturday night?!" jokes a friend from her Central apartment-others acknowledge that it can chip away at a bond.
"I wouldn't want to be with someone who was more into girls he can't even touch than he is into me," a sophomore said.
"When guys make it a regular thing, I think it's a problem-he's living in some sort of fantasy world," another added. "It would be a blow to my self-esteem if he relied on porn."
Perhaps girls with porn-watching boyfriends are just jealous-of the physical and technical perfection that their onscreen counterparts possess, and of the fact that men can be so easily pleased. Dr. Drew Pinsky of Loveline fame once explained this to a group of college journalists, myself among them, at a conference: Romancing a female is as complicated as the engineering of a Boeing 747; women do not respond simply to visuals. "With men, it's just an on-off switch," he added.
Perhaps we admire that simplicity. Maybe we're fans of those inhibition-less females-the Kate Winslet girl who can bravely drop trou onscreen, unconcerned about ample proportions.
Or maybe, art and morals aside, we're just squeamish.
As my sister aptly put it: "Porn? Ew. Gross."
Sarah Ball is a Trinity junior and former editorial page editor of The Chronicle. Her column runs every Thursday.
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