Art or Pornography
People usually regard nude paintings or statues in museums as a form of art, while debasing nude figures in magazines or movies as pornography. Debate regarding this issue is on the rise and some people are baffled about the creation of discrimination between nudity in art and pornography. It is very important to realize that pornography too is a form of art. Both make their audience aware of what they do not know. Both tend to provide sensation and usually fanaticize their respective audience and cause their emotions to flow.
Despite the few similarities that pornography may have with art, there exist a lot of factors that separate the two from each other. Nudity that is displayed in museums can rightfully be called art and is different from pornography shown in films or magazines primarily on the basis of its appreciative sense. Nudity in museum does not provoke animal instincts in humans whereas pornography does. Art challenges people's belief and compels them to wonder about where their values lie. Pornography, although a form of art does not have any aesthetic sense...
It displays humanity and its feelings towards natural phenomena as vulgar. Pornography is provocative and even though it temporarily stimulates the human senses, it does not penetrate the soul. Art on the other hand touches people's heart and cause them to explore the meaning behind that art.
Nude paintings and statues in museums do not display vulgar scenes like pornography does. According to De Clarke, "Pornography is that which entertains its consumer by making him or her complicit in violence, which converts violence into entertainment, which encourages us to participate vicariously in the visceral satisfactions of bullying, brutality and terrorism" (De Clarke, I Know It When I See It). Pornography unlike nudity displayed in museum is dangerous for the minds and works on oppressing the female gender. According to Professor Catherine Mackinnon,
Women are degraded, raped and even killed in the making of pornographic pictures and films. Then, the pictures and films further participate in the degradation, rape and murder of women by the users of…
