Is it shallow to be in Admiration?

And how do I approach this tricky topic?

‘La Nymphee’ by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. More can be read about it here.

This is one of my most awkward and possibly controversial posts, but other people write way worse things than me, so here we go. If nothing else I strive to be honest and authentic. How do I separate desires with appeal, and is it wrong to do so? Does all of this stem from autism and possibly forms of emotional neglect, or is there less to it than that? Or is it just possible to fancy something for no other reason that it is merely visually appealing?

And too comes the question of objectification. Can one enjoy this thing which I do in a manner which is respectable, without succumbing to needs of carnal relation? Or is one automatically a pig, a misogynist, a sexist, or pick whichever term you please?

I speak, of course, of my state of enamor with the form which is woman. In art, in sculpture; in adoration and awe, and not solely out of lust. Pornography for me holds no charm or finesse; the term ‘erotic photography’ is misleading and ill-used, and incorrect from the perspective of connotation. But should we go with the full and literal meaning of ‘erotic’ then, well, why not? There was a recent article which I read about erotic desire, lending a new and truer definition to the term, and I will link it here for your intellectual pursuit. Thank you,

Tamara

for your inspiration.

From cave paintings to sculptures and to fine art and photography, thousands of individuals throughout history have likewise been captured, and not even (I assume?) for the goal of perpetuating enticement through the masculine gaze. Can one just enjoy something simply for its own enjoyment? What about women who love other women? Thank you too to

cricket guest

for your inspiration on this post.

I have long questioned why I am anchored so, visually. I behold the form and sight as I would, in awe, as anything else: a lovely foggy day; the ocean and its surf, in all its calm crushing power; the massive and ornate facade of a pipe organ, or perhaps the cosmos at night on a clear evening, as the moon and stars are regarded thousands of miles away (and many years ago, stretching from eons past). There is a film called Cashback where the protagonist is a photographer who can pause time, and suffers from insomnia, who has the muse of women for his subjects. But he does not defile, or demean, or in any way mistreat them; indeed, one could question if he has any enjoyment of this craft from a sexual perspective. As black and white as my autism is, this is a topic which has many grey areas.

I find beauty in that which gives me a sense of being inferior, or being held spellbound. I am but a worm, a grub within an apple, and that which is the apple to mine eye. Perhaps the forbidden fruit was not one to ingest, but digest visually? The symmetry and grace; the contrast between line or curve. The sense of gentleness, of softness and smoothness. To observe in reverence and curiosity. In old paintings of the Classical and Romantic period, such as Draper, Bouguereau, Burne-Jones, or Godward. Paintings which show not just a subject, but a human; realistic and authentic, and not like the modern plasticity and general beauty standards. Am I romanticizing the past based on mere art which has survived?

There is a difference between being nude and being naked; for comfort or pleasure or sensuality. Were I a foolish and immature boy, ten years younger than I am now, my mood and thought-process behind all this would be worse, like when I was addicted to Reddit years ago as a form of escapism. But now I do not need to escape, for I do not need to survive alone, and I can enjoy, appreciate, and contemplate.

From the autistic perspective, there can be the need to indulge in what is soothing, calming, and familiar. And who has not known the comfort or solace of a woman? Visually or physically, it is a mental need—so long as it does not become a full-blown obsession or addiction, as it once was for me. This is not the need or desire of anything relating to physical pleasure. Soothing one’s mind is not like stimming.

But is there any difference between me writing endlessly about this versus, I don’t know, ‘normal’ guys who have pictures and calendars or models or adult-film stars in their bedrooms, or in their lockers, or as their phone or desktop backgrounds? Is there a sense of superiority or upper-class because one is art, and the other is cheap commodity? Or am I just no better than any drooling incel, lost in his own fantasies? Then again, I cannot cat-call a two-hundred year-old painting, and why would I want to? It’d achieve nothing, and would be no different than using PayPal for a woman on the OnlyFans.

Plato frames ‘Eros’ as, essentially, the desire to be around something higher, and to be drawn to what is truth, and what is divine. I consider then this thing, this fixation, to be just that: a thing which I find most divine, most powerful, and something to be in awe of. One could argue that it is the notion, the aesthetic, the implied that I seek. As with early or Medieval music, where much is written to be not ignored, much is also open to interpretation; imagination and creativity while still following expectations—yet, something that is implied or barely out of glance can be more fulfilling than being in full witness. This I suspect might be a driving notion behind the boudoir or erotic photography.

Silence and phrasing is to music as a caress is to physical intimacy. But what of visual? Akin to horror, where many genres can exist in (and add to the depth of) one, often what we do not know or see adds to the mystery, and the expectation, and the overall resolution. This is also true in that which draws me. The notion, the expectation, the anticipation; perhaps artwork draws me more than photography due to its inherent innocent nature, and not because it is explicit or carnally inviting. Painting and artwork, after all, are labors; there is thought and time and effort put into the fingers and inner-eyes of the one who is imagining it. Granted, there is skill and imagination in photography too, yet the caliber is of a different kind.

Draped Female Figure, ca. 375-350 BC

But to shift to sculptures, now—a different amount of skill and effort required than painting or photography. How can one make stone and marble appear as liquid as water, as real as flesh?* When regarding these, I half-expect that Medusa was real and each specimen we have was once living and breathing. And the nature and concept of these statues is not explicit or overbearing in a certain light; it is a snapshot, a captured moment in time (and possibly memory). Were we chiseled so out of the dirt eons ago by an ancient craftsman who envisioned us a certain way? Life is a veil of questions.

*Artist Luo Li Rong has stunning work, by the way!

Pygmalion by Regnault

The Greek myth of Pygmalion is that he was so enamored by what he’d created that he prayed for his sculpture to come to life. Although there’s a bit of hypocrisy here, as originally he detested prostitutes and wanted to be celibate for his whole life, yet falling in love with this statue seems…well, strange. Lonely perhaps, and one might infer that no one would understand someone else unless they literally make them. In some ways it reminds me of the film Weird Science.

Work by Corradini?

But I suppose too that one more question to posit is: why does the nudity matter, if there is any or isn’t? Is nudity inherently sexual, or is that just conditioning from society to a certain point? Why is it that nudity can be both vulnerable yet authentic and perhaps empowering? Would I never think of all these questions if I wasn’t a heterosexual man, and never had exposure to all of this? Is this all objectification? Are there parts of one’s mind that are simply immature forever and will always appreciate bare flesh for its own sake? I can also understand what these beauty standards and expectations may mean in terms of pressure for women in days current and past, so I guess this may be another issue adjacent to my entire post. Do I apologize or commiserate? Or do I just wipe my hands of the dust, as it is no issue which I can fix, but perhaps perpetuate by indulging in arts like these? Oh, to wish to cease over-thinking…

Thank you, as always, for reading; til next time.

And in this depiction of the form of feminine, there is mystery, as I do not know her mind: her mood, her curiosities, failures, shortcomings, or flaws. And therein perhaps lay the true artwork; what is presented paired with what I do not know.

Et pulchra est femina; ars in femina est, et femina ars est.