## 1. What is Erotic Art?


### 1.1 A Definition of Erotic Art



In *Sex and Reason*, Richard Posner proposes to use the word
"erotic" to describe



> 
> 
> presentations and representations that are, or at least are taken by
> some viewers to be, in some sense "about" sexual activity.
> (Posner 1994: 351)
> 
> 
> 



This characterization needs some narrowing down if one wants to arrive
at a definition that captures the extension of what we ordinarily
think counts as erotic art. For one thing, an extensionally adequate
definition should exclude scientific-behavioral studies or medical
illustrations of sexual activity (which tend to be neither erotic nor
artistic in nature). Furthermore, it's not the case, simply
because some viewers take a painting or a sculpture to be about sexual
activity, that we are *ipso facto* dealing with an erotic
representation. Someone who is unfamiliar with the story of the
Christian Bible might take a crucifixion painting to be a depiction of
a sado-masochistic act, but that would be insufficient grounds to
call, say, Tintoretto's *Crucifixion*
(1565) a work of erotic art.



Peter Webb's definition of erotic art as



> 
> 
> art on a sexual theme related specifically to emotions rather than
> merely actions, and sexual depictions which are justifiable on
> aesthetic grounds (Webb 1975: 2)
> 
> 
> 



is already closer to the mark. But even though Webb's emphasis
on emotions is understandable from an etymological point of
view--the term "erotic" derives from the Greek word
"eros" meaning love or passion--he does not succeed
in spelling out the necessary or sufficient conditions for erotic art.
Man Ray's photograph *The Prayer*
(1930) shows only the hands, feet, and buttocks of a woman; it
is not a sexual depiction in the strict sense and there is no show of
emotions. Still, it is widely considered to be an erotic masterpiece.
Conversely, Ian McEwan's novella *On Chesil
Beach*, set in the early 1960s and telling the story of a
wedding night that goes horribly wrong, does qualify as "art on
a sexual theme related specifically to emotions" and yet it
would be misleading to label it as erotic literature.



Instead of claiming that erotic art is *about* sexual feelings
or desires, one could say that erotic art *elicits* sexual
feelings or desires. But this characterization would also be too
broad. A pious Madonna and Child painting may elicit sexual feelings
or desires in some people, but that in and of itself does not make it
erotic art. The *intention* to be sexually stimulating appears
crucial, as Jerrold Levinson acknowledges in his definition of erotic
art as



> 
> 
> art which aims to engage viewers sexually through explicit sexual
> content, and that succeeds, to some extent, in doing so. (Levinson
> 2006: 252)
> 
> 
> 



But does erotic art need to be explicit? Take Nobuyoshi Araki's
famous close-up photograph of a woman's eye, sometimes entitled
*The Look*. The artist has tilted the
picture 90 degrees to make it suggestive of female genitalia, thereby
soliciting sensuous feelings and associations in spectators. It is
highly erotic, though it has no explicit sexual content.



A more adequate definition, and one that will be adhered to in this
article, is the following: erotic art is art that is made with the
intention to stimulate its target audience sexually, and that succeeds
to some extent in doing so. This raises the further question what
sexual stimulation precisely entails. According to Guy Sircello (1979:
119) it is the inducing of sexual feelings where the latter might be
(1) feelings in our sexual parts, or (2) feelings in other erogenous
parts--typically generated by or generating feelings in sexual
parts. However, a kick below the belt will give a man certain feelings
in his sexual parts, but not of the sort that erotic art is supposed
to bring about. So, an important qualification is needed. Sexual
stimulation is probably best understood as the inducing of sexual
feelings, desires and imaginings, that would generally be regarded as
*pleasant in themselves*. Alternatively, one could adopt
Matthew Kieran's nutshell definition of erotic art as art which
"essentially aims at eliciting sexual thoughts, feelings and
associations found to be arousing" (2001: 32).


### 1.2 Some Further Distinctions



Levinson (2005) makes a useful distinction between erotic art and what
he calls *erotica*, that is, images intended to sexually
stimulate but not to reward artistic interest (such as provocative
lingerie ads). In general, it is good to keep in mind that the domain
of erotic art only constitutes a small subsection of the much larger
class of items that are called erotic (erotic massages, erotic games,
erotic toys, etc.). Erotic art also seems to fall within the broader
category of *sexually themed art*. All works of erotic art have
a sexual theme, it could be argued, but not the other way around: many
artworks with a sexual theme are not works of erotic art. Ian
McEwan's *On Chesil Beach* has already been mentioned.
Another example might be Tracey Emin's *Is
Anal Sex Legal?* (1998), which simply consists of that
question writ large in pink neon light. (The piece is usually
exhibited together with its complement, *Is Legal
Sex Anal?* also from 1998).



Sexually themed art should be distinguished from *sexually
stimulating art*, i.e., art that stimulates its target audience
sexually, even though it may not have had the aim to do so. While some
may find it difficult to think of any examples in this category,
Sircello argues on phenomenological grounds that everything that is
truly beautiful, and hence every work of art that is truly beautiful,
will be experienced as sexually titillating. For instance, when he
studies *The Burghers of Calais*, with
its stooped and despondent old men,



> 
> 
> the beauty of Rodin's restless surface leads me ... to rub
> that glorious bronze, and once again comes that warmth in the
> testicles, that stirring in the penis, that itch in the nipples and
> the tongue. (1979: 225)
> 
> 
> 



Similarly,



> 
> 
> when I inspect the austere and meticulous Zurbaran still life, notice
> the painstaking precision of its details ... (I) feel forthwith
> those stirrings in the groin. (1979: 225)
> 
> 
> 



However, while Sircello judges his arousal to be "neither
abnormal nor idiosyncratic" and to be fully "appropriate
and natural" (1979: 226) not everyone might agree with that
assessment.



The counterpart of sexually stimulating art is *failed erotic
art* (or as Levinson 2006 would have it "nominally erotic
art"): art that aims but does not succeed in stimulating its
target audience sexually (see also Mag Uidhir 2010). *Anti-erotic
art*, on the other hand, is art that aims to induce
*negative* sexual feelings, thoughts, and imaginings in its
target audience. Otto Dix's *Old
Couple* (1923) or George Grosz's
*Sex Murder in the Ackerstrasse* (1916-7) could
serve as illustrations. More recently, feminist artists such as Kiki
Smith have explored the dark, violent, abject aspects of sexuality in
their work (see, for instance, Smith's
*Tale*, 1992, and *Blood Pool*,
1992).



Finally, because censorship and moral policing have often prevented
artists from making work that is openly erotic, it is worth drawing
attention to the existence of *covertly erotic art*, that is,
art made with the *covert* intention to stimulate its target
audience sexually and that succeeds to some extent in doing so. A good
example are the so called "sukashi shunga" (hidden shunga)
that were popular in Japan at the beginning of the 20th
century. Shunga are woodblock prints, often created by Japan's
leading artists, depicting highly erotic scenes. While there were
already regulations in the early 18th century against the
distribution of shunga, it was only at the end of the 19th
century, in the wake of Japan's increasing openness towards the
West, that censorship laws were really being enforced. As a result,
hidden (see-through) shunga prints were designed to escape the strict
eye of the censor. What at first sight appear to be beautifully drawn
postcards depicting landscapes with some space in the middle and at
the corners to write one's message, when held up to the light,
turn out to be sexually explicit lovemaking scenes (Aki 2013: 47). An
example of an entirely different kind might be Maria Scanu's
sculpture of *Madonna del Naviganti* (1999) or Vermeer's
*Milk Maid* (1657-58).
Given that milk maids had a reputation for sexual availability in 17th
century Holland, some scholars have argued that the painting has a
covert erotic message, with the foot warmer on the floor suggesting
feminine desire (because foot warmers would heat not only the feet but
everything under a woman's skirt) and one of the Delft tiles in
the scene depicting Cupid, while another tile shows a traveling man
possibly suggesting that the maid is thinking of an absent lover
(Liedtke 2009).


## 2. Modern Aesthetics and the Problem of Erotic Art



Are there *uberhaupt* any works of erotic art? This may
seem a silly question, especially to anyone who is familiar with art
history and with the well-established tradition of erotic art in
particular. But to students of modern aesthetics, that is, the
philosophy of art and beauty from roughly the beginning of the
18th century to the end of the 19th century,
that question will not appear absurd at all.


### 2.1 The Aesthetic Disenfranchisement of the Erotic



Modern aesthetics famously built a wall between aesthetic pleasure, on
the one hand, and sensual or sexual pleasures, on the other hand,
leaving precious little room for works that aim to combine the two.
The problem becomes clear when we consider Immanuel Kant's
*Critique of Judgment* (1790), arguably the most central and
influential work of that period. According to Kant, a pure aesthetic
judgment is based entirely on a feeling of disinterested pleasure,
i.e., a pleasure that does not depend on or generate a desire for the
object. But since works of erotic art are meant precisely to tap into
and stimulate our sexual appetites and desires, it is hard to see how
they can be the object of an aesthetic judgment. They are rather
primed to be the object of what Kant calls a judgment of the
agreeable, based on an "interested pleasure", in this case
the titillation provided by the alluring depictions of attractive
bodies and seductive poses. The sensual pleasure offered by such
representations is very different from the enjoyment that occurs in an
aesthetic experience and which results from the free play of the
cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding. According to
Kant, it is because aesthetic judgments are grounded not in any
interest, but rather in the subjective conditions of cognition, which
are shared by all rational beings, that they can lay claim to
universality. The pleasure solicited by erotic art can obviously not
lay claim to such universality since it will depend on one's
sexual preferences and inclinations.



Kant was not the first to introduce disinterestedness as hallmark of
the aesthetic and isolate it as such from what is merely sensually or
sexually appealing. Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of
Shaftesbury, is often credited with this insight. In his
*Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times* (1711)
Shaftesbury already stated that the response solicited by beauty is
one of rational and refined contemplation, far removed from the crude
pleasures that we receive through our senses.



A problem that immediately arises for Shaftesbury's account is
the one posed by the "dazzling form" of a beautiful woman
(1964 [1711]: 136). Here, beauty and sensual appeal, far from being
antithetical, actually seem to go hand in hand. Still, Shaftesbury
insists that the two kinds of pleasure are utterly distinct, even
though, in this particular case, erotic pleasure may indeed follow in
the wake of aesthetic pleasure. One could make a comparison, he
writes, with someone who goes from contemplating the beauty of a tree
to fantasizing about its tasty fruits. Both activities are
pleasurable, but the pleasures involved are very different: one is a
disinterested aesthetic pleasure, the other is a pleasure informed by
our self-interest. It points to a sensual joy, based on an appetite
that we have in common with animals, or "brutes" as
Shaftesbury prefers to call them. The contemplation of beauty, by
contrast, is unique to us rational beings. That's because beauty
is exclusively an object of the mind.



But can one really draw the distinction in such absolute terms? When
we admire an attractive man or woman, isn't it precisely their
*beauty* that activates the senses and gives rise to certain
bodily passions? And if so, doesn't this prove that the two are
intimately linked? Shaftesbury dismisses this line of thought almost
out of hand. After all, we wouldn't say that it is the
*beauty* of the fruit that attracts and brings joy to the
prowling animal in search of food; or that it is the beauty of the
food served at the dinner table that makes us humans hungry. What
whets and satisfies appetite of both humans and animals is not the
striking form, but what lies beneath that striking form, that which is
mere matter. (Accordingly, the more a mouthwatering dish or body is
viewed, the further they are from satisfying by mere view.) Just as it
is not the material that makes a sculpture beautiful, but rather the
artistic intentions and designs that shape the material, so it is not
the body in itself, something that is mere matter, that is
beautiful:



> 
> 
> What is it you admire but mind, or the effect of mind? Tis mind alone
> which forms. All which is void of mind is horrid, and matter formless
> is deformity itself. (1964 [1711]: 132)
> 
> 
> 



Mind is the only true object of beauty. Moreover, it is only
*through* the mind that beauty can be apprehended and
appreciated, for if animals can't know and enjoy beauty
precisely because they have only senses, it follows that man
can't conceive or enjoy beauty through his senses (the
"brutish part").



It is evident that, for Shaftesbury, erotic art, which is all about
presenting desirable bodies and stirring up sensual pleasures, can
have no legitimate place within the realm of the aesthetic. Yet, apart
from a brief passage in which he denounces the "self-improving
artist" who makes a fortune by "studying bodies"
(1964 [1711]: 144), Shaftesbury does not explicitly criticize or
attack any kind of art or artist. (Like Kant, his primary focus is not
art, but beauty.) Someone who does explicitly take up such a critical
stance, however, is Arthur Schopenhauer. If Shaftesbury is the
philosopher who inspired Kant to develop the theory of
disinterestedness, then Schopenhauer is the philosopher who, inspired
by Kant, has taken this notion of disinterestedness and worked it up
into a fully-fledged philosophy of art.



This is not the place to discuss all the minutiae of
Schopenhauer's *The World as Will and Representation*
(1818). Crucial, for our purposes, is his concept of "das
Reizende", which will here be translated as "the
stimulating." The stimulating is "that which excites the
will by directly presenting to it satisfaction, fulfillment"
(Schopenhauer 1969 [1818]: 207). It ought to be shunned at all price
in art, says Schopenhauer, because it



> 
> 
> draws the beholder down from pure contemplation, demanded by every
> apprehension of the beautiful, since it necessarily stirs his will by
> objects that directly appeal to it. Thus the beholder no longer
> remains pure subject of knowing, but becomes the needy and dependent
> subject of willing. (Schopenhauer 1969 [1818]: 207)
> 
> 
> 



This is contrary to the aim of art, which is to facilitate will-less
contemplation of the Ideas.



Schopenhauer is quite specific about what the stimulating consists
in:



> 
> 
> In historical painting and in sculpture (it) consists in nude figures,
> the position, semi-drapery, and whole treatment of which are
> calculated to excite lustful feeling in the beholder. (1969 [1818]:
> 207-8)
> 
> 
> 



It is important to note that he does not object to depicting the nude
figure as such--after all, "the ancients" did so
"almost always free from ... fault" (*ibid*.).
What he objects to is a particular *treatment* of the nude, one
which is designed to excite lustful feelings in the beholder. In other
words, what he targets and denounces is erotic art. Like Shaftesbury
and Kant he is drawn to make a comparison with food. Fruit is
admissible as a subject matter for paintings



> 
> 
> for it exhibits itself as a further development of the flower, and as
> a beautiful product of nature through form and colour, without our
> being positively forced to think of its edibility. (*ibid*.:
> 207-8)
> 
> 
> 



But what is not admissible are prepared and served-up dishes, depicted
with a high degree of realism. Dutch still life paintings depicting
oysters, herrings, crabs, bread, butter, beer, wine, excite the
appetite and are objectionable for the exact same reasons as erotic
paintings and sculptures, which excite sexual appetite, are
objectionable: they stimulate the will and as such put an end to any
aesthetic contemplation of the object. Given that the function of art
is to facilitate aesthetic experience, it follows for Schopenhauer
that "the stimulating ... is everywhere to be avoided in
art" (*ibid*: 208; see also Neill 2012).


### 2.2 The Legacy of Modern Aesthetics



Modern aesthetics has cast a long shadow into the 20th and
even the 21st century, and the idea that the aesthetic and
the erotic are fundamentally incompatible has proved to be very
influential throughout.



Clive Bell, the great champion of aesthetic formalism, inscribes
himself neatly in that tradition. In his landmark book, *Art*
(1914), he begins by drawing a sharp contrast between the aesthetic
emotion, which is provoked by works of art in virtue of a certain
pleasing combination of lines and colors, and sexual feelings and
desires which are provoked by sensually appealing bodies. The two
could not be more different, he thinks:



> 
> 
> let no one imagine, because he has made merry in the warm tilth and
> quaint nooks of romance, that he can even guess at the austere and
> thrilling raptures of those who have climbed the cold, white peaks of
> art. (1961 [1914]: 42)
> 
> 
> 



Nevertheless, Bell acknowledges, as did Shaftesbury, that the two
emotions are often confused partly because in everyday speech the word
"beauty" is used indiscriminately for items that fall in
each of the two categories (beautiful works of art, attractive men and
women). To prevent any further confusion, he insists therefore on
using the word "significant form," instead of beauty, for
the combination of lines and colors that produces the aesthetic
emotion. (Shaftesbury, one will recall, was revisionist in the
opposite direction, refusing to employ the word beauty for that which
is merely desirable.)



What about those works of art that appeal to our sensual feelings and
desires and that are so popular with the man in the street?



> 
> 
> The art that they call "beautiful" is generally closely
> related to the women. A beautiful picture is a photograph of a pretty
> girl; beautiful music, the music that provokes emotions similar to
> those provoked by young ladies in musical farces; and beautiful
> poetry, the poetry that recalls the same emotions felt, twenty years
> earlier, for the rector's daughter. (1961 [1914]:
> 28-29)
> 
> 
> 



Bell has no patience with ignorant folks who seek out pictures, poems,
or music for these reasons. They are simply confusing the sensual and
the aesthetic. Of course, this does not mean that paintings depicting
pretty girls cannot be art. They can, but if they are art, they will
be so *despite* their erotic content. For example, when Manet's
*Olympia*, a picture of a
prostitute, caused a storm of indignation in Paris of the 1860s, Emile
Zola defended the painting in terms that Bell would have approved
of:



> 
> 
> Tell them aloud, dear master, that you are not what they think you
> are, that a painting is for you a mere pretext for analysis. You
> needed ... clear and luminous tones, and you introduced a
> bouquet; you needed black tones and you placed in a corner a Negress
> and a cat. (Zola 1991: 161)
> 
> 
> 



For Bell and his fellow formalists, significant form is the only
important artistic criterion. Where it comes to insulating the
aesthetic from the erotic, many prominent philosophers in the
20th century have followed in Bell's footsteps, even
when they do not subscribe to his formalism. In *The Principles of
Art* (1938), R. G. Collingwood observes how "the words
'beauty', 'beautiful', as actually used, have
no aesthetic implication" since they often indicate "the
satisfaction of some desire or the arousing of some emotion"
(1938: 38-41). For Collingwood, a beautiful man or woman
ordinarily means one whom we find sexually desirable. And he firmly
states that this "has nothing whatever to do with aesthetic
experience. It has to do with that other kind of experience that Plato
called *eros*" (1938: 41). Similarly, Monroe Beardsley
insisted on a strict divide between the two sorts of responses and
revised his theory of aesthetic experience when it was pointed out to
him that it did not exclude sexual experiences from the realm of the
aesthetic (Beardsley 1982). Edward Bullough famously posited
"psychical distance" as a prerequisite for experiencing
art and concluded that



> 
> 
> explicit references to organic affections, ... especially to
> sexual matters, lie normally below the Distance-limit, and can be
> touched on by Art only with special precautions. (1969: 403)
> 
> 
> 



Even in the 21st century one will find philosophers who are
deeply sceptical about the aesthetic and artistic potential of the
erotic. Mohan Matthen, for instance, states that "erotic art
tends not to be great art" because



> 
> 
> even when erotica are artistic ... they have too direct an effect
> on sexual response, and this distracts the viewer's attention
> away from the work itself. (2011: 354)
> 
> 
> 



The more erotic a work of art, the more difficult it is to appreciate
aesthetically. Matthen makes this claim in an essay review of *The
Art Instinct* (2009), a book on evolutionary aesthetics written by
Denis Dutton, who also claims that eroticism is best avoided in art,
though for different reasons than Matthen. While the latter considers
the sexual response too distracting, Dutton argues that it is rather
too crude and too basic to count as a proper aesthetic response. A
high degree of meaning-complexity is the hallmark of all great art,
according to Dutton, but while love is complex, "(s)ex itself is
just too simple" (2009: 238). As a consequence,



> 
> 
> love is the most pervasive theme for representative arts everywhere,
> (whereas) explicit eroticism does not tend to figure importantly in
> the greatest masterpieces. (2009: 238)
> 
> 
> 



Just like a bowl of corn syrup and a plate of sugar will never be
dinner, Dutton flippantly observes, erotic paintings, novels, and
poems will never qualify as art of the highest order. (It is certainly
noteworthy that Dutton, who is the antipode of modern aesthetics in
doing away with the very notion of a disinterested pleasure and
assuming that matters of sexual reproduction are vital in explaining
our interest in art and aesthetics, actually finds himself in the
company of Schopenhauer, Kant, and Shaftesbury where erotic art is
concerned.)



To recapitulate: if (disinterested, contemplative) aesthetic responses
are indeed irreconcilable with (interested, bodily) sexual responses,
as so many philosophers of art in the past have thought, then there
hardly remains any conceptual space for works that aim for both kinds
of response. Yet, we do, as a matter of fact, have this longstanding
tradition of erotic art, not just in the West but also in many
non-Western cultures. How to account for this?



Proponents of modern aesthetics could simply bite the bullet here and
argue, as Mohan Matthen does, that erotic art tends not to be great
art, or, following Bell, that erotic paintings, books, poems can only
attain art status despite their erotic content. But that is a big
bullet to bite, by any standard. Not only are there so many
outstanding works of erotic art, but the eroticism of these works is
also more often than not an integral part of their status and value as
art. To be sure, there are nude paintings and sculptures which seem to
qualify first and foremost as studies in formal beauty (certain
sculptures of Henry Moore come to mind). But anyone who would regard,
say, *The Naked Maja* by Goya (c.
1797-1800) or *Les Delassements
d'Eros* by Gerda Wegener (1925) as a mere formal exercise
would entirely misunderstand and fail to appreciate what these works
are about. That is why the great majority of aestheticians today
prefer the other horn of the dilemma. Instead of denying the existence
of genuinely erotic art, they will deny that aesthetic and erotic
responses are antithetical and hence reject the basic tenets of modern
aesthetics.


### 2.3 The Aesthetic Rehabilitation of the Erotic



Modern aesthetics and its 20th century formalist and
experientialist heirs have been criticized from many sides. But
instead of offering a general critique, let us consider briefly some
of the philosophers who, in attacking modern aesthetics, have
explicitly pleaded for the inclusion of the sexual within the domain
of aesthetics.



One of the most vehement early critics was Friedrich Nietzsche. In an
oft-quoted passage in *On the Genealogy of Morals* (1887:
III.6) Nietzsche shifts attention to the artist's point of view
to reveal a fundamental flaw in modern aesthetics:



> 
> 
> When our aestheticians tirelessly rehearse, in support of Kant's
> view, that the spell of beauty enables us to view even nude female
> statues "disinterestedly" we may be allowed to laugh a
> little at their expense. The experiences of artists in this delicate
> matter are rather more "interesting"; certainly Pygmalion
> was not entirely devoid of aesthetic feeling.
> 
> 
> 



(NB: For Nietzsche's texts we have relied on the classic edition
of Colli & Montinari, 1967-78. *On the Genealogy of
Morals* is abbreviated as GM, *The Will to Power* is
abbreviated as WP, and *Twilight of the Idols* is abbreviated
as TI. The translations we have used are listed in the
bibliography)



Pygmalion fell under the spell of the beautiful statue he had created,
but his enjoyment was certainly not bereft of any desire. For
Nietzsche, the case of Pygmalion is not exceptional, but rather
emblematic: "All art works tonically, increases strength,
inflames desire" (WP SS809). And, as he writes in
*Twilight of the Idols* (1889),



> 
> 
> all beauty incites to procreation--... precisely this is the
> *proprium* of its effect, from the most sensual regions up into
> the most spiritual.... (TI IX.22)
> 
> 
> 



To believe, as Schopenhauer, Kant, Shaftesbury seem to have done, that
in matters of beauty and art there is such a thing as
"immaculate perception" (an aesthetic regard pure of any
desire), is simply to deceive oneself.



Far from building a wall between the aesthetic and the sexual,
Nietzsche sees them as intimately linked: "The demand for art
and beauty is an indirect demand for the ecstasies of sexuality"
(WP SS805). The two experiences really share the same structure
and phenomenology. As with sexual experience, if there is to be
"any aesthetic doing or seeing, one physiological condition is
indispensable: rapture" (TI IX, 8). And the pleasure that one
receives is not a disembodied, cognitive pleasure--a unique kind
of experience that would set us apart from animals. No,



> 
> 
> art reminds (us) of states of animal vigour: it is on the one hand an
> excess and overflow of blooming *corporeality* into the world
> of images and desires: on the other, an excitation of the animal
> functions through the images and desires of intensified life. (WP
> SS802)
> 
> 
> 



Thus, while the erotic masterpieces of the past must qualify as
regrettable anomalies for someone like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche has no
trouble at all in giving them a place.



Within contemporary aesthetics, Alexander Nehamas and Richard
Shusterman have made a serious and sustained effort to make room for
the erotic within aesthetics and art. In the first few pages of his
book *Only a Promise of Happiness* (2007), Nehamas lays his
cards on the table. Mentioning Kant and Schopenhauer as his
adversaries, he states uncompromisingly that "the only reaction
appropriate to beauty is *eros*--love, the desire to
possess it" (2007: 6). While *eros* should not
necessarily be understood in a sexual sense here, Nehamas does think
that erotic encounters provide an instructive model for aesthetic
experiences in general:



> 
> 
> The most abstract and intellectual beauty provokes the urge to possess
> it no less than the most sensual inspires the passion to come to know
> it better. (2007: 7)
> 
> 
> 



Each judgment of beauty is future oriented, is identical with the
spark of desire, and contains, in the words of Stendhal, a promise of
happiness (Stendhal 1926: 74; Nehamas 2007: 55).



For Nehamas, too, erotic art is not at all a recalcitrant exception in
need of explanation. Quite the contrary, it offers the best possible
inroad to understanding what beauty and art are all about. It's
not a coincidence that the touchstone work of art, to which Nehamas
returns again and again, is Manet's *Olympia*. Far from
being an exercise in formal beauty, as Zola would have it, this is a
painting that is precisely designed



> 
> 
> to jolt the audience, especially the men, into acknowledging that what
> they were enjoying was not a painted canvas or an idealized figure
> with an edifying message but a naked woman of their own place and
> time. (Nehamas 2007: 27)
> 
> 
> 



It is erotic in every sense of the word and for Nehamas it does what
all great art should do: spark the audience's desire.



If Nehamas mainly takes issue with the disavowal of desire within
modern aesthetics, Richard Shusterman's main target is the
"idealist-rationalist repugnance for the body" which he
finds is permeating the entire tradition of Western philosophy (2005:
324; see also Irvin (ed.) 2016). To counter this, Shusterman proposes
a new discipline, "somaesthetics," which aims to study the
"experience and use of one's body as a locus of
sensory-aesthetic appreciation and creative self-fashioning"
(1999: 302) and which has as one of its main subsidiary ambitions to
"(i)mprove our appreciation of the artistry, beauty, meaning
that sexual experience can offer" (2008: 85). In several of his
essays he argues that sexual experience itself can qualify as an
aesthetic experience, since most of the crucial features attributed to
aesthetic experiences are also attributable to erotic experiences:
they are pursued and valued for their own sake, they are rich in
intensity and stand out distinctively from the flow of ordinary
humdrum experience, they display harmonies of structure and developing
form, they are being subjectively savored but also intentionally
directed at an object, they deeply engage thought, feeling, and
imagination, and stimulate both body and mind (2007: 57, 2008: 93).
Hence, instead of ignoring or disenfranchising the tradition of erotic
art, Shusterman pleads for the reassertion of an "ars
erotica" which would not just involve a renewed attention for
certain works of the past, but would entail the development of genuine
erotic art forms that could help increase our understanding of the
relation between aesthetics and sex, deliver aesthetically rewarding
erotic experiences, and deepen our appreciation of the aesthetic
potential of other somatic practices (2007: 57; 2021).


## 3. Contemporary Aesthetics and the Problem of Pornographic Art



While not everyone will take the aesthetic recuperation of the erotic
as far as Shusterman and Nehamas, very few philosophers today will
deny the existence and aesthetic legitimacy of erotic art. So, does
this mean that the wall between the sexual and the aesthetic has been
torn down? Not entirely. It seems more accurate to say that the battle
lines have been redrawn. The suspicion towards the erotic may have
largely subsided in contemporary aesthetics, but it has been replaced
by a very pronounced scepticism of the pornographic. Many philosophers
of art, including Roger Scruton, Jerrold Levinson, and Christy Mag
Uidhir, deny that there is (or can be) such a thing as pornographic
art. In other words, they advocate a strict divide between erotic art
and pornography. Some of their scepticism, one cannot fail to notice,
bears a significant resemblance to the earlier resistance against
erotic art.



Pornographic representations are sexually explicit and rich in
anatomical detail, Scruton points out, whereas works of erotic art
rely on suggestion and, instead of focusing on certain body parts,
will try to capture the individuality, personality, and subjectivity
of the represented person. In Titian's
*Venus of Urbino* (1538), for instance, it is not the
sexual organs but the face, as "window to the soul," that
provides the focus of attention (1986: 154, 2005: 11, 2009: 149). A
pornographic image, by contrast, "is like a magic wand that
turns subjects into objects, people into things--and thereby
disenchants them, destroying the source of their beauty" (2009:
163). As part of his project to rehabilitate beauty as the central
aesthetic and artistic category, Scruton also appeals to the
distinction between "the nude" and "the naked"
made famous by Kenneth Clark (1956). The artistic nude constitutes, as
the subtitle of Clark's book indicates, a "Study in Ideal
Form": the body is beautifully shaped and framed by the
conventions of art. The people in pornographic images are not nude,
but naked. They are deprived of clothes, and as such exposed in an
embarrassing way. Furthermore, while the Titian nude retains a
detached serenity, pornography arouses the viewer, which is always
"an aesthetic defect, a 'fall' into another kind of
interest than that which has beauty as its target" (2009:
160).



Levinson also wishes to separate erotic art from pornography in terms
of the kind of response they call for, yet his argument is markedly
different from Scruton's. Here's a summary of
Levinson's argument:


1. Erotic art consists of images centrally aimed at a certain sort of
reception (R1).
2. Pornography consists of images centrally aimed at a certain sort
of reception (R2).
3. R1 essentially involves attention to form/vehicle/medium/manner,
and so entails treating images as in part opaque.
4. R2 essentially excludes attention to form/vehicle/medium/manner,
and so entails treating images as wholly transparent.
5. R1 and R2 are incompatible.
6. Hence, nothing can be both erotic art and pornography; or at the
least, nothing can be coherently projected as both erotic art and
pornography; or at the very least, nothing can succeed as erotic art
and pornography at the same time. (2005: 239)



Elsewhere in the article Levinson makes it clear that by
"R1" he means aesthetic delight or aesthetic experience
and that "R2" refers to sexual arousal and release:



> 
> 
> the aims of true pornography and the aims of art, erotic art included,
> are not compatible, but war against one another (...). One
> induces you, in the name of arousal and release, to ignore the
> representation so as to get at the represented, the other induces you,
> in the name of aesthetic delight, to dwell on the representation.
> (2005: 234)
> 
> 
> 



This has been the single most influential argument in recent debates
on the relation between erotic art and pornography, winning many
supporters (Matthen 2011; Nanay 2012; Neill 2012) but also attracting
a substantial amount of criticism (see, for instance, Kania 2012;
Davies 2012; van Brabandt and Prinz 2012; Patridge 2013). While one
may want to challenge some of Levinson's premises (as Maes 2009
does in a systematic way), one could also question whether his rather
radical conclusion really follows from said premises. After all, it
seems that one *can* (coherently and successfully) aim at
incompatible audience responses, as long as one does not expect these
responses to be elicited at the same time, in the same audience (see
Maes 2011).



As opposed to key representatives of modern aesthetics, both Levinson
and Scruton have no problem acknowledging the existence of erotic art.
However, they do object very strongly to the possibility of there
being pornographic art, and it's not hard to discern in their
respective objections--which rely on notions such as beauty,
contemplation, ideal form, aesthetic experience--the remnants and
residual influence of modern aesthetics. This is less obvious in
Christy Mag Uidhir's attempt to draw a line between pornography
and art. While Scruton insists on the controversial connection between
art and beauty, and Levinson builds his case on the idea that a work
of art's main purpose is to produce an aesthetic experience and
draw attention to its own formal features, Mag Uidhir's argument
does not rely on any such substantial claims. He does not even claim
that art has or should have a purpose. Mag Uidhir asks us only to
accept that *if* a work of art has a purpose, including perhaps
the purpose of sexual titillation as is the case in erotic art, then
that purpose must be manner specific. Here's how he arrives at
his exclusivist position (2009: 194):


1. If something is pornography, then that something has the purpose
of sexual arousal (of some audience).
2. If something is pornography, then that something has the purpose
of sexual arousal and that purpose is manner inspecific.
3. If something is art, then if that something has a purpose, then
that purpose is manner specific.
4. If something is art, then if that something has the purpose of
sexual arousal, then that purpose is manner specific.
5. A purpose cannot be both manner specific and manner
inspecific.
6. Therefore, if something is pornography, then it is not art.



For a purpose to be manner specific, according to Mag Uidhir, is for
it to be essentially constituted both by an action (or state of
affairs) and a manner, such that the purpose is to perform that action
(or bring about that state of affairs) in that particular manner. A
purpose is manner inspecific, on the other hand, if failure to perform
the action (or bring about the state of affairs) in the prescribed
manner does not necessarily constitute failure to satisfy the
purpose.



Mag Uidhir's approach is markedly different from Scruton's
and Levinson's. Still, regarding the central issue, he aligns
himself squarely with other sceptics. He, too, thinks that artists or
pornographers attempting to produce something that is both (erotic)
art and pornography, in fact attempt the impossible. However, recent
critics of Mag Uidhir have raised doubts about his second premise
(Davies 2012; Patridge 2013), as well as the general validity of his
argument (Maes 2012). These critics belong to a growing number of
philosophers who find exclusivists' arguments unconvincing and
argue for the existence of pornographic art as a subclass of erotic
art (Kieran 2001, van Brabandt and Prinz 2012, Fokt 2012).


## 4. Erotic Art vs Pornography: Beyond Aesthetics



Besides aesthetics, there are at least two other areas of academic
study where the distinction between erotic art and pornography has
been at the centre of serious philosophical debate: feminist theory
and art history.


### 4.1 Erotic Art, Art History, and the Cultural History of Pornography



Art historians who write about erotic art are often quite anxious to
draw a strict dividing line between "high brow" erotic art
and "low brow" pornography. Kenneth Clark, mentioned
earlier, famously stated to the Longford Committee Investigating
Pornography:



> 
> 
> To my mind art exists in the realm of contemplation ... the
> moment art becomes an incentive to action it loses its true character.
> (Longford 1972: 280)
> 
> 
> 



This was his main objection to pornography: that it was in essence an
incentive to sexual acts. However, as a justification for the radical
separation of art and pornography this will not do. For one thing,
Clark seems to overlook the fact that there are numerous religious or
politically inspired masterpieces that call on people to change their
lives or perform certain actions (the *Isenheim
Altarpiece*, 1512-16, or Delacroix's
*Liberty Leading the People*,
1830, come to mind).



This brings us to another rationale for separating erotic art and
pornography that is very popular among art historians (and is somewhat
reminiscent of Dutton's expressed reservations towards eroticism
in art). Art is necessarily multi-layered, it is argued, whereas
pornography is one-dimensional; it has only one job to do and
therefore lacks the formal and structural intricacy, the cognitive
complexity, and interpretive openness of art (see, for example, Webb
1975: 6; Mahon 2005: 14; Wallace et al. 2007: 15). But while the
*Isenheim Altarpiece* and *Liberty Leading the People*
may indeed be very complex works, there is good reason to believe that
the insistence on the simplicity of pornography is itself the result
of an oversimplification. Let us examine this claim in more
detail.



(1) *A simple purpose?* It is tempting to think of pornography
as having only one, very rudimentary purpose: sexual arousal of the
audience. But a look at very early pornographic works, those that were
produced in France and England between 1500 and 1800, shows how
misleading that conception is. Almost all pornographic works of that
era deliberately used the shock of sex to criticize religious and
political authorities (Hunt 1996: 35). With their truth-telling trope
they were meant to function as a powerful antidote to the many forms
of repression in society and often had the explicit aim to educate
people about politics, religion, society, and of course, sex (Lubey
2022). It is not a coincidence that these books were known in 18th
century France as "livres philosophiques" (they were
considered just as dangerous to society as philosophical treatises)
and that the rise in pornography around 1740 coincided with the
hey-day of the Enlightenment (Hunt 1996; Darnton 1995). Quite a few of
the pornographic novels of that time even carried the term
"philosophy" in the title (think of Sade's
*La Philosophie dans le Boudoir*,
1795) and some of them were actually written by prominent
philosophers who were keen to use this extremely popular genre to
divulge some of their ideas to the masses (think of Diderot's
*Les Bijoux Indiscrets*,
1748).



In one of the most notorious examples of the genre, *Therese
Philosophe* (1748),
written by the philosopher Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis
d'Argens, a great variety of copulations is used to communicate
what is in essence a materialist and mechanistic metaphysics. In
anonymous bedrooms, bodies brought together by individual need and
interest collide just like the atoms of the natural philosophers
(Jacob 1996: 160). And the bodies themselves are described as machines
powered by the relentless motion inherent in matter, by passions they
cannot control:



> 
> 
> The arrangement of our organs, the disposition of our fibers, a
> certain movement of our fluids, all determine the type of passions
> which work upon us, directing our reason and our will in the smallest
> as well as the greatest actions we perform. (*Therese
> Philosophe*, excerpted in Darnton 1995: 100)
> 
> 
> 



Or, as the main character herself observes:



> 
> 
> Men and women couple like machines. Love for them is a tingling in the
> epidermis, a surge of liquids, a rush of particles through the fibers,
> and nothing more. (*Therese Philosophe*,
> excerpted in Leemans 2002: 257)
> 
> 
> 



(2) *Formal and structural simplicity?* Pornography of the
enlightenment era also serves to tackle another misconception. It has
been argued that, because the main aim of pornographers is to sexually
arouse the audience, they are forced to include as many sexually
explicit scenes as possible, leaving precious little room for plot
development or formal intricacies (Steiner 1975). The pornographer
"concocts no better than a crude excuse for a beginning; and
once having begun, it goes on and on and ends nowhere" (Sontag
1994: 39). Pornography, as Adorno already noted, lacks the
beginning-middle-end form characteristic of literature (Sontag 1994:
39). Yet, again, this gives us far from a waterproof criterion for
distinguishing erotic literature from pornography. For instance, the
structural complexity of the pornographic novel, *Histoire
de Dom B... Portier des Chartreux*
(1741), with its embedded stories and variety of narrators, has
often been noted by scholars (Frappier-Mazur 1996: 211). The careful
composition of *Therese*, where the author has
arranged the parts to maximize the refraction, so that wherever the
reader turns he seems to see throbbing sexuality, provides another
counterexample (Darnton 1995).



(3) *One-dimensional in its effect on the audience?* It could
be thought that sexual arousal is such a powerful, bodily state that
it must block out all other functions, most notably our cognitive
faculties. Levinson claims that this is precisely what distinguishes
sexual arousal from sexual stimulation, which he thinks is
*not* incompatible with the cognitive activity required for
aesthetic appreciation (2005: 232). Other philosophers have challenged
this controversial distinction (Blackburn 2006: 52; Maes 2012).
Moreover, even if one were to accept the animal-like nature of sexual
arousal, that does not mean that it cannot be cognitively rewarding
and artistically appropriate. As one commentator of Cleland's
*Fanny Hill* notes:



> 
> 
> The stimulus of reading a scene in *Fanny Hill* makes in the
> reader's own nature the point made in the text. The reader may
> be moved to reconsider the merits of stoicism, revaluate the powers of
> the mind to control the body, reread his Descartes and think again of
> the dividing line between mind and the bete-machine. (Braudy
> 1991: 85)
> 
> 
> 



(4) *Simple to interpret?* While questions of interpretation
arise frequently in relation to works of erotic art, people rarely
seem to have interpretive qualms where pornography is concerned.
Indeed, if an interpretation typically attempts to account for those
elements in a work whose presence is not immediately obvious to the
target audience (Carroll 2009), there may seem no need for an
interpretation in the case of pornography since it is all too obvious
why such films or novels include one sexually explicit scene after
another. Still, here too it is important not to jump to conclusions.
There are (at least) two different kinds of interpretative projects
one could engage in, each with its own set of lead questions.
"What is the work about?" is one question one could ask.
Another question is "What does the work reveal about the author
or the time, place, culture, society in which it was made?"
While the former is central to the discipline of art criticism, the
latter question will usually be the starting point of interpretations
offered by cultural historians, sociologists, psychoanalysts. These
latter interpretations, where pornography is concerned, will be
everything but simple given the incredible complexity of the
pornographic landscape with its huge catalogue of taboos, body types,
sex acts, and other things that get people's blood flowing.
Pornography offers us, in the words of Laura Kipnis, "the royal
road to the cultural psyche" (2006: 118) and as such can prove
to be a gold mine for interpretations. The other question--What
is the work about?--seems less pertinent, especially in relation
to the formulaic and repetitive video clips one finds on porn
websites. Nevertheless, there are other types of pornography where
issues about meaning and "aboutness" do seem highly
relevant, such as the philosophical pornography mentioned above and
the feminist pornography that will be discussed in the next
section.



In closing, it is worth mentioning a thesis recently put forward by
Eaton (2018), based on art historical considerations regarding the
function of erotic images in 16th-century Italy. Eaton argues that the
root of the erotic art/pornography distinction was--at least in
that particular context--class. The need for a special category
of unsanctioned illicit images arose at the very time when print
culture was beginning to threaten elite privilege. What made an erotic
representation exceed the boundaries of acceptability, Eaton suggests,
was not its extreme libidinosity but, rather, its widespread
availability and, thereby, its threat to one of the mechanisms of
sustaining class privilege.


### 4.2 Erotic Art, Feminist Theory, and Objectification



In a short but oft-quoted essay, Gloria Steinem describes what is for
her "a clear and present difference":



> 
> 
> Look at any photo or film of people making love, really making love.
> ... there is usually sensuality and touch and warmth, an
> acceptance of bodies and nerve endings. ... Now look at any
> depiction of sex in which there is clear force, or an unequal power
> that spells coercion. ... The first is erotic: a mutually
> pleasurable, sexual expression between people who have enough power to
> be there by positive choice. ... The second is pornographic: its
> message is violence, dominance, and conquest. (Steinem 1995: 31)
> 
> 
> 



This idea that there is an important *moral* difference between
erotic art and pornography, in so far as pornography focuses on sex
that is aggressive, emotionless, or alienated, while the focus of
erotic art is on love, passion, and equality between partners, has
been very influential (see, for example, Ellis 2006: 30; Mahon 2005:
15; Ridington 1989: 27). However, delineating the distinctiveness of
erotic art, as opposed to pornography, in terms of a particular
content will not in and of itself establish that the latter is
immoral, while the former is not. As Theodore Gracyk (1987) has
argued, the morally objectionable character of a representation can
never be just a matter of represented subject matter. For an artist
can decide to depict rape or other aggressive forms of abuse in an
attempt to precisely warn and protest against such degradation of
women or men (recall the work of Kiki Smith). That is why Helen
Longino is careful to define pornography as



> 
> 
> verbal or pictorial material which represents or describes sexual
> behavior that is degrading or abusive to one or more of the
> participants *in such a way as to endorse the degradation*.
> (1980: 43, our emphasis)
> 
> 
> 



Longino is only one of the many authors who have tried to capture what
is morally problematic about pornography. But the intricacies of that
debate will not concern us here. Our focus is on erotic art, rather
than pornography. Still, it is worth considering some of the more
basic arguments, because they can be, and have been, put to use in
discussions on the distinction between erotic art and pornography.



Perhaps the most straightforward way to argue that pornography is
morally objectionable (in a way that erotic art is not) is to argue
that it is harmful. The harm that pornography does may occur in the
production phase, and take the form of coercion, brutality, violence,
or rape. But even if no harm takes place in the making of pornography,
and models are treated fairly and with respect, there can still be
post-production harms. Some have argued that the pornographic
materials themselves *constitute* harm because, as a form of
hate speech, they silence and subordinate women (MacKinnon 1987;
Langton 1993, 2009; Maitra 2009). Others have emphasized that exposure
to pornographic material may *cause* harm (Eaton 2007). The
latter claim is further refined by specifying the frequency of
exposure (isolated/cumulative), the nature of the material
(egalitarian/inegalitarian), the kind of harm inflicted
(physical/psychological), and whom it is mainly inflicted on
(consumer/third party). By systematically eroticizing aspects of
gender inequality, inegalitarian pornography is mainly thought to
cause harm to a third party, in particular women, through the
pernicious effect it has on its consumers (Eaton 2007).



"Exploitation" and "objectification" are terms
that are used particularly often to describe what is wrong with
pornography. Martha Nussbaum (1995), for instance, has written a
seminal essay on different forms of objectification and how they apply
to pornography (see also Stock 2015). Artists like Nancy Spero have
defined pornography as "stuff that exploits women's
bodies" (quoted in Cembalest 1989: 142). It might be thought,
and indeed Spero and others have argued, that these ethical terms may
serve to demarcate (erotic) art from pornography--pornography
being exploitative or objectifying in a way that (erotic) art is
not.



This way of drawing the line is significantly problematized by the
emergence of feminist pornography. Examples are films like *Skin.Like.Sun*
(2010, dir. Jennifer Lyon Bell and
Murielle Scherre) and *When We Are Together, We Can Be
Everywhere* (2015, dir. Marit Ostberg), Molly
Kiely's graphic novel *That Kind of
Girl* (1999), or *Dirty Diaries*,
a collection of Swedish movie shorts (2009). Mutual pleasure
and consent are absolutely key in these pornographic works which seem
to exhibit none of the moral flaws manifest in mainstream pornography
(no exploitation, objectification, or eroticization of gender
inequality). What is more, in rejecting sexual repression,
self-oppression, and hypocrisy, these works are often said to have a
positive, consciousness-raising force (Willis 1995; Taormino et al.
2013; Maes 2017; 2020; Eaton 2017).



But even if one were to disregard this rapidly growing subgenre of
pornography, and argue that there is something deeply wrong with
*any* type of pornography, that in itself would still not
justify a strict divide between erotic art and pornography. For every
plausible account of the relation between moral and artistic
value--whether it is autonomism, ethicism, immoralism, or
contextualism--will acknowledge that works of art, including
works of erotic art, can be deeply morally flawed (Gaut 2007; see also
Eaton 2003 for an in depth analysis of Titian's
*Rape of Europa*, 1562). What
is more, it appears that whatever (moral) objection one wants to bring
forward against mainstream pornography, it is likely to apply to some
erotic art as well (Patridge 2013). First, harm may be inflicted when
erotic art is being produced (Brown 2002 tells the harrowing story of
Cellini and the Nymph of Fontainebleau). Second, some erotic art may
also *constitute* harm. At least, Langton and MacKinnon's
arguments seem to carry over seamlessly to (certain strands of) erotic
art. One of the difficult questions for Langton and MacKinnon--do
pornographers possess the appropriate authority to perform the speech
acts of silencing and subordinating women?--appears even easier
to answer in the affirmative in the case of artists since their
perceived authority is much less contentious. Third, some erotic art
may cause harm in the same way as pornography, that is, by eroticizing
aspects of gender inequality and thus shaping people's sexual
preferences in such a way that sustains the current inequality between
genders (Eaton 2012). Finally, a detailed case is made by,
respectively, Cooke 2012 and Eaton 2012 that neither exploitation nor
objectification is unique to pornography and that both are present in
many works of erotic art--a presence that is frequently
unacknowledged precisely because critics tend to focus exclusively on
pornography and too often consider art to be above (moral)
criticism.



To conclude, it does not seem possible to make a clear-cut distinction
between erotic art and pornography based on moral or feminist grounds.
Critiques of pornography have focused on features that are shared by a
much wider class of cultural products and by (some) works of erotic
art in particular. This is not necessarily bad news for feminists. On
the contrary, feminists could embrace this conclusion as it implies
that their critiques are wider ranging than they at first appear to be
(see Kania 2012; Mikkola (ed.) 2017; Mikkola 2019).


## 5. Further questions



Many more philosophical questions remain to be examined in relation to
erotic art. The following will likely play an important role in future
research on this topic. First, what exactly does it mean for a
representation to be voyeuristic and what, if anything, is the
difference between voyeurism in artistic and non-artistic
representations? The question was already raised in John
Berger's classic *Ways of Seeing* (1972) and has since
then been addressed in Schellekens 2012 and Eaton 2012. The latter
also offers a philosophical re-interpretation of the influential but
strongly psychoanalytically informed concept of the "male
gaze" (Mulvey 1989). To say that a work embodies the male gaze,
Eaton submits, is simply to say that it prescribes that its audience
perceives the woman represented as primarily a sex object. As such,
the tradition of the female nude in Western art promotes sexually
objectifying, heteronormative erotic taste, and thereby has insidious
effects on gender equality. Following on from this, Lavallee (2016)
argues that Eaton's thesis is mainly based on the experiences of
white women and does not pay adequate attention to the lives of
nonwhite women. This act of exclusion exposes a more general bias in
discussions of female representations in art. Different kinds of
bodies have been subjected to different kinds of objectifying
construal. Lavallee therefore suggests that the ethics of nudity in
art must be extended to take such variation into account (see also
Taylor 2016, especially chapter 4).



Second, what is the role of transgression in erotic art? While
feminist philosophers have rightly highlighted the moral dangers
involved in the production and dissemination of sexual imagery, other
philosophers and most notably Georges Bataille (1985, 1986), have
argued that norm-breaking, and in particular the violation of social
or moral norms about sexual behavior, is indispensable for sexual
arousal and provides a basis for other affective states, such as
disgust, humor, and awe, which are often in play in sexual encounters
and representations. (For a demystified and less radical version of
this argument, see Newall 2012. For a general discussion of the role
of transgression in art, see Julius 2002).



Third, how does the degree of eroticism of a work of erotic art relate
to its goodness as art, and how do the criteria for assessing erotic
art differ from those appropriate to assessing art of other sorts? By
reflecting on the appreciation and artistic status of art with a
non-artistic primary intended function, such as religious, political
or erotic art, Davies (2012) makes a good start in answering these
questions.



Fourth, there are interesting differences between art forms that are
worth investigating. For instance, philosophical discussions of erotic
art have often focused on visual art or literature. But Benovsky
(2021) draws attention to erotic experiences qua proprioceptive
experiences and defends the claim that, under the right circumstances,
such experiences can bring about proprioceptive artworks. Adil Mustafa
Ahmad notes in relation to Islamic art that



> 
> 
> practically all that is perceived as erotic (acceptable, sublime) when
> described in literature is seen as pornographic (off-putting and
> vulgar) if projected in painting and sculpture. (Ahmad 1994: 281)
> 
> 
> 



In Western art, too, there appear to be different degrees of
permissibility if one compares literature with the visual arts. How to
explain this? How to explain, furthermore, the absence, or
near-absence, of the genre of erotic art in what are sometimes called
the non-representational arts? There seems to be very little erotic
architecture and it is not entirely clear whether there is any
absolute music that qualifies as erotic. There are erotic dances, of
course, but these are rarely performed within an art context or
considered as art works.



To illuminate the latter phenomenon it might be helpful to reflect on
issues of fictionality and imagination--a fifth important
research strand. As Cain Todd (2012) argues, the awareness of
fictionality of sexual representations ensures that one's
imaginative engagement implies merely imagined
"desire-like" states, whereas the voyeuristic appreciation
of a stripper's erotic dance seems to preclude this sort of
engagement, and in virtue of doing so, involves real sexual desire.
One might think that, characteristically, arousal-directed imagining
towards a sexual representation is *de se* in that one uses the
image as a prop to imagine committing or witnessing certain sexual
acts and, indeed, Todd argues that the engagement with sexual imagery
can possess certain cognitive values, insofar as it involves the self
in *de se* imaginative projects. But notwithstanding the
apparent plausibility of such claims, this is denied by Stock (2012)
who argues that enjoying erotica does not always involve imagining
something about oneself.



Sixth, if erotic art and pornography are not mutually exclusive, why
is there not more art that qualifies as both? Van Brabandt and Prinz
(2012) address this question in relation to cinema. Despite the many
resemblances between art films and pornographic films--jump cuts,
long takes, "Brechtian" acting, a cinema
verite-like grittiness, arousal of strong emotions, an
exploration of the extremes of human experience and of the margins of
society--they argue that market forces are mainly to be blamed
for the lack of overlap between the two. Mari Mikkola (2013), by
contrast, builds on recent work in the ontology of artifacts to
speculate about the possibility of porno-art--a new class of
objects growing out of the extant categories of pornography and art,
without being reducible to either one.



Seventh, obscenity and censorship issues will continue to play a key
part in research on erotic art. They crop up in philosophical
discussions of the nude (Nead 1992; Hammer 1997; Danto 2000; Scruton
2009) and of art that challenges the classical ideal of beauty
(O'Hear 1991, Danto 1995, Mey 2007). They are also central to
*stipulative* distinctions between erotic art and pornography
(Maes 2012). George P. Elliott, for instance, defines pornography
as



> 
> 
> the representation of directly or indirectly erotic acts with an
> intrusive vividness which offends decency without aesthetic
> justification. (1970: 74-75)
> 
> 
> 



A normative definition of this kind will bring to mind certain legal
descriptions of obscenity such as the U.S. Supreme Court's
notorious Miller test, set forth in *Miller v. California*
(1973). This test proposed a three-pronged criterion for obscenity:
*x* is obscene if (1) it is found appealing to the prurient
interest by an average person applying contemporary community
standards, (2) it depicts sexual conduct, specifically defined by the
applicable state law, in a patently offensive way and (3) taken as a
whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific
value. The Miller test has proved problematic in many respects, one of
its most evident flaws being the conflation of two ideas--the
pornographic and the obscene (Nussbaum 2004). Recent philosophical
attempts to define the obscene have avoided this
mistake--allowing for non-pornographic obscenities and obscene
erotic art (e.g., Kieran 2002).



Finally, if erotic representations and art works help to shape how we
see and engage with bodies, how can they be mobilised to challenge (or
perpetuate) oppression based on race, sexual orientation, age, size,
and disability? Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic"
(1978) has been a seminal text. But while Davidson (2016), Cahill
(2016), Lintott & Irvin (2016), Mikkola (ed., 2017) and
Thorneycroft (2021) offer some recent perspectives, much more work
still needs to be done on this front.



In sum, it will be clear that any serious thinking about erotic art
leads to fundamental questions about the nature of aesthetics, the
moral impact and status of representations, and the boundaries of art.
As such there can be little doubt that this topic will prove to be
fruitful for further philosophical investigation.