Topics Art

Question What - if any - is the difference between 'erotic art' and 'pornography'? Is it merely a value judgement?

Accepted:
November 4, 2005

Comments

This is not an easy question, obviously, and I'm hardly in a position to distinguish these carefully. But here is one thought. Pornography, in the relevant sense of the term, is designed to arouse. That is its primary purpose, without which it would neither be produced nor consumed. Art can arouse, and I don't myself see why arousal shouldn't be regarded as an appropriate part of one's aesthetic response to certain works of art. But art's purpose is never only to arouse. What other purposes art may have is itself a hard question, of course. But one function of art, in my own life, anyway, is to encourage me to see what is familiar in a new way. Erotic photography—Mapplethorpe's work is the obvious example—certainly can have that kind of effect.

Of course, this way of gesturing at the distinction seems to put the burden upon the intentions of the artist, and that makes me uncomfortable. But I think there's something there, nonetheless.

Question What - if any - is the difference between 'erotic art' and 'pornography'? Is it merely a value judgement? Accepted:November 4, 2005

Question What - if any - is the difference between 'erotic art' and 'pornography'? Is it merely a value judgement?

Accepted:
November 4, 2005