Porn - Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink (24 page)

What does it mean to “imaginatively engage with an object in the required way”? As a general claim, I would think this means to imagine oneself in some way participating in a sexually fulfilling action with the depicted subject. Of course, this would differ from person to person depending entirely on what the individual happens to find “sexually fulfilling.” If an individual is aroused by Michelangelo’s “David,” then I would expect his or her arousal to partly be the product of his or her imagining participating in some sexual act with the person that the sculpture depicts. Again, I should point out that the idea of “pornographic interest” that I have described is an entirely subjective, psychological state. The exact details of what one finds sexually arousing or sexually fulfilling are entirely down to individual sexual preferences. That being said, my general claim would still hold – that to take a pornographic interest in something is for a consumer to identify something in the content of the work that would normally excite his or her sexual interest and to imaginatively engage with that feature of the work in a way that would normally result in his or her sexual arousal.

If this is what it means to take a pornographic interest in a work, then what does it mean to take an “artistic interest” in a work? This concept may be somewhat more controversial, mainly because the range of objects that one can take an artistic interest in would appear to be far more diverse than the range of objects that one can take a pornographic interest in, and one would wonder whether there is one distinct kind of interest that could be described as
the
artistic interest.The worry is that there may be many interests that one can take in works of art that may all with justification be described as an artistic interest. This is a much deeper problem, which I unfortunately do not have the space to address here. Still, if the definition of artistic interest that I will provide is not exhaustive of the phenomenon, it still remains to be seen whether my definition of artistic interest is compatible or not with pornographic interest.

A common understanding of artistic interest holds that this is not simply the interest that one takes in the content of a work. Rather, when one takes an artistic interest in an object, one is fundamentally concerned with the formal qualities of the work. If the work happens to contain some recognizable content – that is, if the work is not wholly abstract – then one’s artistic interest may include the way in which the content is represented through that particular medium. In this case, one’s interest strikes a balance between form and content. Specifically, what one takes an interest in is the manner in which the artist has rendered their chosen content given the constraints of their medium and technique. One does not take an interest solely in
what
is depicted, but rather one takes an interest in the
manner
of depiction. As Jerrold Levinson says:

An image that has an artistic interest, dimension, or intent is one that is not simply
seen through
, or
seen past
, leaving one, at least in imagination, face to face with the subject. Images with an artistic dimension are thus to some extent
opaque
, rather than
transparent
. In other words, with artistic images we are invited to dwell on features of the image itself, and not merely on what the image represents.
¹²

When one takes no real interest in the formal qualities of an object, it is as if one simply looks through a transparent medium at the represented object, which would allow one a good vantage point to take a pornographic interest in the object.
¹³
Alternatively, when one lingers appreciatively on the formal qualities of the object, even if one is still in some sense mindful of the content of the work, then one is taking an artistic interest in the object. This distinction between
opaque
and
transparent
nicely captures the general idea of what I mean by “artistic interest,” even if this distinction is rather difficult to apply in some cases. For instance, it is rather difficult to imagine how pornographic literature might be transparent in the way that Levinson describes.
¹⁴
Still, even in the case of pornographic literature, we might distinguish between the interest we take in the author’s use of metaphor, allusion, or alliteration, on the one hand, that is, a
literary interest
, and the interest we take in the scene or actions that the author describes, on the other hand.

Employing this distinction between a pornographic interest and an artistic interest, we may offer an analogous distinction between
pornographic value
and
artistic value
. Essentially, to take an interest in an object in a certain way is to value that object in a certain way. So, if you take a pornographic interest in an object, you place some pornographic value on that object; and if you take an artistic interest in an object, you place some artistic value on that object. An object is “valued as pornography” insofar as it is the sort of object that would reward a pornographic interest. If taking a pornographic interest in a work is to identify something in the content of that work that one would normally find sexually arousing and to imaginatively engage with that feature of the work in a way that would normally result in one’s sexual arousal, then a work has some pornographic value if it is conducive to this sort of interest. Some objects will be more rewarding as pornography than others. Likewise, an object is “valued as art” insofar as it is the sort of object that would reward an artistic interest. Of course, we should notice that, as these notions of value are inherently tied to a psychological state of taking a particular kind of interest in an object, then which objects have pornographic value and which have artistic value would be relative to the subject – thus, pornography really is in the eye of the beholder!
¹⁵

Of course, these are not the only values that we can place on an object – as stated previously, objects can serve many interests and can hold many different kinds of value. For instance, if I have a historical interest in an object, then I place some historical value on that object. Pornographic value is merely one value among many, and one that may sit alongside and be weighed against other values that we may attribute to a work. Furthermore, the degrees of value that we ascribe to an object may differ greatly, depending on what kind of value we are talking about. It is not the case that objects having a high value in one regard must also have a high value in its other regards; or, just because an object rewards one kind of interest does not mean that it must reward any other kind of interest. For instance, think about the early musical compositions written by Mozart when he was a young child. Artistically, these works might not be very good – we might place very low
artistic value
on Mozart’s childhood compositions – but still, these works hold a high
historical value
. With this distinction in place, we can think about the pornographic value of a work in relation to the artistic value of that work.

Relations Between the Pornographic and the Artistic

I take it to be uncontroversial that a single work can be valued in many different ways or excite many different kinds of interest in a consumer. It seems intuitively obvious to me that a person may use a single object to serve different interests at different times, and as one’s concern for the object shifts between these different kinds of interests, one may attend to distinct qualities of the object that serve these interests (though in some cases it may be true that one’s different interests in an object are actually directed towards the same qualities). To take an artistic interest in the paintings of Elvgren, for example, is to appreciate the way in which the artist handles his medium in the representation of his chosen subject. Alternatively, to take a pornographic interest in the paintings of Elvgren is simply to find something in the content of his paintings that one finds sexually arousing, which in this case would be ladies in various stages of undress, and to imaginatively engage with that feature of the work in a way that would result in one’s sexual arousal – imagining oneself helping those ladies in getting undressed! Elvgren’s paintings would be valued as art to the extent that his paintings reward an artistic interest, and Elvgren’s paintings would be valued as pornography to the extent that his paintings reward a pornographic interest.

While I think it is obvious that a single object can satisfy many different kinds of interest and could be valued in many different ways, what I am uncertain of is how these kinds of interests and values might be related. Is it ever the case that valuing a work artistically necessarily requires one to take a pornographic interest in that work? Is it ever true that one
cannot
appreciate the artistic value of a work
without
taking a pornographic interest in that work? I believe that this is false – to value a work artistically never requires one to take a pornographic interest in that work. Indeed, I would go further and say that taking a pornographic interest in a work is incompatible with one’s taking an artistic interest in that work.The reason is because taking a pornographic interest in a work requires the consumer to look past the medium of the work and fix one’s attention solely on the work’s content, while taking an artistic interest in a work requires the consumer to attend explicitly to the medium of the work. Certainly, a consumer could shift her attention between her pornographic interest and her artistic interest in the work seemingly at will. My point, however, is that a work does not excite her artistic interest
by virtue of
its exciting her pornographic interest – what makes the object good art is not what makes the object good porn.

We should remember the distinction between transparent viewing and opaque viewing: to view something “transparently” is to look through the object in such a way that one pays little attention to the medium through which one is looking; to view something “opaquely” is to linger on the particular formal qualities of the medium in an appreciative way. Now, to take a pornographic interest in a work is to identify something in the content of the work that one would normally find sexually arousing and to actually imaginatively engage with that feature of the work’s content in a way that would normally result in one’s sexual arousal.To take a pornographic interest in a work is to treat the medium of the work as if it were transparent, that is, to treat the medium of representation as if it is just a vehicle for representation. One need not artistically appreciate the formal qualities of the medium in order to take a pornographic interest in a work – certainly, one can, but the point is that taking an artistic appreciation in those formal qualities is not necessary in order to take a pornographic interest in a work.Alternatively, to take an artistic interest in a work is to appreciatively linger on the formal qualities of the work’s medium – that is, to view the medium of the work opaquely. And here is the problem: one takes a pornographic interest in the content alone, not in the balance between content and form.To a pornographic interest, the medium is transparent – one sees past the formal qualities of the object to behold and imaginatively engage with the content of the work itself – and an artistic interest is opaque. One will never find the artistic value in an object that one regards transparently because one must regard the object opaquely to appreciate its artistic value.

Incidentally, I wonder if the reverse kind of scenario is ever true – does one ever appreciate the pornographic value of an object through taking an artistic interest in that work? This would be a case where one’s pornographic interest in a work is somehow satisfied by paying attention to the formal qualities of a work, where one finds sexual arousal in attending to those qualities of the work that are normally associated with one’s artistic interest. A possible case might be bondage photographs. Someone who is sexually aroused by bondage might pay special attention to the stillness of a photographic image. Perhaps paying attention to the stillness of the photographic image actually heightens the consumer’s sense of anxiety and suspense, or the sense of being “bound” by the photographic image aids in the consumer’s sexual arousal. If this is what one is sexually aroused by, then this might be a case where taking an artistic interest in a formal quality of a work serves the double-duty of also contributing to the consumer’s sexual arousal. However, one point should be made clear about this “double-duty.” If the case I have described above is correct, then what is happening may simply be that the same formal feature is involved in the consumer’s artistic interest as well as in her pornographic interest. But this is not to say that the consumer must take an artistic interest in the object in order to take a pornographic interest in that object. Rather, it just happens to be the case that the stillness of the photograph – a formal feature of the object that the consumer takes an artistic interest in – also serves the consumer’s sexual interest. Basically, this consumer would appear to have a “formal fetish”
¹⁶
for photographic stillness. I see no reason to doubt this possibility; however idiosyncratic this fetish may be, the possibility of this sort of case is really an empirical question.

How would we explain this case? The possibility of formal fetishes does not conflict with the argument of this essay. Rather, this just simply illustrates a point that I made earlier – that there are many interests that a consumer may take in an object; and while these distinct interests may be served by attending to distinct qualities of the object, in some cases the various interests that a consumer may have are actually directed towards the same quality. The case of bondage photographs may simply be one of those cases – the stillness of the photograph serves both a pornographic interest and an artistic interest. However, importantly, this does not yet prove that one appreciates the pornographic value of an object through taking an artistic interest in the photograph.To prove this, we would need to establish that the consumer’s artistic interest is a necessary condition of their pornographic interest, and that has not been established by this case.