To the Editor:
I'd like to respond to Shilyh Warren's letter, ("Pornography misrepresents women's sexuality," April 14, 1995) hopefully without throwing myself into the melee that the Playboy issue has become. In particular, I would like to comment on Warren's closing statement. As someone who appreciates art in all forms, I have fundamental problems in seeing Warren's definition of the line between art and pornography as a valid argument.
She states, "There is most definitely a substantive difference between a painting or a drawing of a nude women [sic] and a glossy page featuring a manipulated photograph of an objectified female model." It seems that she makes the distinction between art and pornography not based on subject matter, but based solely on medium. Are we to infer that, according to Warren, there have never been lewd or "pornographic" paintings or drawings? Were live, nude models never used before the invention of photography? And have there never been glossy, modeled photographs of nude women with any degree of artistic merit? One only has to search through a minimal number of art history books to find examples that contradict these implications.
I find myself wading through inconsistencies of this nature, especially when "feminist" outcries begin to take on the air of their staunchly conservative opponents. It seems that Warren has the same problem with expression that Jesse Helms has with the National Endowment for the Arts and its choice of artists who receive government support.
My point is simple: there is no difference between a nude depiction of a woman, produced on canvas with oils and acrylics, and the same depiction of the same nude woman produced on a different artistic medium, such as film. The differing media do not change the subject matter, and it is the subject matter with which opponents of "pornography" should have the problem. The technology of art should not be forever stuck in the Renaissance; curtailments of the use of any media for artistic purposes will only serve to damage any conception the world may have of art in the future.
