What is the difference between Art and Porn?

[xNightxSpawnx]

The whole Art and Pornography debate will rage forever because no one will really come up with a good enough reason as to full discredit Porn, for as low as some may hold an opinion of it, as being art. A fascination with nudity and sexuality will always exist in the human conscious. Why else are so many statues, mosaics, and other works of from the Greco-Roman culture so fixated with nudity and the male and female form?

I am not trying to bash the Canadian government or custom official here in any way, but way to overreact to a situation that needs nothing than looking at the man and asking him what kind of a man get his kicks off by reading this? And I am in no way condemning the man for having manga on his computer with sexual content or other questionable material.

In many romance manga the girls almost automatically will either look either A.) underage to a point of them looking like they are 10 or B.) over sexualized to a point where it is questionable if the are still in school, but heck that is just how some artist drawn characters.

Three questions I really want to ask are:
1.) Where was the Canadian customs inspector looking on this man's laptop that he was able to find these images?
2.) Why is he being charged with "intent to sell" unless he specifically told officials he was planing on selling it?
3.) Why is a man really being charged with child pornography when it is of fictional characters?

 

[Grell Sutcliff]

porn is more of a type of art and as to what is considered porn it's up to the opinions of a bunch of people in the courts that review it first and then choose it's classification.

 

[conflictofinterests]

This debate has raged for as long as there have been nude pictures. There's a standpoint that says nude art doesn't engage the audience, whereas porn does (generally dealing with whether or not the subjects are looking out of the piece "at" the audience or not). There are standpoints like your own. There are standpoints that say that anything without a minimal amount of cover or depicting any sexual act is porn. There are standpoints that view nothing as "porn" in the sense that it is obscene and should be censored for certain portions of the population.

After a certain point, whatever the creator of the piece intended for said piece is overshadowed by the eyes of the beholders, so, in my opinion, the only thing that differentiates "art" from "porn" is the opinion of the audience.

 

[dcdude171]

because laws are stupid , and made by people , people arent always right , therefore laws arent always right , but govts stand by there laws , because if they show weakness , and delibartion they can be sued . there ?

 

[Thaius]

Pornography exists for no reason other than sexual stimulation. It might be framed in artistic frameworks, such as a story, and it is always a subset of an artistic genre (film, literature, video game, etc.), but arguing it as an art itself is questionable. All mediums have uses that aren't actually art (i.e. a Terms of Service agreement is not art, nor is a Youtube video about how to tie a tie, etc.), and it's very easy to argue that something made for the sole purpose to stimulate someone sexually does not qualify as art.

 

[Phoenix_XIII]

a government grant!

Oi. Ninja'd.

In all seriousness, This question has gone on for awhile. You can paint a picture of a naked woman and say it's art, but some people would claim it's porn. Honestly, photography and cinematography is an art. They are a couple of the visual arts. So what qualifies as art really rests in the eye of the beholder. Maybe to some, what can be viewed as porn can be viewed as art and vice versa.

 

[Grey_Gore]

I think Terry Pratchett summed it up best of all, in the Thud! novel:

`Nude women are only Art if there's an urn in it, or a plinth.'
(Wikiquote source [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Discworld#Thud.21_.282005.29])

[sub]... in all seriousness, I think it all boils down to the viewer's sensibilities.[/sub]

 

[WouldYouKindly]

You don't usually masturbate to art. You also don't stop caring about art after you're *ahem* done.

Porn doesn't even have to do with anything sexual. Plenty of people get off on other stuff aside from naked people. So the difference is this question: Is the primary reason you're looking at it is to get off? If yes, it's porn, if not, it could be art.

 

[DarkRyter]

Art is something someone creates. Could be anything. A painting, a sandwich, a baby.

Porn is media meant to be sexually arousing.

Porn is something someone created, and thus, is art.

 

[7777777777444]

My opinion on the subject...
Art: Beuitiful, and leaves you with a special appresiation.
Porn:Beuitiful, and leaves you with a special appresiation, (In a different way.)

Seriously though, it is all about the person in question's taste... for example, Picasso's Painting "Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur" Could be called porn just because there is nudity, while others may believe it to be a tasteful depiction of the human body.

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Art is a work which derives an intentional emotional response from the viewer, pornography is purely titillation. Art can be titillating, a work containing pornographic elements can be art, but a purely pornographic work ... *sighs* Porn ISN'T 'art' so much by definition. Pretty simple distinction often blurred by 'intellectuals' redefining things for convenience.

 

[itsausernamewhatofit]

a government grant!

Ninja'd!!!!!!!!!

 

[bdcjacko]

a government grant!

Ninja'd!!!!!!!!!

You weren't ninja'd, I post thee this two or three hours ago. The guy that quoted me a minute later, he was ninja'd. Everyone else quoting me saying ninja'd is just slow.

 

[Leadfinger]

Part of the criteria for porn is that it must "titillate." But what titillates depends on the viewer. There have been some cases where a work that a young and more easily influenced by his hormones judge had ruled as being pornographic, as an older judge he later ruled the same work to not be pornographic. Less swayed by his hormones, I guess.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Nothing. Art is subjective. A porn movie has the possibility of being art simply if its intended to be that way.

 

[Thaluikhain]

A public consensus. Phrases like "offensive to most reasonable people" crop up.

 

[johnstamos]

the way i see it most porn in almost comical and pretty much just says "because every scenario in life can have an over the top silicon boob sex scene spliced into it to make it better".
by definition, art doesn't seem to cover conventional banging scene porn, cuz seriously porn does not= sex

 

[ImperialSunlight]

There is no difference, because porn IS art. The question lies on whether or not it's good art.

How do you define good in terms of art?

OP:
The problem is that the definition of art is unclear. For instance, if the toilet that they put in the museum of art is a piece of art then can't a drawing of (insert sexually explicit thing here) be art? Also, in some pornography, although this is rare, the creator may create a passionate and creative narrarative in addition to sexual content. Is this art? Also, famous works of art such as the statue of David contain nudity. Does this make it art? Porn? Sadly art is simply a futile machination of man in their desperate struggle to catagorize everything they can so there can be no answer to these questions.