This puts many thoughts I've had about 'nonsexual' nudity into words, especially as a female CSA victim. When you're exposed to hardcore sexual depictions of nudity from such a young age, it becomes hard to divorce nudity from sexuality, and the narrative of this art feels alienating. Nudity itself isn't inherently sexual, and we've been told this over and over, yet that entirely ignores the history of these pieces. In a vacuum, it's possible to have nonsexual nudity, but there's a reason we don't find female depictions of naked heroism. I wish there was genuine mundane nude art, with unflattering poses in a way that isnt directed at the viewer. Not with the intent of making something ugly, but out of relatability and humanity. Women should be able to see themselves in art, not just see who men think they should be.
whoa you changed my life with this. super interesting i always vacillate between nudity being sexualized vs liberating but whichever it is it is so crazy that male bodies are not! really well written!!!
An excellent essay, thank you! 😍👏 However, as a female radfem and *a European* I'd like to add that....here in Europe we are much more chill with nudity. We have nudist beaches, sauna culture, and topless sunbathing is mostly fine. We are also much more open about nursing babies in public, therefore men and women alike (and the kids) can see the natural use of female breasts. So I would definitely like to see A LOT more contextual info added to the displayed nudes, but to make them separately showing and 'inappropriate' for children to see might be a bit too much in the specifically European context. Afterall, the kids' parents might be hanging around at home in their underwear only (mine sure did! And my classmates' parents were nudists). 😋
I completely agree! One of the things that prompted me to write this was learning that nudes are often presented as sexual in Europe.
I appreciate your feedback on my suggestions being possibly "too radical," or rather, too prudish. I would like for there to be a future in which female and male nudity is viewed impartially and equally, and my suggestions are in some ways overcorrections to try and get the US back on track.
Thank you SO MUCH for reading and thank you for your lovely comment!
It was my pleasure! 💖🙏🏻 Haha and yes, we do have a view here on Americans as being too prudish (but not when it comes to gun ownership ahem), but each culture is different of course.
I don't know if it is that important but Europe is very diverse and the cultures vary a lot (I am from Central/Eastern Europe and people here are NOT chill about nudity at all). So I guess it really differs with each country and the writer's argument against the displays of nudity might be taken with more or less enthusiasm depending on the country. I also think that since museums usually have a pretty multicultural audience, choosing whether or not to see some type of art might be an interesting point to make.
Thank you for your comment—and that's *exactly* my point. We allow parents to have discretion with showing adult-oriented media to their children; I just believe artistic nudity should be treated the same other forms of nudity in our culture. In America, cinematic nudity gets your film an R rating, which minors under eighteen can only view with a parent or guardian (when they enforce it, at least).
Also, my city is one of the most diverse in the country. There are plenty of reasons, feminist and other, why someone would not want to see artistic nudity or expose their children to it. I think giving visitors that choice could be beneficial.
Ohhh well I am also from that region (Slovakia, but I live in Finland) and I am from a big city, where people are chill about a lot of things, nudity mostly included. But if I were from a village, especially a very Christian one, that would be a different matter! 🫣😅
Oh my word. I devoured this. I've often had similar thoughts about female nudity (and hairlessness) in art; I was aware of the history of the Knidian Aphrodite. But I had never considered how the female subject's shame/modesty justifies the male viewer's gaze, allowing him to look by displacing his own shame onto the subject.
(Also, if I blew up your notifications, I'm sorry -- I kept trying to restack quotes, and then it would tell me something went wrong, so I tried to restack it again, and again... and then when I went to my posts I saw it had restacked a single quote like ten times. So, sorry about that!! Lol)
I find that Berger put it best: “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.”
Growing up in a multicultural environment, it always surprises me to read articles assuming our culture is fully descendant from greco-Roman. Most of the signs in my hometown are in Chinese. Most of my friends were Asian in high school. Latino/indigenous in grade school. We speak English which is Germanic, use Arabic numerals… maize is the cornerstone of our food system.
Thank you! I agree, in part because I grew up in one of, if not the most, diverse city in the US. Globalization and the existence of a "melting pot" like America throws a huge wrench in art historical period and regional style analysis. I grew up in an area with a chacmool and sunstone (reproductions) as public heritage art!
Western art and visual culture is obsessed with Greco-Roman culture in part due to the longevity of Roman ruins and specifically the excavation of many Classical artworks in the Renaissance (such as the Medici Venus). The nude functioned as a hybrid of Venus and Eve in the Middle Ages, and then became Venus again when these excavations prompted a huge surge of interest in the Classics. This interest famously lasted into the Neoclassical era and has resurged consistently every few decades since then. The Modern West is very invested in crafting a direct legacy from Greco-Roman culture to modern European culture, so they rather intentionally and frequently reference it in their visual culture (art, architecture, films, adverts, etc.).
Interestingly, the surge in Mesoamerican excavations and historical research was likewise inspired by Greco-Roman culture; the government invested in the creation of an archaeological heritage similar to that of Europe's. Early Mesoamerican studies positioned the Maya as similar to Greece (it's divided into Early Classic, Classic, and Late Classic periods in an imitation of Grecian period divisions) and the Mexica (or Aztec, as they are commonly called) as similar to Rome. It's really interesting how the material longevity of Greco-Roman culture has created a visual language for cultural heritage and power that is recognizable worldwide. This is a great Smarthistory video that is tangentially related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPIoXgHY_i4
This wasn't so much a direct answer to your comment as much as it was me sharing something I think is very interesting and I hope you do too!
Thank you! That is a good point. It is interesting how classical Greco-Roman academic frameworks have been applied to New World and Asian civilizations.
On the West Coast, we're less obsessed with some assumed great cultural provenance you might see in New York City, Philadelphia, or DC. (William Randolph Hearst's embarrassing attachment to Greek sculpture and architecture as seen in his art collection, highlights just how far detached it is from our reality.) The survival and thriving of indigenous cultures and generations of influx of cultural contributions from Mexico and the East are too great for us to buy into implicit support for this cultural burden.
It's no wonder then that innovation in architecture, music, dance, literature, as well as human rights, have found greater grassroots support out west.
I really enjoyed your article and research. I bristle though at the assumption that this is my culture provenance.
If you think about it... it's rather the natural progression of how we are displayed and told that "actually it's art and appreciation and representation of *you* the female..." so don't get you knickers in a knot, little lady! 🙄
I agree… I’ve always felt uncomfortable about nudes (even before I was able to articulate why) but never felt comfortable expressing it because of exactly what you described! Thank you for the recommendation and thank you for your comment!
Great article, I've always been confused when people have said "it's not sexual, it's art" as if that explains the whole phenomena of nudes in art. In my mind as you stated a nude can be both art and sexual. Art thrives on arousing some emotion within the people who view it. And the human form can be very arousing, so it not surprising that it is the subject of so much art.
Nice article. At places it seems to stretch imagination.
But always remember:
1. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; &
2. One man's fetish is another man's apathy.
Therefore, I disagree regarding partitioning of nudes as a separate section and allowing visitors to choose whether they would want to see them or not.
As far as child visitors to museums are concerned, didn't the great Sigmund Freud say that children are sexually conscious by the time they are 3 yrs old. So, it makes sense to allow them to see nudes as well along with everybody. One good form of sex education.
Hi! This was a super good read, thank you for writing and sharing. My only comments? Disagreements? Is with the first suggestion of “partitioning” but I think that also links to the point of providing context. I agree the erotic imagery should not be front and center, but I also think it’s important to allow people access to images of the naked body regardless of age (again, perhaps this links more with the contextual notes, and the distinction between the nude vs the naked portrait). Regardless, this was a really interesting and thought provoking read, thank you for sharing and I’m excited to read your future work. (Bonus points for the Berger, i’m a big fan of his work)
i don’t think i will bc i think having another artist rework the tattoo would result in a worse end result. and more relevantly to your post i don’t think it’s inherently sexual or erotic in the way you write about. just because i don’t see something as sexual doesn’t mean someone else can’t so i don’t plan on getting any more artistic nudes tattooed after reading
“Crucially, for a work to be a “nude,” it must depict a female body in an eroticized state. This is because the formal elements that define the nude in Western Art rely on sexist formal conventions that place the female body in a subservient erotic role.”
This passage from Women in the Picture comes to mind:
"A similar point was implicitly raised in 2014 when the Swedish National Assembly made the headline-grabbing decision to remove a titillating painting of a bare-breasted goddess from its parliamentary rooms, on the request of the deputy speaker Susanne Eberstein. The parliamentarian expressed how erotic images of women in her workplace distracted dignitaries and guests and impacted the way the women were perceived in that professional environment... seeing women as sexually available in images found everywhere from the art gallery to the workplace to the top deck of the bus on the way to school, creates a totalising environment of erotic privilege for straight men."
I think it's a way to culturally reinforce the idea that women are seen, not heard. Moreover, it highlights our lack of visual language for depicting women in power—to learn more, watch Mary Beard's lecture entitled "Women in Power." It's amazing.
It's very interesting how this interacts with US politics. In the US, a radical feminist view that images of women should not be subjected to prurient male gaze is oddly aligned with right-wing thinkers who believe that women's modesty should be protected.
That is why, under very right-wing attorneys general, the statues (a one-bare-breasted female statue of the Spirit of Justice and a scantily clad male Justice statue) were covered up.
As someone who is not aligned with the right but who condemns speech or communication that augments the subjection of women, I am torn. Agreeing with the cover-up approach puts me in league with people who wish women nothing but subjection, exclusion, silence, and forced reproduction.
Interestingly, when modesty is the chief concern, male nudes are covered up as well (Mary Beard talks about this in her Shock of the Nude special). I think that the key difference between the conservative view of nude art and the feminist view of nude art is that nude art itself is deeply conservative—conservative men are not opposed to seeing women as sex objects and nudes were created specifically to suit conservative tastes. The radical feminist position, at its most extreme, would be the destruction of these misogynistic objects, a la Mary Richardson.
The alignment of radical feminist values with conservative policy is something I too struggle with, especially in the question of pornography. I celebrate the anti-pornography effects but am deeply troubled by overall conservative policy. I have been meaning to read more extensively into Dworkin and MacKinnon's anti-pornography legislative efforts and once I do I may have a better answer for you.
Thank you so much for reading and so much for these thought provoking comments.
This puts many thoughts I've had about 'nonsexual' nudity into words, especially as a female CSA victim. When you're exposed to hardcore sexual depictions of nudity from such a young age, it becomes hard to divorce nudity from sexuality, and the narrative of this art feels alienating. Nudity itself isn't inherently sexual, and we've been told this over and over, yet that entirely ignores the history of these pieces. In a vacuum, it's possible to have nonsexual nudity, but there's a reason we don't find female depictions of naked heroism. I wish there was genuine mundane nude art, with unflattering poses in a way that isnt directed at the viewer. Not with the intent of making something ugly, but out of relatability and humanity. Women should be able to see themselves in art, not just see who men think they should be.
Hard agree with that last comment, I think non sexual nudity is vital to encouraging empathy and understanding between others and within ourselves.
whoa you changed my life with this. super interesting i always vacillate between nudity being sexualized vs liberating but whichever it is it is so crazy that male bodies are not! really well written!!!
Thank you! I'd really highly recommend the book Women in the Picture by Catharine McCormack, the book that changed *my* life in that way!
An excellent essay, thank you! 😍👏 However, as a female radfem and *a European* I'd like to add that....here in Europe we are much more chill with nudity. We have nudist beaches, sauna culture, and topless sunbathing is mostly fine. We are also much more open about nursing babies in public, therefore men and women alike (and the kids) can see the natural use of female breasts. So I would definitely like to see A LOT more contextual info added to the displayed nudes, but to make them separately showing and 'inappropriate' for children to see might be a bit too much in the specifically European context. Afterall, the kids' parents might be hanging around at home in their underwear only (mine sure did! And my classmates' parents were nudists). 😋
I completely agree! One of the things that prompted me to write this was learning that nudes are often presented as sexual in Europe.
I appreciate your feedback on my suggestions being possibly "too radical," or rather, too prudish. I would like for there to be a future in which female and male nudity is viewed impartially and equally, and my suggestions are in some ways overcorrections to try and get the US back on track.
Thank you SO MUCH for reading and thank you for your lovely comment!
It was my pleasure! 💖🙏🏻 Haha and yes, we do have a view here on Americans as being too prudish (but not when it comes to gun ownership ahem), but each culture is different of course.
I don't know if it is that important but Europe is very diverse and the cultures vary a lot (I am from Central/Eastern Europe and people here are NOT chill about nudity at all). So I guess it really differs with each country and the writer's argument against the displays of nudity might be taken with more or less enthusiasm depending on the country. I also think that since museums usually have a pretty multicultural audience, choosing whether or not to see some type of art might be an interesting point to make.
Thank you for your comment—and that's *exactly* my point. We allow parents to have discretion with showing adult-oriented media to their children; I just believe artistic nudity should be treated the same other forms of nudity in our culture. In America, cinematic nudity gets your film an R rating, which minors under eighteen can only view with a parent or guardian (when they enforce it, at least).
Also, my city is one of the most diverse in the country. There are plenty of reasons, feminist and other, why someone would not want to see artistic nudity or expose their children to it. I think giving visitors that choice could be beneficial.
Ohhh well I am also from that region (Slovakia, but I live in Finland) and I am from a big city, where people are chill about a lot of things, nudity mostly included. But if I were from a village, especially a very Christian one, that would be a different matter! 🫣😅
Oh my word. I devoured this. I've often had similar thoughts about female nudity (and hairlessness) in art; I was aware of the history of the Knidian Aphrodite. But I had never considered how the female subject's shame/modesty justifies the male viewer's gaze, allowing him to look by displacing his own shame onto the subject.
(Also, if I blew up your notifications, I'm sorry -- I kept trying to restack quotes, and then it would tell me something went wrong, so I tried to restack it again, and again... and then when I went to my posts I saw it had restacked a single quote like ten times. So, sorry about that!! Lol)
No worries! Thank you for your kind words.
I find that Berger put it best: “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.”
very inciteful! thank you so much
Strong, informative, and good to read.
Growing up in a multicultural environment, it always surprises me to read articles assuming our culture is fully descendant from greco-Roman. Most of the signs in my hometown are in Chinese. Most of my friends were Asian in high school. Latino/indigenous in grade school. We speak English which is Germanic, use Arabic numerals… maize is the cornerstone of our food system.
Thank you! I agree, in part because I grew up in one of, if not the most, diverse city in the US. Globalization and the existence of a "melting pot" like America throws a huge wrench in art historical period and regional style analysis. I grew up in an area with a chacmool and sunstone (reproductions) as public heritage art!
Western art and visual culture is obsessed with Greco-Roman culture in part due to the longevity of Roman ruins and specifically the excavation of many Classical artworks in the Renaissance (such as the Medici Venus). The nude functioned as a hybrid of Venus and Eve in the Middle Ages, and then became Venus again when these excavations prompted a huge surge of interest in the Classics. This interest famously lasted into the Neoclassical era and has resurged consistently every few decades since then. The Modern West is very invested in crafting a direct legacy from Greco-Roman culture to modern European culture, so they rather intentionally and frequently reference it in their visual culture (art, architecture, films, adverts, etc.).
Interestingly, the surge in Mesoamerican excavations and historical research was likewise inspired by Greco-Roman culture; the government invested in the creation of an archaeological heritage similar to that of Europe's. Early Mesoamerican studies positioned the Maya as similar to Greece (it's divided into Early Classic, Classic, and Late Classic periods in an imitation of Grecian period divisions) and the Mexica (or Aztec, as they are commonly called) as similar to Rome. It's really interesting how the material longevity of Greco-Roman culture has created a visual language for cultural heritage and power that is recognizable worldwide. This is a great Smarthistory video that is tangentially related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPIoXgHY_i4
This wasn't so much a direct answer to your comment as much as it was me sharing something I think is very interesting and I hope you do too!
Thank you! That is a good point. It is interesting how classical Greco-Roman academic frameworks have been applied to New World and Asian civilizations.
On the West Coast, we're less obsessed with some assumed great cultural provenance you might see in New York City, Philadelphia, or DC. (William Randolph Hearst's embarrassing attachment to Greek sculpture and architecture as seen in his art collection, highlights just how far detached it is from our reality.) The survival and thriving of indigenous cultures and generations of influx of cultural contributions from Mexico and the East are too great for us to buy into implicit support for this cultural burden.
It's no wonder then that innovation in architecture, music, dance, literature, as well as human rights, have found greater grassroots support out west.
I really enjoyed your article and research. I bristle though at the assumption that this is my culture provenance.
I'm fascinated by this very much. Thank you for making me think more about this.
I found this essay fascinating when thinking about this other seemingly different topic that I read the other day:
https://open.substack.com/pub/finalgirldigital/p/female-suffering-as-spectacle?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5b5enp
If you think about it... it's rather the natural progression of how we are displayed and told that "actually it's art and appreciation and representation of *you* the female..." so don't get you knickers in a knot, little lady! 🙄
I agree… I’ve always felt uncomfortable about nudes (even before I was able to articulate why) but never felt comfortable expressing it because of exactly what you described! Thank you for the recommendation and thank you for your comment!
Great article, I've always been confused when people have said "it's not sexual, it's art" as if that explains the whole phenomena of nudes in art. In my mind as you stated a nude can be both art and sexual. Art thrives on arousing some emotion within the people who view it. And the human form can be very arousing, so it not surprising that it is the subject of so much art.
Nice article. At places it seems to stretch imagination.
But always remember:
1. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; &
2. One man's fetish is another man's apathy.
Therefore, I disagree regarding partitioning of nudes as a separate section and allowing visitors to choose whether they would want to see them or not.
As far as child visitors to museums are concerned, didn't the great Sigmund Freud say that children are sexually conscious by the time they are 3 yrs old. So, it makes sense to allow them to see nudes as well along with everybody. One good form of sex education.
👍
Hi! This was a super good read, thank you for writing and sharing. My only comments? Disagreements? Is with the first suggestion of “partitioning” but I think that also links to the point of providing context. I agree the erotic imagery should not be front and center, but I also think it’s important to allow people access to images of the naked body regardless of age (again, perhaps this links more with the contextual notes, and the distinction between the nude vs the naked portrait). Regardless, this was a really interesting and thought provoking read, thank you for sharing and I’m excited to read your future work. (Bonus points for the Berger, i’m a big fan of his work)
Me reading this with an artistic nude sculpture tattooed on my arm 🧍🏻
Haha maybe you can add some clothes to her! (In all seriousness, thank you so much for reading!)
i don’t think i will bc i think having another artist rework the tattoo would result in a worse end result. and more relevantly to your post i don’t think it’s inherently sexual or erotic in the way you write about. just because i don’t see something as sexual doesn’t mean someone else can’t so i don’t plan on getting any more artistic nudes tattooed after reading
“Crucially, for a work to be a “nude,” it must depict a female body in an eroticized state. This is because the formal elements that define the nude in Western Art rely on sexist formal conventions that place the female body in a subservient erotic role.”
Standing up with a hand over one’s crotch?
The "women" in art objects are not standing up because they are not real people. They are fabricated images created by men.
Very persuasive.
I'm curious to know your views on the statue of justice at the DOJ Great Hall! https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/spirit-of-justice-statue-exposed-in-all-her-glory/
This passage from Women in the Picture comes to mind:
"A similar point was implicitly raised in 2014 when the Swedish National Assembly made the headline-grabbing decision to remove a titillating painting of a bare-breasted goddess from its parliamentary rooms, on the request of the deputy speaker Susanne Eberstein. The parliamentarian expressed how erotic images of women in her workplace distracted dignitaries and guests and impacted the way the women were perceived in that professional environment... seeing women as sexually available in images found everywhere from the art gallery to the workplace to the top deck of the bus on the way to school, creates a totalising environment of erotic privilege for straight men."
I think it's a way to culturally reinforce the idea that women are seen, not heard. Moreover, it highlights our lack of visual language for depicting women in power—to learn more, watch Mary Beard's lecture entitled "Women in Power." It's amazing.
It's very interesting how this interacts with US politics. In the US, a radical feminist view that images of women should not be subjected to prurient male gaze is oddly aligned with right-wing thinkers who believe that women's modesty should be protected.
That is why, under very right-wing attorneys general, the statues (a one-bare-breasted female statue of the Spirit of Justice and a scantily clad male Justice statue) were covered up.
As someone who is not aligned with the right but who condemns speech or communication that augments the subjection of women, I am torn. Agreeing with the cover-up approach puts me in league with people who wish women nothing but subjection, exclusion, silence, and forced reproduction.
Interestingly, when modesty is the chief concern, male nudes are covered up as well (Mary Beard talks about this in her Shock of the Nude special). I think that the key difference between the conservative view of nude art and the feminist view of nude art is that nude art itself is deeply conservative—conservative men are not opposed to seeing women as sex objects and nudes were created specifically to suit conservative tastes. The radical feminist position, at its most extreme, would be the destruction of these misogynistic objects, a la Mary Richardson.
The alignment of radical feminist values with conservative policy is something I too struggle with, especially in the question of pornography. I celebrate the anti-pornography effects but am deeply troubled by overall conservative policy. I have been meaning to read more extensively into Dworkin and MacKinnon's anti-pornography legislative efforts and once I do I may have a better answer for you.
Thank you so much for reading and so much for these thought provoking comments.