[pure-silver] OFFLIST RE: Re: Sally Mann lecture in Houston
- From: "EJ Neilsen" <ej@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 20:43:27 -0500
Shannon, While I can tell you are a sensitive individual, you are still
failing to see past your own preconceived notions of right and wrong. I
believe you are an ageist and unable to see the totality of the human
experience. While you might feel it is and man/woman thing, I believe that
that view is sexist and fails to show faith in men.
"As for the APA study, it is hardly psychobabble"
Referring to the APA as some institution not to be questioned? That brings
up questions right there. And then to some how deny that young people don't
have sexual fantasy in their life? You referenced no particular study and
all too often many well meaning studies are sponsored by groups that have
already fixed the data by simply asking the question in a certain way.
> Here's a good test: would you want your eleven year old daughter to
> be ogled in the nude, hanging from a hay hook or splayed on a couch,
> in an art gallery or a coffee table book?
I do have an eleven year old daughter but what you are asking is NOT what
you are talking about. Using words like splayed, take a very negative tone
and do not represent the SM pictures that I have seen. There are many
audiences that can't handle certain images. You do not go out and show
images to fragile groups in close proximity and expect calm to ensue.
There is little one can do to open your mind if you are predisposed to view
nudity in context of perverse thought and action. Young people get naked
too! You must stop seeing the world as adult only with out a past; you were
young once too. You are taking historical images out of context and also I
believe failing to see that satire is some time part of life.
One does not need to be a card carrying member of the religious right or a
member of a Jesse Helms fan club to take life out of context and put it into
a neat little box; the wrong one but a neat one.
Eric Neilsen Photography
4101 Commerce Street
Suite 9
Dallas, TX 75226
http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
http://ericneilsenphotography.com
Skype ejprinter
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pure-silver-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pure-silver-
> bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Shannon Stoney
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 3:36 PM
> To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Sally Mann lecture in Houston
>
> I recognize that there are people, especially in TX and in the South,
> that are offended to an unreasonable degree by nudity and sexuality
> in photographs. I don't think I am one of those people. As I said, I
> like Mapplethorpe's pictures. I think they are ok because they
> involve consenting adults. Most of the Puritans and Southern
> Baptists would be much more offended by the Mapplethorpe pictures
> than the Sally Mann pictures. The problem I have with SM's pictures
> is that they are of *children.* Maybe this is a more sensitive issue
> for women than men. Most women remember growing up being confused and
> uncomfortable with the fact that as soon as we reach puberty, we feel
> as if men and boys are always looking at us. And there is pressure
> to look sexy, but not too sexy. And there is the fear of violence.
> If you added to that the experience of being photographed in the nude
> by your mom, in provocative poses, I can't imagine what that would do
> to your head.
>
> As you say, not every moment with nudity is a sexual moment. I think
> that is basic and most educated people understand that. It doesn't
> have to be explained to me. SM claimed that this was JUST nudity.
> But it clearly was not. Jessie was posed on a sofa in the nude as an
> odalisque, like the Ingres odalisque painting, which represented a
> prostitute. She had her hand over her crotch in exactly the
> odalisque gesture. How can anyone claim that this is not sexual?
>
> It's true that media is a bigger force for evil exploitation of
> little girls than one woman with a camera can be. But SM claimed
> that her daughters vamp it up in front of the camera because "that
> stuff is just in the water." She seemed to deplore the fact that
> sexualization of little girls is "just in the water." But rather
> than examining that critically, she then uses it, peddles it herself,
> and thus poisons the very waters that she claims are poisoning her
> little girls.
>
> This is just inexcusable. I think that the fine arts culture is too
> often so worried about being hip and about frightening the
> bourgeoisie and being "transgressive" that it doesn't see when it is
> being abusive and crossing a line that should not be crossed. I don't
> think the art world should countenance this k ind of stuff. Does
> that make me a Jesse Helms look-alilke? I don't think so. Again,
> pictures of adult sexuality are fine in my book. I just think it's
> really wrong to corral kids into catering to adult sexual fantasies.
>
> As for the APA study, it is hardly psychobabble, and debate about the
> sexualization of little girls in the media (which photography is
> definitely part of) belongs in the political arena. Women's issues
> are political issues.
>
> Here's a good test: would you want your eleven year old daughter to
> be ogled in the nude, hanging from a hay hook or splayed on a couch,
> in an art gallery or a coffee table book? I have a son, and I
> wouldn't do that to him, but it makes me literally queasy to think of
> doing that to my niece for example, who is about the age of the
> little girls in Immediate Family.
>
> --shannon
>
>
>
> >Shannon, I think what you are getting into is a very complicated area of
> >human interaction and cultural values. One very strong aspect of
> >communication is intentionality. Here in Texas for example, I find that
> >there is backwardness to the idea of limits of the human form;
> presentation,
> >acceptance of, and thoughts regarding. Whether they are played out in the
> >media through Puritan values, Southern Baptist values, or some undefined
> >blending of those values I find them to be overly restrictive to a
> healthy
> >mind and body. A very crucial part of the dialog that is missing in the
> >conversation about the human form, nudity and sexuality in photography,
> is
> >where do the subjective values of the "masses" come from and where they
> are
> >discussed? Do people really have open conversation about nudity and
> >sexuallality? Or do they mostly reintroduce constructs from their
> >upbringing? The proposal in law playing out down in Austin to put to
> death
> >sex offenders is an example of good intentions run a muck. I certainly
> don't
> >condone a wide variety of sexual interaction that some individuals
> >perpetrate on others, there is a point where people have lost context
> into
> >who they are and their own limits to pass judgment.
> >
> >Did Sally say that her photo with just nudity? Can she control your mind
> as
> >to what you feel when you look at them? In part perhaps with a title, but
> >your own feeling are going to be projected on to those moments of time.
> Not
> >every moment of nudity is a sexual moment unless that is how YOU see it.
> >Context in life's moments is more likely to play a roll in how you see a
> >scene if you can get it. Without context, you are left to your own
> thoughts
> >and life's experience to make them up. You will sometimes get it right
> and
> >sometimes get it wrong.
> >
> >AS far as mentioning what psycho babble is out there on the subject of
> >exploitation, I think that is a topic for a different forum. Studies of
> far
> >too many things have been taken into political arena and out of the
> >scientific arena where they belong. A much bigger boggy man in the world
> of
> >exploitation are TV advertisers than those us that use a still camera to
> >capture a moment of the human form involved in a moment in time.
> >
> >Eric
> >
> >Eric Neilsen Photography
> >4101 Commerce Street
> >Suite 9
> >Dallas, TX 75226
> >http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
> >http://ericneilsenphotography.com
> >Skype ejprinter
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: pure-silver-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pure-silver-
> >> bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Shannon Stoney
> >> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:28 PM
> >> To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Subject: [pure-silver] Sally Mann lecture in Houston
> >>
> >> I'm ready to talk.
> >>
> >> --shannon
> >>
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