Is sexuality in art always sinful?

[Catholicwife32]

My Creative Writing class at University taught me nothing, just “do your thing.”

I wasn’t referring to creative writing courses. The semester system doesn’t tend to work well with learning such skills. I was speaking about literature courses and literary theory and contrasting that to pulp fiction. The author friends I was speaking of aren’t self-published. They’re signed with traditional medium-sized publishing houses, and mind you, they’re talented. But they’re pulp fiction and don’t dive deep into the human condition. When they write sexual content, the aim is primarily to titillate. They’re still great wordsmiths, but its escapism.

The art in fiction has been going downhill for decades. It began LONG before self-publishing.

 

[Daisy]

Reread this and better understand what you’ve said… and… I think it’s incredibly helpful and good.

Can I change my last post?

But I do find the quick sound bite responses on this topic exasperating.

 

[BlackFriar]

Reread this and better understand what you’ve said… and… I think it’s incredibly helpful and good.

Can I change my last post?

I wish I could claim credit, I actually learnt it from a slow read of the Catechism on Sunday afternoon’s in the sun in the backyard under my Silver Birch trees. Unfortunately I cannot afford a Venus de Milo to adorn the garden just yet.

But I do find the quick sound bite responses on this topic exasperating.

Welcome to CAF - where even the most inexperienced and uneducated feel they can weigh in on even the most difficult of topics moral or theological - all the while admitting that they don’t know what the Church teaches but are willing to confidently do so anyways.
I presume this is by reason of direct personal revelations from the HS which do away with the usual need for hard study or the mistakes of age reconsidered. I have rarely had such frequent revelations myself.

 

[edwest211]

I receive all sorts of trade publications. I would say the downhill trend started in the mid to late 1980s. I’ve been in this business for decades.

 

[Daisy]

JI might possibly be able to afford a smaller reproduction of that Venus, but would never put it in the garden because my innocent children would be horrified and giggly, and the fourth grade boys would try my patience with their…

AFA the sound bites, I think it’s fair for the uneducated (myself included in this) to weigh in, but please kindly follow up with your thought processes. I was disappointed to see the usual stuff being thrown out, or at least wished they could expound on those thoughts with some critical depth. Anyhow, this topic is fascinating, which is why I meandered off of the OP’s question. But he also asks a broader question in the post title. Also, I shouldn’t have used the word “dangerous” to describe female nudes. My personal experiences gravitated to that inflammatory word. I suppose “powerful” would have been a better choice.

I have to get back to work. what a nice excuse not to work.

 

[BlackFriar]

I might possibly be able to afford a smaller reproduction of that Venus, but would never put it in the garden because my innocent children would be scandalized.

Which just goes to show we lay people can only really judge these “consumption” matters for ourselves because everybody is in a different context - even if we think we understand others their contrary decisions for themselves may well be fine.

I for example have no children at home.
(Nor do I believe my grand nieces and nephew’s innocence would be affected by a Venus de Milo, my niece’s children often run around naked in the privacy of their own back yard under a hose on a hot day.)

 

[Daisy]

But if you’ve got a couple fourth grade nephews running naked around your Venus de Milo, then I think YOU’D be the one in trouble, Mister.

 

[BlackFriar]

You just proved the point.
Context is everything in reasonably deciding such matters.

In any case the VdeM is very tame, it is nothing compared to Vatican treasures. I have seen far more graphic nudity in masses in PNG.

BTW the world doesnt rotate around the USA.
I have no idea what age a 4th grader is!

 

[Daisy]

In PNG? Do you mean Papu New Guinea?

 

[BlackFriar]

Indeed, it is the custom for essentially topless women young and old to ritually dance at important celebrations. Noone bats an eyelid except visiting Europeans like myself. That was 30 years ago. I had forgotten all about it until this conversation came up. Clearly I didn’t obsess on it then or since. But then I was well brought up. But not everybody is. We are all different and objective rules on what is and is not “sinful” always and everywhere is really only possible in extreme cases in my opinion.

 

[BornInMarch]

I’ve seen some interesting answers here. Some have given a hard “yes”, others a hard “no”, and most seem to state that “it depends”. Personally I am of the view that it depends on a variety of factors, including artest intention and context. The good arguments I’ve seen here have supported that view.

Having said that, I also noticed that a few people seem to have assumed I disagreed with them even though I made sure to hide my personal viewpoints up until now. This is just an interesting observation.
Finally, some people stated that I was too vague. That was intentional, because I wanted this to be a general question rather than a focus on semantics.