I know it's been quite a long while since posted on here or written anything, partly due to writer's block and an overall lack of motivation. Tonight, however, I have some good news: after some rewriting and a lot of much-needed editing by the awesome 
Just my thoughts... · 3:51am Feb 7th, 2013
Recently on Tumblr, I saw a post that read along the lines of “It bugs me how some people say that R34 can’t be considered ‘art’”. I posed myself the question: are Rule 34 images truly art? Art, in my understanding, is the invocation conveyance of emotions and ideas through various mediums – audio, video, sculpture, painting, etc. Classic artists such as Michelangelo and Rembrandt often showed the human body – females especially – as nude to display the natural anatomical design. Why? Because the human body is beautiful, a piece of art in of itself, and those artists wanted to show that, to show the beauty inherent in our form. Our bodies are wonderfully made, each part working each other so we can walk, talk, and breathe, so mind-boggling complex and yet able to function in perfect harmony. That was their purpose: to display the simple beauty of our complex beings.
So what’s the difference between that and Rule 34?
In some cases there is no difference. The artist wants to display the beauty of the body and uses whatever art form he knows to show it. But at some point, it stops being art and becomes exhibitionism, an intentional source of arousal for the artist and the viewer. The female body is incredibly beautiful (I use this example since it is most often the predominant focus for R34), its gentle curves naturally attractive to the viewer, and that beauty deserves to and should be cherished and respected. It is an amazing and wonderful thing. Then again, it’s not a “thing”, is it? Not in photos or videos at least. No, it belongs to a person – it is a person – not some object created for personal enjoyment.
That’s what most R34 pieces do: they turn something – someone – of incredible beauty into an object, something with no more purpose than to arouse the viewer. Something meant to be respected and cherished becomes sullied and cheapened. Sex, the deepest, truest, and most incredible way to show love for someone, becomes nothing more than a plaything, a sport, no more special than a dime on a sidewalk. It perverts what is meant to be beautiful.
Of course not all artists mean to do this, not at all. For some, they truly want to show the body’s natural beauty, others use it to display their style and talent, and others still see it as the only to get noticed and become popular. But in the end it still has the same affect: splendor becomes ordinary and magnificence is dulled.
Is it art? It does invoke and convey emotion…but it does so at the cost of disrespecting cheapening perhaps the greatest form of natural beauty known.
Art is expression using non-standard communication.
Artistry, in my mind, is a combination of truth (both through the apparent and the anarchistic) and deception (of the viewer's perceptions or the artist's psyche). It is the balance and sway of these motives in a piece of art that determines it's appeal to different personalities.
Personally I find that when the piece's truth is through artistic anarchy and the deception is from the artist's own denial, the piece tends to be harder to hold in esteem.
When the truth is apparent and the deception is to the senses of the viewer for the experience the artist wished to express, then I enjoy the art.
Sorry for being so esoteric...
*Applause*
803474 that right there earned you a stalker.
I would buy you a drink on the spot if I ever met you. You've hit upon the crux of the matter, and done so with maturity and aplomb. Porn is simply an attempt to create a cheap, shallow simulacra of emotions in the viewer, but art (even mature, explicit art) is simply a reflection of the artist and his emotions. Nothing more, nothing less. One seeks to get something out of the viewer, and one seeks to give the viewer a part of the artist's own self.
I'm getting a bit speculative here, but the reason (IMHO) R34 is so prevalent in our fandoms is that the average age is so young. Not many of the writers/artists here are old enough to have actually experienced the deep, complex, and maturing emotions inherent in a relationship, much less a serious, sexually involved one. It's MUCH easier to notice when you have been through it yourself, but it's easy to tell the difference between a kid who's good at writing clopfics and someone who knows what the depth of emotions in a romantic relationship can be.
In my mind, it's the difference between good and best. Sex is good, but having a relationship where you truly cherish your partner and the physicality is an extension of that? That's best. That's what I would prefer to read any day of the week, explicit or not.
803743
Don't forget, youth also means hormones. Lots and lots of hormones. So that should also explain some R34. Well, that and loneliness from being an internet-addicted dork who doesn't understand how to relate to humans outside of a phosphor screen.
To repeat what I've said in other places, Zap, pornography is a form of cannibalism. It is the reduction of a individual to "just meat" to be devoured for the needs of another.
Art engages... pornography desecrates.
803743
I might take you up on that should we meet each other at Bronycon.
806448
Well said, good sir.
803485
*takes a bow*
803474
....There's English in there somewhere, I just know it.
806560
Uh... lets try:
Art can be erotic and erotica can be art.
True art can be judged not just by the objective and subjective criteria of most media, but also by interpretation. This interpretation is based on a combination of the media itself and the motivation and intentions of the artist behind it. This interpretation of the meaning behind a work of art is what gives us our emotional response to it.
It is the artist's intentions behind the piece that determine the veracity of an example as either media or art by actually giving us something to interpret.
Erotica created solely for the purpose of tittilation via the bare media presented is not art, regardless of the creative process involved. It is purely "media" as is the case with all unabashed consumable entertainment, including pornography. Media is a form of art in the most technical cold sense only in that most forms of media are an artistic medium. It exists barefaced and for its own sake only with nothing to interpret.
Of course, when confronted with such an outlook, many producers of such media display a philosophy I call "artistic anarchy" in which their will alone determines that their media is art and refuse to be defined by another's interpretation. Which of course misses the point entirely. A creative who only cares about their media and not its interpretation is a producer, not an artist.
Artist and producer, author and writer, composer and musician, etc. One creates art for the audience to interpret and the other creates media for the audience to consume.
When an artist with an anarchist mentality creates something for its own sake (truth on paper, deception of self) it is neither appealing nor respectable to me any more than motivations such as "it looked cool" or "I find it hot" suit interpretation.
When an artist wants to communicate a concept, truth, or emotion and crafts something for the audience to hopefully interpret as the artist has, albeit in the reverse order as it was concieved (deception on the surface, truth of self), I find the work respectable as art and as appealing as my subjective and objective sensibilities allow.
You sir, hit the nail on the head. Pornography cheapens the beauty of creation, the beauty of the human form, and reduces it to an object for the gratification of one's own needs. Sexuality, rather than becoming the ultimate expression of union between lovers, the purest form of love, the ultimate giving of one self (in marriage, though I do recognize that it happens outside it), becomes a means of selfish pleasure seeking. I couldn't agree more with you, and I applaud you.