Nudity in Art (censored version).

A response to Blunty3000's video "Nude": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rPjzJUG1l0

This is a censored version of the original video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfXX6PBWy7o, which I originally uploaded uncensored in order to make my point. It was considered a Terms of Use Violation by YouTube and subsequently removed. While I am not surprised by this action and I recognize that YouTube are well within their right to remove any video they wish for any reason, I am disappointed by the fact that the YouTube administrators would not have the courage to stand up for art, but instead bend to pressure from the conservative, anti-nudity lobbyists. It is my hope that one day YouTube will reconsider this regrettable decision, but until then I am re-uploading a censored version of the video because I'd rather get my message out in any form than not at all. Those who would seek to censor great works of art such as Michelangelo's David ought to be ashamed of themselves! Today I just lost some of my faith in humanity.

The following was the original video description:

According to YouTube's official terms of use:
"YouTube is not for pornography or sexually explicit content."

However, at no point is nudity ever mentioned. A test that is commonly used for determining whether a work is to be legally considered "obscene" is known as the Miller test, so named after the US Supreme court decision "Miller v. California" (1973), in which the United States Supreme Court decided that:

"Obscene materials are defined as those that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, find, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest; that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; and that, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

In fact I have seen many YouTube videos which contained even full frontal nudity, having been up for a period of several months and not flagged as inappropriate--some of them are informational videos such as how to detect breast cancer, or scientific, or artistic such as the Amadeo Modigliani poster in ChristopherMast's video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMv9OWjxvPM ) and the numerous nude paintings in the video responses to it. This gives me hope that there really are people out there who understand the difference of true obscenity from art, science, political discourse and literature; who understand that nudity is not necessarily sexually explicit or obscene in nature.

I would add that even material which explicitly depicts sex, although not YouTube material, can be artistic, beautiful, pleasurable and life-affirming, because the act of sex is itself all of these things (or at least it should be if you're doing it right!) But perhaps that is a separate topic for another time and another video...

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• nude
• naked
• art
• artistic
• body
• beauty
• explicit
• obscenity
• sex
• sexuality
• censored
• censorship
• shame
• on
• YouTube

[WCverfrisser]

If you upload the non-cencured version to youtube, you have a chance that kids will wathc it.

[VlogOfTheMathGuy]

Yep. There sure is! And if you speak your true opinion, there is a chance that someone who hears it will be offended. If you argue against religion, there is a chance a religious person somewhere might hear it and start to doubt the truth of his/her own religion. If you promote science, there is a risk a kid might see it and become interested in the scientific method. If you debunk quack science, there is a chance people will stop falling for it and the con artists might go bankrupt.

[VlogOfTheMathGuy]

And if children happen to see Michelangelo's "David" or Ameno Modigliani's "Red Nude", there is a a considerable risk they might grow up to appreciate art, and what a shame THAT would be! (¬_¬)

[seezarorest]

I think this moralistic attitude comes from a cognitive dissonance of the religious people. On one hand you have obedience of the religious rules, that stigmatize you as a sinful, if you accept the pleasures of the mortal world, which lead to eternal suffering in hell. On other hand you live in a world that has so many immoral temptations (by religious standards). Most of religious people live a very immoral life by their own standards, acknowledging this they fell they should moralize others.

[MUSCLELOVER4me]

Those same conservative cencurs make a fortune by owning porn shops, brothles & pimping prostitues.  All those Bible Belt Christian preachers who have totally misinterpreted the book & seek to make money by "saving souls" alway wind up in some sort of scandal in the end.

[WEH1123]

You can look at other video communities.  There are others that allow nudity. Metacafe and Dailymotion

[varrrr]

I think the question is more than just "is something art or porn".We have to ask that in exactly what way does nudity do any damage to the society?There is no evidence that porn or any other form of nudity increases sex crimes.If anything ,there is a negative correlation between porn and rape.So porn might actually be helpful.

And if there is no harm that comes from nudity,whatever happened to FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION?It's horrible to take away someone's freedom.

[lardbut99]

yet theres porn and vidoes of people giving blow jobs??

[lardbut99]

yet theres porn of people giving blowjbs??

[mealexxx]

I totally hear you man youtube took down a video I did of my studio in which I showed some figure drawings It is a shame youtube rather have almost naked chicks shaking their ass instead.

[Larsinger58]

This is about Western pseudo-Christian hang-ups. That's because in the Amazon and in Africa, men paint their penises and women go topless all the time. So it is totally CULTURAL!

But out of respect for that culture, I think that nudity, pornography, etc. should be for adults and minors should be protected from exposure to it just as they are protected from sex until they are of consenting age.

Thanks for presenting this. It is rather a double standard!!! The human body is beautiful.

[Sarge084]

This is a peculiarly American ailment, over here in Yurop (Where you'll find Michelangelo's art.) you'll encounter nude paintings, and sculptures, god forbid you should visit the epicentre of the Catholic faith, you'll see lots of nude art in chapels and churches.

As I see it, their god inflicted shame on Adam & Eve for eating from the tree of knowledge, so god inflicted shame upon A&E, and anyone still feeling shame about nudity hasn't therefore been forgiven, whereas we nudists have!

[Contontos]

To me this is a lot of pouting about nothing.

There are LOTS of places for LOTS of things in American society, but yet the same people who would have us decry censorship commit at least an equally unreasonable violation to people's senses -- if not a more severe one -- by demanding some imagined "right" to do ANY THING in any PLACE.

Variety is indeed the spice of life, but if we insist on a diet of pure spice, we forfeit variety.

(Besides, I find modesty downright sinfully alluring!)