Sexuality in the Arts

That the visual arts have traditionally been dominated by men is obvious. Any person entering an art gallery will see portraits and sculptures of women in various stages of undress, the majority of which originate from male artists. These works of art reflect how men see, experience, and appreciate the female species. The work of male artists ranges from mildly sexist to misogynist. Is labeling an artist's work misogynous going to extremes? On the contrary, as Wendy Lesser argues in His Other Half "I'm not denying that there can be such a thing as misogyny in art produced by men. I can even acknowledge that a work of art might be misogynist--might violate the female, or its own relationship to the female--and still be a great work of art." Whereas society once assumed that the male representation of the female body resulted from a healthy appreciation of the opposite sex, psychiatrists have revealed that the underlying emotions

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g formulated to avoid pornographic expression. For example, some manuals instruct students to avoid feminine detailing such as eyelashes, painted toenails or fingernails. They are further instructed not to exhibit obvious sexual appeal. In other words, "The aesthetic high-art nude must be clearly differentiated from the sexy glamour photo." Aside from attempts to make students in life-classes more sensitive to the depiction of females in art, the work of women artists themselves has had considerable impact on changing attitudes. Many of the radical women artists of modern times prefer to work with their own bodies rather than using female nude models. As one artist puts it, "A woman using her own face and body has a right to do what she will with them, but it is a subtle abyss that separates men's use of women for sexual titillation from women's use of women to expose that insult." Further, the women's art movement of the 1970s chose to depict parts of women's bodies previously unexplored in terms of art. This artwork often stretched the envelope of the definition of obscenity. For example, one artist showed a woman removing a bloody tampon from her vagina. This art is considered protest art because male art about wome
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Approximate Word count = 2835
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)