This article was posted on the old blog during the pandemic (on 12/27/2020). I thought it was an interesting question and a topic that is worth retrieving with some amendment and different images.

Question:
Hi, Pastor Frank! I’m curious if you have any thoughts on how men should navigate the somewhat blurred lines between nudity and pornography in the contemporary era. I’ve occasionally worked as a nude model for life drawing classes over the past few years, which seems pretty clearly nonsexual to me. In contrast, I don’t think I could justify being a stripper (even though I find films like Magic Mike interesting) because it seems too overtly sexual. But it seems like there are an increasing number of situations where the boundaries between nudity and sexuality are more blurred. For example, paint studios like The Artful Bachelorette allow women to hire a nude male drawing model instead of a stripper and I’m not sure how I feel working for a company like that. How/where do we draw the line?

Frank answers: I’m kind of flying in the dark on this one. I’ve never been a life model or attempted to draw one. I haven’t heard of the Artful Bachelorette, and certainly have never been to a bachelorette party. But the question of the fine line between nudity and pornography is one I’ve treaded in my own blog as I’ve looked for images to illustrate themes dealing with the body.

I think when it comes to live situations, the nude body is what God created; we humans created clothing and we create art. The body should be treated with honor and respect. We are also endowed by our Creator with sexuality, and that too should be treated with honor and respect. I think pornography uses the body as an object to intentionally awaken if not satisfy lust. That, I think, is where the line is crossed. Unfortunately, it is a blurred line since what turns someone on sexually is subjective and context has to be considered.

Pictures of men and women engaged in sexual acts are found in drawings on stone age cave walls and carved onto ancient Indian temples and etched onto Greek urns. We give such images a pass because of their value as historical artifacts. If we were displaying photographic images or videos of coitus, oral or anal sex, we would classify them as pornographic in our time and place. We end up banishing from the eyes of the general public not only visual portrayals of such sex acts but also so-called “private” parts of the body.

This even applies to religious art. For example, there’s no question that Romans crucified their victims naked to increase the humiliation of the victim in this public spectacle. But our crucifixes cover Jesus’ genitals with a loin cloth. Crucifixions themselves have a pornographic quality and religious art has usually sanitized them. Peter Paul Rubens went about as far as he could in his painting of “The Crucified Christ” to show both the horror of the execution and the nudity of the victim. Is this pornographic? Art critics have suggested that the bulge in the loin cloth added to the crucified Christ conceals a probable erection such as naked victims might get. But is showing a male erection always pornographic? After all, it is a biological fact of life in the male body.

In recent times there has been a tendency to portray the crucified Christ in his uncovered naked vulnerability on the cross, such as this painting by Amber Cobelle.

The word porneia is used by St. Paul to refer to prostitution. Prostitutes or sex workers are those who sell their body for sex, whether with a customer or to satisfy voyeristic interests by performing a sex act with a partner or solo that the customer pays for (for example, on Chaturbate or FansOnly). One can make a living by using one’s body as a performer, for example, in dancing or modeling. This is not prostitution since sex is not involved, even if one dances nude on stage or poses nude for an artist or an art class.

Artists have used life models for as long as art has flourished. Lucas Cranach the Elder, friend of Martin Luther (godfather to the Luthers’ oldest child) and illustrator of Luther’s German Bible, probable used many Wittenberg ladies as life models to paint all the nudes he was commissioned to provide for his patrons, often using a pagan theme like Venus the goddess of love. Cranach’s studio in Lutheran Wittenberg had one of the most prolific outputs of female nudes of any Renaissance art studio. Cranach also painted Adam and Eve in their natural state without fig leaves in several of his religious paintings, such as “The Allegory of Law and Gospel.”

Many Renaissance painters also used male models to represent classical pagan figures or biblical figures or life activities. Michelangelo undoubtedly used many live models in Rome to festoon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with all those nude males lounging above the worshipers below in suggestive poses (as below).

A recently discovered nude male with a now-known model is “Boston’s Apollo” by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), who was the most successful portrait painter of his generation. He met a 26-year-old Black elevator operator named Thomas McKeller, whom he used as a model for a decade, often for nude portrayals. One of the most famous was “Atlas and the Hesperides,” a painting that was part of the artist’s large commission of a mural for the rotunda of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. But one of the best portraits using McKeller’s body Sargent kept for himself. It represents emotional or sexual feelings for his model (it is thought that both the artist and the model were homosexual). The original work was of a full-frontal nude angel, although Sargent later brushed the wings away to render is subject more human. The figure is unashamed, thrusting his chest forward with his legs splayed. He also seems like a suffering person with his head turned upward toward the source of light.

College art classes and classes in art studios continue to provide nude models for life drawings. Many of these models are professional models or dancers who know how to strike the various poses the art instructor calls for. I assume our questioner falls into this category. I understand that a strict etiquette is followed in life drawing classes.

Photographing nude bodies can also fall into the area of artistic portrayal. I do not think that exposing one’s naked body for a painting or photography, even if striking an erotic pose to express sexual desirability, is pornographic. A nude study of the body is not pornography. Pornography is demeaning the body of the model or actor, especially exploiting the vulnerable. Photographers as well as painters have used naked models for non-sexual nude studies.

Our questioner contrasts this non-sexual use of models with strip dancers, whose purpose is precisely to arouse the patrons in order to garner good tips. Male strippers may also be professional models or dancers. Many work in other professions. But they still have to work out and practice to keep their bodies fit and their routines entertaining. In strip clubs touching the body is allowed, but within limits. Even if genitals are not displayed, there is an intentional lewdness used in the gestures and movements to arouse the patrons (usually females who come to see the male strippers). I suppose, by my definition, that I would regard strip dancing as pornographic. But while the show is erotic, a line is not crossed from nudity to sexual activity. The dancers know when to back off. Moreover, their performances are public and are subject to local legal standards of decency. Magic Men do not strip totally naked.

The striptease show format is to remove one article of clothing at a time. However, it is also the case that leaving some article of covering on the body is more erotic than total nakedness. They get down to their jockey briefs and no further. In total nakedness, what you see is what you get. In partially covered nudity there’s always more to be revealed. That’s why gradually stripping is so titillating. Groups like the Magic Men have rehearsed theme performances that also involve dance and athleticism.

Our questioner suggests that in events like The Artful Bachelorette, the line between nudity and pornography is blurred. I had to read up on this company, which started in Australia and has expanded to a half dozen cities (so far) in the U.S. Male strippers have been a standard item in bachelorette parties. This new approach has an educational component. An art teacher instructs the women in the basics of painting a nude body and then has the professional nude model uncover himself. There is undoubtedly nervous giggling and joking. Some joking is provided by the art teacher herself (like “Don’t forget to draw his penis”) to loosen up the participants. Reviews of these events state that after a while the women get into their paintings and are interested in comparing one another’s efforts. A good time is had by all, including drinking wine or champagne (which also serves to loosen the inhibitions of the participants). As in art classes, however, there are rules of behavior, including: no photos of the model when he is naked and no touching his body.

In my research I learned that The Artful Bachelorette isn’t the first company to come up with this idea. There are agencies in other countries, like Ireland and the UK, that provide live male models for “hen parties” for all sorts of events and in various venues.

It seems to me from reports I’ve read that these parties are like art classes that are less serious about producing artistic representations than collegiate or studio art classes. Since the model, unlike the strip dancer, is not striking lewd poses or engaging in erotic movements, it doesn’t qualify as pornography. The model is not trying to arouse the women, just titillate them. But it does seem like a situation in which women are gawking and probably making lewd comments, having had their tongues loosened up with champagne or wine. The point of these parties is to have fun. Initially it would seem that the participants are not exactly honoring and respecting the body, but maybe by the end of the session they are respectful and grateful to the model.

The purpose of the “hen parties,” as they are called in the UK, is to have a good time. There is no doubt that after the initial tittilation the women develop a relaxed and playful demeanor toward the model.

But suppose the genders were reversed and there was a bachelor party in which the men were attempting to draw a nude figure using a female life model accompanied by drinking beer, joking, and making lewd remarks? In our present age of gender sensitivities, I don’t think this would be acceptable. I think women ought to also honor and respect the nude male body of the model who poses for their art parties.

I can understand that our questioner might not want to make himself available for bachelorette or hen parties. But he might at least first make inquiries from the management about how the sessions go and what is expected of his performance as he decides whether or not to accept such gigs. There could be art parties in which the participants come to appreciate the nude body of the model and learn how artists make use of it and disassociate nudity from sex.

There could also be another positive outcome of these parties. Even in academic life drawing classes which are nonsexual, the model (whether male or female) is an object to be painted. In the hen parties the participants can ask questions of the model and come to know something about him. This de-objectifies him. The model can become a subject relating to other subjects. A person emerges who is more than his body. Or perhaps we could say that the artist creates a human body that also discloses a person, a soul, if you will.

The following painting by Pat Kelley uses the form of a full “inspection” pose with arm pits exposed and the body opened up to show what can be learned from this subject.

The display of the male penis, especially an erect or semi-erect penis, is the last taboo in art for public display. The male nude has suffered a steep decline since its glory days in ancient Greece and Rome and in the Renaissance revival. We’ve reached the point where women’s breasts, which are also seen by men as a sexual appendage, might be discreetly shown in paintings or posters on public display. But seeing the male sex appendage, or even the hint of it, is forbidden (although we’re beginning to see the top of pubic hair). It doesn’t do to say that this is just our cultural value. Why in our culture is the very sight of the male penis (like the one up above) considered pornographic, even if it’s not engaged in a sexual act? Why is that appendage so threatening? Erections are a biological fact of life.

I’ve never had art lessons, but I would like to think that knowing the model as a person would enable the artist to make something human and vulnerable of the nude figure. I think the best of nude art does that. That enables nude art to transcend pornography. The artist has created a real person who happens to be nude. The pose itself and the facial expression reveals whether this person is naked and ashamed or naked and unashamed. In any event, I can see why artists want to paint nudes and photographers want to photograph them. Clothes do not make the person. Before there was clothing there was the naked body.

Pastor Frank