~KeithVII

I keep seeing posts on DA identifying a deviation as Porn.

Some people have really easy buttons on that subject, I see. I mean, i don't really see a nude model standing in carefully adjusted light to be porn. Not in the usual sense.

I am, of course, perfectly aware that there are fetishes out there that find the oddest things to be sexually exciting. A serial killer claimed that it was porn that drove him to all those killings had no Playboys or Penthouses in his car, but Cheerleader magazines.
Pedophiles rip the Underoos ads out of the Sears catalog.
So, with a liberal application of the label, all 59 million (and change, at this exact moment) entries to DA COULD be porn. You could find someone, somewhere, who'd look at it, read it, act it out or comment on it and find the experience a turn on.

Come to think of it, that may be what's happening with at least a few of the people who feel the urge...the urgent urge, to post a label of 'orn' on a Deviation.

Especially one that doesn't display some of the key elements i've come to associate with Porn. I'm not exactly a connoisseur, there are limits of my interest, time and willingness to suspend disbelief. But i have spent 16 patrols underwater on submarines, and have at least a passing acquaintance with the industry.

Anyway, at the most basic, Art is a creative process where the artist has something to show others. Maybe it's capturing a moment, maybe it's embellishing a moment, interpreting a sight, a view, an event, whatever. It may have a message, it may desire to change one's emotional state, it may be simply showing off, it may be the telling of a story, a narrative that extends before and after the slice caught in the image.
I look at some of the great landscapes and the only 'message' i can find for sure in all of them is 'Hey, look at this!'

Canyons, sunsets, bowls of fruit, nudes, ice cream socials, Bronc at Breakfast, portraits... Just look at that.
The better art shows some time spent figuring out exactly what to look at, and how. How to highlight it. And weeding out the crap.

I'm amazed at a lot of the stuff i see on DA. Artists with much better eyes than mine for finding beauty or humor or darkness to look upon, and capturing that.

I also find kids that can't distinguish DA from Myspace. Eh, even looking for art is as much an art as anything else.

What i can't figure, though, are those that feel a need to dismiss others' efforts with quick, shallow and incredibly incorrect labels?


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Disclaimerating
Most of the work i post here is mine, except for what isn't.

The text works are my own production, some of which use characters that do not belong to me. I make no profit from those fanfics. I don't have the legal right to them, so i cannot offer any permissions for their use.

Those writings that are not fanfics, that are original to me, i don't mind sharing, quoting or other uses of my work that do not violate the tenets of 'Fair Use' portions of copyright law.

The pics are of three sources.

Either i took the picture myself, in which case i have no real problem with their being used elsewhere.
Or I adapted someone else's work.
If i adapted, it or part of it's either from one of several disks of non-copyrighted images i own, or something i found on Deviant Art.
Any work i sighted, i make sure that i've cited. Permissions to use any of, for example, the 'Drive SW Insane' series, would include permission from me, and from the producers/owners of any stock images i've used.