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Coomer artists, please get to work
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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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I guess we have different understandings of what that looks like. I didn't percieve what I said as a personal attack at all, I just saw it as a critique of your position. It was never my intention to imply that you would consider ankles scandalous, if that's how you interpreted it.
My point was that any drawing of a person could be argued to be sexualized, and tenuous connections like a raised finger or a revealed ankle aren't sufficient to classify it as such.
If you'd like, you could point out what about OP you consider to be overtly sexual, and we can go from there. Because as it stands I legitimately have no idea what you or other people are talking about, I feel like I'm looking at a different picture, the one I'm seeing looks like they're about to invite me to play volleyball or something, not to have sex.
They don't? There's considerably more exposed skin in OP and some of their clothes are more form-fitting. I don't see how you think that's an unreasonable interpretation.
I guess I can see what you're talking about with the spine with Russia's pose, but none of the others are posed in a suggestive way. Adding blush is a pretty common stylistic choice that I see in non-sexualized contexts all the time. Eye contact expresses connection to or interest in the viewer, but not necessarily of a sexual nature.
The impression I get from the image is a vibe of friendly competition, like I said, about to invite me to play volleyball or something. I think this makes sense as a political statement - it presents the the BRICS nations as a rising group that's beginning to challenge Western power, but without being threatening or hostile or something to be afraid of. I could see how the friendly taunting could come across as flirtatious, but it's still not really sexual, it's well within the bounds of a platonic sports game.
Just to jump in here. When I broke down the choices the artist made in this piece, what I really wanted to highlight is that these were conscious choices intended to make the figures more sexually appealing. My thesis is ultimately that the artist knew what she was doing. I'm confident in this assessment in part because a look at the artist's Twitter shows that she's not at all a stranger to making erotic art. It's not to say that an artist who makes sexual works necessarily makes only sexual works, but I can't look at this and say the artist was naive to what she was doing by manipulating framing, highlighting secondary sexual characteristics, and creating, to be direct, a bunch of dommes.
Again, I don't think this is a bad thing. She shouldn't be ashamed of making it and I don't blame anyone for finding the piece hot. That's kind of the point. Politically even, the message is that BRICS are cool, hot girls and you wish you could be part of their thing.
I really strongly disagree with characterizing these as "a bunch of dommes." Here's an image I found from some random sports anime (I did not look very hard so it may not be the best example, but it'll do)
You can see their expressions: smug, confident, and cocky. But you would not (well, I would not) ever think to call them sexualized, let alone that they're evocative of BDSM. And I can't help but think that the difference has to do with gender. A man being smug and cocky is normal and natural, nothing remarkable or out of place about it. But a woman with a similar expression is percieved as thereby occupying a sexual role. That comes across to me as saying that female confidence belongs only in the bedroom, it must be for the benefit of a man who finds it arousing. I find this to be a very sexist implication.
I don't doubt that the artist, being (iirc) a lesbian who draws erotica, included some elements that she found attractive, either intentionally or out of habit. But merely being attractive is not the same as being sexualized. As I've said and will keep saying, I think they're just sporty. And I don't consider attractive, sporty, confident women to be inherently sexual, much less evocatice of BDSM, which again, I think has sexist implications to suggest.
Maybe we have different understandings of what constitutes sexualization. This work is mildly erotic at most, but I stand by my assessment that it is intentionally drawn to be somewhat arousing to the viewer. I just can't look at this work in the context of the artist's ouvre and think that she wasn't aware of the effect her choices for poses, composition, and expression would have. Because of that, I have to conclude that it is intentional.
If it's acceptable that she attempted this or not (which is what I think underlies the debate on whether or not this image is sexualized) is not really what I'm trying to establish.
Well, I guess that's also a question of what is meant by intent. I don't think that the artist made an effort to ensure that people would not find them arousing, but I also don't think they were primarily drawn for that purpose. Not every element of art is a conscious decision, and I'm not really inclined to speculate about it. Objectification and sexualization can be present regardless of the artist's conscious intent.
I've accepted the single point that Russia's pose is somewhat sexualized, but other than that, I don't agree with any other point of your analysis. Ofc it's pretty subjective, but I just don't see it, and honestly I think the idea of "female confidence is inherently sexual" feels more and more to me like it underlies a lot of that perspective, and I just want to reiterate that I really strongly object to labelling them as "dommes," which aside from the sexist undertones I mentioned, it's also exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in my original comment asking people to chill. Even if there are some mildly suggestive elements, characterizing the art as fetishistic is an absurd overstatement and overreaction. Tbh I find this sort of discourse over what looks to me like an extremely normal drawing of women to be pretty alienating and kinda gross.