Article by Steven Benjamin I've heard it said that there are three types of men in the world (intentionally generalizing and painting us with very broad strokes); worldly men, religious men, and men of God. The first is those who are subject and governed by worldly things and desires, the second are those who practice religion but live worldly lives (riding the fence so to speak), the third are those seeking God in earnest (still fallible and not without sin or immune to temptation, but who truly and humbly seek God and live for Christ.) Finding the nude through the lewd, with Faith It’s a tricky thing, narrowing this topic down in one article, but I’ll try to zero in on the basics, though there’s enough material here to write a thesis and more. It’s always been difficult to differentiate, especially in the photographic arena tiptoeing through nude-Art, sensuality and sexuality. It’s one of the reasons that any topic involving sex or bare flesh, has been shunned by the church for so long, and that neglect, when looking at the current state of society, well let’s just say it’s telling… These days (in the modern age), the vast majority of men have seen or ‘experienced’ or ‘been exposed to’ pornography at some stage or level. But is there a need to differentiate between the mediums, to find when something actually becomes pornographic, – In short, yes there is. Of course this issue/debate is subjective, but there are discernible lines, however faint they may be at times, made so mostly by the people involved in it – in the making and perceiving - and it is important to find these lines. Many ultra conservatives in the church have a blanket regard for anything involving sensuality and nudity, and see it ALL as sin, actually, not just sin, but SIN – THE Sin of all SINS, because some still abide by the belief that there are varying degrees of it. But of course the Bible outline’s it quite simply, that everything that is not of faith is sin (Rom 14:23). I was given a word by a total stranger some time ago whilst going through my own encounter with pornography, that I should “stop doing whatever is not of God”. Now, as God has been working in me, I must highlight that it was interesting that the message was worded in this way. In my experience, when someone has a God sent word for you, it’s usually quite specific… and this got me thinking (something I do very well), additionally, it set me into a pursuit - of what? A pursuit of the truth. But why is this issue important? Simple - It is Fundamental. – It is a fundamental struggle of man, as God reminded me, when ‘taking me’ back to the beginning to the Garden of Eden. This though, was sparked by a question I had had since I was a teenager, to which I already knew the answer, that of; Can a man love [a] woman more than God? I simply needed to understand why I knew the answer was [of course] ‘Yes’. Let’s clarify and remind ourselves of this truth: God created us, humans, in his image… and, He invented sex, as a union between a married couple. He instilled within us sensuality, desire, raw emotion etc… However, when sin came into the world, it warped everything. All of sudden “shame” was introduced (the first thing Adam and Eve felt after their disobedience), corrupting everything that was pure, beautiful and innocent. And Satan is ever ready to use these tools against us. Hence Christians (or for that matter anyone wrestling with this issue) are often plagued by shame and guilt. Yet sometimes we don’t even know why we’re feeling what we’re feeling. The key is to understand oneself, as I did, or am doing. You’ll be faced with questions such as ‘What do you think of my thoughts and fantasies, Lord?’; ‘Am I living a life that pleases you?’; ‘Are my desires for my life in line with yours, or are my desires, your desires?’; ‘help me make my body my slave’; ‘Reveal to me what is in my life, that is not of you.’ The cold hard fact is that we will live with these struggle’s and temptations for much of our lives. So, getting back to the lines of division: Art – That which touches our senses, thoughts and feelings, the philosopher explains, ignites the response of admiration or marvel. Admiration is not a coup de foudre, or the feeling of falling in love on the spot. It is, in Descartes’ own words, “a sudden surprise of the soul which manifests itself in considering with special attention objects which seem rare and extraordinary.” (The Passions of the Soul, 116) – paraphrased René Descartes "Listen, it's really pretty simple. If there's a thing, a scene, maybe, an image that you want to see real bad, that you need to see but it doesn't exist in the world around you, at least not in the form that you envision, then you create it so that you can look at it and have it around, or show it to other people who wouldn't have imagined it because they perceive reality in a more narrow, predictable way. And that's it. That's all an artist does." --- Tom Robbins Now it may seem like this is delving a little too deep into what is essentially looking at, ogling or admiring the naked form – ie. Looking at pictures of people ‘nekkid’, and there is the temptation to oversimplify it, but that’s what the world has done, disregarded the complexities because it’s easier and convenient. The truth is always more revealing though. [Eden haunts us.] Fantasy This is what drives both industries, or all industries associated with entertainment and imagination… think books, films etc. It’s a vision of what we want, sometimes long term or most likely instant gratification.
There’s a big difference to what is seen, and how one perceives it. Think of how an adult views something (like the function of an empty box), compared to a wide-eyed child looking at something to play with. Essentially this world comes down to a battle of the mind. This is also why when delving into nudity/nude art/pornography, it comes down to perception and subjectivity. For some it’s not okay to look at pictures of a woman posing naked, but then it’s acceptable to watch a TV show or film which contains an explicit scene… of course the ‘greater goal’ is different. Whereas perhaps the nude image is more singular in its objective to perhaps inspire a sexual fantasy, the film has ‘a message’ or ‘a story’ and the scene is merely a cog in the wheel to move it forward. But then again this can also be used as an excuse just to watch an explicit film – hence… it’s subjective. I recently wrote a couple of article’s (not wholly faith based) on why Game of Thrones is NOT a good story – and there’s a show which holds nothing back, making a point to be explicit with its use of the now accepted term "sexposition"… In each case, whether image or film, or even erotic literature (society says it’s okay to read '50 shades of Grey', even though it has little literary merit – I haven’t read it, so I’m going on what others have said), it all comes down to the mind of the perceiver. “To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.” The plain truth is that we are sexual beings with desires, desires God gave us. The tousle we have is so often the failure to separate something like beauty and sex. Physical Beauty can so easily be the catalyst to a stream of thoughts – and then we make passion our enemy when we submit to it. Essentially, the reason I mentioned Eden earlier, is because when man turned his back on God, he created within himself a void, and he has been searching for fulfillment ever since. But woman can never fill the void in man left by that lack of intimacy with God, hence the continued dissatisfaction in trying to replace spiritual intimacy with physical intimacy. Man searching for a deep validation. Before there was woman, man and God had a relationship, a supernatural intimacy, but man chose the lesser of the two… Pornography is simply physical. There’s literally no mental power needed. It takes humans and reduces them to pieces of flesh seeking a moment of base physical pleasure. It’s gratuitous and crude and there’s no sensuality, intimacy or beauty to it, simply because it is debasing, existing to flog flesh for money. I’ve read comments by former, and current, porn stars and it’s clear that issues like drugs, sexual abuse and STD's are rife. ‘Stars’ get high first and then perform degrading acts for a pay check. This goes for men and women. One man said that it is literally soul sucking. This is the far end of sexual immorality. Even writing that paragraph makes me feel unclean because of the imagery it inspires – yes I’ve seen images, and have read books which touch on the sex industry, human trafficking etc., and one needs a strong stomach to grasp what goes on in the world. Provocation - seduction - Titillation I’ve tossed everything together for a reason, so let’s draw up the dividing lines. The purpose of this piece is to highlight where we are going wrong in our thinking. I’ve often heard it said that (especially) European actresses, have no shame when it comes to filming sex scenes or appearing nude, but their response is usually along the lines of “what’s there to be ashamed of” --- and this, ladies and gents, strikes to the heart of the issue (just like the name of a recent Michael Fassbender film) “Shame” (A film about the destructive nature of porn/sex addiction). Where does it come from? Why is it that certain rural tribes of Africa or the pacific Islands don't have it? Women there can walk around with little more than beads and a loin cloth and to a large extent men do not look upon them with lust or covetousness. Once again we turn back to the beginning. In the Garden of Eden, for when God made man and woman there was no shame in their nakedness. It was only when sin was introduced that it was born, of the knowledge of good and evil. They were children of God, and were of heaven, cloaked in purity and light... 'the Fall' came when through disobedience, that purity and light was gone. In layman's terms it's like the outward difference in appearance of a gleaming car shrouded in lights, with one that's faded and dirty. Adam and Eve could immediately see what they had lost, and were ashamed. (I'll write another piece exploring this moment.) So here we see that when God made us, all was good and pure and beautiful (and yes there was desire, and intimacy and sensuality/sexuality… and innocence. Two people were exploring each other, and it was a mysterious and sacred thing. This world we live in, this society, will have you buy into the belief that nothing is sacred. Glory, or to glorify (through art) Glory belongs to God, who created us, our beautiful form. Sin and Satan corrupted the perfect creation, with man aiding it in his choice of disobedience. So now we come to art. What is the purpose of art? Art imitates life. There’s art in nature, in our bodies, our eyes, the stars, the sunrise/sunset, light, mountains and oceans… No, art is that which is in us that mimics the creative dynamic of our creator. Art, whether painting, writing, music, film or sculpting, allows us to grasp or attempt to grasp concepts that seem greater than us, or to package complex truths to open the window of understanding. Or it is simply to capture a moment of sublime beauty. (Although, not all art is good art. - Dictated by the mind, our will to understand ourselves and our existence, both dark and light, as well as to simply celebrate the good, or beautiful, or ethereal, or to capture what we fail to describe in words, to evoke feeling, because though we are not, the lives we are living is finite.) The primary purpose of art is to explore and elevate the subject What is the most beautiful thing in this material world? What did God create last? What, after all the things he made, heavens and the earth, animals and man, stars and moon, did he create? Woman – and the battle lines have been drawn… (some spiritual context) One pastor I heard describes it; ‘if all of creation was the cake, Woman was God’s icing and cherries on top’. The final addition… just because (remembering that: ‘God looked over all creation and saw that it was very good’ Gen 1:31). What’s the purpose of flowers blossoming? Think of all those flowers no one sees… there is so much beauty in this universe that goes unnoticed, or unseen. Prior to the story of earth, God had his host of Angels. And the most beautiful creation, was his captain Lucifer (‘bringer of light’) “a beautiful, shining angel who was a leader in heaven (Ezekiel 28:14; Psalms 99:1)” Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. (Ezekiel 28:17). And so, with woman having ‘replaced’ Satan as God’s most beautiful creation, He (Satan) took it as a special project to target her. Where nude art seeks to admire, venerate and magnify (in particular and most often) the mysterious beauty of woman (or the human form), pornography seeks only to debase and reduce people to fleshly objects of sex… Women are already objectified (take the avg. rap music video – the media/we are driven by carnal minds), their beauty seen as something to be owned or peddled. Women, labelled as the ‘weaker sex’, the subject of ownership, rape, reduced to cargo in women trafficking for the sex slave industry. Satan has targeted woman – he approached Eve, not Adam. "Everyday, ordinary women are being reduced to their sexual body parts," said study author Sarah Gervais. "This isn't just something that supermodels or porn stars have to deal with." “Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them" ~ Elliott Erwitt (photographer) To further confirm this, and set it in stone if you will, God himself outlines the ‘rivalry’ (in punishment due to sin) in Genesis 3 (addressing the serpent): “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (underlined - emphasis added) God outlined that Satan’s punishment will be born of the seed of woman, hence the first prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ to defeat the Devil. This then provides a little more context for the antagonism. Although the scripture seems pretty specified to Eve and her seed (her first born, Abel, was killed by Cain), the point is that it’s fair to say that Satan looks toward all womankind with hostility. Differentiating, especially in photography, and specifically in the area of erotic art or erotica is a greater challenge – many would argue that in the latter’s case, there simply is no difference. Just because it’s a painting or a black and white photo, doesn't necessarily lend to its supposed artistic merit. Then again just because a model is posing provocatively, does not make it pornography. The lines are blurred when tackling the issue of ‘celebrating our own sensuality and sexuality’. It crosses the line in the display of genitalia – this by nature sexualizes the image (if we are to get technical). One article, in the Erotic Art vs pornography debate likened it to ‘graffiti art versus vandalism’. ‘sexualhealthsite’ asks the question ‘what is a healthy portrayal of human sexuality?’. This by the way has generally been a no-go area for church’s or church going folk… Essentially, these are things that are meant for marriage (celebrating sexuality and sensuality that is). It’s what makes it exclusive, and sacred – but prior to marriage, one cannot simply ignore the issue and put it in a box. Many don’t like this topic because it feels dirty to talk about, but that’s because the world has made it so. Of course in today’s society we live for the instantaneous, wanting everything now. People want sex but not love, then they confuse the two… when really sex is an expression of love – of true intimacy. The world, man, Satan, society, has warped sex and relationships. Marriage has polarized opinions and cultures…some see it as a dying institution, whereas other cultures see it more and more as the ideal, especially as an aiding counter to a morally bankrupt society. I know I’ve touched on quite a few issues here in what started simply as NudeArt and pornography, but as we can see it’s a lot deeper than many of us would like to admit. It’s not helped by the fact that modern media has sought to make pornography common place, making light of it, usually in comedies, with a “let’s make a porno” line becoming ‘a thing’ with many celebrities getting in on it, whilst other previously unknown people have found fame with amateur porno videos on the internet. This is how cheap we’ve become. It’s important as a Christian (married or single), to face these issues and to talk about them, because in our walk with God, we are not immune to temptation. But we cannot live in shame. This is why many people feel judged. This is the nature of people under the rule of sin. We are meant to love thy neighbor, but in a warped creation, our first instinct toward strangers is usually antagonistic or indifference. God has led me to focus on what is of him. What is good, and pure? What does God think of my ‘secret thought life’? He sees what I see, and what I think. Because of one man’s transgression (Adam), we were plunged into sin, and death, and then another man (Jesus) cancelled it out and paid the price for that sin. Thus we can walk in forgiveness, in Grace, and in victory… it is we who stand in the way, failing to acknowledge and accept what God has done for us. So, with victory claimed; I wrote this as a mark of intent, because it is for those of us of pure heart and will, led by the spirit, to take back what Satan corrupted. It’s about reclaiming lost territory… to re-forge the intimacy with God, that was lost, to wrestle with our spirit and to set things right, the way God intended it to be. - To seek first the Kingdom of God, to purify the heart, and then to ‘think with our hearts’. Remember, Satan deceived Eve with subtlety. The human form, especially the female form, Womanhood, femininity… is beautiful, and is of God, and deserves to be appreciated, not idolized, but celebrated, with pure God-fearing hearts. Ask God to intervene – to take back the high places he created. We may be a fleshly shadow (due to sin) of God's initial creation, but we are still fearfully and wonderfully made, and to reject the beauty of our own form, is to reject God's own handiwork. And, you know what, your journey starts in your mind. 2 Corinthians 11:3 - "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpents cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ." (NIV) It's strange you know... even when I see a naked or scantily clad woman, God has brought me to the point where I actually feel disappointed, no, nostalgic - because I yearn now to see what we should've looked like, the way God intended, without sin. What a sight? And to think, because of Jesus, that's exactly the way God sees us. The death of the son of God was supernaturally predicted and orchestrated, in depth and divine detail. It’s then no coincidence that Jesus was crucified, and died on a hill named Golgotha - based on the Hebrew word ‘gulgōleth’, meaning “skull”. Be Blessed. * [Image credits - where not referenced: pinterest.com, flickr.com, mecurobcotto.com, omarortiz.wordpress.com, theplace2.ru, barbaracole.com, google-images] Further Reading: When God made Woman God's message to Women Captivating Book Review Wild At Heart Book Review Secret thoughts on Beauty (My Lip & My Life)
3 Comments
6/13/2016 10:10:32 am
Excellent. I use imagery on my web page, which could be construed as pornography. Some images come from pornographic videos and pictures. I, however, never show genitalia, women's nipples, or penetration. Why? Because the mind is greater than the image.
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Steven Benjamin
6/14/2016 05:23:46 pm
Thanks for the kind words Nick.
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khaled
9/10/2020 08:33:56 am
thank you
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