NOT THE USUAL SUNDAY PORN POST

Old school Greek erotic pottery: is this pornography?

I regularly try to have some sort of porn available as an alternative to the sex-negative theological stuff observed worldwide each Sunday, and this week's offering is a charming change of pace from the silly and largely un-erotic video parodies of TV shows and movies I usually find. You see, the word pornography does not necessarily bear a negative connotation, despite deriving from "pornographos," a melding of the Greek terms for prostitutes ("porne") and the recording or illustration ("grapho") of that subject, and now having "sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal" as my favorite of its several definitions. That definition is certainly far more open to interpretation than "obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit," and to folks like me who have no problem admitting to enjoyment of pornographic imagery (though not everything appeals to me), I like having such an open-ended characterization available.

My dear friend Stephanie is one of my favorite human beings and quite a saucy bit of half-British totty with whom I share an number of common interests, including music, comics, and giant monsters. We also share a fascination with most things sex-related, and some of Steph's painted works speak from that aspect of her personality. She recently sent me a jpeg of one of her recent works, and I dug it for obvious reasons.

"Pistil" by Stephanie Ratcliffe.

Channeling her inner Georgia O'Keefe, Steph made with the always appealing fusion of the labial with a lovely garden specimen, and I don't care what anyone says: I will never, ever get sick of such pussy paintings. Vaginal petals are beautiful and endlessly fascinating to me, and when I am not finding myself up close and personal with a living specimen of the enthralling human version I am quite happy to find intellectual comfort in the painted depiction of such. Yes, O'Keefe was the undisputed master of the vadge canvas, but Steph is certainly no slouch by my way of thinking. Her painting is straight-up art and easily construed as pornographic, but I bask in all its lippy glory and see no trace of obscenity in it whatsoever. But then again I am a famously outspoken advocate of most things related to the sweet and mighty pussy so I'm an easy sell, but be that as it may I would defend this work in any court of law as definitely possessing "redeeming social importance," something that obscene material apparently does not feature, as determined by the Supreme Court in the cases of Roth v. United States and Alberts v. Canada (both 1957).

Which is a long-winded way of saying, "Stephanie, I really like your pussy painting. Well done!"