"



Me, too! And I always think of how high the electric bill would be running all those lights!!! LOL.
I used to shoot that way, it appealed to me then, not so much now. I like my shadows!

Alisyn Carliene wrote:
I always thought INSERTION= porn

Take it from a lifelong fan of girl/girl scenes.  You don't need penetration for porn.

KC King wrote:
1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2: material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction

Webster doesn't define it, so why should anyone else? 

Why is it a "dirty" word?

Why are people soo damn uptight about sexuality and nudity anyway??

We're all born nude and see ourselves nude everyday.

We all have sexual thoughts every day.

I don't think having a problem with porn automatically means you have a problem with nudity and sex. Many models will pose nude for art, but politely decline to do porn (though I agree definitions of what porn is can differ).

And similarly for sex; just because someone might take issue with porn, doesn't mean they don't enjoy sex themselves, or aren't open about it, or don't watch graphic sexual scenes (in independent films for instance). It just means they don't like porn. In a world of demand-and-supply (at least so we are told), it should be perfectly acceptable NOT to consume certain products, simply because one doesn't want to.

mErocrush wrote:
Take it from a lifelong fan of girl/girl scenes.  You don't need penetration for porn.

that's true...
but it has to be REAL girl on girl.. like eating out.
PB doesn't do that.

Alisyn Carliene wrote:
I always thought INSERTION= porn

See Pg1 we are on the same porn page

mErocrush wrote:
Take it from a lifelong fan of girl/girl scenes.  You don't need penetration for porn.

Alisyn Carliene wrote:
that's true...
but it has to be REAL girl on girl.. like eating out.
PB doesn't do that.

As I stated earlier in the thread, our society has substituted a more extreme version of what constitutes pornography.  It seems that people who are ok with Playboy subscribe to the theory that "porn" is whatever other people are looking at.

Brooklyn Bridge Images wrote:
Penetration=Porn
Playboy=no porn

I see we think alike there

a HUMAN ad wrote:
1. Is Playboy now considered porn, and;

"Pornography" is a pesky word that literally means "writings about prostitutes."

So no, in the literal sense.

But show the average person a centerfold, and yes, they'll say it is porn. It's not "hardcore," and the production values are higher than your average GWC-glammer-nude shoot, but the content is clearly of a sexual theme and the nudity is relatively explicit.

Limiting "porn" to penetration or other actual/simulated sexual activity is a relatively liberal definition.

2. Should the term Playboy style nude now be defined to include full nudity which includes spread legged shots (photos and/or video) showing the vulva.

It should be defined however the model defines it. Many models who use this terminology are not Playboy subscribers and likely think "Playboy-style" means frontal-closed-leg, side-turned nude poses, or even implied nudes. For some, the only "Playboy" knowledge they may have is from watching The Girls Next Door.

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:
Of course Playboy is porn . . . how silly that anyone would think differently.

The sole purpose of the magazine is to arouse people sexually and provide masturbatory fantasies. This provides a base of readers that support paying advertisers. The magazine has been losing readership for years for a multitude of reasons.

The purpose of Playboy Cable TV is to provide hardcore porn movies to as large an audience as possible. The majority of their money is generated by the TV programing.

Once people stop whacking off to Playboy . . . they are out of business.

The entire staff of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. knows this, and their biggest struggle is to keep on top of current trends in the porn world or go out of business in a big hurry. They have to stay competitive or crash & burn.

I spent 11 years at Playboy producing centerfolds, editorials and calendars . . . I know how Playboy thinks.

KM

I understand this Ken.. But anyone can whack off to a picture of a girl in a swimsuit too.. that's not considered porn. But when I get a background check i wouldn't say i do porn cause' they will think i got paid to do sexual things for money. This is why I don't count it as porn.. but I see what you mean.Women who find PB's under their husband's beds might say, "why are you looking at PORN?" it's just the norm to say it is.

Kamarose wrote:
It's softcore, right?

I mean, you're meant to get off on it...

But here it's generally defined more specifically as glamour, to distinguish it from hardcore porn...

I think along these lines. Towards glamour but depends what you use it for.

It's nudity that can stop at just being appreciated , yet just as with swimwear and lingerie catalogues , you can use it for going further if you need.

I can't place penetration being captured being any different than implied, or even what the image provokes in the mind or elsewhere to be a definition of porn.

Brooklyn Bridge Images wrote:

Spreads are not porn in my own rule book
Porn to me is a depiction of a sex act

+1

Alisyn Carliene wrote:

I understand this Ken.. But anyone can whack off to a picture of a girl in a swimsuit too.. that's not considered porn. But when I get a background check i wouldn't say i do porn cause' they will think i got paid to do sexual things for money. This is why I don't count it as porn.. but I see what you mean.Women who find PB's under their husband's beds might say, "why are you looking at PORN?" it's just the norm to say it is.

There are large segments of our population that would disagree with your assessment of Playboy.

Many people think that even posing in a bikini is 'sinful' and you'll burn in hell.

If you are having a background check done for a school teaching job, or a position in a political office, or any sort of high-security position, you may be passed over because your photos appeared in the most famous nudie magazine in the world.

I know you don't think of yourself as a porn model . . . but those people out there that masturbate to your image certainly do.

There is nothing wrong with porn . . . it's legal to do in the US . . . why do you perpetuate this myth that Playboy isn't porn?

Even the people that run the company acknowledge this.

They make over a hundred million dollars a year from hardcore porn movies and their nude magazines.

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:
Of course Playboy is porn . . . how silly that anyone would think differently.

The sole purpose of the magazine is to arouse people sexually and provide masturbatory fantasies. This provides a base of readers that support paying advertisers. The magazine has been losing readership for years for a multitude of reasons.

The purpose of Playboy Cable TV is to provide hardcore porn movies to as large an audience as possible. The majority of their money is generated by the TV programing.

Once people stop whacking off to Playboy . . . they are out of business.

The entire staff of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. knows this, and their biggest struggle is to keep on top of current trends in the porn world or go out of business in a big hurry. They have to stay competitive or crash & burn.

I spent 11 years at Playboy producing centerfolds, editorials and calendars . . . I know how Playboy thinks.

KM

they almost are out of business actually.
they peaked over 30 bucks a share in the 90s, down to 2.50 in the last year
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3APLA

JSGPhotography wrote:
It all depends. I would say that 99% of playboy is NOT porn. Some things are right on the line. Why do people always have to classify and stereotype things? IMO the naked body is a beautiful thing. A porn star is usually someone who has sex on cam

Playboy I think has a long reputation for being softer on the erotic side of things, and still caring about women and beauty... But they have gotten pretty agressive in their online and cable business acquisitions, and have tried to use their softer image for lead generation, to open more markets to compete with the penthouse/hustler type of biz...

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:
Of course Playboy is porn . . .

And there's the answer.

Porn-light, perhaps. But porn nonetheless.

g r e g g o r i o  wrote:
playboy is fake breasts, over photoshoped, slightly overweight models- soft  "porn"

beside that intelligent articals!   

the magazine is for "use" by  15 yr old boys - thus it IS PORN.

It is sick that anyone in today's educated society would think that girls appearing in PB are "slightly OVERWEIGHT" Are you serious? Or has malnourishment actually begun affecting your brain? If anything the vast majority of people in the entertainment/modeling industry are extremely under a healthy weight.

Alisyn Carliene wrote:
Let me just say that the reason that many girls will do playboy and don't associate it with porn is because playboy was always meant to be classy and the epitome of a beautiful, classy confident young woman. Every woman wants to be a part of it whether they will admit it or not!

Believe it or not, there are many people who consider Playboy's image to be totally tacky and tasteless, a cocktail of the worst aspects of Las Vegas and Eurotrash culture.  I won't even get into the homogeneous neo-"Stepford" nature of Playboy's beauty concept...Better to leave that elephant under the rug for now.

As for your claim that "every woman wants to be a part of it" -- that's just not true.  I've worked with many women who have no interest in what Playboy is selling.  If it works for you, great, but it's not a universal holy grail.

Alisyn Carliene wrote:
Let me just say that the reason that many girls will do playboy and don't associate it with porn is because playboy was always meant to be classy and the epitome of a beautiful, classy confident young woman. Every woman wants to be a part of it whether they will admit it or not!

mErocrush wrote:
Believe it or not, there are many people who consider Playboy's image to be totally tacky and tasteless, a cocktail of the worst aspects of Las Vegas and Eurotrash culture.  I won't even get into the homogeneous neo-"Stepford" nature of Playboy's beauty concept...Better to leave that elephant under the rug for now.

As for your claim that "every woman wants to be a part of it" -- that's just not true.  I've worked with many women who have no interest in what Playboy is selling.  If it works for you, great, but it's not a universal holy grail.

GD Whalen  wrote:
Playboy is about beautiful women being/feeling sexy.  Really very simple.  It is not porn.

I want the magazine that's about ugly women being/feeling unsexy.

Actually, that's probably Playboy, too.  Now that I really think about it.

Michael Gottlieb wrote:
Is her magazine not porn because it's not her intent even though it can easily be used for arousal?

"Can be used for arousal" is a useless basis for defining porn.  If it wasn't, most department store catalogs produced over more than 100 years would be porn.

Michael Gottlieb wrote:
Is her magazine not porn because it's not her intent even though it can easily be used for arousal?

Correct, it's not.

I don't consider my work to be porn, and I wouldn't have been interested in being published in NUDE if it were such a magazine. Nor would the models I worked with who ended up in the story.

Carrie Leigh, being a former Playboy model, may draw the line between fine art, B&W glamour nudes, erotic art, and porn a bit differently than I might. But I'm not the editor, she is, and I do trust her intentions and overall taste.

MikeRobisonPhotos wrote:

"Can be used for arousal" is a useless basis for defining porn.  If it wasn't, most department store catalogs produced over more than 100 years would be porn.

I agree a hundred percent. I'm sure most nude "art" in museums has been used by somebody at one time or another to arouse themselves.

But the question really was does intent have anything to do with whether something is porn or not? Some on this thread seem to have implied that. Put an image in Playboy and its porn because they are producing with the intent of someone being aroused and the same image in another magazine is not porn, because the publisher claims it is art?

Michael Gottlieb wrote:
Let me ask a question. Some have proffered the intent of Playboy (The Magazine)  as justification of its being qualified as porn. That its the publishers intent that it be used as spank bank material and thereby keeping them in profits. Okay let's say that I can agree with that.

Then how would Carrie Leigh's NUDE magazine be defined. Is it not porn because she professes that its "The World's Most Collectable Fine Art And Photography Magazine?"  There are images in her magazine that could easily have been in Playboy in its heyday a la Newton. I just viewed an image that certainly appeared to celebrate masturbatory bliss. In a quick perusal there are quite a few MM models featured in her publication that I suspect have not been in Playboy-don't know for sure. Is her magazine not porn because it's not her intent even though it can easily be used for arousal?

I've never seen the magazine you're talking about, and I'm sure it's lovely -- but someone is still spanking to it right now.  Is that really so horrible?

The thing that fascinates me about the "fine art nude" crowd is how fervently/desperately they try to control the way that images are perceived by the outside world.  More to the point, if the fine art crowd is so certain that everything they do is about "art" and not "sex", why are all the women I see in fine art photography hot young babes with straight teeth, shiny hair and flawless skin?  Nobody can shoot a 60 year-old, 300lb black man and make into fine art?  Seriously?  It really is the same beauty ethic that Playboy sells...But everybody denies it.  Does shooting it in black and white really make that much of a difference?

Michael Gottlieb wrote:
Put an image in Playboy and its porn because they are producing with the intent of someone being aroused and the same image in another magazine is not porn, because the publisher claims it is art?

First of all, "art" and "porn" are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is pornographic art, and artistic porn.

But yes, intent matters.

And yes, the viewer is free to make a judgement call too.

From what I've seen, for instance, I don't find "MET Art" to be anything other than silicone-less, well-shot porn. Or, at best, it's arty porn more than it is porny art. The "Art" in the title doesn't change my judgement, even if it represents their true intention (which, I believe, it does not).

Richard Tallent wrote:
Correct, it's not.

I don't consider my work to be porn, and I wouldn't have been interested in being published in NUDE if it were such a magazine. Nor would the models I worked with who ended up in the story.

Carrie Leigh, being a former Playboy model, may draw the line between fine art, B&W glamour nudes, erotic art, and porn a bit differently than I might. But I'm not the editor, she is, and I do trust her intentions and overall taste.

I don't consider your work to be porn either. If anything it is on the far art side of the meter in my opinion.  But some of the work she publishes is probably more erotic than Playboy. When someone creates a piece of erotic art, isn't there some degree of intent to arouse?  Otherwise what's the point? I'm sure some of the models published in Playboy wouldn't go so far as some of the models in her features (as an editor). Some are calling Playboy porn and like it or not the word porn often has negative connotations associated with it. I'm sure some Playboy models or celebrities that have appeared in Playboy wouldn't consider their pictorials porn.

Getting too late and I'm losing my point. I think it was more about that work should be judged on its content and not necessarily the economics involved. You obviously know Carrie, I don't, but maybe she decided there was an economic niche to fill with nude art so she called her magazine that. No one but her really knows what her intent was. You shouldn't get a pass just because you call something art, its the content that should determine what something is.

Edit: Just to clarify, this isn't a knock on her or her magazine or anyone published in it. I just used her magazine as an example because it claims as a subtitle to be art vs. Playboy which used Entertainment for Men as a subtitle.

Edit2: Richard, when I said "You shouldn't get a pass...",  I didn't mean you personally, I meant the word "you" in an all encompassing general sense.

mErocrush wrote:
The thing that fascinates me about the "fine art nude" crowd is

The thing that fascinates me about the glamour and porn crowd is their disbelief that nudity can perform any function in photography other than to depict sexual desire or function.

if the fine art crowd is so certain that everything they do is about "art" and not "sex", why are all the women I see in fine art photography hot young babes with straight teeth, shiny hair and flawless skin?

1. You're looking at a pretty small group of "fine art" photographers, I'm guessing primarily on MM.

2. Models are somewhat self-selected. Not everyone is confident enough to pose in the nude. Young, beautiful, confident women are plentiful because they are a lot more interested in modeling in the first place. Society's echo chamber, to be sure, but you can't blame an artist in a desert for failing to shoot more oceans.

3. Perceptions of beauty and sexual attraction certainly overlap, and human beauty is a common aesthetic in art.

Nobody can shoot a 60 year-old, 300lb black man and make into fine art?

How about an older, hairless white dude?

http://photos.tallent.us/p676561126/h32bb5ce1#h32bb5ce1

He's an MM model too. But I only was able to book him because I was traveling to San Francisco. My chances of finding a similar subject here are pretty much nil.

It really is the same beauty ethic that Playboy sells...But everybody denies it.

Not really. Art models tend to have a much more natural look and a much a wider variety of measurements.

Does shooting it in black and white really make that much of a difference?

Photographers who convert glamour nudes to B&W and call them "artistic nudes" are a joke, but humans do react differently to color and B&W portrayals of nudity. Using monochrome is a form of abstraction. But we're getting a bit off-topic here.