Sexuality in the Arts

“A person’s art is often their heart on their sleeve.”

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Thank you to those who have given kind words and blog suggestions.  I believe sexuality is a very good, pleasant, important, and healthy part of life.  The art herein is mostly the work of many talented artists.  I make no claim to any of their artworks.  Where artists’ websites could be easily found, I have linked to their websites to promote their artworks and ideas.  If you are a copyright holder of anything on this non-revenue-generating personal blog, and you don’t want your work referenced here, please let me know and I will remove it immediately.  My email is snoopy_jump at yahoo.com.  Some of these artists are not famous and may be willing to do art commissions - which I encourage anyone to do.  If any of the information on this blog is inaccurate, or if you’d like to tell me about some artworks I have not yet mentioned, please email me and I will investigate.

A person’s collection of artworks, and how they perceive those artworks, may tell you a lot about that person - maybe even things they don’t fully understand.  This blog aspires to show visual, linguistic, definitional, thematic, cultural, and therapeutic artistic connections across time and mediums.  Thank you.

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Infrequently Asked Questions:

Question:  Why did you create this blog?

OneMoreOption (SIA):  I tend to visit websites where there’s at least a remote possibility that I might find something worth remembering.  And as easy as that criteria may sound, I’ve not found it very easy to find regularly.  So, I search most days for signs of intelligent life:  well expressed ideas and artworks that remind the human spirit of what might matter and what might be noble.

Q:  How do you decide what to post?

SIA:  I have several really smart people in my life and a couple key people from my past.  A primary question I ask myself is:  Is the information or imagery good enough that many of those knowledgeable people might find it new or innovative?  Would it be worth their time to read?  And I also try to find material that’s primarily intended to speak toward the feminine side in both men and women. 

Q:  What is “Sexuality in Art”?

SIA:  AND other love stories.

Q:  Right.  And other love stories.

SIA:  I try to focus lights on the important aspects of an artwork that are too often ignored, belittled, or mischaracterized.  This blog suggests, “The sexual aspects may be the best thing about this work of art.  They are not perverse or obscene.  They are not incidental or accidental.  They were intended for excellent and universal reasons.”

Q:  So why “and other love stories”?

SIA:  Because that’s what I think “sexuality in art” is - it is often a love story.  Artists have often included intimate, candid, and open sexual ideas in their art as a loving communication to their familiars and to future generations. 

Q:  Why do you call yourself “onemoreoption”?

SIA:  Because that’s an important cognitive lesson I learned from one of my original muses.  She taught me that many of my problems, and many of the world’s problems are caused because we choose from too few presumed options.  She and I used to argue regularly about all the big issues, and she’d almost always point out that my problem was not being willing to even consider some of the possible solutions.

Q:  What do you mean?

SIA:  Oh, I suppose the archteypal example of a cognitive framework where too few options are given would be someone saying, “You’re either with me, or you are my enemy” - George W. Bush’s famous State of the Union mentality that was parodied in the final Star Wars film by the young Darth Vader.  But I’m not trying to focus on such an absurd example as Bush.  He’s too easy of a target.  Consider any major question in your life’s past.  When it was posed to you, were you given only a finite number of options, and were you told you could only choose one?  If so, the answer, happily or tragically, may have been an option that was not discussed or not considered.  A better option may have been a continuous or intermittent combination of other options.

Q:  What’s another example?

SIA:  Oh, you’re asking me to think too quickly.  About 4 years ago, I was re-introduced to the problem solving systems of TRIZ.  Are you familiar with TRIZ in any of its forms?

Q:  I’ve heard of it.

SIA:  You can find sample lists on the internet at Wikipedia and other places.  I think it was originally a Soviet engineer’s checklist of methods for redefining and improving the possible number of solutions to any given engineering problem.  The TRIZ methods can be used for solving any type of problem.  And when I rediscovered them, several years later, it clicked in my mind that many social problems are sadly created because people have poor problem-solving skills and poor social training.  And often better solutions are found outside of the original options given.

You know how sometimes you tell a child:  “You can only choose A or B.”  And then the child says, “Hey, what about C?” or “How about A and B?”  Too often, adults forget to inquire about “Option C,” and even more often they frustratingly don’t consider the option of “A and B.”

Q:  Sort of having your cake and eating it too?

SIA:  Yeah!  That saying never made much sense to me.  Just who is giving out cake and asking people not to eat it?

Q:  You must be a committee’s worst nightmare?

SIA:  I was watching Jon Stewart clips on YouTube after midnight last night and he joked about all the places he’d been fired from and that he was almost unemployable at anything else besides what he does.  I’m kind of like him in that if anything stupid is going on around me, I have trouble keeping my facial expressions from revealing my informed dissent.

Q:  You find elephants in every room?

SIA:  Oh yeah, pretty much.  But in real life I often don’t say anything.  So a blog works for me because there are so many things I don’t like to be silent about, and an anonymous blog is the least confrontational way I’ve found to somewhat complexly . . . is that a word? . . . discuss, and address in a small way, so many different controversial and important issues.

Q:  Have you also been fired from every job?

SIA:  Essentially.  Most of them.

Q:  Are you employed now?

SIA:  Yes, I negotiate business deals for others.  I’m a good person to have on your team in a fight.  Not much shit flies past the radar without me finding a civilized, semi-pleasant, and profitable way of addressing it.  I’m okay at helping adversarial parties find better solutions for both sides under the circumstances.

Q:  Are you a man or a woman?

SIA:  My answer to that understandable question is:  For the purposes of discussing real, substantive issues, it shouldn’t matter whether I’m a guy or a girl, so I don’t care to disclose my gender.  Unfortunately, there still are too many people out there who disregard ideas because they stereotype the speaker for their gender, thinking things like “Oh well, of course a woman would say that because she . . .” or vice versa.  I want people to focus on the weight of the art and the reasonings, not on their gender presumptions.

Q:  Where do you surf online?

SIA:  I’m constantly looking for encouraging signs of moral, ethical, and smart decisions.  A lot of time I’m doing research for the blog posts, finding the best available artwork samples for a given topic, doublechecking factual information, and looking for insightful contextual information.  Most of the other time is spent reading smart bloggers, news stories, wikipedia, and watching funny stuff on YouTube and such.

Q:  Do you plan any changes for this blog?

SIA:  I change the blog slightly all the time.  And I regularly am going back and updating old blog posts if better information becomes available.  But I don’t have major format changes planned.  As new blog topic ideas come to mind, I use them.  But trying to find something worth reading or viewing on a regular basis is very difficult.

Q:  Do you have any confessions to make?

SIA:  I don’t know how RSS works, and I’m not even sure if I’ve set it up right.

Q:  Why do you index and thumbnail?

SIA:  That idea came from the influence of a very smart friend of mine, who is very good at categorizing and organizing her thoughts.  She still influences me with her intellect.  I try to only post on topics that might have some merit several years from now.  So, I thought giving people an index and thumbnail index would do several good things:  It gives them a quick overview of the tone and content of the blog.  It gives them a sense of just how many important and brilliant artists have cared about topics of sexuality in art.  And it helps people scan and find available comparative content.  Like so many other good ideas I get from my friends, I think the indexing has made the blog more intuitive, inviting, and enjoyable for many readers.

Q:  How long do you think you’ll do this blog?

SIA:   I don’t know.  As with any demanding creative process, there are nights when I think I’ll slow down the frequency of posts.  But then a burr gets under my saddle and I’ll end up finding more content than expected.   Alice Walker has struggled with the same question.  At different points she has thought about retiring from writing.  But for some of us, creative forces are some of our most compelling drives, giving us (as Ms. Walker describes) some connection to a “Source.”  I don’t feel connected to “a source,” but analogously I believe I am my best self when I am sharing the best ideas I am lucky and fortunate to have encountered.  I have appreciated when others have done the same for me, so I try to give back in return. 

Q:  What’s a happy note to end this discussion on?

SIA:  I’m lucky to have found something I am passionate about.  I’ve unfortunately never been smart or talented enough to find “real work” I am as passionate about.  I think art matters, and so I try to support that concept a little each day.  I am an idealist, and I am not ashamed that I aspire to try to make the world a little better each day by sharing great artworks.