Eroticism in photography is, well, often controversial. That’s obvious, duh. But what interests me more than the controversy itself, is how and why it remains controversial in the first place, and what would happen if it ever stopped being controversial altogether.
There’s a distinction here people tend to squish into one giant box, or category.
So ok, full-tilt pornography is one thing. Whether it’s mass produced commercial porn or somebody filming themselves on a phone for private reasons, it has a fairly direct purpose and tbh that's ok in most cases. People seek it out for a specific experience. Fine, some people insist it’s art, many people don’t, but regardless, its intent is usually fairly straightforward: Gratification (unless its exploitive and thats another topic for another day).
What fascinates me is the blurry territory between obvs pornography and erotic visual art. That line is wildly subjective. Everybody has different thresholds. One person sees a photograph as tasteful and emotionally charged, another sees it as gratuitous, another sees it as empowering, another sees it as exploitative. Sometimes I find myself changing my opinion image to image. Context matters. Intent matters. Presentation matters. Production value matters. Even human sensitivity matters.
But the bigger realization for me is this: I don’t actually want eroticism in visual art to become entirely normalized.
That sounds strange to some people because culturally we often frame "normalization" as an unquestioned good, as something universally positive. Especially in boudoir and adjacent genres, there’s a common argument that we should remove shame entirely from erotic imagery. I understand that. I do think human sexuality should be viewed in a healthier and less hysterical way than it often is. I’m not advocating for puritanism here, quite the opposite actually.
In short, I don’t want erotic visual art to become so normalized that it becomes invisible.
I don’t want to scroll social media and see highly erotic imagery presented with the same emotional weight as somebody’s lunch photo or a random sunset or an airport selfie. I don’t want eroticism flattened into "visual wallpaper". I don’t want people to become completely numb to it.
More importantly, I don’t want my own work to become boring.
Part of what gives erotic art its power is the tension surrounding it. The fact that it exists near a line, near someone's threshold. The fact that it creates different reactions in different people. Some viewers are inspired by it. Some are uncomfortable. Some are intrigued. Some appreciate the craftsmanship while still feeling uncertain about the imagery itself. That friction, to me, is where the artistic energy lies.
Said another way: Subversion matters.
Eroticism without any danger of friction eventually risks becoming aesthetically hollow. Not morally hollow. Creatively hollow.
There’s a joke in an old episode of Futurama where Fry says, “Thanks to the internet, I’m now bored with sex.” It’s funny because it exaggerates something kinda real. Human beings acclimate to stimuli incredibly fast. Oversaturation changes perception. Things that once felt provocative, mysterious, or emotionally charged can eventually become algorithmic background noise if they’re presented constantly enough. And fuck knows the internet is a bastion of "over presented clutter" across all fronts.
I think about that a lot with visual art.
For me, erotic photography should still ruffle feathers occasionally. It should still make certain people uneasy. It should still raise eyebrows. Not because outrage itself is the goal, but because tension is part of the language of eroticism. The push and pull matters. The uncertainty matters. The transgression matters.
Honestly, I even think the fact that certain online platforms reject or suppress erotic work is part of what preserves some of its power. I know many artists would disagree with me here. A lot of people advocate for total acceptance and total visibility. But I’m not convinced they’ve fully thought through what happens when anything provocative becomes completely frictionless and endlessly consumable.
Subcultures lose energy when they become purely aestheticized commodities. You could hastily call it, "Selling out" perhaps, at least in some contexts.
Heavy music is a good example. I love all kinds of music, but I also love extremely heavy music. Death metal at times. Harsh industrial music. Experimental avant garde noise, even. Part of the experience comes from the fact that it still feels abrasive to many people. If the most extreme forms of music became so culturally normalized that nobody reacted to them anymore, something important would disappear from the experience itself.
Not because offense is automatically valuable, but because subversion carries emotional weight.
I think erotic visual art operates similarly.
I don’t want eroticism erased from art. But I also don’t want it completely flattened into harmless visual pasteurized content optimized for infinite scrolling. I want it to retain some danger. Some discomfort. Some mystery. Some tension.
Otherwise eventually it just becomes more noise.
And noise is the death of fascination.