I'm heading to the Abilene Public Library at lunch time to check out some books on photography. I've already scouted them out on my computer, read the summaries, and know which ones I want. I head downstairs, grab my three books, and take them home.I grab a snack, sit in front of the TV and begin to browse. I start with The Complete Guide to Light. It has a sunset, building, and angelic child on the cover. How lovely.
After looking at the first several pages, I realize the pictures in it aren't all that great. So I begin to thumb through quickly, and land on a complete full-frontal nude woman. With her head cropped out, of course. I freak out and close the book and drop it on the coffee table.
What the heck? There is nothing on the front or back cover, or in the summary online, that indicates there are nude photos inside. There is a flower girl on the cover. I assume there are more naked photos, because the book kind of shows several of the same type of photos demonstrating different kinds of lighting. I don't know that there are more than one, because I'm not about to find out.
A man here at the station informs me that this is nothing new. Growing up pre-Internet, he used to go to the library and look at nude photos all the time.
I suppose some sort of warning label would just draw attention to the bad pictures inside, but you would think there would be something to alert innocent eyes that they're about to see something completely inappropriate. I am sure that if there were a website with that picture on it, it would be blocked by the library computers.
And for the record, I don't buy the "it's just art" argument. It's a naked woman posing for the camera.
Maybe we should have a book burning, or wait, how about don't check out the book again. I guess the Abilene Public Library is a porn shop in your opinion now? There is such a thing as nude photography and there is a difference between that and pornography. Unless you're between the ages of 10 to 17 or 50 to 75...then it's all the same I guess.
ReplyDeleteYou're shocked that a book on art has pictures of a nude human form? And the argument is that it IS, in fact, art. The beauty of the human form should not be something we, as grown people, shy away from...especially if one wants to be an artist; drawing, painting, or taking TASTEFUL pictures. Although many people, especially in this part of the world, have been taught naked people in any form are dirty, it's really not true. Stop...look...learn.
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