Paintings of Exotic Lap Dancing and Visions of Pole Dancers Line My Walls
Paintings of exotic lap dancing and visions of pole dancers line my walls. I keep them in my bedroom and offer private showings. They are a series of really very tame paintings, that none the less could not be presented in the local mall.
I wonder what it is about the subject of erotica that drives people wild in the negative sense. Call me naive I guess, but it is not as if most people haven't experienced certain things by a certain age, is it?
I was at a mall a few years ago doing a craft show with a pottery line I was making back then. I had brought in one of my paintings to do some touch ups before taking it to a nearby gallery. It was a very tame painting of a woman underwater. She had a white silk like fabric covering everything one might object to. Not one of the three areas your mind is thinking of showed. Her hands were tightly closed around the fabric and fish were placed in the painting to suggest that she was underwater. The painting was all in golden tones. Her head was turned back and yes indeed I guess she did show pleasure on her face.
I did not have the painting on an easel, I merely leaned it against the table I had my bags and change box under. I had it there maybe 1/2 hour. A man approached me looking quite upset.
"You shouldn't have that painting in here!' he hastily declared.
I looked at him stunned and perplexed at the same time. "Why, What's the matter?" I said thinking perhaps he was complaining about the fumes from my oil paints. I would certainly understand that.
"There is a Christian book store right over there! " he said pointing his shaking finger in the direction of the store he worried about.
Yes, there is was, not more than 300 yards away from me. Still it was not as if I had an exotic lap dancer or pole dancer in my painting. There was nothing showing as I mentioned. Finally I answered his protest with, "I don't understand, what is it that you think you are seeing?"
"Well, well... well," he sputtered and spun. He then looked at me as if to ask for help in answering my own question.
"There is 'nothing' there to see, what IS IT that you think you are seeing," I said finally.
He could not answer. I could have helped him along I guess. I could have told him that what he feared was the 'emotion' of sex. He also could have admitted it. We could have talked about it in a grown up and sensible way. That is of course what it was. He feared the emotion that showed on the woman's face.
Why? What is it that he feared so much? Did he think a child would have understood the 'look' on the woman's face? Was it that people going into the Christian book store had never had that look on their own face? Or was it that he feared the look was not allowed on his?
I only offer food for thought because we should all understand 'why' we feel embarrassed or opinionated about what we say we object to.
If you have never read and followed through with the lessons in the book, "How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, you should. We should all take the time to know why we think the way we do and how to back up those feelings no matter what they are. Understand yourself.
If you are a very conservative person who is reading this right now, I know you are thinking I have missed what feels obvious to you. I don't. I do understand that sometimes it is not the place or time for some things. But I also censor back the belief that some things are in fact normal and not to be feared. We fear what is inside our own heads and hearts sometimes. I only say we need to know why. Why is not a dirty word.
Granted, perhaps the mall was not the best place to finish up the work needed on my somewhat erotic painting. I concur. Yet it is still funny to me to this day that nothing was showing, it was all just about a look on the woman's face.
I do paint paintings that most assuredly will never find their way into the local mall, fantasy art of exotic women. Exotic lap dancers and visions of pole dancers and looks that would make that man in the mall go crazy. I have to question it to this day, not whether they should be in a mall or not, but their right to exist and my freedom to paint them in this ever so censored society.
