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Justice lets it all hang out

I just read an article that was talking about the classical (nude) statues of "Justice" in the capital buildings being uncovered since John Ashcroft has left his post. As soon as he was appointed before tackling the terrorists he took care of a bigger, more pressing problem. Had the statues nude breasts covered because he felt they were "dirty" or something.

Being an artist/sculptor I don't understand these peoples fear of the human body. If one doesn't understand anatomy and wants to be a figural artist you won't get very far with creating accurate represenation.

I find nothing offensive with any of these statues. They are not in lewd or suggestive positions, there is nothing erotic about them at all just simple classical poses. How about you, are you offended by Justice?
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 A breast. I have never seen one or two of those before.  

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 OH MY! Is that his ......, males don't really have those...... do they?


I'd be offended if the statue was of me. Have you seen the "parts" in question. I certainly hope it's not anatomically accurate. Someone got cheated when scaling to size.
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Joe
 
I'm very offended. I find all this politcaly correct crap very offensive. Everybody is scared to say what they feel because they'll get sued if somebodies feelings get hurt.
Now that asscroft and Bush has taken office, everything is blurred or bleeped on TV, even on TLC and the discovery channel. Thank goodness that they were working on that when 9/11 happened.
 
I think it's totally unfair to single out Aschcroft and Bush.  They have the same problems with sexuality as pointy headed theocracies all around the world.  Ashcroft isn't there anymore, anyway.  Maybe he's doing commercials for Wesson Oil: "If it's pure enough to annoint an Attorney General, it's pure enough to fry your potatoes."
 
What ever happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones?" I mean, there is a limmit to that, but still, give me a BREAK!

I would be RICH right now if I could sue for all the ways I was tormented as a child. Sheesh!
 
I'm not pinning this on any political or religious group in particular, I only use this as a recent example which is in the news. It's happened all though history that 'civilized' people are afraid or ashamed of the naked human form.  I'm not becoming an advocate for nudity (no one wants to see ME prancing around the forest naked!) But for the sake of art/anatomical statues if the sculpture is not lewd or provative how is it offesive to show a body part that roughly 50% of the population shares? Whether the statue is male or female? I just don't understand it. Maybe someone can tell me why the human body is offensive?

Sometimes you can get weird looks at the bookshop when you buy anatomy reference books like the female form in motion. Is it not possible for people to seperate nudity/anatomical study from sex?

BTW: In the middle ages the David statue was toured with a fig leaf covering the offensive part.
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Josh,

IMO, Our shame(in this country) of the human body is biblical in origin...Adam and Eve covered themselves because they felt shame.

The people who founded this country weren't exactly free-love advocates, either
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Someone tell me why it's okay to show a baby's butt in a diaper commercial...but showing an adult's butt on a TV show is considered a big deal?

How about that toilet paper commercial with the bears? It gives us the answer to the age-old question...does a bear poop in the woods?

Michealangelo did that famous sculpture of David...have you seen the other statue of David, done by a different artist whose name I forget? Maybe Donnatello? Gorgeous sculpture, too. In the middle ages, all sorts of master works had the fig leaves added.
 
I think the church also cut off every statue's private parts in the vatican didn't they?

I think that's stupid. art is art.
 
  • #10
I just think the human body is art. And the bodies of animals, too. Perfectly attuned for our environments.

We all go through gestation. At every step of the way, during gestation, something can go wrong. Most of the time...nothing goes wrong. When I consider all the stuff that goes into making another being...I can't consider that the naked results are "dirty".
 
  • #11
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Perfectly attuned for our environments.
not really.
birth pains, knee problems, back problems, wisdom teeth, etc.
 
  • #12
Birth pains are to be expected...it's like trying to shove a watermelon through a keyhole (my sister's words, not mine.)

Wisdom teeth are the remants of our ancestors, (from what I have read in Nature and Discovery magazines)who were omnivorus to a greater extent than today. They had the jaw size to accomodate extra teeth, look at the skulls on early hominids, their jaws are huge.

Back pain and knee pain are from old age(?), I think. Or perhaps, a more sedentary lifestyle?
 
  • #13
the point isn't why, the point is that we're not "Perfectly attuned for our environments."
other animals have perfectly straight teeth because their jaws aren't too small for their number of teeth, they aren't in SO much pain as female Homo sapiens (that's what I hear anyway), they don't get knee and back pains.
We get backpains because we're bipedial... i'm assuming that's also why our knees (ask any athelete/chiropractor) are so commonly hurt.
another one are our eyes... just look at how many people have contacts/eye glasses. We're not perfectly suited for our environment. heck, we need to wear clothes and we're always putting on sunscreen and bug spray, etc.
 
  • #14
We would be perfectly suited to our environment if natural selection was permitted to take its course.
 
  • #15
Seandew is right. If we went on darwinist standards...we WOULD be perfectly suited for our environment. Darwinist standards are kind of brutal.

Lots of animals don't have perfect teeth...and lots of them get knee and back pain (hip dysplasia in dogs). Arthritis. Bone spurs. "Kissing spines" in horses. Just like us and as a result of age.

How do you know that animals don't need glasses? Because they can't tell you that their eyesight is blurry! I have a couple of cats whose eyesight is blurry..if they were allowed outdoors, their lives would be really short. Nature doesn't really allow the old and infirm to hang around long.
 
  • #16
did I say they didn't?
I meant to say that neither we nor animals are perfectly atuned to our environment... but it's easier to come up with human examples
 
  • #17
Mister ED. Haaa.
Okay. Hey Alpha just FYI if you are a sutdent you can get Nature for a lot cheaper then normal I bet you'd like it. Speaking of Darwinist examples the huge toads maybe outcompeating my Neps for bugs. Wait I have another comming up.
 
  • #18
Not to encourage this to turn into another one of "those" threads... but evolution doesn't produce perfection, it produces adequacy.
 
  • #19
I totally agree with swords. This society has gotten to the point where absolutely nothing can be said or done without it being turned into a sexual innuendo. Why is the naked human body such a banned thing in society today? Who is that really going to offend or shock? Who over age 10 does not know what the human body looks like, or is not ever going to? The human body is THERE. Kids will know what both gender bodies look like sooner or later. It's not necessarily offensive unless put into a sexual context. There is absolutely no reason things like this should be pants-crapped over so much.

Why is America (The Book) banned in WalMart, but explicit adult novels are not? This is the kind of ironic bullcrap that blows my mind.
 
  • #20
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Who is that really going to offend or shock? Who over age 10 does not know what the human body looks like, or is not ever going to?
A lot of people. The more conservative, the more they're offended.
I guess they also don't want their kids to find out what humans look like.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]It's not necessarily offensive unless put into a sexual context.
I can understand how some sexual contexts might be offensive, but why is regular sex offensive anyway? (that's a rhetorical question btw.) It's just as natural as the body.
Yes, many people are offended by it... but there's no reason to be just like there's no reason to be offended by nudity.
 
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