Book bans in Ron DeSantis’s Florida have censored beloved Australian author Mem Fox – for an illustrated character’s bath. But blanket nudity bans teach children bodies are ‘inherently sexual’.
Lady Godiva by John Collier (1898).
Herbert Art Gallery and Museum
Facebook and Instagram were recently told by their parent company, Meta, to overhaul their policy on nipple exposure. But the change may not be as radical as people hope. Here’s why.
In ‘Minx,’ a young feminist teams up with a pornographer to launch an erotic magazine with male nude centerfolds.
HBO Max/YouTube
Directors and audiences are becoming more comfortable with male frontal nudity. But what message does it send when almost all of the penises shown aren’t real?
Sometimes public nudity is just fine, as it was at the 2018 Sydney Skinny Swim at Cobblers Beach.
AAP/Ben Rushton
If we’re going to grasp what makes Eakins’ art so tragically powerful, we should be honest about the man who made them – and the impulses that drove him.
Most parents are unaware just how easily available ‘hardcore’ porn has become.
Chepko Danil Vitalevich/Shutterstock.com
While parents are growing more concerned about their children’s easy access to porn, they often don’t realize just how ‘hardcore’ and violent it has become and how early their kids are seeing it.
The offending work: John William Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs (1896).
Manchester Art Gallery
Mette Ingvartsen’s 7 Pleasures aims to upend
clichés about nudity. But the ‘confrontational’ use of nudity in dance and performance art is itself now something of a cliche.
Some travellers may forget that where they travel is not their home, and that cultural sensitivities may differ greatly.
Naked At Monuments/Facebook
The Art Gallery of NSW’s summer blockbuster sparkles with famous names, including Picasso, Matisse, Turner and Rodin. But for all of its trumpeting of risk and daring, it remains essentially a rather puritanical exercise.
Photographer Spencer Tunick celebrates the joyful, frivolous and liberating experience of public nudity.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
While the female nude is valorised in fine art, real women’s nakedness still attracts social punishment. From sexting to concerns over public breastfeeding, ours is an uncomfortable relationship with the fleshy body.
Is this a dance work, an exhibition, or a melding of the two? Xavier Le Roy’s latest work, in Sydney, raises many questions, such as: Is it enough to present dancers as interactive, moving art objects?