There's a passage in a book by Donna Tartt titled The Secret Society where a professor character references one of Aristotle's writings: Poetics. In it, Aristotle says that certain objects/subjects are painful (or unsettling) to view in themselves, but can become delightful to contemplate in a work of art.

I think this explains how an actual photo of an actual woman without clothes needs to be censored with pixelation or a graphic line to cover nipples and other body parts, lest the photo become banished from social media ... but once that subject/body parts are referenced for a painting or a sketch, no such censorship is needed. It can just be shown. Usually.

And such works of art can delight an audience to contemplate it, consume it, enjoy it, perhaps to even get off on it. If we are being honest.

Feminist theory argues that delighting in such works of visual art is part of The Male Gaze, where women are depicted as sexual objects to please the heterosexual male viewer. I wonder about that gaze. Are men the only ones who gaze? Do women gaze? Is gazing natural? Is it ok to enjoy being gazed at?

I'm just thinking out loud here. No tidy sentence to bring these questions to a tidy conclusion. They are just what occupy my mind a lot as I contemplate the body, photos of the body, and paintings that reference the body and photos of bodies.