Nudity & Prudity

A few years back, I don’t recall exactly when, I decided that online groups were not the place for me and so I sat quietly and mass departed. OK admittedly there might have been a couple or so groups in there that I did like but who has time to sift through piles of crap. A cull across the board was a swifter option and I figured losing a couple of enjoyable groups in the process, was a sacrifice I was willing to make… And if I actually missed any of them, then I could just join again, no big deal.

My online time drifted into simply scrolling through Instagram. I’m not an avid poster on there but I enjoy the 1:1 format that shifts my brain away from landscape vs portrait and which makes me slow down a little to cast my eye around the composition of an image. Somehow it reminds me of old 35mm cameras and finite film rolls and not wanting to waste resources. I like digital photography but somehow being able to endlessly shoot away diminishes the magical feeling of oh yes! That’s the shot! The other thing I like about Ig is that I rarely comment and so I don’t find myself caught up in shit storms of comments as can way too easily happen on fb. I’m many ways I’m a massive idiot… One such way is that it doesn’t quite register in my head that when I write online, other people can read it… I’ve made the mistake a few times of writing a comment thinking it’s directly to the person I know and oops my phone blows up with notifications from randoms across the globe because I’ve written on a public page… Much like how I write on here thinking that I’m talking to myself and no one is reading… Then I’m surprised when I bump into someone IRL who quotes me… Anyway, my intention wasn’t to give you insight into my insanities but there you go…

Yep, my insanities… What was I thinking? Recently I joined an online art group on fb. There I was, thinking to myself that I’d just be scrolling through loads of cool images, skimming through commentaries on techniques… But oh no… Instead I find myself watching from the sidelines, wondering if this the some new depth in the downfall of civilisation? Wtf is going on here?

This is a post that had me doubled over with laughter…

OK, so a biggering group? Now there was some debate as to whether that should have read as bickering. Given the escalation of the posts over the last few days, with people becoming outraged and announcing their departures, I like to think that biggering is the new trend. Someone leaves with a flounce, then someone else leaves with a bigger flounce, then someone leaves with a biggerer flounce and so a biggering group is born!

What’s the source of all this outrage, I hear you ask? (When I say you, I obviously refer to the fictional reader that resides in the fig box of my imagination, as I’ve already established that I don’t believe that any IRL readers exist… Go on, I challenge you to prove me wrong…) Why all this righteous indignation and pleas to think of the children?

Well… Listen up… Listen carefully, because I’m not sure anyone is ready to believe this, for it is indeed a truth far stranger than any fiction … The cause of all this kerfuffle is people posting images of nudes they’ve drawn in life drawing classes… Yup, charcoal scribbles and oily paint daubs of limbs and folds of flesh and oh no! Boobs! Bums! And Willies! On the flop Willies I hasten to add… Apparently it is all very offensive… I dread to think what effect a standing to attention penis would trigger…

Like wtf? Seriously? Who tf joins an art group then gets a fit of the vapours because gasp horror there are depictions of the naked human form. I add in human as not one person has complained about the countless number of pet drawings and none of those animals have had neither an ounce of shame nor a stitch of clothing on… I ask myself, when did artists become such prudes? When did artists start demanding other people to stop painting things they don’t like… And to be honest… I’m not interested in gaining an answer… I’m tired of words and all the BS… I’ll end this here now with an old ink splodge I made…

Eh? Immature and inappropriate? Yeah? And so… Oh… Shame, shame on me!