Understanding Asexuality

Of course I am exaggerating the point, as there is a myriad of themes in art beyond women’s bodies. I am also not arguing that nudity and the human body are found in art only because of people’s sexual attraction to them. After all, nudity and the human body itself have been portrayed in art to illustrate various “nonsexual” themes—for example, the creation story in Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve could be construed as such. Indeed, there is a tradition in art of distinguishing “the nude” from “the naked.” “The nude” shows the unclothed body because it is integral to or part of the natural condition of the subject or the scene (e.g., Greek gods were often depicted without clothes) (Clark, 1956). In contrast, with “the naked,” a sexual intent is often presumed if the unclothed state is not a natural condition of the subject or the scene (e.g., a nurse still wearing part of her uniform).

Yet there is ambiguity here, as the meaning of “natural” is dubious, as is the distinction between nudity and nakedness. Isn’t being out of one’s clothes, even partially, more natural than, say, wearing a uniform? Art critic Charles Darwent (2008) also points out that the distinction between nude and naked is often blurred and slippery. He uses a painting by Philip Wilson Steer called Seated Nude: The Black Hat to illustrate his point. In this painting, an attractive woman is seated without clothes, but she does have on her head an elaborate black hat. Steer evidently never allowed this painting to be viewed. He was influenced by some of his friends, who argued that the woman’s “nudity” (and of course the title indicates that this is a “nude”) was in fact an instance of “nakedness,” in part because the affectation on her head implies, presumably, an unnatural and sexualized context.

One might also argue that the “nude” body, even when not portrayed to illustrate directly sexual themes, is affected, at least indirectly, by the artist’s sexuality and/or sexual elements that are embedded in his or her culture. For example, are the nudity and temptation themes in the creation story of Adam and Eve truly without sexual connections? Of course not: this biblical creation story is itself, partially, about sex. Thus, Dürer’s sexual attractions likely inspired him, if only on an unconscious level, to create a painting that included these themes. In other words, this story was, arguably, aesthetically interesting and pleasing to him because of his sexual attractions. That members of the public (or the patrons who commissioned this work) also wanted and/or were drawn to such portrayals also speaks to the power of sexuality in the production of this and related art. Note, too, that the two main figures—Adam and Eve—in this famous painting have fig leaves covering their genitals. This depiction is true to the events in the biblical creation story itself, as both Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves after eating from the tree of knowledge. However, sexual mores probably influenced why this portion of the creation story—and not the innocent, completely nude period of this story—was depicted in this and in so many other versions of it. For example, it can be argued that Dürer was affected by his and society’s (e.g., the Catholic Church’s) view that public nudity was shameful, or at least sexually immodest, not just in reality but also in artistic depictions. This social construction of sex as “shameful” also derives from the power of sexual attractions, along with a (neurotic) desire to control them.

You may be thinking that the female nude in art and popular culture must only have a special resonance, aesthetic and otherwise, for heterosexual men (i.e., male artists and male patrons), and thus heterosexual women wandering the great galleries must have a disconnected experience, similar perhaps to the non sequitur experienced by average asexual people. After all, shouldn’t the portrayal of only men’s bodies have a special resonance, aesthetic and otherwise, for heterosexual women? I think this is partially true, but a straightforward conclusion of this kind does not capture some of the subtlety and complexity of female sexuality. As mentioned in chapter 6 on gender, women’s sexuality is also affected by “object-of-desire” concerns, and there may be a strong aesthetic appreciation of the female body as an object of desire, sexually and romantically, in the eyes of men (Bogaert & Brotto, in progress; Bogaert, Visser, Pozzebon, & Wanless, 2011). Thus, heterosexual women’s sexual interests, attractions, and desires at times may still resonate, perhaps very strongly, with the depiction of the female nude form. That many heterosexual women are strongly interested in viewing beautiful women in fashion forums (e.g., fashion magazines) and in the general media (e.g., on TV, on the Internet) supports this view (Bogaert & Brotto, in progress).