Intention

I had an interesting thing happen to me twice recently and it has caused me to think about some things.   We have been launching a new product at work and it has a few competitors.   I’ve been monitoring the competition to see how quickly they are gaining market share.   One of our competitors launched their version of this product, or capability, in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.   I don’t subscribe to Sports Illustrated, but I made a mental note to take a look next time I was in a store.

I was walking through a grocery store the other day and I saw a rack of the Swimsuit Issues prominently displayed.   I grabbed up copy and started thumbing through looking for our competition.   I turned past page after page of skimpily dressed women, I suddenly became very self-conscience.   Who saw me looking through this magazine?   What did they think I was thinking?   Was I some creepy old man just checking out the models?   It made me uncomfortable, so I put the magazine down and moved on.  

Last night I stopped in at the Bishop’s Barber Shop to get my hair cut.  I can always tell that I need to get my hair cut when my eyebrows reach my front hair line and this had happened, about 2 weeks ago actually.   I sat down to wait my turn and there was the SI Swimsuit Issue lying on the bench beside me.   Ah, another chance, and this time I was at the barber shop, who is going to care there?   I picked it up and started going through.   I did find the description of our competition’s capability and quickly looked at what they had done with the magazine.  I did need to thumb through all of the pages again to see exactly what they had implemented.   As I got to the models, the same feeling washed over me.   I was embarrassed to be looking at the magazine in public.   I tossed it down again.   At least I had accomplished my goal this time, but I still felt creepy about it. 

The SI Swimsuit Issue has never been about swimsuits and it’s still not.   It’s about beautiful models in, frankly what I would consider, beautiful photographs.   I have no issues whatsoever looking at those pictures.   My problem is that I don’t want other people speculating on what my intentions are.   Potter Stewart’s famous quote regarding pornography, “I know it when I see it”, does not work for me.   I don’t know it when I see it.   There are too many factors at play to be able to say what is obscene by simply looking at the result.   I believe that you have to take into account both the intentions of the creator and the value systems of the observer.   In other words, it’s different for everyone.   There is no “community standard”, at least not anymore.    To many people the swimsuit issue is porn.   It contains pictures of completely naked women, although they are carefully covered.   It is designed to titillate.  Although the pictures are far less graphic, I would consider them more pornographic than Robert Mapplethorpe’s most controversial photos.   For the record, I don’t think either one is truly “pornographic”, but we’re on a sliding scale here.   I say that the Swimsuit Issue is more so because it is designed to titillate and, I believe, Mapplethorpe’s work was designed to shock and consequently educate.  

The bottom line is that I’m pretty open-minded about what I will look at and consider as art.   I know that others around me are far less so.   I’ve become overly concerned about what others might think about me based on what I look at or watch.    The question I ask myself is, am I uncomfortable with who I am, or am I just concerned with protecting my image?    If I am comfortable with who I am, then why would I be concerned with what others might think?   I think that the real problem is that others have to make their judgment based on an incomplete set of information.   They have to speculate on what my motivations are, because they can only observe the result, not the original intention. Hmmmm, just like we do with the work of artists.