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As with some of you, I was mildly bothered by the
image in question, so I asked myself "why?"
It's not a moral issue with me -- I've seen much
"worse," so it's really about something else.
I thought about how the ancient Greeks handled this
issue in sculpture -- after all, they set the standard for depicting the human
body, and established artistic conventions that survive today.
They obviously felt that while you should depict
human gentalia, you shouldn't be too realistic about it. Grown men
were given the genetalia of children, and women's genitals were more or less
simplified.
Why did they take this approach? They
certainly weren't prudes. Maybe they felt that the genitals
represented some lesser human function, or maybe they felt
that genitals attract more attention than the more noble aspects
of the human body -- I don't know.
But my conclusion is that when we come across a
more-or-less "classical" image of the human body --of which this is an example
-- we somehow expect it to follow the conventions. When it doesn't,
it jars our sensibilities and something seems out of place.
That's my "take," for whatever it's
worth.
Marco
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