Wanna Bicker about/discuss humor in erotic art?

[THROBBS]

Carry on here! (rather than high jack someone's art thread)

There has been some discussion on whether humor in erotic art dilutes (or negates) the eroticism.
Does some absurdity make your cock go limp? (or your cunt dry out?)
Does a giggle get you going?
I suspect that the answer is not black and white (even if the art work is).
Anyone remember Playboy's Little Annie fanny, by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder?

Obviously (to some), Nudity and sex with humor is not always "erotic." Sometimes it is (like GoldenCompulsion's examples)
a lampoon, rather than something titillating. — keeping in mind that for some, any suggestion of even a nipple can cause a premature ejaculation.

I like the toon-like style! Makes me think of al hirschfeld or mad magazine or something like that...

Shows the range of personal reaction. Good drawing, for sure, but I see no need for the "toon-like" style. How, can anyone explain, will making the characters appear funny help the erotic message... or maybe there isn't one..?

There's this fellow, goes by R. Crumb. Heard of him? Maybe check him out. Some people seem to like it.

Erotic images can convey both sexual and comedic messages at the same time. There's :no need" to just be sexual for the sake of being sexual.

And since it's art, you can interpret it however you want.

Objectively, it's a drawing of younger women having sex with older men. Subjectively, you could say the women are conventionally more attractive than the men. You could interpret that this is a fetish the artist is playing into. You could also say this is a comedic message the artist may have wanted to play into, also. It's a very common one (historically, too).

For example, Thomas Rowlandson made caricatures of military men and politicians either fucking, harassing, gawking at, or propositioning young, attractive women. The other type of art he tended to make was the younger, more attractive man cucking this caricature...

Feel free to read more here.

Yes, they can. An assertion which doesn't mean that either is then conveyed in any satisfying way. Just like you can add mustard to your strawberries... or a funny moustache to the Mona Lisa...

The question is: what is the point?

However, as any celebrity chef would no doubt say, "since it's gastronomy, I can of course spread the mustard interpret it however I want. There's no need to cook food for the sake of eating it..."

This isn't a logical comparison. You eat and look at food. You look at/read porn. You don't eat porn, so it doesn't matter if you put mustard on a porn strawberry. Not everyone has to hold their dick in their hand for every bit of porn they see, so if there is one "unsavory" or "unconventional" piece (or mustard smear), they lose their boner.

Erotic humor, written and drawn, has been a genre for hundreds of years. Over a thousand, actually (ancient Rome). The "point" depends on context (social, political, religious...).

The fact that you only seem to be responding to the beginning of my message shows that maybe you just don't want to get the point of erotic humor or satiric porn (because, well, I showed you examples).

Which is fine. To each their own.

(Also still don't know how Cubik's art even qualifies as comedic just because of the style! It's just their style. I've seen so many different art styles on Twitter and elsewhere with porn. Everyone here needs to diversify what they see if you think this is "cartoony"!)

I can see the process, that's awesome. Honestly you can keep the heavy lines but while adding more line variation. Like in the hair detail. Just from one artist to another.

Also just saying, especially in the second picture, you do a great job at showing weight/gravity of the forms, e.g., the breasts. My fiancé always brings that up when he sees someone else's art so I just noticed immediately, haha.

I see no fault in Liverpool's logic.

What people seem to forget is that the "drawn erotic humour" referred to is intended to be neither erotic nor humorous. That is to fall into the trap of viewing it superficially and deducing that any drawing must of course be art. This is not the intention of its producer.

The intention is visual satire. End of. It used to be called lampooning. You offer up a visual criticism, usually highly exaggerated, of your political foes/ social trends or whatever. And yes, the long history of newspaper cartoons is precisely in that same tradition. A visual polemic which is not intended to be appreciated for its artistic value.

It's been said, quite rightly, that sex and humour are mutually antagonistic. You CAN force them together in art if you absolutely insist - but there is precious little point in doing so unless, of course, you are a grandmaster in the "art" of futility.

There is a deep division of opinion here apparently. Some of you here and in the other thread about sex and humour are absolutely insistent that the two shall never meet. I, and I suspect some others, believe that humour is an absolutely integral part of the sexual experience. Sex is ridiculous on it's face. As humans we make of it a sacred event, or a farce, or anywhere in between. Laughter during sex is, to me, essential. Not all the time of course. But if it never happens? That seems very strange and a bit sad to me.

And lots of porn embraces humour, sometimes explicitly with ridiculous costumes or hokey dialogue or whatever, but I think it's best when it's a kind of subtle, tongue in cheek wink at the audience about how silly the whole thing is. Like I saw one recently about a guy's brother stealing his gf, shot from the bf's pov so we never actually see him. Brother and gf talk to him while fucking, she's apologizing, he's asking bf if he minds what he's doing with her, camera swings side to side like he's shaking his head... I don't know, I thought it was pretty funny. Didn't harm my arousal level in the slightest, may have enhanced it. That's just one example, but I feel this kind of situational humour is widespread and perfectly appropriate. In written form, there's the thing where a scene just gets so over the top, you have to chuckle and think, "I can't believe you pulled that off, author, gotta hand it to you." Maybe it's just me but I find this kind of not-from-explicit-jokes humour all the time in sexual media and I think it's great.

Oh I nearly forgot hentai! Jesus Christ can it be ridiculous. And hot. Ridiculously hot.

Really? Oh, right then. I stand enlightened.

I shall now humbly move on, obviously swayed by your assertion that you and countless others find it possible to maintain an erection while at the same time having a good old belly laugh. I hadn't realised I was in a tiny minority on that one...

You can imagine my frustration over all these years when trying to interest my lady partners during sex in my vast store of limericks, that out of some obscure and totally unreasonable motive, they would always ask me to save my would-be witticisms till later.

Anybody would have thought they were in some way too pre-occupied with... something... else...

Stupid women, eh..?

Lol. We're not talking about delivering stand-up comedy here. Just seeing and appreciating the humour inherent in rolling around with a naked sweaty human and putting body parts into each other and sometimes falling on our ass or farting or having something land somewhere funny, and laughing together because these moments highlight our shared humanity and our love for our imperfect human partner.

I disagree with the very absolute sounding assertions some have been making that sex and humour are definitely never ever compatible. It seems like you're saying humorous erotic art is valueless. If you don't like it, that's fine. But I think it's weird to paint that as an absolute rule, rather than your personal preference, especially since so much visual erotic material out there does take a humorous angle. For just one example see the "Some of my Own" thread a few down on this board, in which I don't recall you or liverpool berating the artist for daring to execute a humorous piece. Or every piece of hentai where boobs squish out around each other like beanbags while buttons cling to shirts by a fraying thread and a guy falls toward them face-first with wide shocked eyes.

But I don't want to derail cubik's art thread any further, so I'll make this my last word on the topic.

 

[djrip]

Heh, the civilized approach.

 

[THROBBS]

Heh, the civilized approach.

Oh yeah!?
Fuck you!


heh heh.

 

[THROBBS]

djrip said:
I disagree with the very absolute sounding assertions some have been making that sex and humour are definitely never ever compatible.

Yes, and flat-earthers disagree that the Earth is round.

The two are mutually antagonistic, as stated by Maginier. "Erotic" means sexually arousing. You go ahead and try, as has been said, to maintain your sexual arousal while laughing your head off. You can have one or the other at any one time. You can't have both. It is an absolute. There is zero compatibility. Only come back and try to refute this once you have successfully completed the erection experiment as suggested. Humour kills erotic intentions.

That's my last word!

(it's probably not)

Humor does not always involve "laughing your head off".
Nor does viewing something one finds "erotic" mean one must have an erection (assuming the viewer has a cock)


There goes that grim man with a hard-on.

 

[THROBBS]

There is quite the history of vintage (and current) pin-ups being humorous.
There is (with most things) a "spectrum"
These tend to not be "highly" explicit, but are "erotic", or titillating just the same.
Sure, one (you?) may be desensitized and require wide open beavers and thrusting cocks for a visual turn on.
These humorous pin-up, are also amusing, some more so than others.
I would not say that the humor presented is equivilant to a Robin Williams stand up routine, but that is also part of the "spectrum"

 

[djrip]

He's very sure of all this, isn't he? I mean, it has been stated by magineer, so...

 

[THROBBS]

There is a parallel with violence/aggression and sex/erotica.

Some folk get off on "angry sex", on violence. BDSM is a facet.
Are those two things (sex and anger) at odds? yes and no.

This argument, will likely tick someone(s) off... and consequently cause them an erection, I suppose.

 

[THROBBS]

Wow. I stopped paying attention to that thread after my last post. I can't believe how... sarcastic people got! People are really passionate about their boners (whether clit or dick).

I find it an interesting topic.
I also find it curious how folk tend to dig in (as with most things).
There are few things in life which are not nuanced.

 

[THROBBS]

Reminds me also the 17th century French erotic satires written about lesbians. Don't go looking, they aren't Lit safe. It's the 17th century after all.

Well I couldn't look for it, could I?
There was no internet in the 17th century.

AHHAhahaHAhHaaaahahahhahaha!

 

[nice90sguy]

Anyone remember Playboy's Little Annie fanny, by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder?

Loved Annie Fanny, and Elder is my all-time comic-book hero. But "Oh Wicked Wanda" from Penthouse was a lot sexier (and also funny).

Let's not forget Crumb, who was very funny, and to me, very sexy. It got me started in porn.

You can certainly be funny and sexy and the same time with your art.

Eric Stanton's Stantoons were also pretty funny, I think.

If you're looking for "proper art" that's both funny and sexy, how about Dali's beautiful portrait of his beloved wife:

 

[SimonDoom]

I definitely think humor and eroticism mix. Both play to common human desires: the desire to be naughty, to be subversive, to break the rules. Personally, I have found that a sense of playfulness can mix well with desire and eroticism. Women like men with a sense of humor, and some wit. Humor can be an effective tool of seduction.

 

[BIGDADDY90]

Ever been to a Georgia Okeefe museum ?

 

[LIDiver]

Ever been to a Georgia Okeefe museum ?

Yep, those aren’t just flowers.

 

[BIGDADDY90]

Yep, those aren’t just flowers.

It was a spiritual journey for sure LIDiver !

 

[THROBBS]

Yep, those aren’t just flowers.

But are they "funny"? "Humorous"?

Some folk, cannot see beyond the flowers.
Cannot see the vulva for the petals. (now that is funny)

 

[LIDiver]

But are they "funny"? "Humorous"?

Some folk, cannot see beyond the flowers.
Cannot see the vulva for the petals. (now that is funny)

or the two-lips on the stem.

 

[ChuckWolf]

Thinking about it, humor has always been a great genre for creating erotic scenes (either porn or mainstream), except when it goes too far (Ron Jeremy).

For me, the only genre that doesn't work is gore/horror.

 

[LIDiver]

Thinking about it, humor has always been a great genre for creating erotic scenes (either porn or mainstream), except when it goes too far (Ron Jeremy).

For me, the only genre that doesn't work is gore/horror.

There is a single exception! One of Peter Jackson’s first films- “Dead Alive”!
Horror at it’s funniest.

 

[ChuckWolf]

There is a single exception! One of Peter Jackson’s first films- “Dead Alive”!
Horror at it’s funniest.

Non-erotic Horror/comedy, definitely.

I was saying that, for me, I just didn't think that erotic-horror works that well.

 

[LIDiver]

Oh, understood and agreed to.

 

[impresso]

I love pictures with humor and eroticism. I remember, I really liking pinups where girls' panties fell down in public places. Recently I drew a quick one when we were joking about Easter eggs ))
eegs