Contemporary Pinup
Dilemma: Classic Sweetness Vs Modern
Eroticism
Is the contemporary pinup
pornography?
Last week, I posted a whimsical little
anthology about pinups in
sports. I had a few
interesting remarks, on and off-site,
inquiring as to “Where are the real women?” I
didn’t completely understand the nature of
the question, but a thought came to my head:
Unlike Playboy, some readers read this blog
for the pictures. Am I a Porn Blog? Some, I
suppose, think so.
All
this train of thought brings us to today’s
issue:
Is the contemporary pinup pornography?
Looking Back For Perspective
To be fair,
the original pinup was, in fact,
pornography. In the days, when movie
couples slept in twin beds and “Leave it
to Beaver” didn’t sound dirty, these
garter-bearing women were not what one
would call a “lady”. If they were
ladies, then their inevitable exposure
would happen through no fault of their
own. A playful dog, a gust of wind, a
too-quick elevator door, or any other
unfortunate accident would truly be the
culprit.
Understanding Today’s
Influences
Today, however,
these images would hardly shock anyone (even
my mother thinks it’s adorable silliness
). I blame this issue on
Madonna. Madonna brought female
sexuality to the forefront of the
conversation and for that, all us-women-
can thank her. Her ballsy moves in the
80’s and 90’s moved the feminist
movement forward. My generation can say
“I like sex”, “I like fantasy and
fetish” and even “I occasionally enjoy
being a sex object.”
Fast forward to
15-20 years later and female teen pop idols
look like this:
While
TV has kept a child-proof, respectable front
and the censors are hard at work, someone,
luckily, forgot MTV, and left the pop stars
to indulge in fantasy and fetish. Add to that
the accessibility of porn and fetish sites on
the internet, and viola! Contemporary pinups.
Contemporary Pinups- Fetish, Fantasy and
Violence
Looking at
contemporary pinups, there’s an obvious move
to hyper-realism and explicit sexuality. The
hyper-realism became more popular around the
70’s and still prevails today, while the
eroticism seems to always have been there.
The 1990’s and 2000’s seem to be mostly
influenced by Olivia and Sorayama.
Observe the following timeline:
Enoch
Bolles (1920’s)
Alberto
Vargas (1930’s)
Billy
De Vorss (1940’s) George
Petty (1950’s)
Frank
Frazzeta (1960’s) Olivia
De Berardinis (1970’s)
Hagime
Soroyama (1980’s) Lorenzo
Di Mauro (1990’s)
Of
course, all these artists were working
simultaneously at stretches of what was often
decades. Influenced both by their times and
each other.
The most
interesting aspect to infiltrate
contemporary pinups is the fetish
culture and the violence that comes
along with it. From afar, this
self-pleasing beauty seems raped and
bleeding, but maybe that’s just me.
Many classic pinup lovers are turned off by
the new BDSM culture. I can’t deny that many
of these new images completely emulate
contemporary pornography. Some images do seem
misogynistic and unflattering to women as
representation, but one must evolve with the
times, and I do believe that some of the
contemporary images are a deeper speak of
sexuality, eroticism and fantasy.
What do you think?
Tags: Contemporary Pinup, classic pinups, Erotica, pornography, Shakira, sexuality, eroticism and
fantasy, BDSM culture, misogynistic, Lorenzo Di Mauro, Hagime Soroyama, George Petty , olivia de Berardinis,
Frank Frazzeta, Christina Aguilera, Billy De Vorss, Alberto Vargas, Enoch Bolles, Britney Spears
