It all comes down to perspective.

I am both a bohemian and a feminist. Even though the latter of which took me forever to realize, I declare that I am both proudly. Because of both my veiws, nudity is lost somewhere in between. I take a more bohemian view to nudity with the idea that it is natural because it frees a person from the constraint of clothing. (In a similar vein, it also frees a person from consumerism and the bourgousie society, but that's a topic for another day.)

The two books I'm reading really took an opposing side to nudity....espcially when it comes to Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe (pictured below).



Lauren Stover's Bohemian Manifesto (which is my current love affair) takes the more boho view to that fantasic peice of artwork because Manet was a bohemian (he suffered for his art & broke the conventions of what was considered "fine art" at the time).

What's cool beans about Manet's painting is that the female subject (she was actually a prositute & his muse, Victorine) isn't idealized in any way. She isn't "photoshopped" the way that models in magazines or dude rags are. She looks almost innocent in her conversation with the two clothed men.

Because of this, I don't really understand of M. Gigi Durham in The Lolita Effect (it's a pretty good peice of nonfiction). Durham states that the woman's nude presence reinforces patriarchy because "the painters [Manet in this case] and the patrons of the arts were traditionally men, and to bare the femlae body was to shore up masculine power". She also continues by saying that her simply being nude makes her apperance sexual. With this in mind would Cabanel's The Birth of Venus be a sign of patriarchy instead of that of the power of a goddess? Is Veus Di Milo seuxal because she has no arms to cover herself?

I personally believe that what Durham says is a little extreme but judge for yourself.