"Magnolia"

(oil painting on canvas, 40X42, 1999)

"Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men."
John Stoltenberg

"The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting."
Gloria Leonard

"It does not matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you do not do it in the street and frighten the horses."
Mrs. Patrick Campbell

I painted "Magnolia" back in college. I took the image for the woman in the painting from some porn magazine and merged it with a magnolia flower painting that I bought at a tag sale. I didn't expect to get much of a reaction from my classmates, but I did. The so-called feminists in my class accused me in promoting negative image of women. Like a child I was also lectured on the evils of pornography. Somehow my classmates were under the impression that pornography is some kind of a modern phenomena that is meant to degrade women. In reality it's hardly anything new. One only needs to think about erotic murals in Pompeii or Kama Sutra to realize for how long people have been preoccupied with sex.

As for degrading women... Somehow Marquis de Sade's vile portrayals of women managed to simultaniously exist with glorified portrayals of women by Romantic writers without canceling out the latter in the minds of the majority of men. I would never presume that men over the centuries build their attitudes towards women based on pornography and I don't understand why so many modern women believe that men would get wrong ideas about women by looking at porn. Watching a porno flick would make a man believe that all women are submissive just as much as watching a Harry Potter movie would make somebody believe in wizards. I strongly believe that it's up to a modern woman to show the world who she is and no amount of negativity can affect her image, as long as she is strong, intelligent and principled. Men are not some wild creatures guided by their penises. They possess rationality and logic and are capable of forming their own opinions based on their life experiences, as opposed to things they see in some magazines or on TV.