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Originally Posted by Le Fanu
Whatīs with the dated, 1950s style comic book/ Playboy nudity in so many (particularly Scarabeo) decks?
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Im talking about tremulous, heaving, breast-baring nudity in which women (never men) go about expressing their time-honoured tarot traditions (pouring from urns, sitting on thrones, holding scales, swords, batons) but with breasts accidentally popping out, and buttocks exaggeratedly pert?
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Well, as Grizabella already said, sex sells. BUT: Since the large majority of tarot readers (and therefore, tarot deck buyers) are women, this is actually an interesting argument... Then again, don't many of us like looking at beautiful women, no matter if we are heterosexual or not? Otherwise, most fashion magazines wouldn't make much sense... (I'm going to spare you the details of all those Cultural Studies theories about the "female gaze" here, okay? Let's just say that the line between identifying with another woman and desiring her can be quite fuzzy for some/many of us.)
I also believe that female nudity is an age-old tradition in Western art (just think of all those Eves, love goddesses and bathing women...), so that probably also plays a role in what artists consider acceptable. Comics, in particular have a strong tradition of depicting impossibly idealized women (and men, I might add) - so I'm not surprised to see that aesthetic repeated in tarot decks that are painted by comic artists (I understand that many Lo Scarabeo decks are, please correct me if this is wrong).
It might have to do with cultural differences between Europe and the USA, too. It seems that nudity generally just isn't that much of an issue over here. "We" are much more used to seeing naked female breasts in public (on real women, in advertising, in art photography, etc.), so maybe our general tolerance level is higher. That would also influence what is considered a suitable illustration for a Lo Scarabeo deck. (Forgive me for extremely oversimplifying and homogenizing Europe here.)
That said, I certainly don't believe that "it's always been like this" is a valuable argument for not changing things. So the above reasons are meant as explanations rather than as justifications.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Fanu
Why does this bother me? Two reasons. Itīs not the nakedness as candidness stuff. Secondly, itīs never men. Why donīt we see The Hanging Man naked more often, with gravity-defying member? (Ok, you get it on the Haindl, but when they tried to do it on the Rohrig it was quickly "reissued" as if we werenīt quite ready to deal with it)
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I agree with the general criticism here. Even though I personally prefer to see naked women instead of naked men (if I have to choose), I still believe that male bodies are interesting subjects for (tarot/erotic) art. When I recently learned about the reissue of the Röhrig, I just shook my head about the ridiculous "diapers."
But we shouldn't equate female breasts with male genitals. There still is a strong taboo to depicting anyone's genitals. This goes doubly so for male genitals because seemingly they are often perceived as a weapon of some kind (I remember a discussion about the half-naked guy in the World Spirit's Ten of Pentacles...).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Fanu
The nudity is never democratic, itīs a kind of "nudity" from 50 years back. I could be wrong, but I always suspect that the majority of tarot readers are women. Do they want to see this? Some do (Cat, for instance) But do the rest of the female members here not find some of these images a bit uncomfortable or gratuitous or unnecessary? And who do you think theyīre aimed at?
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Yes, much of the nudity is certainly unnecessary (unless the deck was specifically intended as an erotic one - and even then we could ask if eroticism couldn't be effectively expressed in other ways, too), as well as sexistly distributed. I also understand why a professional reader would be uncomfortable with using decks with a lot of nudity, especially if they didn't know if their clients objected.
I'm also a bit bored by only seeing "perfect" naked bodies - why can't we have more images like the big beautiful Universe of the World Spirit Tarot? Why not show a few older people amongst all those nudes? Don't we get to be naked in spirit and at ease once we're over 50? (And what about throwing in a short-haired woman or a person with glasses while we're at it? The Minors at least should offer the freedom to do just that...) But then again, there are a lot of people out there who don't want to look at regular folks in their tarot art (or fashion magazines, or erotic films, or comic books) because us normal-bodied people seem to ruin their ideal fantasy world...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Fanu
Itīs mainly the Scarabeo comic-book style ones. And the consciously "erotic" ones. The Casanova; contorting nude women and heavily buttoned-up men.
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As to comic-book style decks: I think this largely boils down to a matter of taste. Either you like that style and then you'll delight in buying many Lo Scarabeo decks, or you don't and then you need to look elsewhere. Personally, I think it's a pity that Lo Scarabeo doesn't offer a wider range of styles in decks (not counting the historical ones here) because I really love some of their ideas for themes and deck structures but don't care much for the style. The Manara really seems to be an exception here for me, aesthetically speaking.
As to erotic decks: As much as I like the Manara (which also features many many scantily-clad women and very few (half-)naked men), I would appreciate it even more if it had a wider range of body types and couple combinations (it can be a stretch do read for queer people with a thoroughly hetero
sexual deck!). Now if only I were better at drawing humans...!