THE NUDE IN STEREOGRAPHY 157made and circulated, but these offend good taste far more than
they offend morals. However, because so many of our fellow citi-
zens limit the term “moral” strictly to sexual morality the law
has been forced to take cognizance of the fact.
It became necessary for the law to create a line of demarcation
upon one side of which poses would be acceptable, on the other
side objectionable. The result was hilariously funny, but after all
it was as well done as could be expected when a physical limita-
tion is applied to subjective reactions tinctured by idiosyncrasy.
The law simply says that if the pubic hair shows in the picture, it
is necessarily objectionable, but if it does not show, the picture is
acceptable! The processing laboratories accept that legal differ-
entiation, so if you want your color films returned, be sure no
pubic hair is shown in the pose!
Of course it is absurd! It is perfectly easy to make a photograph
with the pubic hair fully displayed yet to have that the most inno-
cent of poses. At the same time it is even easier to make a photo-
graph in which the pubic hair, the breasts and the face are all
conceaied and to have that a pose of the highest suggestiveness.
For example see some of Boucher’s paintings, the prized posses-
sions of some of the great museums. But as long as the difference
lies in the mental attitude of the model (and the physical ex-
pression lies in nuances of muscular tension too vague to be ver-
bally described, but instantly apparent to vision), what can you do
about a legal differentiation?
Too, when you have certain people, many of them active in
anti-nude crusading, who find unlimited suggestiveness in almost
any photograph of an attractive woman, and when at the same
time there are thousands of people who have no reaction whatso-
ever to a nude study other than to admire its beauty, how can
you apply a differentiation? If we should allow laws to be based
upon the mental wholesomeness of the individual we should be
lost.
No, ridiculous as it it, undignified and unseemly as it is, the law
is perhaps as good as can be expected as long as some kind of
limitation must be imposed. Of course, the only sensible position
for an intelligent society is to have no such limitations at all. Any
kind of censorship is but an evidence opthe desire of one group to
impose its ideology upon another, the germ of dictatorship. It