Who's afraid of male nude – Dr Dekel

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Who's afraid of male nude? About Ora Ruven art work

Dr. Tal Dekel/art history, Tel Aviv University

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Translation of Hebrew

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In the center of this work of art large paintings of male nude are placed. Near them, digital works presenting similar nudity. These digital works of art displaythe naked man as a tempting and peeping objective, wrapped in lace, soft bedlinen and gold, parts of his body exposed to the observer, but his face remainshidden. This is somehow a pornographic expression, which turns to thepartner and shares the watching act softly and kindly creating an atmosphere,an environment of desire in many women’s hearts- lace, gold, candlelight,romance.Masculine pornography is completely different from the pornography exhibitedby women. Mainstream pornography if directed mainly at a masculineaudience displays the female body usually in maximum close-up, whileturning the woman into an object and thus negating her subjectivity. Actually,this is mainly functional pornography.Man as an objective of temptation is the complete opposite.In the last decades, many women artists have dealt with cultural andtraditional roles in reverse. Some of them introduced themselves as strongcharacters when facing a weakened man. Often they showed sex as a wickedor threatening. However, in this work the reverse tends to carry a differentquality: The man is the objective of the woman’s desire. In other words,instead of treating the brutality in the man-woman relationship, a new agenda,in which the woman treats her objective controlled by her own desire, desirecombined with softness, beauty and romance. The artist does not represent awoman trying to replace man’s powerful position by placing herself as astrong figure facing him, but she is a woman expressing her femininity inrelation to him.Consequently, one must not overlook the strength of the artist shown whenmen, who are not professional models, are ready to undress in front of her for painting or for taking pictures..The paintings, usually average in size and format, are realistic. Adult,authentic men are shown, men distant and different from the muscular handsome common male models. Nudity is direct, sometimes evenembarrassing. Most men painted are seated on an armchair in a classicmodel position or outstretched on a bed staring at the painter / the observer.Another man is caught sleeping naked unaware of the action of paintingtaking place. In a different painting, a man is standing covering his face whilehis nakedness is exposed shamefully in full to the observer.Style is traditional and the scene itself is classic- the model poses naked for the artist. However, the element formed is not traditional or classic at all.At first glance, it seems that male nudity is conventional and tolerable for thecontemporary observer who is accustomed to complete exposure of naked

bodies in the media. Nevertheless, a review of contemporary art will show thatmale nudity exists in many works of art done by male artists but it is almostnon- existent in the works of women artists.Let us examine the history of the last decades when women were finallypermitted to enter the historical canon as artists, to the feminist era whichbrought with it new winds of equality and sexual freedom. This allowedwomen artists to express whatever they wished to. Women have almost never used male nudity to proclaim the above mentioned freedom. When theyeventually did that protest was the main voice in their works. Many of thempainted only distorted, frightening, ridiculous, pathetic or repulsive men. Thusthey managed to convey the hardest feelings which have been part of their being throughout patriarchal history, a history which never granted them anyspace to convey empathy, sensuality, eroticism or love- a woman’s love for aman.Woman’s sexuality- A black hole- as named by the father of psychology- istreated by the artist in a brave and sincere way.In time parts of this so called hole has saturated. “The Woman’s LiberationMovement” born in the late sixties’, the outbreak of feminism in the seventiesallowed a conscious and extensive discourse on feminine sexuality. Thesealso gave space to women’s love, to masturbation, to the act of love betweena man and a woman, but they did not dwell long enough on the theories andart related to those who wished to continue living the relationships with themen in their lives. There were no answers or guidance for “feminist” womenwho wanted to exist and live with the men in their lives in equality. I t is hard tolocate research which examine woman’s sexuality in relation to man and her view of him. Doesn’t a woman have a personal view of man?This infrequent question is repeatedly asked in Ora Reuven’s art.And perhaps a different reason prevented women from dealing with malenudity. Perhaps this taboo subject is still so scorched in them that its violationis almost impossible. Maybe when a woman shows any sexual interest in aman she still puts herself at risk of becoming an outcast, she is still fearful of the social finger that might be pointed at her labeling her as immoral or adventurous. Maybe the decent woman of the twenty first century still seesherself as “proper” only when the “classic” man accepts her as proper,modest quite a holy image , mother of his children, an almost sexlesscreature, and not the easy one who poses as a model completely naked, or alternatively, the one who dares to paint a naked man herself.In other words, the woman has not yet been able to free herself from theperception of her own self as dictated by the male culture.This understanding leads us to John Berger’s article “Ways of Seeing”wherehe deals with the power of the male’s look being the originator of his positionas subjective whereas the woman’s position is the objective. This is a lookthat forces the woman to adopt the man’s look and see herself in the eyes of the man as an object of his desire.

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