One quick thought about the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival: I thought the event was terrific. A lot of the live performances were great, a lot of the art was great, and the drinks were very, very strong. Some of the art was not great, though, and so what? The same can be said of the art hanging just about anywhere; you can find a lot of not-great art in galleries, coffee shops, and museums all over town. But people react differently to art they don't like at SEAF—they overreact to the art they don't like at SEAF—because it's erotic art, dirty art. The naked people, the bodily fluids, the sexual themes, the sense that we're getting a peek at not just an artist's art but an artist's sexual interests, turn-ons, pleasures—essentially the artist's boner—seems to bring out the sex negativity.

I ran into several people at SEAF who went out of their ways to draw my attention to pieces they didn't care for; a few people marched me over to the piece they liked least at SEAF and pointed out just what they thought was icky and gross and awful about it. They seemed worried that I would interpret their presence at SEAF as an endorsement of all the bodies and kinks and sexualities on display if they didn't point to certain pieces and go, "Eesh! Yuck! Ugh!" When I asked if there was anything in the show they liked, they'd said sure. But they didn't seem as excited to point out the art they liked.

Wonder why that was...

Erotic art is tricky for artists and audiences because turn-ons are so specific and personal and subjective. It's much easier to run around an erotic art show pointing out what you find shocking/offensive/scandalizing because it doesn't feel potentially revealing, it doesn't feel risky. I wish people didn't feel like they had to shriek about the bad and keep quiet about the good. I mean, I can't be the only person at SEAF who saw pieces about things I enjoy that I thought were bad and pieces about things I don't enjoy that I thought were good, right?

UPDATE: And another thing...

This occurred to me on my ride up the hill just now: the art on display at SEAF has it rougher than, say, the art on the walls in this coffee shop. Art that's presented to us as erotic art can fail in two ways: as a piece of art and as a piece of erotica. A piece can be poorly conceived and poorly executed and fail artistically. Too bad, so sad. It's almost harder for a piece to succeed erotically, though, because, again, what each of us finds erotic is so personal and so subjective. People at SEAF pointed at some pieces I liked—well done pieces, not necessarily pieces about what I like—and said, "What's erotic about that?" They meant, of course, "Ick, that doesn't turn me on," and they were so busy making sure I knew they weren't into "X" that they couldn't really see the piece for the, um, "Xing."

And in all honestly I was guilty of it too—a few pieces worked my nerves so hard I couldn't resist, um, sharing my discomfort with friends. Physician heal thyself, etc.