Tarot and Nudity

Lol Lillie!

OK you just made my point for me! EXACTLY...when the junk in a guy's trunk is hangin out, may be a bit distracting. It isn't about the nudity being good, bad or indifferent, but let's face it, we BUY decks for the images and certain images we may find easier and less distracting than others to read with. As long as it is adults being displayed and it isn't done in a vulgar fashion, don't have a problem with it (and I know vulgarity varies, one person's vulgarity is another's classy art drawing).

It's kind of like saying ok, I don't like reading with teddy bear decks (nothing wrong with them for you teddy bear deck lovers, just not my thing), so I must not like teddy bears (love teddy bears!). Same with the nudity.

I do think there are some really lovely decks that have nudity. In fact, MANY decks have at least some. I would rather have a deck with tasteful nudity than women in bustiers and boots.....again, it's more the THEME and suggestion of the deck.

MagsStardustBlack said:

Which card in World Spirit Lillie? I am awaiting this deck, so excited about this deck. xMags

Click to expand...

Ah...

Well, its famous.

It's the 10 of pents, and you can't actually see any genitalia...
It's just the situation, and the fact that he has his T shirt on.
I don't know why that makes a difference, but its like he's just took his pants off while the kids are playing in front of him. Its a bit odd.

Some people draw pants on him.

There's another card in the Intuitive tarot, and it has this giant walking penisaurus with wings and little testicles, and its running away.

Now, that's pretty weird.

If I had that deck and drew that card I would just laugh my head off.
I wouldn't be able to help myself.

I have yet to see a deck where the nudity bothered me. Quite often a post here will make me think - well, yeah, maybe - but then I go back to not being bothered.the only own that SLIGHTLY troubles me is the Feminine - but I think that is largely because it is NT tarot, it's soft porn. Not gross - but I can live without 78 cards of naked ladies where you can't see any tarot connections at all. I could buy playboy cheaper.

I have some startlingly "erotic" (so called, but - for instance - Rene Riviere's deck isn't actually what I'd call erotic, though it is VERY explicit) decks - but they are either beautiful or intentionally amusing. No problem.

But like all these things - if you don't like them - don't buy them.

My point exactly Gregory

Everyone has their own tastes. No one has to buy a deck and there are room for all kinds out there. There was no right or wrong implied, just what tastes people have and how they see different decks. All decks read differently for different people, no matter what the theme. Your point about some decks being so out there, you might as well buy Playboy, was another point I was making re not making a judgement re whether nudity should be in tarot, but whether readers liked or didn't like certain types or themes (as in the more hard core).

I don't think there is enough nudity. Or rather, my impression from here is that nobody really minds female nudity as long as they don't think it is exploititive (fair enough). But it's always; "Oh I don't mind nudity as long as all types are represented etc etc etc" and what people are implicitly referring to is female nudity. It is simply more culturally acceptable.

And if it is done in the comic book style, it distances it from reality that bit more.

I have to say, I often read posts - and reviews - about nudity here on AT (not in this thread so don't leap in to defend yourself!) which make me cringe. Comments about nudity done under the guise of "I'm thinking of the querent" when often (not always, often) people simply feel uneasy with nudity. People who have never looked at art or have been brought up to find the body embarassing or whatever (there are lots of reasons, cultural or personal; it can be pure philistinism, it can be anything). There are posts I have read here, ("Oh nice deck but I had to get the sharpie out and draw underpants") which I think show the poster as - oh dear - a bit silly. To admit that kind of censorship is embarassing. I think if people feel compelled to do this then at least not actually tell people. At least pretend to be enlightened.

Most of the time it is because of male nudity. People are simply not at ease with penises. Stark fact. There are invariably other reasons but I'm not so easily fooled!

The real test is male nudity in a deck. I love it, male, female, transgender, pagan cat. If it fits in with the style of the deck then yes...

Le Fanu said:

...my impression from here is that nobody really minds female nudity as long as they don't think it is exploititive (fair enough). But it's always; "Oh I don't mind nudity as long as all types are represented etc etc etc" and what people are implicitly referring to is female nudity. It is simply more culturally acceptable...

Click to expand...

Actually, this is exactly what will turn me off of a deck. If only the women are nude, and especially if they're all playboy centerfold types, then the deck feels really unbalanced to me, and I suspect the creator's motives. If women are not the only ones in the alltogether I'm more likely to accept the deck.

Le Fanu said:

Most of the time it is because of male nudity. People are simply not at ease with penises. Stark fact.

Click to expand...

Huzzah, huzzah!

<genuflects at le Fanu's feet>

Someone who had the guts to say it.

And yes, I have issues with male nudity: I don't enjoy males getting nude in my presence. Call it an occupational hazard, or an ethnic weakness. See, I can *admit* that I have issues with men's ugly, unappealing dangly-bits*, but if they appear on a Tarot card, they appear on a Tarot card. Ms Coleman-Smith blushed a bit as she drew them, and made them look like two-year-olds' penises. And - gregory, what was that dreadful deck you made me buy - ah yes, the Elemental, the Penises, of which there are many, are TRIANGLES! <falls about hooting with laughter>. It's been a very great many years since I've been in the same room as real male nudity, but I remember. And it weren't *anything* like a triangle!

I even more of an issue with inflatable spherical boobies. As a card-carrying, certified lesbian, I don't like boobies, not at all. I like breasts. Real ones. Saggy ones, wrinkly ones, stretchmarked ones, light ones, dark ones, ones with huge nipples, ones with tiny nipples, full ones, tiny ones, and - yes - even the tragedy of radical mastectomy scars. I like 'em all. I have issues with most Tarot-breasts because they just aren't human in any way. I really, really like my women to be human.

When push comes to shove, if a deck has nudes in it, I won't be offended. Unlike the waitress in a coffee shop that has since gone broke and closed down: when I got my copy of the Klimt I was playing with it over a coffee there in order to get to know it for review-writing purposes, and despite the arty nature of the images, and despite their unerotic nature, a timid waitress asked me to put it away! <falls about laughing again>. If a deck has nudes in it, a deck has nudes in it. Big deal.

But boy-nudes or girl-nudes, I *do* like them to look at least a bit reminiscent of what real humans look like.



* Le Pendu, on Marseilles-style decks, to me translates only as "he who has Dangly Bits".

So, can I take it from the above that you like tits?

Le Fanu and GriffinSong

I don't find it unenlightened, Le Fanu, if I don't prefer to see certain types of nudity on certain decks. "Enlightenment" really doesn't have anything to do with it. Preference does. I enjoy and appreciate many types of art, that doesn't mean I have to wish to read with all types. If someone owns a deck and wishes to bling it or change it to suit them, it's a deck of cards MEANT to please, and assist, the reader in readings, it's not like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. A deck is for my private benefit only and I don't see how what I would do to change or alter it has anything to do with enlightenment. I think it would be "silly" to not change something I wished to change.

I think most decks I've seen are waaaay slanted at female nudity. And as GriffinSong said, seem a bit off balance. We all have our own tastes and not just when it comes to nudity. With tarot and oracles, it really is how it's done, for what type of deck, but those are the same questions I'd have with other decks, not just ones with a lot of nudity. Does the deck make the point it's trying to make and am I interested in the point it's trying to make? IF the point just seems to be about how many naked women they can put in the deck and the scenes themselves don't really seem interesting, probably not a deck I'll be interested in. To each their own, but I do find it interesting that artwork I find interesting in general, isn't always artwork I find interesting for a deck and reading and vice versa. And that doesn't just apply to nudity, but to all kinds of art.

I'm sure there are decks people have been attracted to for the artwork and then found wasn't a deck for them to read with and it can be for all kinds of reasons.

I may or may not read with or have my ability to use the cards changed, but it will not be the nudity or sex alone that will change that aspect of my reading... and socially I am unbothered by any sort of adult sex, sexulality or nudity in a deck. Its not like I have not been naked or seen naked, I even have sex now and then

I am unbothered by the "balance" of nudity too.