Some people, as we well know, still scream bloody murder whenever erotic or sexual imagery is publicly displayed in any form whatsoever. There are two separate ways that erotic and sexual imagery is ghettoized. But also, as Zachreson and TBCF discovered, erotic and sexual imagery is expected to restrict itself to the sexual sensibilities that conventional aesthetics designate as sexually attractive, and therefore sexually appropriate. Images that evoke difficult feelings such as pain, fear, or loss are welcomed in art. They are also not uncommon, for certain purposes, in advertising.
Images celebrating the asexual wholesomeness of pregnancy are nothing short of artistic mainstays.
But when evocations of beauty, with their erotic and sexual overtones, are combined with what the culture insistently classifies as non-sexual, the response ranges from confusion to open hostility. Sometimes the need to keep the worlds designated as sexual and non-sexual separate from one another provokes measures that can only be called absurd. What follows is a different sort of tale from that of Lynn Zachreson or The Breast Cancer Fund, but it shows just how far over the cliff this sort of compulsive aesthetic cleansing can lead. Besides, it's just too good a story to let go by without comment. This is the painting that shows George Washington standing stolidly in a boat, one foot on the wale, staring determinedly at the distant shore while soldiers furiously row the craft across the Delaware River.