Yes, we are. But stupid statements about “America bad” vs “French good” just need to be addressed. Some of us have our own very painful reasons for remembering Nazi Germany.
Because you yourself (meaning @beachbum) have decided to bring up the topic of how awful the US is for the fact that there is a freedom to publish stupid stuff, deplorable stuff, truly awful stuff. And then you said look at the nice results of how France and Germany are handling such things. It’s not great in the US. And racism is also alive in France and Germany.
As an american, I understand, but let’s head this off before the conversation veers too far down the rabbit hole.
Post more naked people that will artistically get me out of my slump of not shooting photos! Here, I’ll throw a Mapplethorpe into the mix:
Or this one from MoMA:
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Roma are a nomad people (the term homeless is a bit liberal here) who settle and build camps for a few months on private properties, sometimes parking lots, sometimes farm fields, sometimes sport facilites, and trash everything around, leaving piles of garbage and destroying the land with their 4×4 and hometrailers (they really are not as homeless as you may think). They cut electric lines and install derivations for their trailers. When they settle on stores parking lots, they discourage customers to go in. When they settle on soccer fields, the training season ends there.
When they are done trashing there, they go trash somewhere else, and they certainly don’t clean after themselves. So the locals and owners hate them, and try to have them evicted. So, the Roma hate them back and don’t even bother to ask municipalities or landlords for land, they take it for granted knowing they will be turned back anyway. And then it escalates.
Municipalities of more than 2000 inhabitants, by law, have to provide them areas to settle, with running water, electricity plugs and sewers, and they do (although one could argue they do the bare minimum regarding comfort), but Roma don’t use them.
I have had them for neighbours for a while, in France, it’s not nice. And the farmer was not happy with the state of his grass field when they left. Funny enough, your papers don’t mention that. It’s not your typical xenophobia, these people have been called chicken thieves for a reason : there are mysterious disparitions of metal parts, farming equipment and cattle whenever they are around. Stuff you will find in Romania and Spain if you ever find it back. That hatred goes back a long way, for centuries, with unfortunate things done both sides.
That happened in my home-town (I have a cousin who got robbed). In other places:
So, I really don’t see what your argument is here and how it is related to sexual liberation. French people don’t want trouble makers in their neighbourhood, so now they are nazis ? Wanna talk about you Mexicans ? Or Trump ordering air strikes during a diner to impress a lady ?
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Regarding Maplethorpe, I remember a great flap quite awhile ago on whether/where some of his stuff was to be displayed. I looked at some of the images and couldn’t imagine why the great flap. Other than that, I never really paid attention to any of his work. But he took one of my favorite photographs, a photograph of a musician named Patti Smith:
It seems Smith and Maplethorpe were very close friends. I’d never heard of her before I saw the photograph, and I’ve never heard her music.
Regarding getting out of one’s photographic slump by looking at other people’s photographs, does that work?
Sometimes I try to replicate one or another aspect of one or another photograph that I happen to like. But that’s an exercise to improve shooting and processing skills rather than a reason to actually take photographs.
I think actual inspiration for taking photographs comes from finding one has something to say, yes? Though maybe other people’s photographs most certainly can provide inspiration in the sense of “Oh, that’s a way to start capturing whatever it is that one wants to capture”.
Often for me it is a good solid kick-in-the-pants to see a well executed image that reminds me that I should be finding my own light and images as well. @darix is an uncommonly good motivator who keeps reminding me that we’re here to make photographs and share (both things I have been lacking lately).
Finding inspiration in others work is a long-standing tradition in artistic endeavors…
Interesting comment. Was anyone else talking about sexual liberation? Is that what you and @beachbum are trying to do? You want to get liberated?
I wasn’t talking about sexual liberation. I was talking about photographs.
Well, I was trying to talk about photographs. But @beachbum went off on a long tirade about how people want him to photograph men and he prefers to photograph women.
Then he said was married to a model that didn’t want him to keep taking her photographs so now he hires other models to photograph.
Then he started complaining about tumblr and went off on a tirade about America, Nazis, violence and television.
Then he said he didn’t kill people, which I’m glad to hear.
Then he said he “makes” his wife, which is something that’s really none of my business at all.
Then he said he was afraid of people with guns, which is very rational response.
Then he brought up Playboy and Playgirl for reasons that escape me entirely.
Then he seemed to reduce the taking and viewing of photographs of the human body - or perhaps only photographs of female bodies - to a strictly biological determination, with which idea @Stampede perhaps agrees (something about a lizard brain), and with which idea no one has chosen to take exception. Which surprises me as biological reductionism really doesn’t explain very much about anything at all.
Oh, and then @beachbum suggested that I “get used to it” which sounds a little hostile, though I don’t have any clue what “it” is that I’m supposed to be getting used to.
OK, all the above to one side, here’s the set of statements that @beachbum made that I think need some actual explication:
Anyone care to comment on the above quote from @beachbum initial post?
Yes, of course. I really like that article you linked to. But eventually one has to have an actual reason - one’s own reason - to continue taking photographs, or painting, or whatever. And that reason has to come from within, from one’s own response to something. I’ve been struggling with just that - what to photograph and why - for a long time. Comments @afre and yourself and others made over in this thread -
resulted in a long “reading and thinking” journey, focusing on photographers and artists in the immediate history surrounding Eggleston, and surprisingly enough (well, I was surprised) as a result I think I have a bit more focus on “what” to photograph, though whether I manage to actually capture that “what” remains to be seen.
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Hopefully seen here… 
I’m making it a point to bring my camera with me on vacation this year and finally fulfill some things that @darix keeps nagging me about…
That is what I call sexual liberation. Then, your answer, @Elle, is non-sequitur.
I can relate with most of what @beachbum said. US, thus all their web services/social media, are taking a turn against nudity while all kinds of violence seem tolerated. And the amount of censorship toward nudity becomes ridiculous when put in comparison with the levels of violence that are tolerated.
Nude art has a social component. Morality, ethics, religions, education, sexuality get mixed in the picture making and the picture viewing. I have been called names for taking pictures of naked women. The thing is it’s really difficult to find men willing to pose naked, and I shoot them just alike.
That part is actual gibberish to me. Indeed, biology is politely asked to stay out of sociology. We did that mistake with phrenology 2 centuries ago, let’s not start that path again.
I believe an artist that is not at least one bit political is merely a wall decorator. On the other hand, I don’t get the point of the 500 nude men project, the pictures are crappy and the whole project looks like revenge porn.
I have posted 2 articles on that a while ago, but it’s in French:
(Pictures by me).
One - just ONE - phrase out of your rant says it all:
That “long tirade” is one line on my screen. Is your attention-span reduced to the point that one line looks like a long tirade to you?
Guess what: this will lead nowhere and you didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t a fan of your weird initial post. Keep on throwing stuff at me, I won’t participate in this discussion any more. There are more important things going on in my life, I will spend some time on photography, so: excuse me please ;o)
@afre said (in a different context) that people find bullet point lists intimidating. So when I summarized the points in your tirade I went with a single-sentence paragraph format, which is the only reason there is content immediately after the words “tirade about” - the content itself merely completes the first sentence in my summary of your post with a reference to the first topic you brought up.
To make it easier for you to read what I wrote in a way that says what I actually meant, change “tirade about” to “tirade about the following topics”. Then put “how people want him to photograph men” onto a separate line, and add some words to make the phrase into a complete sentence.
The question of whether photographers who photograph women should also photograph men and vice versa, isn’t a question that I had ever thought of prior to your tirade. It seems like an odd question and I don’t have any clue from what premises people might somehow derive this particular photographic “should”.
There are of course ethical questions that hopefully every photographer tries to think about, such as “Will the GPS location from this selfie lead to environmental degradation from hoardes of other selfie-taking individuals if I post it to the web?” and “How will this video of a guy shaving his face affect this man’s life if I post it to the web?” In the past these sorts of questions didn’t have nearly the weight they have today, because in the past there was no internet, no instant communication with huge numbers of other people.
I suppose everyone reaches a point in their life when they say “The world sure has changed”. Twenty-five years ago if I had assembled some prints instead of providing links, and sat down with a group of photographers face to face, and asked for responses, I’m pretty sure the conversation would have gone in a completely different direction. As soon as I saw @beachbum’s response, I wished I hadn’t made any post at all because he was very clearly interpreting my post as some kind of post-feminist attack based on that odious thing called “political correctness” which concept I don’t actually understand but it’s never used in a way that seems very nice.
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Well, I’m thinking maybe we should let this thread cool off as we’ve slid a bit off the rails from the original topic. Maybe we can start a new topic with more neat images. 
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We’ve veered a little off-topic of the ways photographers have chosen to portray nude people.