The tragedy of my life is that I keep acquiring and displaying fetish art and having to be corrected by my friends.
Most recently, a friend came over my house and saw my computer background and went, "Wow, um, I didn't know you were into that." To which I look at the picture of the well drawn muscular female minotaur in historically accurate Greek clothing and I start geeking out about how I love the detail the artist did with the clothing and I point out the period appropriate folds and pins, how the artist even inserted the native plant that was used to dye the clothing this particular shade in the background, and even how the belt has technology AND historically accurate weaving patterns on it.
Then I start explaining how I love the muscular choices of the minotaur, that I was so impressed with the artist's anatomically correct depiction of the muscles converging into the neck. That many people get an upright cow's neck wrong because cow's don't have collarbones, so it can be very difficult to merge the upper arms and a chest of a human with a cow's body. I draw her attention to the beautiful way they've merged the pectoralis major so smoothly while also staying true to how muscular they've depicted the rest of the body.
I finish up with my thoughts on the artist's bold choice to depict the minotaur as a female, and despite the underlying themes of a minotaur being violence, child murder, strength, and muscles. I segue into how unlike bulls, cow are perceived as mothers. That they are the major source of milk in human culture, and that idyllic depictions of them in a field usually depict calves frolicking nearby, yet the minotaur kills and eats children.
I finish and there is a long pause.
"Urban, this is fetish art." and she takes me to the artist's twitter and god dammit it's fetish art, not a bold statement on cultural perceptions of women and violence throughout history. I have been tricked again.
So I just wanted to expand upon the fact that I don't believe the art is bad, craftmanshipwise or morally, but that I am so faceblind to it for some reason, that even my tiny hundred year old Catholic grandmother is like, "Urban, why have you displayed this oil painting of the pornography in your kitchen?" And I have to explain to her that, "Grandma, I really thought it was just someone being incredibly enthusiastic about eating cake in a wedding dress, and you know how I love wedding dresses from the 20th centaury."
Also, I didn't want to admit this in the original post because it really is embarrassing, but after I was shocked to discover minotaur lady was more than I had assumed, my friend looked me square in the eye and pointed out how on the Amphora vase in the background, there is a depiction of another female minotaur leading a man on a leash. So this situation is very obvious, but it's like a magic eye picture that everyone in the world can see but me.
