What wouldn't you shy away from?

[McDuffies]

Oh no definetely. Anyone who says that there aren't people who bitch about PC either doesn't get out much, or is painfully naive.

Here's the thing. The concept behind political correctness is good. Great even. Hey, let's stop belittling the less powerful in our society! Like anything else, it suffers from overapplication, but I'm personally glad it's unfashionable to call people fags, and I'm not gonna blame a dwarf if she wants to be more than a cheap site gag. If we keep our heads and don't expect everything to go under the same blanket, we'll do fine.

As for people who cry political correctness, those are the mother fuckers you should watch. They do exactly what they accuse the so-called "PC Police" of doing: Label everything they disagree with, closing off certain words and ideas as off-limits. Don't like what this kid's saying? Just call him PC and everything he says can be castoff as silly and Orwellian. It happens so often, people just throw it out there on reflex when the conversation has nothing to do with political correctness. The word doesn't mean anything anymore, and political incorrectness is the new political correctness.

It's just, leave it to fools of the world to destroy any good concept. We're almost at the point where being a biggot on public tv will be considered brave.

[CSchaefer]

Huh? That's not true. The world is full of organizations that overdo the concept of political correctness and use it to just plain harras others. You can see it at work just by noticing how cast of every tv show made nowadays has to be racially and sexually diverse, or by how old Disney comics and Bugs Bunny cartoons are being labeled as promoting racist stereotypes, or what number of celebrities have been prosecuted just for popping a word that may be considered racially/religiously/culturally intolerant in public.
Or you can find a guy who claimed that Dutch's comic is racist just the other day and ask him what he thinks about it.

What I mean is, are those people waving the "political correctness" banner or using that phrase at all? You're absolutely right in what you say here -- I'm just saying that the idea that all of these people are playing from one playbook (rather than supporting their various pet causes) or that there's a politically correct "movement" (as often suggested by those who use the PC label as a bludgeon against people they don't like) isn't true.

[McDuffies]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that.

[Geekblather]

The meat of the discussion was male frontal nudity, though. For whatever reason, while in entertainment it's completely okay for a woman to walk around with everything in full view, somehow the rules change for a man, and I personally don't WANT to change the rules there. There will be a part of the story coming where it'll be necessary for a male character to be nude for a length of time, and part of me just wants to take the easy way out and always have a conveniently positioned table, leg or camera angle, but it's such a double-standard to me that the other part says, "No, if she has to bare it all, so does he."

I think- for me anyway, that tends to be because female bits are so much more aesthetically pleasing. Not that guys' bits don't have their place, they're just not as- pretty.

[Yeahduff]

That's partly true, but moreso it involves the traditional roles of Western society casting woman as object and man as observer.

[McDuffies]

I like to draw male nudity in comics. Specially butts. Male butts are hilarious, all hairy and stuff.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I like to draw male nudity in comics. Specially butts. Male butts are hilarious, all hairy and stuff.

I like drawing male torsos.

[Yeahduff]

I of course prefer drawing women, but I like to keep a balance.

[Jaimela]

That's partly true, but moreso it involves the traditional roles of Western society casting woman as object and man as observer.

I agree it's a Western thing. Somehow tasteful female nudity in the West became "art" but tasteful male (full) nudity is...embarassing? soft porn? insert any derogator here?

[Geekblather]

I think that male bodies can be beautiful, obviously, just, in general, that female bodies tend to be a little, softer, and rounder, and- prettier. Personally, I think that if there's full frontal of one sex, there should be full frontal of the other. It should be balanced.

[McDuffies]

Just check out Lucian Freud or David Hockney for male frontal nudity in art.

[Yeahduff]

Just check out both of em either way. They kick ass.

[Sorcery101]

I say be fair and draw the male nudity. Penises are like platypuses; they may look weird but they are nothing to be scared of. So go for it.

[Princess]

I think it's because male genitals...how do I put this delicately?
they change, depending on what he is "feeling"! and that complicates matters

[Killbert-Robby]

Well no, its a culture thing. Some African cultures for example celebrate statues of men with unproportionately large erections because it symbolizes power and fertility.

However as Westerners, we seem to have something about a face full of wing-wong.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I remember Dave Hockney from Art History. I like how much his work changed over his career. I don't remember Freud much though except the name. Did he do that nude pic of O'Hara in the combat boots? I remember it depicted a mighty wang worthy of Kevin Bacon.

[Yeahduff]

Nah, Freud did more anonymous nudes from different angles. More about composition than portraiture.

And let's not get too carried away here. We may not see much male genetalia, but it's not like were being drowned in vagina either.

Tits=\=cock.

[Hallonpress]

I don't think there's much that I wouldn't draw given the chance, mwahahah!

There's already one boob in WBK. And it's on a minor, too. But there's a good reason for that, so it's cool. But it'll only get worse as we go along.

I think violence and gore is far, far worse that nudity, though. I've always thought it was backwards when a movie full of blood and gore gets a lower content rating than a movie with sex.

Sorry if anyone has already said as much, I haven't read this whole thread. ^_^

[McDuffies]

I remember Dave Hockney from Art History. I like how much his work changed over his career. I don't remember Freud much though except the name. Did he do that nude pic of O'Hara in the combat boots? I remember it depicted a mighty wang worthy of Kevin Bacon.

I don't like Hockney that much. But Freud is one of the most interesting artists, realist in the midst of pop-art. Though his realism was always a bit skewed to turn attention to important parts of the body, like in comics. He's one of those artists, like Kokoshka or Giacometti, where you see a perfectly realistic picture from afar, but when you approach closer to the picture, image gest obscured in favour of rough, expressionistic brush moves.
He always drew his close friends because he believed that in order to capture someone's character on canvas, you have to know his character very good. So his models were always very relaxed.

And let's not get too carried away here. We may not see much male genetalia, but it's not like were being drowned in vagina either.

If I had to make parallels, I'd say that erect penis is equal to vagina, while un-erected penis is equal to front female nudity without much details.

I do show a lot of nudity, a more casual view on sex and a small amount of violence. Let's face it.. in the real world... sex happens way more than violence. When I did have my two pages of violence, it was gory.. but that was because it was a head shot and I wanted it to shock. They had no idea it was coming, just like the victim. It will probably be another 150 pages before the next violent act... but I can pretty much garantee boobage by the next 20.

I wanted to comment on this earlier, actually. I always felt that portray of sexual relationships in comics is unrealistic in that characters are always grown-up virgins to whom sexual relationship is the ultimate end of single life, like, find the true love of your life, and only then have sex. Specially female characters are too prude for a realistic portrait of average today's woman. I guess it's partly a plot device because authors want to have this long, lingering romantic story arc through the comic, but in part it must be that, in average, webcomic artists themselves have under average sexual experience (including me).
I've always tried to present sexual life as casual as it is around me. In "Kill'er now" I had the romantic story wrapped up near the beginning because I thought that would turn attention from the main story. That readers would be more interested in seeing if they're gonna boink each other in the end instead of what's important.

[Rcmonroe]

I always felt that portray of sexual relationships in comics is unrealistic in that characters are always grown-up virgins to whom sexual relationship is the ultimate end of single life, like, find the true love of your life, and only then have sex. Specially female characters are too prude for a realistic portrait of average today's woman. I guess it's partly a plot device because authors want to have this long, lingering romantic story arc through the comic, but in part it must be that, in average, webcomic artists themselves have under average sexual experience (including me).
I've always tried to present sexual life as casual as it is around me. In "Kill'er now" I had the romantic story wrapped up near the beginning because I thought that would turn attention from the main story. That readers would be more interested in seeing if they're gonna boink each other in the end instead of what's important.

Laregly due to my aspirations for syndication, I've been trying to walk a tightrope in this area. I don't want the story to focus on sex (although it does focus on sexual desire a bit, just not the act itself). I want it to be inconspicuous that the characters are--or are not--having sex. So I look for ways to allude to it without actually stating it. Kinda like they did in post-Hays code movies, I guess. The point is if you're looking for clues that my characters are in a sexual relationship, you might find them, and if you're not, you might not. And the story rolls along without the "did they or didn't they" aspect ever being relevant one way or the other. Or so I'm hoping.