One of my favorite blogs is Eros Blog (Be warned, if you follow the link, its title is apt and it is most gloriously NSFW). There have been a couple of discussions there recently about old pulp art and fetishism that hit home for me.

Here's an example of what they are talking about:

One of the Erosblog readers objected to an image of this sort as condoning violence to women and I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but that viewpoint completely misses the imaginative fantasy beyond the picture (not to mention the outlandish hyper-realism of it).

The image is undoubtedly erotic. The growing numbers of people who have intelligently embraced BDSM as a form of sexual expression (and fun) will certainly recognize that and many souls more repressed are stirred by the sight of a beautiful woman helplessly tied.  Men are aroused by the image -- some of them by the sense of having power over the woman, but others simply by the story that the picture implies, a beautiful woman in distress, ready for ravishing or rescue, the essence of many tales. Some women will be aroused by the idea of being tied up, others intrigued by the idea of somehow overcoming the bonds and the menacing hand, escaping and defeating the wicked captors.

Does the picture reduce the woman to being the object of rough treatment for the purposes of entertainment? Maybe it does, but much creative fantasy -- including romance -- objectifies people or idealizes them. Arguably, our whole bureaucratic society objectifies people, and one of the things that saves us from a life as cold numbers is our imagination in all its variety.

Just to balance the scales, here's an equally beautiful image of a woman in full command of her world:

Viva variety!