To the Editor:
I am writing in regards to the Thompson exhibit in the Lower Jewett Corridor in the Hopkins Center. The exhibit included a number of prints of nude female figures and female body parts that I found extremely offensive. Several of the prints were distastefully explicit, exploitative and sexually suggestive. Walking down the Jewett corridor left me feeling degraded and abashed as a woman. I felt that the prints undermined the sense of value and honor that is associated with a woman's body because the images were so stark and raw. It saddened me to see that a woman's most intimate parts of her being were carelessly on display for all to see in the name of art.
Perhaps there is a correlation between the landscape of the human body and the landscape of the earth, and perhaps the photographer captured this idea, and perhaps the prints were just a bunch of people outside with no clothes on. A review on this exhibit in The Dartmouth quotes a student who saw some of the prints as "just naked people in a field." I do not wish to debate as to whether or not these prints were "art"istic. But fine art is made and done with taste and skill -- with a purpose of beauty. So for art's sake, where do we draw the line?
All sense of morality and Christian value were defied as I glanced at the prints. If I had to deny the idea of morality, and even if I held no religious values, I personally felt dishonored just for being a female. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10.
