This was originally taken from a comment I made in  alexreynard's latest journal.
Yeah, it's relevant to the recent Acceptable Upload Policy changes, particularly the loli/shota. No, it doesn't contain a prescription of what the admins should do (or any BAWWing). It's also fat free:)

To put it in context, alex had just glossed over the idea of morality in art. He later indicated all this was perfectly clear to him beforehand :)

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:10570777

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No art contains an intrinsical morality (even.. or should I say especially.. Chick tracts.)
The morality of art, IMO, comes from contextuality and thought.

As is observed in Art+Fear[1], art is a kind of thought; art reveals the artist to themselves. As there are certainly such things as destructive thought patterns, it follows that one aspect of the
morality of an artwork is the partial patterns of thought it encodes. If they are mostly or wholly destructive, such as:

* art that is mainly intended to promote an xenophobic or anti-choice attitude.,
* art that reinforces an artist's belief 'I am a bad person'/'unable to help myself, unable to help others'/'doomed'/'good for nothing' [3].
* art that aims to bewilder the beholder, with no purpose beyond said bewilderment.

Any work that demonstrates anti-human belief or intent, implicitly or explicitly, is intrinsically immoral, at least when viewed in context of the culture it was made in, and probably even outside it.

The second aspect of the morality of art, IMO, is in the context. Sexting is a handy example. Teens who are having sex with each other (or contemplating it), sending naked photos of themselves to their sexual partner. Maybe you don't really know whether your fuckbunny [2] sincerely cares about you, but unless they are abusing you, sexting them is at worst morally questionable, not actually immoral. (people need to learn the difference between those two!). Consequently the images take on that moral context. If someone hijacks them and posts them on some online wankery site for people to gawp at, they acquire a vastly different moral context.

So two instances of the same piece of art -- if you accept photography as art -- have different extrinsic moralities. An anti-Jewish artwork has a far different (and worse) moral context when shown to a person who is already anti-Jewish, versus shown to a strong-minded Jew, IMO.

In this vein, no aesthetic theme -- which is what loli/shota is -- can be considered immoral or moral. Just the intrinsic or extrinsic ideas arranged around it. For instance, set the picture out as a glorification of rape and I will instantly judge it immoral. Set it out as self- or mutual exploration, that's pretty much as moral as it gets, IMO. Exploitation -> immoral, exaltation -> generally moral, exploration -> generally moral.

[1] AWESOME BOOK. I've learnt quite a bit about life, not only art from it. It's profound and fascinating.

[2] neologized from fuckbuddy and snugglebunny, in representation of the weird relationship space teen relationships occupy.

[3] I acknowledge that these artworks may actually help artists discard these patterns of thought by concretizing them so they can get an overall view. I am not convinced that these works can be good for anyone else, however, as they can get others *into* those patterns instead of out.