Daniel Savage wrote:
Maybe women "aren't as visual" because of the presentation of what's being viewed. I may be going out on a limb, but I can't help but think that were there a greater variety in the presentation department, rather than just "Here are my pecs. Here is my penis. I am Adonis." then the interest would be much greater.

I think there's something to this theory.  Every time I post a new male shot I get an avalanche of emails from women appreciating the view.  They're not as likely to be public about it as men are, and they don't seem as ready to spend money on it, though.

Daniel Savage wrote:
Maybe women "aren't as visual" because of the presentation of what's being viewed. I may be going out on a limb, but I can't help but think that were there a greater variety in the presentation department, rather than just "Here are my pecs. Here is my penis. I am Adonis." then the interest would be much greater.

Hmmm u are actually backing up my comment lol ... You say that maybe women "are not as visual" because of the presentation... here are my pecs here is my penis...

Now.. take a pic of a girls nipples, nose and vagina.. Do u think that guys will not be "interested' or care for a 'greater variety in the presentation' ?? LOL I bet u.. the vag and nipple shots would be seen 10 - 1 to the nose LOL

Guys get off on visuals.. women not as much

Dax wrote:
Hmmm u are actually backing up my comment lol ... You say that maybe women "are not as visual" because of the presentation... here are my pecs here is my penis...

Now.. take a pic of a girls nipples, nose and vagina.. Do u think that guys will not be "interested' or care for a 'greater variety in the presentation' ?? LOL I bet u.. the vag and nipple shots would be seen 10 - 1 to the nose LOL

Guys get off on visuals.. women not as much

We enjoy visuals.  It's just common for us to enjoy a different kind of visual.  I shoot what I like, and judging from the comments I get in private about it, a whole lot of women like the same thing.

SLE Photography wrote:
The female form is generally considered in virtually every culture to be more aesthetically pleasing.  It's a biological thing, women's bodies are designed more for visual attractiveness, and not only are men programmed to look for this other women also look to check out genetic competition.

No offense to you personally at all, but I'm tired of reading this argument. It's perception based, and as long people desire to maintain that perception then they will, but it's old, tired, and needs to be put to rest. If one of the purposes of being a photographer is to try new things, then maybe it's time to start changing that stale, popular consensus.

SLE Photography wrote:
The female form is generally considered in virtually every culture to be more aesthetically pleasing.  It's a biological thing, women's bodies are designed more for visual attractiveness, and not only are men programmed to look for this other women also look to check out genetic competition.

Daniel Savage wrote:
No offense to you personally at all, but I'm tired of reading this argument. It's perception based, and as long people desire to maintain that perception then they will, but it's old, tired, and needs to be put to rest. If one of the purposes of being a photographer is to try new things, then maybe it's time to start changing that stale, popular consensus.

It's not perception based, it's bilogy.
I do an AIDS charity auction every year in a venue that's almost exclusively gay men.  They buy art & paintings of gay men.  But when I put in both male & female nudes they female nudes get bid higher & are in more demand, every time.
People can argue about changing perceptions all they want but women are designed to be aesthetically appealing & men aren't.
You didn't comment on the second half of what I said about how in countries where male nudity is easily accepted female nudes are still preferred, or my opening (and demonstrable) comment that in pretty much every society & culture thru time the female form has been preferred.
There are perceptions that can be changed, and many such attitudes in society are strictly cultural.  But some things are biology and that's about impossible to change.

SLE Photography wrote:

SLE Photography wrote:
The female form is generally considered in virtually every culture to be more aesthetically pleasing.  It's a biological thing, women's bodies are designed more for visual attractiveness, and not only are men programmed to look for this other women also look to check out genetic competition.

It's not perception based, it's bilogy.
I do an AIDS charity auction every year in a venue that's almost exclusively gay men.  They buy art & paintings of gay men.  But when I put in both male & female nudes they female nudes get bid higher & are in more demand, every time.
People can argue about changing perceptions all they want but women are designed to be aesthetically appealing & men aren't.
You didn't comment on the second half of what I said about how in countries where male nudity is easily accepted female nudes are still preferred, or my opening (and demonstrable) comment that in pretty much every society & culture thru time the female form has been preferred.
There are perceptions that can be changed, and many such attitudes in society are strictly cultural.  But some things are biology and that's about impossible to change.

What looks more aesthetically pleasing is not fact, it's opinion. I stand by what I said in my last post. My points in all of my posts in this thread still remain very much intact. Anatomy has little to do with creating a visually appealing piece of art. The extent to which that piece of art sells is all about the buyer's perception of it. It's ALL about perception.

Daniel Savage wrote:
What looks more aesthetically pleasing is not fact, it's opinion. I stand by what I said in my last post. My points in all of my posts in this thread still remain very much intact. Anatomy has little to do with creating a visually appealing piece of art. The extent to which that piece of art sells is all about the buyer's perception of it. It's ALL about perception.

You should look at some of the studies that've been done on facial shapes & shape recognition tracking what people of different genders find attractive.
They overwhelmingly track the same way regardless of culture (race is a factor tho).
In those studies people of each gender are also shown images of their own gender as well as the opposite & males and females both prefer females.
These studies have been done & replicated numerous times.
Fighting against societal biases & perceptions is all well and good but some things are just built in.  Wishing or insisting it's not so will not change it.
Only evolution can do that.

Jason McKendricks wrote:
I think it's mainly because there is a larger market for the nude female form.

Actually, there is a much larger market for shots of nude men than there is of nude women.  The problem is that it is generally sold to the gay market, which is not what most of us are interested in so we don't come in contact with it.

Alan from Aavian Prod wrote:
Actually, there is a much larger market for shots of nude men than there is of nude women.  The problem is that it is generally sold to the gay market, which is not what most of us are interested in so we don't come in contact with it.

Alan, aside from Playgirl type imagery, in the realms of fine art as noted I've had a lot of contact with the gay community & they're more likely to take one of my artful female nudes than one of my male, even tho they have drawings & paintings of male nudes

McCauley Images wrote:
It seems like there are more women posing nude than men. Does anyone know why? Is there more of an expectation for women to pose nude? Is it that women are more willing? Is it that the general public appreciates nude women more than men?

Sure. Men are afraid of Penis size while we see 2 girls going at it as sexy two guys doing it are called "FAGS" or "Homos" or what other derogatory name you want to substitute here. IE..Homophobia! I rarely find men who want to get nude. And when I do it's one of the following three scenarios;
1. No Penis can show
2. Penis is erect and "proud" because they know it's large
3. they are gay...and often times you can refer back to numbers #1 and 2.

Crazy-Evil Angelus wrote:
And Mike...as for the "penis can't show" issue. That's a legitimate issue. Many women won't shoot with their twats hanging wide open. And niether will many men. Regardless of size.
It's bordering on porn.

18+
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Choir/4792/davidm.html
I must agree. What did Michelangelo know about art. He was a (borderline) pornographer.

Daniel Savage wrote:
Maybe women "aren't as visual" because of the presentation of what's being viewed. I may be going out on a limb, but I can't help but think that were there a greater variety in the presentation department, rather than just "Here are my pecs. Here is my penis. I am Adonis." then the interest would be much greater.

Actually, scientifically, men are more visual.  They react more to visual stimuli.
But it would be interesting to see how many women would actually be interested in a more intellectual presentation of the male form.

Pornography studios might do well to take a tip from the Discovery Channel. According to a recent study, women are aroused by watching monkey sex. Sure, they're more aroused by watching human sex, but the loving habits of the bonobo are enough to bring out the primate in any civilized lady.

The study, conducted by Meredith Chivers of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health and J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, was published in the October issue of Biological Psychology. The researchers found that while straight men are only aroused by females of the human variety, straight women are equally aroused by all human sexual activity, including lesbian, heterosexual and homosexual male sex, and at least somewhat aroused by nonhuman sex.

Each subject involved in the report watched seven two-minute clips of sex: six scenes involving humans and one of bonobos. The subject constantly monitored and noted his or her subjective arousal. The subject was also affixed with a device that measured genital arousal–penis circumference for the men and vaginal pulse amplitude for the women.

All eighteen men were heterosexual and all reported subjective arousal only during the scenes with women. The objective data matched their reports: Images of our evolutionary ancestors do not make a man retrogress to Homo erectus. The eighteen heterosexual women reported greatest subjective arousal during the heterosexual scene, but their bodies reported they were less naturally selective.

Chivers said in a previous study she had shown a very low correlation between women's stated sexual interests and their sexual arousal patterns in the lab. The correlation was much higher for men, she said.
...

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2005/1 … onkeys.php

QuaeVide wrote:
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2005/10/girls_gone_wildfor_monkeys.php

I was just about to post a similar study but that one will do for an example.  To date, no properly controlled studies have supported the assertion that female humans are "less visual" than males.  That's just another one of the meaningless things people say because they sound good, like "science says that bees shouldn't be able to fly" and "there are holes in the fossil record."

And to those who have stated that all human cultures have more representations of female forms than male forms - What ancient cultures influenced ours the most?  Greece and Rome would be up there, right?  Take a look at their artwork and read their literature and you'll see that to an ancient Greek, a woman was most beautiful clothed and a man most beautiful nude.

McCauley Images wrote:
It seems like there are more women posing nude than men. Does anyone know why?

Cause women look good...

Sarah Ellis wrote:

To date, no properly controlled studies have supported the assertion that female humans are "less visual" than males.  That's just another one of the meaningless things people say because they sound good, like "science says that bees shouldn't be able to fly" and "there are holes in the fossil record."

I'm so sad to learn that Disney lied to me.  Is nothing sacred? 
/sarcasm

Sarah Ellis wrote:

I was just about to post a similar study but that one will do for an example.  To date, no properly controlled studies have supported the assertion that female humans are "less visual" than males.  That's just another one of the meaningless things people say because they sound good, like "science says that bees shouldn't be able to fly" and "there are holes in the fossil record."

And to those who have stated that all human cultures have more representations of female forms than male forms - What ancient cultures influenced ours the most?  Greece and Rome would be up there, right?  Take a look at their artwork and read their literature and you'll see that to an ancient Greek, a woman was most beautiful clothed and a man most beautiful nude.

It's a complex question.. John Berger said "Men watch. Women see themselves being watched". It's not a question of genetics but cultural conditioning. Every female is more aware of being seen and viewed and judged than males are. Some "opt out" of that in various ways, but the aesthetic is pushed constantly in all ways from advertising to your mother telling her daughter she can't go out wearing revealing clothing. It wouldn't occur to that mother to say that to her son unless he was naked or headed to church:-)
When I started modeling nude, I did it because my friend and fellow photographer and I had realized that getting males to pose nude is much much harder than getting females, simply because they aren't generally used to thinking of themselves being the object of scrutiny. Unless a male is so good-looking that he's gotten used to being an object of desire, he tends to be uncomfortable being placed in that position. My most comfortable nude male model was gay- as his cultural group was much more used to thinking of their appearance and enjoying their beauty. Every other friend I asked said "let me work out for a few months". Even a woman who would *never* model nude accepts the fact that men want to see her nude (after you allow for the ego-crushing putting-yourself-down habits). Men generally have to be gay, or body-builders before they're that accepting of the role of nude model.
I'm not sure if males are given more licence to opt out of being judged aesthetically in that manner, or if it's partially because women- for whatever reason- have a much harder time agreeing on what makes a man attractive than men do agreeing on women.
And there is a strong tendency for groups of women to agree that penises look "funny", or are unattractive.. utterly absurd, and hardly a way to encourage men to model nude, especially when they already think it looks too small when flaccid:-) If men mocked vaginas the way women mock male genitals, we'd never see another nude woman!

Rowen wrote:
It's interesting to read all these psychological and philosophical arguments - but none of what I've read here, so far, points out the obvious: female models outnumber male models by at least 100 to 1.  Given that, if only 10% of the models - regardless of sex - are willing to pose nude.....go ahead, figure out the stats.

-R

You are definitely on the right track here. If the question is strictly one of "willingness" males will usually actually do it more readily than females. As to numbers though the shear weight of numbers favours being able to find more F models to photograph.

It seems like, women tend to aspire to be models but men tend to aspire more to being anything else but.

Studio36

SLE Photography wrote:

SLE Photography wrote:
The female form is generally considered in virtually every culture to be more aesthetically pleasing.  It's a biological thing, women's bodies are designed more for visual attractiveness, and not only are men programmed to look for this other women also look to check out genetic competition.

It's not perception based, it's bilogy.
I do an AIDS charity auction every year in a venue that's almost exclusively gay men.  They buy art & paintings of gay men.  But when I put in both male & female nudes they female nudes get bid higher & are in more demand, every time.
People can argue about changing perceptions all they want but women are designed to be aesthetically appealing & men aren't.
You didn't comment on the second half of what I said about how in countries where male nudity is easily accepted female nudes are still preferred, or my opening (and demonstrable) comment that in pretty much every society & culture thru time the female form has been preferred.
There are perceptions that can be changed, and many such attitudes in society are strictly cultural.  But some things are biology and that's about impossible to change.

I have to disagree with you, I'm afraid.  The Ancient Greeks had more nude male statues than female nudes, and they believed that men were as aesthetically pleasing as women.

It's a cultural thing.