An Old Sex Act or 21st Century Art

For some curious fluke of temporal causality, I found myself plucking a paperback copy of Fanny Hill off my book shelf.

I have been thinking a lot, as of late, about the relationships between our erotic predilections here in the 21st century and our growing discomfort on the subject at the same time. Sex and the Arts is a conversation that has been raging for centuries. “Those artists people, sex, sex, sex that’s all they think about. You can call it what ever you like, it’s SMUT!”, blah blah blah.

But outside of these shallow cognitive meanderings of a conservative mindset, can porn be art and if the answer is yes then does it cease to be porn?

According to Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of pornography is