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Show 198 "I don't know." I knew damn well; I was afraid I'd get an erection. "How come you don't see many nude men in paintings?" "There are. You just don't notice them." "There aren't as many men as women though." "Most painters are men. But if you go back to the Greeks, there's just as many men as women, maybe more." "Weren't they homosexual?" "I suppose some were. But heterosexuals can see male beauty too. Women certainly know what female beauty is. It's just that in Greece, nudity was a pretty natural thing. It was later on when people went around with hammers to those statues and knocked off the male organs. Nudity had become unnatural, and as soon as that happens, who do you paint nude? Women, of course. The chattel. Because keeping your clothes on is a power thing. That's why it's so important that painters do better than Sargent. Artists are the ones who've got to show us what it's really like." "The naked truth?" "The whole truth-and nothing but the truth. So why don't you do figure modeling? It pays pretty good." "Do the men, though, really pose altogether naked?" "No, only us chattel. Men usually wear swimming trunks or a jock. And you don't have to worry-in case you are-whether you'll get a terrible, embarrassing erection. I've never seen it happen." How did she know what worried me? She looked at me across the table. "And don't think you'll be an exception There's not much sexy about modeling." "How can painters show us the whole truth then?" "Oh well." She talked about erotic paintings through the ages, most of |