Hentai: Art vs Obscenity

I've noticed that high quality erotic CG artwork has a certain grasp of human perspective, such that characters are portrayed with femenine qualities and emotions.  Good artists tend to have a firm grasp on female attitudes and clothing, while adding sexuality in any number of forms.  Schoolgirls, office women, feudal Japanese characters, and any number of females can be drawn perfectly normal, or at least have some basis in reality, such that an artist without raging hormones could draw the same female in a completely non sexual situation.  The female subject could simply be clothed, with a smile, and normal body proportions.  But due to the inherent horniness of males towards females, various provocative elements are added- large breasts, flipped skirts, emphasized cameltoes, nudity and actual sex.

Compare this to the naked "horny slut" supermodel, with tongue hanging out, bent over with dripping pussy.  I find this type of woman less realistic, and less appealing than a "normal looking" girl, quite attractive and cute, who happens to be in some sexual situation.  In other words, the porn star who doesn't exist, versus the every day female who gets involved in a porn-like situation.

Japanese artists tend to recognize femeninity, and various female responses, including embarassment, shyness, willing provocation, and horniness.  "Porn star" figures, on the other hand, display only raw sexuality with no basis in reality. 

Perhaps the hentai medium is superior to average porn, since it can show the contrast between everyday human society and social normals with inhibited sexual urges.  Porn itself is just sex, with no other reference.    And live action porn movies or magazines have difficulty in showing anything other than raw pornography, lest they result to bad acting or poorly written text. 

There was a time when US artists revelled in "society plus sexulity contrast," with cheesecake, pinup girls, fantasy art, and nudie mags of the past, but most have become relics.  Why has pinup art died out?  Perhaps women's lib and femenism have convinced society that girls are no longer objects, no longer foxy ladies with cute smiles and filled sweaters.  But there is still regular porn in abundance.  Check any adult magazine or web site, and you'll see typical "hot cum guzzling sluts who want hard cock now."  I find this portrayal far less flattering to the female form than say, a normal but cute girl in an everyday setting mixed with any number of sexual situations.  And this "normal everyday situation plus sex" can also be humurous and more provocative than say, some naked porn star. 

I'd just like to say I agree entirely with >>1.

However it is difficult to make assessments when using inclusive catchall phrases like Hentai and pornography.  I have very little interest in hardcore porn and supermodels, to me it's too obvious that it's just photos of people getting paid to be naked and/or have sex.  And I don't respect anyone who is so useless their only means of making a living is being photographed.

Amateur photography and voyeurism are much closer to reality, but rarely do I ever find any content worth keeping.  The quality of real amateur and voyeur pictures is usually quite bad.  Fortunately there is a decent amount of porn out there that has first time (or at least non-professional) models.

Going back to the subject of hentai, there are no limitations on what the situation could be.  The subject could be (and often is) virginal young women or middle aged MILFs, the decision is up to the artist.  Obviously there's far more genres of hentai than there are of porn simply, and while that can be a good thing for people who like variety, it's damaging for those of us who prefer mundane, realistic scenarios.  In other words, you can still find true-to-life proportioned girls, but you're going to have to sift through the pictures with over-sized emphasis on the naughty bits.

There's also a lot of bizzare hentai.  I find some pictures amusing because of how rediculous they are but really it's just sad if someone is actually aroused by that stuff.