How is this still acceptable in this day and age?

I think it’s bollocks to say art is trying to be edgy and get debate going. I think it’s always been a case of the ‘old boys’ net work, ‘hiding in plain sight’, men have always been trying to erode boundaries and make the unacceptable acceptable. It’s supported by the ‘pick me girls’ who are too vapid to realise it. I think many critics are like the emperor, and new wardrobes.

The fact that it exists as a piece of Pop Art, which is deliberately controversial and meant to spark debate, is perfectly fine. People are allowed to make art which others might consider distasteful and artists are allowed to depict things which others (or the artists themselves) find unpleasant and distressing or repulsive. Art doesn't have to depict nice things.

The fact that David Ross has chosen to buy, display and most of all, be photographed with, that particular piece of art does, however, say a lot about David Ross - much more than it says about the artist, in fact. It certainly suggests he's a dickhead who wants to show off about having that specific piece of work on display in his home.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the newspaper choosing to photograph him with it, though. They've done that to make a point about what sort of man he is, and they've done it very well. The photograph doesn't indicate approval - quite the opposite. It's very much a 'give him enough rope and he'll hang himself' situation - the journalist and photographer who went to his home to do that piece will have got the measure of the sort of person he is and are fully aware that this photo says 'This man is a twat' far more clearly than the journalist was probably able to do in the article.

So basically the artist isn't at fault, the newspaper isn't at fault. David Ross, however, is.

It's utterly grim and I have no respect for the artist or the man posing next to it.

"Eroticism" is just an excuse for pervs to perve in plain sight by calling it "art". It's objectification - mostly of females - however you slice and dice it. Call me old-fashioned, but give me a nice Turner landscape any day.

But there wouldn’t be. People would roll their eyes, find it funny/weird and all the comments
would be “But what if this was a woman - there’d be uproar!”

Bizarre comment

This. I remember seeing it in the Sunday Times magazine sometime in the 70s.

I'm not a subscriber, I just got those links from googling.

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/celebrity/article/david-ross-nevill-holt-festival-bbl0cd9fd

Thank you. The link isn’t working for me. Could you tell me which section of the paper it’s in?

I’m not opposed to the art itself but it’s wonderfully telling of the kind of person who would happily associate themselves with it.

David Ross: The super-rich are leaving the UK. But I’m not https://share.google/t0VhG5GHCgtcOrhXW

Fucking awful.

No. Jack Vettriano.

3 in 4 teen boys who rape girls avoid jail. Men are WORSE today. Look at all the gang rapes & grooming gangs

Pornography is far worse. With women being violently abused, "teen" pedophilic, racist, incest genres & nobody bats an eyelid

Seedy artist. Very similar. He frequented brothels. Some of Vettriano's work was very graphic. Like the example in the OP.

Yep, the artist has dressed her to look exactly like a symbolic mother

To those who believe domination and subservience is a perfectly and normal acceptable sexual practice I would strongly disagree.

The harm done to women in the name of this so called “kink” is enormous.

The desire to humiliate yourself or someone else to get sexual pleasure requires professional therapy not public celebration.

The pendulum of sexual repression has now swung so far in the opposite direction that we are supposed to think everything and anything is not only permissible but in fact better than so called “vanilla” sex.

God forbid anybody disagrees because then you are a “pearl clutcher” prudishly shaming the wonderfully brave fetishists.

To quote Catherine Tate’s gran:
What a load of old shit.

I’m a Times subscriber and can’t find the article anywhere - which bit of the paper is it in @Eumaybe?

I assume the reason the photographer placed him there is to highlight exactly the sort of person he is - so the decision to run this image in the paper is valid. The table should never have been made in the first place though

I think it could be interpreted that women always carry the weight on their shoulders.

I mean that we nearly always bear responsibility for our children whereas men don't.

I voted YABU because I think it’s a slippery slope to start saying art (or someone’s taste) is “unacceptable”. Censorship at that sort of level is dangerous. But - it’s a horrible thing. And the fact that he has it front and centre in a picture of himself in a newspaper makes me think very poorly of him.

Same here.

The only thing in the entire picture I like is the gorgeous dog.

The table stand is grotesque, sexist, chauvinistic, vile, derogatory, women-hating, etc. But even if it wasn't, it's still just plain hideous anyway!

Both of these 2 so-called ''men'' should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and each other, but of course, they never will be.

But if a woman and a woman artist did the same thing but as a male table stand, with his y-fronts around his ankles and naked, on his hands and knees, the ''men'' would be in uproar!

Or maybe a very good one - they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity and it’s got people talking.