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Talk:Erogenous zone/Archive 1

Comment by SJC
This does not look very much like an encyclopaedia article to me. One for the deletion queue I would venture unless it can be made more encyclopaedic in nature, assuming anyone knows what a "genital erogenous zone" is, that is? Certainly not a term I have encountered before.user:sjc

Conjunctiva
Conjunctiva can't possible be correctly placed in the listing of erogenous zones ... anyone know either the research behind that or what whoever put that in meant to say but misspelled?
 * Yes, I was also completely confused by seeing conjunctiva listed as an erogenous zone. It even seems like the person really meant to say conjunctiva, because there is a later section on the eyes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.68.214 (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Links
This page needs a lot more links to different areas (I'll try to add some in) and is just generally somewhat unreadable. It refers to a lot of parts of the body that are not well known and reads more like a medical textbook than an encyclopedia entry-- it expects prior knowledge.IMFromKathlene 06:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

> Ears are properly erotic. So stop it.

Some one please correct the section on Ear. it looks wierd !

Genitalia references
I think the article may be using "vagina" to incorrectly refer generally to the female genitalia. E.g. "The vagina provides the most erogenous zones on the female body." See entry for Vagina ("strictly speaking the vagina is a specific internal structure") for clarification. I think the references to the vagina should be reworked and I'm not sure that reference to vaginal mucosa under the heading of the clitoris is appropriate. Also, the entry under "prepuce" might be improved if it clarified whether the reference is to both the male and the female prepuce or only to the male. DH

I would put specific serious regard on the statement... "Squeezing of the testicles can sometimes cause a very pleasurable sensation, particularly during ejaculation, "but should be done cautiously"!!!

your welcome guys

Pictures
Could we get some pictures (pref medical depictions) about the erogenous zones? This article appears too technical without em.

 * Seconded. If no one puts any up, I'll do it myself. -Iopq 18:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The german "Erogenous Zones" article has a good picture: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Erogenous_zone_german_inscription2.jpg

 * I could translate the german terms and upload it. -nemini 00:50, January 21, 2007 (UTC)

Do it Fimbulvintur (talk) 10:15, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Sources?
I've just noticed that the article only cites one source. This is not good. I haven't finished yet, but I have been looking for others. Here is an incomplete list - please could people add to it.

Jakew 12:37, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * - brief discussion of ideas of Laplanche and Freud.
 * - on Grafenburg zone
 * - vaginal testing (does not support Grafenburg zone)
 * - more vaginal testing
 * - more vaginal testing
 * on Halban's fascia
 * on the G-spot as a myth
 * brief discussion on the mind
 * more discussion on the mind

Please come back and add this yourself. In 8 years nobody else has bothered. I'm not about to begin. Call for Volunteers! NJX — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.235.253 (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As can be seen here, there is now information in the article on the G-Spot. I tweaked it some time earlier this year and added text about the doubt regarding its existence at least as a distinct structure. Flyer22 (talk) 15:25, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Added more on that to be consistent with related Wikipedia articles. Flyer22 (talk) 15:39, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Frenular Delta
I added the frenular delta. I left the glans; though, in my opinion, it belongs in some lower category of erogenous sensation. Hopefully, jakew will be OK with the addition. He can't cite the glans. I'm working on finding cites for ... as the French say ... the EYE of the penis (frenular delta).

Until you can find a citation for the "Debate," it should not be in the prepuce paragraph.TipPt 22:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I reverted this change. No studies, as far as I'm aware, have established that the frenulum is erogenous. I have cited the glans in a discussion previously.

 * As an example of the debate, consider for example Viens' comment that "In one of the papers that is often cited by anticircumcision proponents, the claim that circumcision removes an important component of the sensory mechanism of the penis is based on finding of an extremely small sample size (n = 22) of cadavers.22 Not only is a pathological study not ideal for conclusions concerning the physical sensation and enjoyment of sex in the living, we have no findings that show that sensation transmission pathways of the penis differ substantially between circumcised and uncircumcised men. As it presently stands, there is no convincing evidence that shows that sexual function of circumcised individuals is worsened or damaged as a result of a properly performed circumcision." Jakew 11:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Please be constructive. "I have cited the glans in a discussion previously" is not helpful. Could you provide the link?

Here are a couple showing innervation likely erogenous to both the glans and frenular region. Don't just read the title: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10037378&dopt=AbstractTipPt 18:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like "sex nerve" dominates as slang in Europe for the frenulum. Sounds erogenous to me.TipPt 18:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Meissner's corpuscles and the nipple
This article seems to state that the nipple has no Meissner's corpuscles, but the Meissner's corpuscles article lists the nipples as a specific example. 128.119.127.36 04:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The claim in this article is supported by Winkelmann, which would seem to contradict the article in the other. I'll look into correcting it. Jakew 09:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Eyes
From the article: "Kissing a lover's eyes is a common activity in the West."

Really? I have never, ever encountered eye kissing, I really can't imagine it being pleasant. Unless someone can provide a source for this, I'm removing it. Darksun 23:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it means closed eyes. Ketsuekigata (talk) 14:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The claim has yet to be confirmed with a source, though, so I'm removing it. Ketsuekigata (talk) 20:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

About the "Practical Applications" section
I favor removing the "Practical Applications" section in its entirety. It's full of weasel words ("Many people enjoy..." and "...very arousing to many people," among others) and the information provided is essentially redundant ( the Anatomy section says, "This area is sensitive," and the Practical Applications section says, "You should touch this area."). Also, it reads like a sex manual, more than like part of an encyclopedia article.

Unless there are serious objections, I plan to delete this section in two weeks. Is there an appropriate template to place on the section? I didn't find any. - DevOhm Talk 22:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The section in question has been removed. - DevOhm Talk 10:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I have added back some part, but arranged it in proper structure. Orrange cones (talk) 06:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Breast biting and damage
Is there evidence that permanent breast damage can result from biting (aside from incidents involving nipples such as that described at http://www.straitstimes.com/primenews/story/0,1870,109080,00.html )? I have seen some anecdotal evidence that it can change the consistency of the breasts (making them less firm and causing the consistency of the bitten part to become almost "watery") but a reliable source would be needed for posting here. This source says something to the contrary, but that's not really a reliable source either. Sarsaparilla (talk) 21:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Possibly dangerous suggestions in the article
This article contains some suggestions that could be dangerous:

"Applying a firm pressure on it [the perineum] just before ejaculation can heighten the intensity of orgasm". From what I have heard, this is generally done to prevent ejaculation, but it is not always effective and sometimes very painful. Personally, I have never heard it as a way of intensifying pleasure.

"Thus the thicker the object inserted into the anus, the higher the pleasure." This just sounds like an invitation to disaster. This sentence begins with the word "thus" but doesn't logically follow from the technobabble that preceded. For both those reasons, I have removed this sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.68.214 (talk) 04:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I just removed a couple of references to biting, and one about penetrating the ear canal with the tongue! The article said that sticking your tongue in someone's ear was a 'fairly safe' form of penetration. We need to get references before we can claim something like that. Darobian (talk) 08:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

More Content
I think there should be something here about how erogenous zones work e.g. how they affect the body and the brain. I believe skin contact with another person causes the release of oxytocin (a hormone and neurotransmitter), among other things.

It would be good to have some examples of references to erogenous zones in literature and popular culture. Any thoughts? Darobian (talk) 09:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

the A Spot
there seems to be no mention of the vagina's Anterior Fornix Erogenous Zone (aka the A Spot) located just above the cervix:

Desmond Morris, The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body, Jonathan Cape, London (2004) http://www.heretical.com/miscella/g-spots.html

it appears to be well documented to exist, but I could be wrong --voodoom (talk) 18:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Innervation of breast tissue
In the breast section, there's an assertion that all breasts have the same number of nerve endings. However, there is no citation in this article, or in anything else a brief Google search found that actually provides details or evidence of this. Perhaps someone else can find more than the single oft-repeated but unsourced claim that all breasts "have the same number of nerve endings no matter how large they are". Gmalivuk (talk) 06:06, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Breasts
''Placing a man's face in between the cleavage and kissing the breasts also increases sexual pleasure and breast size. Pleasure can be increased by the partner exhaling forcefully with pursed lips, creating a "motorboat"-type noise.''

As to the first sentence, where is the source for this? Is there no need for breast augmentation anymore if a simply kissing the breasts will increase breast size"? I'm willing to the leave the sexual pleasure comment, but I'm removing the breast size claim. I'm also removing the "motorboat" claim as it is completely subjective. If you want to re-add it, then please include some sources. Thank you. Wperdue (talk) 17:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)wperdue

Sentence Structue
I'm unsure if sentence clairity and sturcture falls under the pervue of this discussion or not. I am unsure and do not feel comfortable changing anything in an article. Still, despite my poor writing ability, grammatical errors bother me so I would like to bring the following to someone's attention: At the deepest point on the anterior (front) wall of the vagina located between the cervix and the bladder. This is the Anterior fornix erogenous zone, or A Spot.

The frist part of this passage is a fragment, not a true sentence. I can understand what was intended but still, it is incorrect. Is this the kind of thing one should call attention to, or is that considered being too picky? Please advise.68.47.103.99 (talk)Modgod
 * This section should help answer your question. Please feel free to contribute in any way you think will help. Fixes to grammar, sentence structure, tense, etc. are welcome. Happy editing. Wperdue (talk) 14:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)wperdue

WP:NOR
Per policy: "To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the material as presented." (emph. in original.)

For this reason I reverted StudioDan's addition of various sources to the article that did not (in many cases) even mention erogenous zones. StudioDan has now restored some of these sources. StudioDan, can you show me where these refer to the subject of the article? Jakew (talk) 10:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

 * I referenced Cold & Taylor's "The prepuce" (1999) under Erogenous_zone because the paper states, "The unique     innervation of the prepuce establishes its function as an      erogenous tissue."
 * Meissner's corpuscle and references are added to the nipple, because other nerve types are mentioned, and it was falsely claimed (without citation) that they do not exist.
 * --Studiodan (talk) 11:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

 * Cold & Taylor are already cited in the last paragraph of that section. I cannot see why they need to be cited twice for essentially the same claim.
 * Regarding the nipple, none of the sources which you added even refer to erogenous zones, so their inclusion here is original research. Policy, as quoted above, requires that sources are directly related to the subject, so these will be removed.  I take your point that citations are absent for this material; we can cite Winkelmann, who specifically discusses innervation in the context of erogenous zones. Jakew (talk) 11:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

 * Cold & Taylor are cited there because "citation needed" is mentioned afterward, for the complete sentance. We have citations for the prepuce as an erogenous zone. How do you suggest we fix this?
 * Regarding the nipple, Golgi-Mazzoni, Vater-Pacini and genital corpuscles are mentioned, without citation, and without anything to do with Erogenous zones. I don't see the inclusion of Meissner's as only more inclusive to what is already there. References are given to show that they do indeed exist in that area. How do you suggest we fix this section?
 * --Studiodan (talk) 11:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

 * Regarding Cold & Taylor, I think it would be perfectly acceptable to delete the sentence, if that proves necessary. However, it seems entirely possible that a source can be found that identifies certain parts of the penis as particularly erogenous, and if such a source can be found then it might be cited.
 * Regarding the nipple, I have now added Winkelmann as a citation for this material. As noted above, Winkelmann's comments are in the context of erogenous zones. Jakew (talk) 12:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

 * The Cold and Taylor piece needs to go, if you want to maintain the only citation from this article, I suggest citing the original source. Otherwise, one is indicating Cold and Taylor are claiming that their research shows that the prepuce is the main male erogenous zone, while they are just studying the differentiation and quantity of the foreskin. The other study should be cited in its entirety instead. Sloppy citations are no fun and are misleading about the research being done by the cited individuals.

Rewording - scrotum versus testicles
"The skin of the scrotum (testicles) is very sensitive to light touching and stroking [...]"

The reference to testicles when discussing the scrotum in this context is unnecessary and possibly confusing. Placing "testicles" in parentheses after "scrotum" makes it appear as if "scrotum" and "testicles" are synonymous. Of course, they are not synonymous. (I for one don't know any men who enjoy having the surface of their testicle touched.) Considering that these two terms are often confused, this sentence should be reworded. A suggestion: "The skin of the scrotum, which contains the testicles". Or, remove the reference to "testicles" completely, as "skin of the scrotum" is completely descriptive. 66.9.234.201 (talk) 21:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Why is some skin erogenous?
Could someone please explain to me (and perhaps add a section in the article) why some ordinary skin is erogenous and other skin isn't? For example, what accounts for the difference between inner and outer thighs (between legs or outside)? Is this a psychic difference (not/associating it with sex), or anatomical characteristics? This question regards non-specific zones, as this source is clear that "specific erogenous zones, the mucocutaneous zones of man and animal, have special neural and cutaneous anatomic characteristics"--Gulpen (talk) 22:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

history of the idea section needed
the article needs a history of the idea. who invented the term, "erogenous zone"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6:5600:5AC:1DF7:EC24:AFC6:7FB (talk) 00:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The vagina isn't an erogenous zone.
I would like to delete the following: "The vagina also has concentrations of the nerve endings that can provide pleasurable sensations during sexual activity when stimulated in a way that the particular woman enjoys, but the outer one-third of the vagina, especially near the opening, contains the majority of the vaginal nerve endings, making it more sensitive to touch than the inner two-thirds of the vaginal barrel." I refer to the Go Ask Alice page already cited, as well as (pg. 53-54),  (pg. 59),  (pg. 64-66) and  (no page numbers, search term in link returns cited section) to support my proposed edit.

The idea that the vagina has erogenous nerves in it has been thoroughly debunked even though many people still think this due to the indirect stimulation of clitoral nerves during vaginal sex. PolenCelestial (talk) 04:02, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * PolenCelestial, I am well-versed in the topic of female sex anatomy, and "[t]he idea that the vagina has erogenous nerves in it" has not been thoroughly debunked. Indeed, while the vast majority of the vagina is especially insensitive to touch, various WP:Reliable sources, including Identifying reliable sources (medicine) (WP:MEDRS)-compliant sources (which are the type of sources that should be used for medical/anatomy information), state that the outer one-third of the vagina, especially near the opening, contains the majority of the vaginal nerve endings, making it more sensitive to touch than the inner two-thirds of the vaginal barrel. This is currently supported by two scholarly sources in the section you dispute, with one of them (the Marshall Cavendish source) noting that scientists believe that orgasms experienced vaginally are caused by the clitoris. The Go Ask Alice! source also states: "In fact, it's generally only the lower third of the vagina that has enough nerve endings to feel any stimulation at all from a penis, finger, toy, or other penetrative object." I added those sources, and the WP:MEDRS-compliant sources I added to the Vagina article also support this information. The fact that the vagina is not generally highly sensitive does not mean that it is not an erogenous zone, any more than the fact that some people have a highly, or barely, sensitive spot on their necks that gets them sexually aroused does not mean that it is not an erogenous zone to those people. Scientists today are generally in agreement that the clitoris and vagina are intricately linked, as noted by that aforementioned Marshall Cavendish source, this 2012 review article on the concept of the G-spot, as noted somewhat by this Discovery Series: Human Sexuality (2013) source (pages 102-103; 134-135 for the URL link), as noted by the aforementioned WP:MEDRS-compliant sources I added to the Vagina article, and various other WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. The sources you have provided above are missing URLs (specific URLs) that show that what you are stating about them is true. Furthermore, this book source you cited above (The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love) is a poor source for the topic at hand. It's also good that you apparently asked about what you should do on this matter here, instead of simply deleting what you disagree with. Flyer22 (talk) 04:39, 6 December 2014 (UTC) Struck through that last line because it looks like you were referring to this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 06:09, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see your argument. Scientific information isn't a matter of opinion. You admit yourself that stimulation commonly attributed to the vagina is actually clitoral, and then you draw a comparison to the neck which is clearly not how the content is worded. It says that the vagina also has concentrations of the nerve endings that can provide pleasurable sensations during sexual activity, which isn't true at all. I wasn't specific enough with "erogenous zone", but I feel a distinction needs to be drawn in the article between physiological and psychological sources of sexual stimulation, physiological being those that aren't based on the psychological experience of sex with a partner. I included the source that you dispute because it refers to experts in the field, not because the work as a whole is scientific, and the other sources back up what I'm saying. PolenCelestial (talk) 04:57, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * And I don't see your argument. I agree that scientific information isn't a matter of opinion, unless, of course, it's a matter not entirely proven among scientists (like the Big Bang). I did not admit anything about "stimulation commonly attributed to the vagina [actually being clitoral]"; I stated that a source notes that scientists believe that orgasms experienced vaginally are caused by the clitoris; "stimulation" obviously does not automatically equate to "orgasm." I also stated that scientists today are generally in agreement that the clitoris and vagina are intricately linked; that is supported by scientific information, as seen in sources I have provided. You stating that the vagina does not have concentrations of the nerve endings that can provide pleasurable sensations during sexual activity conflicts with what WP:Reliable sources/WP:MEDRS-compliant sources state on that matter; that includes this Exploring the Dimensions of Human Sexuality (2013) source (pages 102–104) and this Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia (2014) source (pages 229–231) I added to the Vagina article. These sources are attributing vaginal pleasure and "vaginal orgasm" to nerve endings, not to psychological causes, not mainly psychological causes anyway. The way that you are defining "erogenous zone" is not the way that the WP:Reliable sources/WP:MEDRS-compliant sources are defining it. You stated above that "[t]he idea that the vagina has erogenous nerves in it has been thoroughly debunked." And that statement is not true. You have not provided any sources, from what I can tell, supporting you on that statement. I, however, have provided sources showing that statement to be false. Perhaps you want to bring WP:Med in on this matter? Maybe bringing editors in from there will also get this poor Erogenous zone article significantly fixed up. Flyer22 (talk) 05:23, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * Furthermore: Although the vagina content in the Erogenous zone article starts out stating "The vagina also has concentrations of the nerve endings that can provide pleasurable sensations during sexual activity," it clearly specifies what part of the vagina soon afterward -- what you refer to as "the neck." I have no issue with making that text clearer on the matter that the vagina as a whole is not sensitive to touch. Flyer22 (talk) 05:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Why don't you consider my sources reliable? They're written by MDs or reference such works and they clearly state that the sensation is produced by clitoral nerves. WP:MEDRS includes the clause "Additionally, popular science and medicine books are useful sources". PolenCelestial (talk) 07:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * I did not state that I don't consider your sources reliable, though, yes, I pointed out one of them as a poor source for this topic. You have not proven that your sources state that the sensation in the vagina is produced by clitoral nerves; I noted above that "The sources you have provided above are missing URLs (specific URLs) that show that what you are stating about them is true." This means that you should provide the URL page number, if it exists, or type up the exact text, or provide the page numbers, so that I and others can verify that you are presenting the sources accurately. If your sources support what you have stated, all that means is that, per WP:Verifiability, both sides should be presented with WP:Due weight, like I have done with sources at the Vagina article on vaginal sensitivity being connected to sexual pleasure. And again, stating that "vaginal orgasm" is caused by the clitoris, which, as some of the sources I pointed to above show is the general agreement among scientists today, is not the same thing as stating that the vagina has no erotogenic nerve endings and that the vagina plays no part in anatomical sexual pleasure or female orgasm. Non-erotogenic nerve endings are not what cause orgasms; it is the erotogenic ones that do. And sources I pointed to above, including this aforementioned Exploring the Dimensions of Human Sexuality (2013) source (pages 102–104) and this Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia (2014) source (pages 229–231), clearly note that there is evidence that the lower third of the vagina is an erotogenic area for many women. Does the vagina have enough erotogenic nerve endings to cause female orgasm? Again, scientists generally believe that, as separate from the clitoris, it does not, which is why 70-80% of women cannot have an orgasm via vaginal intercourse and need direct clitoral stimulation to orgasm. But scientists, as is clear by this Clinical Manual of Sexual Disorders, American Psychiatric Association publishing (2009) source (page 258), and the aforementioned Exploring the Dimensions of Human Sexuality (2013) and Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia (2014) sources, are still debating the nerve endings aspect of the vagina. What scientists these days generally have in common regarding vaginal sensitivity is that they are in agreement that the clitoris and vagina are intimately related.

 * Even when scientists seem to believe that erotogenic nerve endings in the vagina are all or mostly due to the clitoris, they still state that these nerve endings are a part of the vagina, or something similar to that. For example, if we go by Australian urologist Helen O'Connell, she states, "The vaginal wall is, in fact, the clitoris. If you lift the skin off the vagina on the side walls, you get the bulbs of the clitoris – triangular, crescental masses of erectile tissue." And as made clear by this Biology of Women (2002) source (pages 32-33) and this Sex and Gender (2002) source (page 87), she and her research team state that there is more erectile tissue associated with the clitoris than is generally described in anatomical textbooks. They concluded that some females have more extensive clitoral tissues and nerves than others, especially having observed this in young cadavers as compared to elderly ones, and therefore whereas the majority of females can only achieve orgasm by direct stimulation of the external parts of the clitoris, the stimulation of the more generalized tissues of the clitoris via vaginal intercourse may be sufficient for others. But French researchers Odile Buisson and Pierre Foldès, who published the first complete 3D sonography of the stimulated clitoris, demonstrating the ways in which erectile tissue of the clitoris engorges and surrounds the vagina, and believe that stimulating the vagina without activating the clitoris may be next to impossible, comment on the matter somewhat differently than O'Connell does. As noted by this Issues in Sexuality and Sexual Behavior Research: 2011 Edition (2012) source (page 145) and this aforementioned Discovery Series: Human Sexuality (2013) source (page 103; 135 for the URL link), they state that the "coronal planes during perineal contraction and finger penetration demonstrated a close relationship between the root of the clitoris and the anterior vaginal wall," and suggested "that the special sensitivity of the lower anterior vaginal wall could be explained by pressure and movement of clitoris's root during a vaginal penetration and subsequent perineal contraction." Furthermore, O'Connell stated in this WebMD source (page 3), "It is best to think of the clitoris, urethra, and vagina as one unit because they are intimately related." In this news source, researcher Barry Komisaruk, the lead author of a Rutgers University fMRI study investigating the female brain's ability to register distinct feelings between stimulating the clitoris, the cervix and the vaginal wall, stated similarly: "I think that the bulk of the evidence shows that the G-spot is not a particular thing. It's not like saying, 'What is the thyroid gland?' The G-spot is more of a thing like New York City is a thing. It's a region, it's a convergence of many different structures."

 * I went ahead and formatted the section in question to make it clearer that the vagina is generally insensitive. If you are wanting us to state that the vagina is completely insensitive, and to leave the text at that, I cannot agree...per the reasons I stated above. And the section is already clear that "vaginal orgasms" are likely caused by the clitoris. I will go ahead and alert WP:Med to this discussion for their input on it. Flyer22 (talk) 14:34, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * Alerted. Flyer22 (talk) 14:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I added page numbers to my citations. PolenCelestial (talk) 19:36, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * I think this is a misunderstanding. As far as I can see, the sources PolenCelestial listed at the top of this section don't dispute (or even discuss) the idea that the vagina is an erogenous zone. They dispute the idea that stimulating the vagina itself leads to orgasms (instead, stimulation of the clitoris either internally or externally is credited for vaginal orgasms), but that doesn't mean that the vagina is not an erogenous zone. Body parts can be erogenous zones, and yet not cause orgasms when stimulated. If you look at other areas of the erogenous zone article, you'll see the lips, ears, mouth, etc. listed as erogenous zones, even though touching them (probably) won't lead to orgasm. kyledueck (talk) 20:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I clarified this earlier in the discussion when I distinguished physiological erogenous zones, which produce sexual pleasure by masturbation, from zones which only contribute to arousal in the context of the psychological experience of sex. The term "erogenous zone" is vague and the distinction should be clarified in the article. PolenCelestial (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

 * And I stated that "[the sources I have presented] are attributing vaginal pleasure and 'vaginal orgasm' to nerve endings, not to psychological causes, not mainly psychological causes anyway." I also was clear that "stating that 'vaginal orgasm' is caused by the clitoris, which, as some of the sources I pointed to above show is the general agreement among scientists today, is not the same thing as stating that the vagina has no erotogenic nerve endings and that the vagina plays no part in anatomical sexual pleasure or female orgasm." I'm not sure what you want from the article on the vaginal aspect, especially since I've tweaked the vaginal text, but I've been clear that we are not going to call the vagina completely insensitive and leave the matter at that. Nor are we going to state that vaginal pleasure is only psychological and leave the matter at that. Flyer22 (talk) 23:42, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Armpit
That sections content talks solely about pheromones. It should definitely include at least something about physical stimulation or sensation. There are definitely lots of nerve endsing, so that could be discussed Fimbulvintur (talk) 10:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh and armpits are listed both as a non specific zone and as a zone itself. That should definitely be corrected. I don't have skills other than observation though... Fimbulvintur (talk) 10:31, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Am I the only one?
Who thinks these are all retardedly inaccurate? its like people decided to throw psychology into a physiological response and turn every single part of the human body into a "possible psychological fetish arousal triggering nerve" By these definitions every single contact sport in the history or man is an act of rape. He touched my ear, she touched me head, I got put in a headock and jizzed my pants...... This is ridiculous. The EAR is NOT a sex related organ... at all.... The scalp? It doesnt even do anything and sits covered by hair hardly effect by the world your entire life. Armpits? FEET? There is a separate section for fetishes. Please stick to things that are at least connected physiologically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18d:8b80:25d0:91b3:acfb:cba5:e3a1 (talk • contribs)

 * Well, as you can see, the article is currently lacking citations. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Erogenous zone/Archive 1


text:
Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s. The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, or combined with unrelated material.

Amongst the early artists that shaped the pop art movement were Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton in Britain, and Larry Rivers, Ray Johnson, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns among others in the United States. Pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion of those ideas. Due to its utilization of found objects and images, it is similar to Dada. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of postmodern art themselves.

Pop art often takes imagery that is currently in use in advertising. Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, seen in the labels of Campbell's Soup Cans, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the outside of a shipping box containing food items for retail has been used as subject matter in pop art, as demonstrated by Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box, 1964 (pictured).

Origins
The origins of pop art in North America developed differently from those in Great Britain. In the United States, pop art was a response by artists; it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art. They used impersonal, mundane reality, irony, and parody to "defuse" the personal symbolism and "painterly looseness" of abstract expressionism. In the U.S., some artwork by Larry Rivers, Alex Katz and Man Ray anticipated pop art.

By contrast, the origins of pop art in post-War Britain, while employing irony and parody, were more academic. Britain focused on the dynamic and paradoxical imagery of American pop culture as powerful, manipulative symbolic devices that were affecting whole patterns of life, while simultaneously improving the prosperity of a society. Early pop art in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture when viewed from afar. Similarly, pop art was both an extension and a repudiation of Dadaism. While pop art and Dadaism explored some of the same subjects, pop art replaced the destructive, satirical, and anarchic impulses of the Dada movement with a detached affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture. Among those artists in Europe seen as producing work leading up to pop art are: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Kurt Schwitters.

Proto-pop
Although both British and American pop art began during the 1950s, Marcel Duchamp and others in Europe like Francis Picabia and Man Ray predate the movement; in addition there were some earlier American proto-pop origins which utilized "as found" cultural objects. During the 1920s, American artists Patrick Henry Bruce, Gerald Murphy, Charles Demuth and Stuart Davis created paintings that contained pop culture imagery (mundane objects culled from American commercial products and advertising design), almost "prefiguring" the pop art movement.

United Kingdom: the Independent Group

The Independent Group (IG), founded in London in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the pop art movement. They were a gathering of young painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who were challenging prevailing modernist approaches to culture as well as traditional views of fine art. Their group discussions centered on pop culture implications from elements such as mass advertising, movies, product design, comic strips, science fiction and technology. At the first Independent Group meeting in 1952, co-founding member, artist and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi presented a lecture using a series of collages titled Bunk! that he had assembled during his time in Paris between 1947 and 1949. This material of "found objects" such as advertising, comic book characters, magazine covers and various mass-produced graphics mostly represented American popular culture. One of the collages in that presentation was Paolozzi's I was a Rich Man's Plaything (1947), which includes the first use of the word "pop", appearing in a cloud of smoke emerging from a revolver. Following Paolozzi's seminal presentation in 1952, the IG focused primarily on the imagery of American popular culture, particularly mass advertising.

According to the son of John McHale, the term "pop art" was first coined by his father in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell, although other sources credit its origin to British critic Lawrence Alloway. (Both versions agree that the term was used in Independent Group discussions by mid-1955.)

"Pop art" as a moniker was then used in discussions by IG members in the Second Session of the IG in 1955, and the specific term "pop art" first appeared in published print in the article "But Today We Collect Ads" by IG members Alison and Peter Smithson in Ark magazine in 1956. However, the term is often credited to British art critic/curator Lawrence Alloway for his 1958 essay titled The Arts and the Mass Media, even though the precise language he uses is "popular mass culture". "Furthermore, what I meant by it then is not what it means now. I used the term, and also 'Pop Culture' to refer to the products of the mass media, not to works of art that draw upon popular culture. In any case, sometime between the winter of 1954–55 and 1957 the phrase acquired currency in conversation..." Nevertheless, Alloway was one of the leading critics to defend the inclusion of the imagery of mass culture in the fine arts. Alloway clarified these terms in 1966, at which time Pop Art had already transited from art schools and small galleries to a major force in the artworld. But its success had not been in England. Practically simultaneously, and independently, New York City had become the hotbed for Pop Art.

In London, the annual Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) exhibition of young talent in 1960 first showed American pop influences. In January 1961, the most famous RBA-Young Contemporaries of all put David Hockney, the American R B Kitaj, New Zealander Billy Apple, Allen Jones, Derek Boshier, Joe Tilson, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Phillips, Pauline Boty and Peter Blake on the map; Apple designed the posters and invitations for both the 1961 and 1962 Young Contemporaries exhibitions. Hockney, Kitaj and Blake went on to win prizes at the John-Moores-Exhibition in Liverpool in the same year. Apple and Hockney traveled together to New York during the Royal College's 1961 summer break, which is when Apple first made contact with Andy Warhol – both later moved to the United States and Apple became involved with the New York pop art scene.

United States
Although pop art began in the early 1950s, in America it was given its greatest impetus during the 1960s. The term "pop art" was officially introduced in December 1962; the occasion was a "Symposium on Pop Art" organized by the Museum of Modern Art. By this time, American advertising had adopted many elements of modern art and functioned at a very sophisticated level. Consequently, American artists had to search deeper for dramatic styles that would distance art from the well-designed and clever commercial materials. As the British viewed American popular culture imagery from a somewhat removed perspective, their views were often instilled with romantic, sentimental and humorous overtones. By contrast, American artists, bombarded every day with the diversity of mass-produced imagery, produced work that was generally more bold and aggressive.

According to historian, curator and critic Henry Geldzahler, "Ray Johnson's collages Elvis Presley No. 1 and James Dean stand as the Plymouth Rock of the Pop movement." Author Lucy Lippard wrote that "The Elvis ... and Marilyn Monroe [collages] ... heralded Warholian Pop." Johnson worked as a graphic designer, met Andy Warhol by 1956 and both designed several book covers for New Directions and other publishers. Johnson began mailing out whimsical flyers advertising his design services printed via offset lithography. He later became known as the father of mail art as the founder of his "New York Correspondence School," working small by stuffing clippings and drawings into envelopes rather than working larger like his contemporaries. A note about the cover image in January 1958's Art News pointed out that "[Jasper] Johns' first one-man show ... places him with such better-known colleagues as Rauschenberg, Twombly, Kaprow and Ray Johnson".

Indeed, two other important artists in the establishment of America's pop art vocabulary were the painters Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg, who like Ray Johnson attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina after World War II, was influenced by the earlier work of Kurt Schwitters and other Dada artists, and his belief that "painting relates to both art and life" challenged the dominant modernist perspective of his time. His use of discarded readymade objects (in his Combines) and pop culture imagery (in his silkscreen paintings) connected his works to topical events in everyday America. The silkscreen paintings of 1962–64 combined expressive brushwork with silkscreened magazine clippings from Life, Newsweek, and National Geographic. Johns' paintings of flags, targets, numbers, and maps of the U.S. as well three-dimensional depictions of ale cans drew attention to questions of representation in art. Johns' and Rauschenberg's work of the 1950s is frequently referred to as Neo-Dada, and is visually distinct from the prototypical American pop art which exploded in the early 1960s.

Roy Lichtenstein is of equal importance to American pop art. His work, and its use of parody, probably defines the basic premise of pop art better than any other. Selecting the old-fashioned comic strip as subject matter, Lichtenstein produces a hard-edged, precise composition that documents while also parodying in a soft manner. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics' Secret Hearts #83. (Drowning Girl is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.) His work features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots to represent certain colors, as if created by photographic reproduction. Lichtenstein said, "[abstract expressionists] put things down on the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't come out looking calligraphic, like Pollock's or Kline's." Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery/content into the mix.

The paintings of Lichtenstein, like those of Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann and others, share a direct attachment to the commonplace image of American popular culture, but also treat the subject in an impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass production.

Andy Warhol is probably the most famous figure in pop art. In fact, art critic Arthur Danto once called Warhol "the nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced". Warhol attempted to take pop beyond an artistic style to a life style, and his work often displays a lack of human affectation that dispenses with the irony and parody of many of his peers.

Early U.S. exhibitions
Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann had their first shows in the Judson Gallery in 1959 and 1960 and later in 1960 through 1964 along with James Rosenquist, George Segal and others at the Green Gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan. In 1960, Martha Jackson showed installations and assemblages, New Media – New Forms featured Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine and May Wilson. 1961 was the year of Martha Jackson's spring show, Environments, Situations, Spaces. Andy Warhol held his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in July 1962 at Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery, where he showed 32 paintings of Campell's soup cans, one for every flavor. Warhol sold the set of paintings to Blum for $1,000; in 1996, when the Museum of Modern Art acquired it, the set was valued at $15 million.

Donald Factor, the son of Max Factor Jr., and an art collector and co-editor of avant-garde literary magazine Nomad, wrote an essay in the magazine's last issue, Nomad/New York. The essay was one of the first on what would become known as pop art, though Factor did not use the term. The essay, "Four Artists", focused on Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, and Claes Oldenburg.

In the 1960s, Oldenburg, who became associated with the pop art movement, created many happenings, which were performance art-related productions of that time. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun Theater". The cast of colleagues in his performances included: artists Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann, Öyvind Fahlström and Richard Artschwager; dealer Annina Nosei; art critic Barbara Rose; and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer. His first wife, Patty Mucha, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his happenings. This brash, often humorous, approach to art was at great odds with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. In December 1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side to house The Store, a month-long installation he had first presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, stocked with sculptures roughly in the form of consumer goods.

Opening in 1962, Willem de Kooning's New York art dealer, the Sidney Janis Gallery, organized the groundbreaking International Exhibition of the New Realists, a survey of new-to-the-scene American, French, Swiss, Italian New Realism, and British pop art. The fifty-four artists shown included Richard Lindner, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy Lichtenstein (and his painting Blam), Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Peter Phillips, Peter Blake (The Love Wall from 1961), Öyvind Fahlström, Yves Klein, Arman, Daniel Spoerri, Christo and Mimmo Rotella. The show was seen by Europeans Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely in New York, who were stunned by the size and look of the American artwork. Also shown were Marisol, Mario Schifano, Enrico Baj and Öyvind Fahlström. Janis lost some of his abstract expressionist artists when Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb and Philip Guston quit the gallery, but gained Dine, Oldenburg, Segal and Wesselmann. At an opening-night soiree thrown by collector Burton Tremaine, Willem de Kooning appeared and was turned away by Tremaine, who ironically owned a number of de Kooning's works. Rosenquist recalled: "at that moment I thought, something in the art world has definitely changed". Turning away a respected abstract artist proved that, as early as 1962, the pop art movement had begun to dominate art culture in New York.

A bit earlier, on the West Coast, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine and Andy Warhol from New York City; Phillip Hefferton and Robert Dowd from Detroit; Edward Ruscha and Joe Goode from Oklahoma City; and Wayne Thiebaud from California were included in the New Painting of Common Objects show. This first pop art museum exhibition in America was curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum. Pop art was ready to change the art world. New York followed Pasadena in 1963, when the Guggenheim Museum exhibited Six Painters and the Object, curated by Lawrence Alloway. The artists were Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol. Another pivotal early exhibition was The American Supermarket organised by the Bianchini Gallery in 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by prominent pop artists of the time, including Apple, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, Oldenburg, and Johns. This project was recreated in 2002 as part of the Tate Gallery's Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture.

By 1962, pop artists started exhibiting in commercial galleries in New York and Los Angeles; for some, it was their first commercial one-man show. The Ferus Gallery presented Andy Warhol in Los Angeles (and Ed Ruscha in 1963). In New York, the Green Gallery showed Rosenquist, Segal, Oldenburg, and Wesselmann. The Stable Gallery showed R. Indiana and Warhol (in his first New York show). The Leo Castelli Gallery presented Rauschenberg, Johns, and Lichtenstein. Martha Jackson showed Jim Dine and Allen Stone showed Wayne Thiebaud. By 1966, after the Green Gallery and the Ferus Gallery closed, the Leo Castelli Gallery represented Rosenquist, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Johns, Lichtenstein and Ruscha. The Sidney Janis Gallery represented Oldenburg, Segal, Dine, Wesselmann and Marisol, while Allen Stone continued to represent Thiebaud, and Martha Jackson continued representing Robert Indiana.

In 1968, the São Paulo 9 Exhibition – Environment U.S.A.: 1957–1967 featured the "Who's Who" of pop art. Considered as a summation of the classical phase of the American pop art period, the exhibit was curated by William Seitz. The artists were Edward Hopper, James Gill, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.

France
Nouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the artist Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto for the group, titled the "Constitutive Declaration of New Realism," in April 1960, proclaiming, "Nouveau Réalisme—new ways of perceiving the real." This joint declaration was signed on 27 October 1960, in Yves Klein's workshop, by nine people: Yves Klein, Arman, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and the Ultra-Lettrists, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Jacques de la Villeglé; in 1961 these were joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps. The artist Christo showed with the group. It was dissolved in 1970.

Contemporary of American Pop Art—often conceived as its transposition in France—new realism was along with Fluxus and other groups one of the numerous tendencies of the avant-garde in the 1960s. The group initially chose Nice, on the French Riviera, as its home base since Klein and Arman both originated there; new realism is thus often retrospectively considered by historians to be an early representative of the École de Nice movement. In spite of the diversity of their plastic language, they perceived a common basis for their work; this being a method of direct appropriation of reality, equivalent, in the terms used by Restany; to a "poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality".

Spain
In Spain, the study of pop art is associated with the "new figurative", which arose from the roots of the crisis of informalism. Eduardo Arroyo could be said to fit within the pop art trend, on account of his interest in the environment, his critique of our media culture which incorporates icons of both mass media communication and the history of painting, and his scorn for nearly all established artistic styles. However, the Spanish artist who could be considered most authentically part of "pop" art is Alfredo Alcaín, because of the use he makes of popular images and empty spaces in his compositions.

Also in the category of Spanish pop art is the "Chronicle Team" (El Equipo Crónica), which existed in Valencia between 1964 and 1981, formed by the artists Manolo Valdés and Rafael Solbes. Their movement can be characterized as "pop" because of its use of comics and publicity images and its simplification of images and photographic compositions. Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar emerged from Madrid's "La Movida" subculture of the 1970s making low budget super 8 pop art movies, and he was subsequently called the Andy Warhol of Spain by the media at the time. In the book Almodovar on Almodovar, he is quoted as saying that the 1950s film "Funny Face" was a central inspiration for his work. One pop trademark in Almodovar's films is that he always produces a fake commercial to be inserted into a scene.

New Zealand
In New Zealand, pop art has predominately flourished since the 1990s, and is often connected to Kiwiana. Kiwiana is a pop-centered, idealised representation of classically Kiwi icons, such as meat pies, kiwifruit, tractors, jandals, Four Square supermarkets; the inherent campness of this is often subverted to signify cultural messages. Dick Frizzell is a famous New Zealand pop artist, known for using older Kiwiana symbols in ways that parody modern culture. For example, Frizzell enjoys imitating the work of foreign artists, giving their works a unique New Zealand view or influence. This is done to show New Zealand's historically subdued impact on the world; naive art is connected to Aotearoan pop art this way.

This can be also done in an abrasive and deadpan way, as with Michel Tuffrey's famous work Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000). Of Samoan ancestry, Tuffery constructed the work, which represents a bull, out of processed food cans known as pisupo. It is a unique work of western pop art because Tuffrey includes themes of neocolonialism and racism against non-western cultures (signified by the food cans the work is made of, which represent economic dependence brought on Samoans by the west). The undeniable indigenous viewpoint makes it stand out against more common non-indigenous works of pop art.

One of New Zealand's earliest and famous pop artists is Billy Apple, one of the few non-British members of the Royal Society of British Artists. Featured among the likes of David Hockney, American R.B. Kitaj and Peter Blake in the January 1961 RBA exhibition Young Contemporaries, Apple quickly became an iconic international artist of the 1960s. This was before he conceived his moniker of "Billy Apple", and his work was displayed under his birth name of Barrie Bates. He sought to distinguish himself by appearance as well as name, so bleached his hair and eyebrows with Lady Clairol Instant Creme Whip. Later, Apple was associated with the 1970s Conceptual Art movement.

Japan
In Japan, pop art evolved from the nation's prominent avant-garde scene. The use of images of the modern world, copied from magazines in the photomontage-style paintings produced by Harue Koga in the late 1920s and early 1930s, foreshadowed elements of pop art. The Japanese Gutai movement led to a 1958 Gutai exhibition at Martha Jackson's New York gallery that preceded by two years her famous New Forms New Media show that put Pop Art on the map. The work of Yayoi Kusama contributed to the development of pop art and influenced many other artists, including Andy Warhol. In the mid-1960s, graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo became one of the most successful pop artists and an international symbol for Japanese pop art. He is well known for his advertisements and creating artwork for pop culture icons such as commissions from The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor, among others. Another leading pop artist at that time was Keiichi Tanaami. Iconic characters from Japanese manga and anime have also become symbols for pop art, such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy. Japanese manga and anime also influenced later pop artists such as Takashi Murakami and his superflat movement.

Italy
In Italy, by 1964 pop art was known and took different forms, such as the "Scuola di Piazza del Popolo" in Rome, with pop artists such as Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli, Giosetta Fioroni, Tano Festa, Claudio Cintoli, and some artworks by Piero Manzoni, Lucio Del Pezzo, Mimmo Rotella and Valerio Adami.

Italian pop art originated in 1950s culture – the works of the artists Enrico Baj and Mimmo Rotella to be precise, rightly considered the forerunners of this scene. In fact, it was around 1958–1959 that Baj and Rotella abandoned their previous careers (which might be generically defined as belonging to a non-representational genre, despite being thoroughly post-Dadaist), to catapult themselves into a new world of images, and the reflections on them, which was springing up all around them. Rotella's torn posters showed an ever more figurative taste, often explicitly and deliberately referring to the great icons of the times. Baj's compositions were steeped in contemporary kitsch, which turned out to be a "gold mine" of images and the stimulus for an entire generation of artists.

The novelty came from the new visual panorama, both inside "domestic walls" and out-of-doors. Cars, road signs, television, all the "new world", everything can belong to the world of art, which itself is new. In this respect, Italian pop art takes the same ideological path as that of the international scene. The only thing that changes is the iconography and, in some cases, the presence of a more critical attitude toward it. Even in this case, the prototypes can be traced back to the works of Rotella and Baj, both far from neutral in their relationship with society. Yet this is not an exclusive element; there is a long line of artists, including Gianni Ruffi, Roberto Barni, Silvio Pasotti, Umberto Bignardi, and Claudio Cintoli, who take on reality as a toy, as a great pool of imagery from which to draw material with disenchantment and frivolity, questioning the traditional linguistic role models with a renewed spirit of "let me have fun" à la Aldo Palazzeschi.

Belgium
In Belgium, pop art was represented to some extent by Paul Van Hoeydonck, whose sculpture Fallen Astronaut was left on the Moon during one of the Apollo missions, as well as by other notable pop artists. Internationally recognized artists such as Marcel Broodthaers ( 'vous êtes doll? "), Evelyne Axell and Panamarenko are indebted to the pop art movement; Broodthaers's great influence was George Segal. Another well-known artist, Roger Raveel, mounted a birdcage with a real live pigeon in one of his paintings. By the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, pop art references disappeared from the work of some of these artists when they started to adopt a more critical attitude towards America because of the Vietnam War's increasingly gruesome character. Panamarenko, however, has retained the irony inherent in the pop art movement up to the present day. Evelyne Axell from Namur was a prolific pop-artist in the 1964–1972 period. Axell was one of the first female pop artists, had been mentored by Magritte and her best-known painting is Ice Cream.

Netherlands
While there was no formal pop art movement in the Netherlands, there were a group of artists that spent time in New York during the early years of pop art, and drew inspiration from the international pop art movement. Representatives of Dutch pop art include Daan van Golden, Gustave Asselbergs, Jacques Frenken, Jan Cremer, Wim T. Schippers, and Woody van Amen. They opposed the Dutch petit bourgeois mentality by creating humorous works with a serious undertone. Examples of this nature include Sex O'Clock, by Woody van Amen, and Crucifix / Target, by Jacques Frenken.

Russia
Russia was a little late to become part of the pop art movement, and some of the artwork that resembles pop art only surfaced around the early 1970s, when Russia was a communist country and bold artistic statements were closely monitored. Russia's own version of pop art was Soviet-themed and was referred to as Sots Art. After 1991, the Communist Party lost its power, and with it came a freedom to express. Pop art in Russia took on another form, epitomised by Dmitri Vrubel with his painting titled My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love in 1990. It might be argued that the Soviet posters made in the 1950s to promote the wealth of the nation were in itself a form of pop art.

Notable artists

 * Billy Apple (1935–2021)
 * Evelyne Axell (1935–1972)
 * Sir Peter Blake (born 1932)
 * Derek Boshier (born 1937)
 * Pauline Boty (1938–1966)
 * Patrick Caulfield (1936–2005)
 * Allan D'Arcangelo (1930–1998)
 * Jim Dine (born 1935)
 * Burhan Dogancay (1929–2013)
 * Robert Dowd (1936–1996)
 * Rosalyn Drexler (born 1926)
 * Ken Elias (born 1944)
 * Erró (born 1932)
 * Marisol Escobar (1930–2016)
 * James Gill (born 1934)
 * Dorothy Grebenak (1913–1990)
 * Red Grooms (born 1937)
 * Richard Hamilton (1922–2011)
 * Keith Haring (1958–1990)
 * Jann Haworth (born 1942)
 * David Hockney (born 1937)
 * Dorothy Iannone (1933–2022)
 * Robert Indiana (1928–2018)
 * Jasper Johns (born 1930)
 * Ray Johnson (1927–1995)
 * Allen Jones (born 1937)
 * Alex Katz (born 1927)
 * Corita Kent (1918–1986)
 * Konrad Klapheck (1935–2023)
 * Kiki Kogelnik (1935–1997)
 * Nicholas Krushenick (1929–1999)
 * Yayoi Kusama (born 1929)
 * Gerald Laing (1936–2011)
 * Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997)
 * Richard Lindner (1901–1978)
 * Peter Max (born 1937)
 * John McHale (1922–1978)
 * Marta Minujin (born 1943)
 * Claes Oldenburg (1929–2022)
 * Don Nice (1932–2019)
 * Julian Opie (born 1958)
 * Eduardo Paolozzi (1924–2005)
 * Peter Phillips (born 1939)
 * Sigmar Polke (1941–2010)
 * Hariton Pushwagner (1940–2018)
 * Mel Ramos (1935–2018)
 * Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008)
 * Larry Rivers (1923–2002)
 * James Rizzi (1950–2011)
 * James Rosenquist (1933–2017)
 * Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002)
 * Peter Saul (born 1934)
 * George Segal (1924–2000)
 * Colin Self (born 1941)
 * Marjorie Strider (1931–2014)
 * Elaine Sturtevant (1924–2014)
 * Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021)
 * Joe Tilson (born 1928)
 * Andy Warhol (1928–1987)
 * Idelle Weber (1932–2020)
 * John Wesley (1928–2022)
 * Tom Wesselmann (1931–2004)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pop art


text:
Father Ted Crilly

Father Ted Crilly is the eponymous main character of the British Channel 4 situation comedy Father Ted. Created by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, Ted was portrayed by comedian Dermot Morgan for the programme's three series. The character is a morally dubious Roman Catholic priest exiled to Craggy Island, a small island off the coast of Galway in Ireland.

The character was originally created by Mathews for a short-lived stand-up routine in the late 1980s. In 1994, Linehan and Mathews cast Morgan in the role for the television series, developing the character to match his abilities. Morgan's performance was acclaimed; after his untimely death on 28 February 1998 from a heart attack, he was awarded a posthumous BAFTA for his work in the third series.

Concept and creation

Arthur Mathews had a lifelong fascination with priests, and developed the character of Father Ted while working at Hot Press with Graham Linehan and Paul Woodfull in 1987–89. After considering several surnames, Linehan suggested Crilly, which stuck. Mathews has described his version of Ted as a generic priest, but Woodfull saw the character as more camp, and later said that he felt Mathews had preempted the camp/gay priest stereotype in Irish comedy.

During production weekends, Mathews and Woodfull had the idea for The Joshua Trio, a comedic U2 tribute band. The band performed various warm-up sketches written by Mathews, Woodfull and Linehan, who joined in a non-musical capacity. This led to a side-project, a short-lived sketch troupe called The Fun Bunch. Deciding to base a sketch around Mathews's Father Ted character, the group brainstormed for a surname in Linehan's Castleknock kitchen; Linehan suggested Crilly, which stuck immediately. Mathews debuted his character on-stage at a comedy night in the Project Arts Centre. The character was received better than Woodfull's own working-class Dublin priest, and Mathews later appeared as Father Ted in warm-up sketches for The Joshua Trio and Woodfull's other musical act, Tony St James and The Las Vegas Sound. As Ted, Mathews sometimes read from a book, Notes from Africa, purportedly written by Father Dougal McGuire, a missionary friend who described his experiences of being attacked and chased by natives. In one sketch, Ted discussed his concern for Dougal, who had been voted Most Unpopular Priest in Africa for two years running and was spending Christmas up a tree in the grounds of The Bob Geldof Centre. During one Tony St James Olympia gig, audience members shouted "Not a fucking priest!", but were pleased when Ted produced a portable confessional and proceeded to talk about it. On one occasion at The Purty Loft in Dún Laoghaire, he sang "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off".

Later, Mathews and Woodfull included the character in The Starship Róisín, a short-lived science fiction comedy radio series they wrote for The Ian Dempsey Show on RTÉ Radio. An Irish parody of Star Trek, it followed the adventures of Captain Bono (played by Woodfull, based on the singer Bono) and his Vulcan sidekick Stephen "Spock" Roche (played by Mathews, based on cyclist Stephen Roche, with a "cold, cycling brain". Storylines involved "space bicycles", the ship chef Darina Alien (based on Darina Allen), emcee Tony St James (Woodfull), Johnny Guitar (a "little fella" who made guitar sounds), and ship chaplain Father Ted (Mathews). Woodfull later said that the show was "probably a bit too weird for [its] slot", and that, when the station suggested they take two of the characters and launch a spin-off called Tea and Toast with Tony and Ted, Mathews opted out.

In 1989, Ted (played by Mathews) performed with The Joshua Trio in an episode of the Irish music anthology series Nighthawks, marking the character's first televised appearance.

In 1990, Linehan and Mathews began writing Irish Lives, a six-part comedy television series. The show would have taken the form of a mockumentary, with each episode focusing on interviewing a different character; one of the six characters was Father Ted Crilly. The script, delivered in 1990, described Ted as "a perpetually jolly and rather sad man who, through some terrible accident of faith, has found himself in the priesthood." The story involved Ted returning to his seminary to catch up with his old friends, including Father Jack, whom he fails to realise has recently died. Producer Geoffrey Perkins asked Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom.

Linehan found the character of Ted easier to write if he imagined Mathews's version delivering the lines. "Every time I wrote Ted in the early days, I'd hear Arthur's voice... Ted was this very bland character who'd never curse except for saying a very quiet 'feck' to himself. That panic and turmoil under the surface defined Ted before we even started writing him. Years later, when we did, it was just like pressing 'play' on a tape recorder."

One of the writers' key influences was Charles Grodin's character in the 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid.

Casting
Actor Maurice O'Donoghue auditioned for the role, and Linehan felt that he was the right appearance, age and "lightness" for the character. Mathews wanted to cast comedian Dermot Morgan from an early stage, but Linehan was reluctant; he worried that audiences would confuse Ted with Father Trendy, a character Morgan had previously created for The Live Mike. Trendy parodied a class of priests including Brian D'Arcy, perceived in the 1970s as wanting to be considered liberal and "cool", whereas Ted was written as a more conservative, traditional priest. Morgan lobbied hard for the role, eventually persuading Linehan. The writers considered O'Donoghue a back-up to use should Morgan become unavailable, and later created Father Dick Byrne, Ted's recurring rival, specifically for O'Donoghue to play.

Aspects such as Ted's obsession with money and fantasy of going to Las Vegas emerged while writing for Morgan, and the writers began to feel for Ted in a way they did not for the other characters.

After the second series aired, Linehan said he still believed that Mathews could easily have played Ted in the show.

There have been several attempts to remake the show for American audiences. In 2004, Steve Martin was reported to have signed on to play Ted in a new version. In 2007, John Michael Higgins was cast in the part. No remake has yet entered production, as of 2022.

Fictional character biography
Considered his family's "idiot brother", Ted was sent off to the priesthood while his brother, the favourite son, became a doctor, as was the custom at the time. Ted attended Saint Colm's seminary, and was bullied by the other novices, who nicknamed him Father Fluffybottom after seeing his backside in the showers. Some time after being ordained, he was stationed in a Wexford parish, where he was investigated under suspicion of stealing the money for a child's pilgrimage to Lourdes to fund his own trip to Las Vegas. Despite escaping formal charges and his insistence the money was "just resting in his account", Bishop Brennan still banished Ted to the remote, cold, rainy Craggy Island, telling him that he would stay there until all of the money was accounted for. Ted was unsuccessful in this regard, as in the first series he mentions having lived on the island for over six years. He was eventually promoted and managed to move to a comfortable parish in Dublin, though his stay there was abruptly ended after irregularities in his expenses claims were discovered, and he was promptly sent straight back to Craggy Island.

For the duration of the show, Ted lives in the Craggy Island Parochial House with the childlike and dimwitted Father Dougal McGuire, the senile, aggressive and alcoholic Father Jack Hackett, and their neurotic housekeeper, Mrs Doyle (whom Linehan states Ted first met when she won the local Lovely Girls competition). He has a bitter rivalry with Father Dick Byrne, a priest living on the nearby Rugged Island. Ted's experiences throughout the show range from the mundane (having to protest against a blasphemous film in "The Passion of Saint Tibulus" and rigging a raffle to repair the roof in "Think Fast, Father Ted"), to the surreal (becoming Ireland's entry for Eurosong 1996 in "A Song for Europe", and climbing out of a flying plane to fix the fuel line in "Flight Into Terror"). In "A Christmassy Ted", Ted prevents a national scandal by helping seven other priests find their way out of Ireland's largest department store lingerie section. The Church honours him with the Golden Cleric award.

Fathers Ted and Dougal then host the 1997 Comic Relief telethon (with Morgan and O'Hanlon in character for the duration of the event); when Ted wonders why he has been selected, Dougal suggests that God has planned it to allow Ted a chance to earn forgiveness for his sins by raising money for the charity.

In the next episode, the first of series three, "Are You Right There Father Ted?", Ted has been transferred to an idyllic parish in Castlelawn, Dublin, but is soon sent back to Craggy Island when irregularities are discovered in his expenses. He later discovers the hard way that there is a Chinatown on Craggy Island and then has to go to great lengths to disprove rumours that he is a racist.

In the final episode, "Going to America", Ted persuades the suicidal Father Kevin not to jump off a ledge at the "It's Great Being a Priest! '98" conference. Impressed, an American priest offers Ted a place at his Los Angeles parish. Ted, unable to tell the others that they cannot come with him, is wracked with guilt; he cancels the move at the last minute after discovering Los Angeles' gang problem, then tells them that he has realised he belongs on Craggy Island. Dougal says that they will live together on the island forever, and a montage of clips from all previous episodes is shown before the episode ends.

The episode originally ended by flashing forward a year to the next conference. Ted sees Father Kevin standing on the ledge again; instead of helping, he joins him on the ledge, preparing to jump himself. The scene was cut and replaced with the montage following Morgan's death and poor reaction from audiences. Mathews later noted that the original ending still left Ted's fate ambiguous, and would have suggested the possibility of future episodes. Linehan stated: "It's nice to think of them all in the house having adventures, but when you think about it, it's really cruel to Ted. It's just an awful future for him... he's not watching a sitcom, he's living this awful life."

Personality
The Independent characterised Ted as "by turns devious, cunning and disingenuous", noting a running joke about parish funds being traced to Ted's personal account. Ardal O'Hanlon, who played Father Dougal, said that Ted was the show's only rounded, fully formed character, and that the rest of the cast were essentially playing caricatures. Ted is frequently portrayed as a natural leader, albeit within the context of the priesthood.

In a 1997 interview, Morgan attributed the show's success to the appealing double-act formed by Dougal, "an idiot who knows nothing", and Ted, "an idiot who thinks he knows something but actually knows nothing." The actor identified Ted as "an Everyman guy, bumbling through life with a half-wit".

Linehan and Mathews have described Ted as a decent man, albeit one with "cheap" and "earthly" ambitions; they note that he would hate to become a bishop or cardinal. Ted does not want to be seen as a priest, but is still willing to flash his collar and ask for free entry at the cinema. The writers also agree that Ted is the character most like them. Mathews grew up surrounded by priests (including his own uncle), and it was from these priests that Mathews drew Ted's "voice". Linehan is often asked about potential Father Ted spin-offs, but believes that Ted himself is the only character complex enough to survive outside the Father Ted environment. Mathews has suggested that Ted could even have worked well in a spin-off drama series.

The writers agree that Ted should be married to Polly Clarke (played by Gemma Craven), the novelist he becomes infatuated with in "And God Created Woman", and consider the impossibility of their relationship "terribly sad".

Appearance
Ted is a middle-aged man with a distinctive head of silver-grey hair (often imitated through wigs by cosplaying fans). He wears two badges: one is a pin signifying membership of the Pioneers, an Irish Catholic teetotalers organisation, and the other is a Fáinne, which indicates the wearer's fluency in the Irish language.

Reception and legacy
In 1996, Morgan was named the Best TV Comedy Actor at the British Comedy Awards for his performance in the second series. He died in February 1998, one day after the third series of Father Ted completed recording, and was posthumously given the Award for Best Comedy Performance at the British Academy Television Awards 1999.

In November 2014, the Irish Examiner named Ted the greatest Irish TV character, calling him "a rare example of a straight man providing almost as many chuckles as his compatriots" and praising his characterisation as an "upstanding-yet-oh-so-faintly-slippery man of the cloth" as true to life for many rural Irish viewers.

title: Father Ted Crilly