ozoneocean
There's a ocean of difference between the human form and the sails of a ship :)
Man knows man, there's no difficulty there at all. Maybe a few minutes hesitation as you say, but that's all.

I should add that I also heard this story, and even though I have no way of directly confirming it, the academic consensus seems to be that the tribe really did not recognize what the photos depicted. I'm speaking of an “academic consensus” because (a) it was an anthropological study, and its claims can be wrong just like those of any scientific study, and (b) I actually heard this story in an art theory seminar, so that should count for something.

Sure, it sounds hard to believe for people like us, since photos are so seamlessly integrated into our daily lives. But let's assume for a moment that this story is true - it wouldn't be too hard to explain, I think. When it comes to photos, shape is reducible to contrast. And while contrast does play a role in recognizing real people (and as such, contrast must play a culturally independent role in visual identification), it's hardly the decisive criterion. In fact, there is still much debate about how visual identification works. One of the earliest psychological theories claimed that visual identification of objects depended crucially on the mental matching of perceived and remembered shapes (“Gestaltpsychologie” ). If I remember correctly, this theory ran into problems because it had to assume an infinite mental storage, since everyone one of us would have to remember every possible shape of an object in three dimensions. Current neuro-sciences put much more emphasis on movement (when it comes to biological objects such as humans and animals) and functionality (when it comes to inanimate objects - canonical neurons, of which the famous mirror neurons are a sub-species, are relevant for recognizing functionality). Since photos do not show movement, this would be a neat explanation, I think!

Sorry for digressing, I just thought this might clear up some loose ends.

As for the main topic, some stories are about sex, so they should involve it. But they don't have to be sexy in any way…
As for what sells better, I think it's “sexy”. Sex is too much of a taboo in any society to really sell products which don't deliver real sex (by that I mean to exclude the porn industry, which obviously sells a lot more than Hollywood does! But to me it seems like they sell sex itself, if only masturbation…). But if you want to sell a tooth-brush (or, more likely, a comic which is not primarily a porn-comic), I think going with sexy would be the better choice because it can actually become part of socially acceptable everyday life :P

Abt_Nihil, thanks for the in depth info on shape recognition, that was very informative and quite interesting! I enjoyed that :)

But, here are a lot of other dimensions than that to the human recognition of the human form though- As a social species, recognition of the human form in all it's manifestations has been pretty crucial to our evolution and cultural development. It's well known and well studied that we see recognisable patterns and shapes in even the most random of imagery, and usually those shapes are in the form of something human, like a face for example.

For those tribes people not to have had any inkling that there was a human form represented in that photograph indites something lacking in either them or the records or interpretation of the initial researcher

Product Placement
It's still based on the idea of sympathy magic, regardless of how it was formed.

No, it's not. Only some practices are, like the famous “voodoo dolls” we all know and love. :)

They say that sex always sells, and as usual “they” are always right.

Still, with the advent of the internet, there is a hell of a lot more sex out there that is readily available to the average consumer. It may still sell, but inflation has certainly taken a toll on it.

I think it would be better to imply sex than directly showcase it. It's a lot easier to integrate it into the plot if you leave some mystery to it.

At least in America anyways. Us Yankees are a weirdly hung-up society when it comes to stuff like this. If you draw a boob, it stops mattering about anything else that happens to be on the page. All conversation will steer towards the boob.

It's simply how we're wired.

For the stuff I've made, a lot of it contained nudity. In order to not completely shock people, I'll try to cleverly hide the nudity. An arm on the breast, teapot that just happens to be in front of the right parts, or maybe just a dinosaur who walks by at the right moment.

One such character, Fat Naked, walks around with a censor bar on his genitalia. It's cartoonishly large, but in one occasion he picks the censor bar up revealing he has no genitals. Asking the person beside him if he even needs it anymore. Of course, Fat Naked is a rotund fellow with a bowler derby, so there is nothing sexual about him. Other than his nudity.

Another character I'm portraying this year with nudity is a transsexual. The idea being that this person is in between two sexes. Neither male nor female, but a bit of both. I believe the term is pre-op with implants? The nudity conveyed or the sexual nature of the character has to be conflicted some how and shown that this is clearly a woman who used to be a man who wants to be sexual. All while being a cartoon. It can't go too gross, it can't go too sexual. Things can only try to balance a medium between the two. All the nude scenes are in preparation for a date with suggested shadow boxing of the really improper parts. I don't think I could properly draw someone taping them self back to pretend to be a lady. So I shadow boxed it.

How it turned out is beyond me. I think it works. I might fix it a little better, but I think it works. Usually if something works, I try not to get hung up on it and just keep it and move on.

Marine…that picture would look like a bird's beak to the untrained mind. But for a perverted one like myself…now Sex or Sexy, it also plays into the whole Taboo thing. I know I used to get turned on by female characters in BTAS, but now we have people drawing those same characters nude on internet sites.

So..you can't have Sex without Sexy or Sexy without Sex or neither would co-exist with each other.

sexy is always much more exciting than say full frontal nudity. but what might be just sexy to you could be considered offensive to others.
I draw my girls scantily clad and generally appealing always because that's what i like.
Some might consider their outfits tacky,unrealistic,or mysogenistic (or however you spell that word), but that's whats fun to see for me. It's my world and you are to suspend your disbelief of what society calls acceptable or not.
If i have to make compromises in my girls' clothing to appeal to a more mass market then it ceases to become fun for me to draw. and when it ceases to become fun then it dies.

This is my ad that seems to get the most clicks:


lol

Darn, I was trying to click that!!!

To be honest I do not know. I haven't been introduced to sex (yet) so sexy is where it's at for me right now. Just a side note, is…um sex great the first time round?

@Turbosonic98: In my experience, until both parties know what they're doing, sex is really over-hyped. Once you both know what you're doing it's a different story.

As far as sex vs. sexy… Air Raid Robertson's got it correct. It does still work, but there's so much of it these days that it's a lot less effective. The novelty has worn off.

Sexy works a lot better, especially if you can do up a character with a good body who dresses to impress without looking like they're selling their body to the highest bidder. It's very genre-specific though.

(I should start a topic of “Which sells better: CUTE or SEXY?”)

If I had to pay for one or the other I'd pay for sex over sexy any day. I'm married, I pay for sex one way or another every day and sexy went away a long time ago. Jk

machinehead
If I had to pay for one or the other I'd pay for sex over sexy any day. I'm married, I pay for sex one way or another every day and sexy went away a long time ago. Jk

hah. Marriage cliche guy.


You're one funny guy y'know that.