In order to get a woman posing naked for you, you must be a celebrity first.
No matter how talented you are, if you are famous, women will feel protected by your status. I don't like it at all, but it seems that is the way to make it function. The more famous you are, the less that woman will be condemned by the society. And, also, you will be less condemned as an artist if you deal with tabu subjects as human sexuality. It is a big hypocrisy, because the talent and the artistic value of your work always came second. When you are not famous, critics tend to accuse you about what you cannot be and do, instead of appreciating (without prejudices) for what you are and create. And the society tend to shut you down. So you must won your popularity ("the other way around") and became a "certified value" to be allowed to raise your voice.
We live here, in Romania, in a society where the Ministry of Education is putting the study of nude (history of art, painting, sculpture and drawing) as a main subject in art schools - starting with gymnasium and then all the way through high school, college and university. But then if a young artist decides to choose this subject later in his career, it is suddenly condemned for immorality. It is hilarious how the tax payers are paying the salaries of hired nude models in art schools (through the state budget and all) and then the same tax payers are condemning the artistic representations of human nudity. I have started to study nude at 14, as a young student in the art school gymnasium in Bucharest, under the communist regime. And 20 years LATER, in the democracy, I found myself questioned and accused about doing nudes. And I met women willing to pose nude, but too afraid of doing that because the negative reaction of the society.
Well, I will always think that this problem was solved, in fact, hundreds of years ago, when Michelangelo was allowed by the Holy Pope to paint nudes on the Sixtine Chapel ceiling, despite the violent negative opinion of it's cardinals. But it seems that the society is always ignoring that. Today the public opinion have no problem with The Sixtine Chapel, because Michelangelo is considered a genius and his work a masterpiece - and nobody questions that. But in his time, Michelangelo was an young artist as many others in the context of his time.
And in this way we are reaching again the idea of the first line of this post, closing the circle.
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