ABSTRACT
Certain conventions of eroticism are so deeply ingrained that one scarcely bothers to think of them: one is that the very term "erotic art" is understood to imply the specification "erotic-formen." As far as one knows, there simply exists no art, and certainly no high art, in the nineteenth century based upon women's erotic needs, wishes, or fantasies. Whether the erotic object be breast or buttocks, shoes or corsets, a matter of pose or of prototype, the imagery of sexual delight or provocation has always been created about women for men's enjoyment, by men. In the nineteenth century, the very idea—much less an available public imagery—of the male body as a source of gentle, inviting satisfaction for women's erotic needs, demands, and daydreams is almost unheard of, and again not because of some "male-chauvinist" plot in the arts. It is because of the total situation existing between men and women in society as a whole.
