Thats interesting... it sounds like you feel like pornography is an inherently degrading/harmful product from the studying, whether you consciously intend to or not. I find it all very abstract human nonsense to create a picture out of anything... to form lines into a visage in a 2 dimensional plane... paint the cave wall.. again, from the cosmic perspective-- porn and not-porn are exactly the same to me... there is no moral attachment to making a SFW or NSFW image. It only becomes a problem if someone is being transgressed in some way ... but you could do that even by using someone's likeness without permission in like, a normal video game, or even drawing a completely SFW but still creepy and intrusive image of like, you and your ex happily married, LOL. I think about transgressions, I care about them!! But ... googling siamese cats to draw a picture, the least of anything....!

Whether you want to or mean to or not... it's an interesting mindset. I don't feel like there's any practical difference if I'm drawing moose posing neutrally or if I'm drawing them hogs flopping... who is being "exploited"...? The "likeness of the animal"? The image of the aardvark sleeping with a boner....... I don't feel I'm "exploiting" his .... experience ?? existence ?? I can't "transgress" this ... photograph. It's so many degrees of separation. Is the photographer "exploiting" the aardvark, to post this photo, to keep it in a portfolio? Are documentarian "exploiting" mating animals to produce a film..........considering an.......... animal's... ... ?? right to ... not be ... ? ...? used for a human narrative understanding of its existence ... (a bizarre human cultural concept it can't receive any impression of at all).

Maybe making human stories about animals is always a self-serving, selfish purpose. Is turning cats into Warriors more... respectful...? Is making the Lion King more noble a result of studying than my art...? I don't feel so at all. Do I feel Zootopia is a more noble, honorable use of references of animals than my weird porn ?! n-no, I don't really at all think that...! Do you think that? I'm curious really! I don't understand the mindset myself. I might be of rare mind to not think I'm lower of mind or spirit to make weird porn, because I think art is about simply externalizing things inside of your skull, a strange human capability I'm fascinated by and like to exercise.

Honestly I don't see a clear distinction between what goes into my brain for pure scientific curiosity and what is an aspect of sexuality fodder ... I can't really delineate in that way, and it seems like an illusion to imagine a boundary. Whether you see a deer outside your window and watch it eat the grass peacefully... or watch a documentary while eating dinner... or have the refs open for drawing porn... it all goes into the same brain. The same BEAUTIFUL creative curious brain.

You don't need to do things you're uncomfortable with BUT it can't feel ... good to feel those kinds of boundaries in your mind, to be skirting this edge, to have these concepts like "exploiting" a photo or paranoia about making it "accidentally too close"... it sounds like kind of policing that would result in anxiety, a confusing and foggy existence. Always a small action away from some sort of tiny crime... the EXPLOITATION of a being, that sounds so awful to hold inside as a belief. That sounds like it would feel... bad... over time... and make you feel like a bad and selfish person. So I might hope you don't feel that way forever...