KQ writes:
I'm not being a wag; I'm being serious when I say
that
if Bill Clinton (and other articles) fit into one category only, then we're recreating subpages.
Stevertigo writes:
I think this is all off the point. We all in good faith understand what reasonable people could be objecting to - namely articles like teabagging, buttplugs, creampies, the list goes on...
Is it really so unclear what I'm saying? The idea of what is "sexually explicit" has at various times included piano legs, women's ankles, and Elvis Presley's hips. In quite a few places on the planet, it still includes women's ankles, and I'm sure it would include Elvis Presley's hips as well. For an example in the opposite direction, Robert Mapplethorpe considered his work "erotic," yet many (many) people consider it "pornographic." Should I point you to the obscenity trials for James Joyce's _Ulysses_? Anyway, tagging articles with commentary of that sort--"sexually explicit," etc.--is the same as imposing your cultural POV onto them; in other words, it is the same as declaring the wikipedia a developed nation's middle-class anglocentric-pedia. Exactly how is that of benefit to us?
kq
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No, I agree - I was commenting on the general subject - and its meandering from the core issue - namely appropriate self-censorship - within the confines of a percieved need for such self-censorship. I was wrong to single out one small comment by you (Kq) as an example of too much detail - forgetting to make a basic, clear argument against this case , which is "the perception of explicitness (at this time, in our culture)."
This is a very different time in world culture - far removed from sexy piano legs and Elvis hips. But every single popular figure since Shakespeare (and before) has contributed to the same cause - namely, the elevation of the vulgar (common) to the level of the acceptible. The Victorian era is indeed dead (The Queen is Dead) thank goodness, and with it can go some of the pretentions that previous generations had to live with.
I agree that there should be some standards here - but in a nutshell, I'd remind people not to trip too much. Once again, apologies for singling you out Kq for being unclear - my real point was that *everyone was being unclear.
-SM
Is it really so unclear what I'm saying? The idea of what is "sexually explicit" has at various times included piano legs, women's ankles, and Elvis Presley's hips. In quite a few places on the planet, it still includes women's ankles, and I'm sure it would include Elvis Presley's hips as well. For an example in the opposite direction, Robert Mapplethorpe considered his work "erotic," yet many (many) people consider it "pornographic." Should I point you to the obscenity trials for James Joyce's _Ulysses_? Anyway, tagging articles with commentary of that sort--"sexually explicit," etc.--is the same as imposing your cultural POV onto them; in other words, it is the same as declaring the wikipedia a developed nation's middle-class anglocentric-pedia. Exactly how is that of benefit to us?
kq