On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/27/08, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
Why is this discussion so long? We provide porn so people can learn about sex & the like. We provide images of women masterbating so people can learn about ... women masterbating. Doesn't seem like there's really tons to discuss.
Here's something to discuss: a) Do you think an amateur photo is necessary to explain the concept of "woman masturbating"? b) How many images do you think is enough? c) Are there any limits to how far your logic should be applied? Should we provide graphic images of felching, squicking, or for that matter, decapitating?
Steve
a)Err, obviously professional is preferable to amatuer. But uh ... back when I was a ten year old boy, such material was highly instructive, and fairly difficult to obtain. It's very easy to say "Oh, you don't need a picture to explain it" when you already understand it, but very basic educational research shows you explain things better and people retain more with instructive diagrams, photos, videos and the like. But, quite frankly, to explain the subject to someone with no experience with it whatsoever, yes, photographs are helpful. b)Err, depends on a variety of factors - in all honesty, I'm not sure a specific number is really called for. Commons has no reason to delete media unless it's repetitive or useless. A Wikipedia article obvious has some called for quantity, but I'm not sure how many - I doubt more than a couple (note that in Canadian English, this could mean 3 or 4) - depends on the length and depth of the article - obviously as it gets better, the more that are called for. Of course, such images would almost certainly be freely licensed (seems unlikely any appropriate fair use ones would exist) and such images should be on commons, which also supports other projects - a textbook at Wikiversity on human sexual practices might easily call for a dozen such images. c) I'm sure there are actually images of decapitating around, and I'll be they're instructive too. Seeing a decapitated body is different from hearing about it. We have photos of bodies hanged at lynchings, and they sure convey to me a lot I didn't get from the text, lynchings being so far removed from my experiences. Beyond this - there probably are limits, but where exactly they lie I'm not sure - where the "disruptive anti-value" of such images exceeds their educational value. While this is clearly not the case for a woman masterbating, I'm not sure exactly where it is.
Cheers WilyD