[Foundation-l] Blog from Sue about censorship, editorial judgement, and image filters

[Sarah Stierch]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I have no idea about your personal stance, but correct me if I am wrong.
> Weren't you the one surprised to find an "in your face photo
> of a vagina" on an article about Vagina? You know where you said it was
> up-front and at the top unlike the article about penis where a "big giant
> penis in one's face upon opening it" ? just in case here it is [1]. Also,
> there is no difference between the pictures on the articles on these
> anatomical parts, the article you needed to compare it to was [[Human
> penis]] where is does have an "in you face photo" at the exact same place
> as
> the one about Vagina. I have a hard time understanding how you can claim to
> have either of those positions and resolve it with your earlier statements,
> but to each his own. I would even go as far as to say, that your original
> comments didn't appear very feminist at first glance.
>


I understand that vaginas, penises, breasts, butts, etc need to be "visually
shown." I just laughed when I put "vagina" in the en.Wikipedia search box a
spread vagina is shown with all the much needed descriptors to the part.
When I search in en.Wikipedia "penis" I get a collection of penises
preserved in jars.

There is a "human penis" article, again with all of the bits explained and
shown. You just have to search for "human penis" or follow the links to it
to find it. But frankly, if I'm going to look up "penis" on Wikipedia, I'm
sure most people are looking for the human penis, not animal penises. I'm
also sure more than a few of them pass over the direct for the human penis
article.

I think it's entertaining. Again, I know that a vagina needs to be shown in
an article about a vagina, but, I was, for 5 seconds, taken aback.
::shrugs::

Now, please inform me, if you would want the kids today or a younger version
> of yourself to learn about "sexual content" from Playboys or Madonna's
> "SEX"
> (both are pretty antiquated today) or an Encyclopedia? you know where you
>

"Encyclopedias are boring," is what I would have said as a kid. When I was a
kid I wanted juicy, fun, colorful, exciting content. Not a bunch of writing.
I don't have children, but, I work in museums, and I worked at the world's
largest children's museum, I have a little bit of knowledge about children's
education (but nothing compared to others).  Kids seek things out. They're
sneaky, and parents aren't idiots - you can't hide things from your kids. I
was one of those kids - I was going to to the bookshop in 1989 looking for
Dr. Ruth books, I was sneaking off to the art books to look at Nan Goldin
books.

But, again, that's just my personal experience.

And as a side note (and this goes to a number of people on this list): I
don't need anyone, of any gender, questioning my feminism. It's as insulting
as being called a censor. There are no rule books.

But if there was... ;-)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique

-Sarah

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