Nudity, Is It Sexist In This Forum?

[GrandizerII]

When I see the FFrF make a challenge to our US government being used to advertise religion, atheist yell "preferential treatment" "breach of the separation of church and state" and when the religious state, "pick your battles, it's just a little sign, just a little break of the constitution, just a little statue, a nativity" everyone gets their hackles up. It just one small slight, it's not important, there are other things more important in this world.

Yes, there are but many little things make bigger issues and also set a precedence for future behaviors. We have seen this in history and now in many ways. Is it wrong to say recognize this one slight and make it right? Is it not beneficial to change the small wrongs before they add up to be big ones? Does equality really happen if we ignore all the small ways in which we are not equal?

It seems to me if you say it doesn't matter then it won't matter to you if it's corrected either.

There's two ways it could be corrected.

1) Either allow pictures of topless women of all ages to be posted anywhere in the forum potentially allowing people to break actual laws beyond forum rules and potentially allowing what would be classed as child pornography onto the forums.

2) Ban all pictures of any breasts.  Practically speaking there would be no point to this whatsoever.

Or suggestion 3) Don't allow nude/topless/shirtless child pictures to be posted on forums for both underage boys and girls (if this is going to be potentially a legal concern). But allow adult nudity unconditionally if not considered pornographic, and restricted to Area69 if pornographic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

If it'll help things, I promise I'll never post topless pics.

^Knee-jerk reaction. 

Let's not be hasty, fella.

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the good of the community.

[Losty]

Is it sexist...probably. Is an Internet forum a good place to begin your protest? Not really.

I consider myself to be fairly feminist. I will never be ok with naked girls under 18 in any public place. I don't allow my son to go shirtless either....maybe I'm weird. I dunno.

Anyways, if you want to see a change, make a change, but it's not going to happen here first. That would just be silly because there are legal definitions to the word "pornography" and we don't get to change the definition based on whatever rules we'd like to have.

[Losty]

There's two ways it could be corrected.

1) Either allow pictures of topless women of all ages to be posted anywhere in the forum potentially allowing people to break actual laws beyond forum rules and potentially allowing what would be classed as child pornography onto the forums.

2) Ban all pictures of any breasts.  Practically speaking there would be no point to this whatsoever.

Or suggestion 3) Don't allow nude/topless/shirtless child pictures to be posted on forums for both underage boys and girls (if this is going to be potentially a legal concern). But allow adult nudity unconditionally if not considered pornographic, and restricted to Area69 if pornographic.

Nah...that's a terrible idea!

[Angrboda]

The rule of no nudity already exists. That is not in dispute. The rule does not discriminate.

BUT has it, is it and will it be upheld equally by the mods, is the question to be answered.

No, the rule is no pornography, where pornography is defined as, "an explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity." The question at issue would seem to be, are male breasts not sexual organs but a woman's breasts are? Traditional society says yes. Is that sexist? I don't know.

[Whateverist]

I kind of like that it breaks the rules. Naughty is good, right?

[Losty]

The rule of no nudity already exists. That is not in dispute. The rule does not discriminate.

BUT has it, is it and will it be upheld equally by the mods, is the question to be answered.

No, the rule is no pornography, where pornography is defined as, "an explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity."  The question at issue would seem to be, are male breasts not sexual organs but a woman's breasts are?  Traditional society says yes.  Is that sexist?  I don't know.

I will add, legally women's breasts are typically considered pornography especially nipples. Legally anything above the waist on a man is not considered pornography.

Is it sexist? It doesn't really matter because we don't make the laws.

InB4 whatevs, but what if mine can touch my belly button? That's above the waist!

[GrandizerII]

The rule of no nudity already exists. That is not in dispute. The rule does not discriminate.

BUT has it, is it and will it be upheld equally by the mods, is the question to be answered.

No, the rule is no pornography, where pornography is defined as, "an explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity."  The question at issue would seem to be, are male breasts not sexual organs but a woman's breasts are?  Traditional society says yes.  Is that sexist?  I don't know.

Women's breasts shouldn't be considered sexual organs if it was up to me.

[Athene]

^Knee-jerk reaction. 

Let's not be hasty, fella.

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the good of the community.

[Angrboda]

The purpose statement of the forum states the following: "We believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression, which means members can discuss their ideas without fear of censorship or limitation, provided they are not breaking the rules & guidelines below." This forum in its pornography rule, imo, is trying to strike a balance between freedom of expression and protecting minors from what in the words of the Children's Online Protection Act are considered "harmful materials." The COPA was struck down by the courts, but it is not wrong of the forum to adopt standards consistent with that legislation's aims, and I feel the restriction on pornography was created with just such a goal in mind. The question then becomes does the current enforcement of the pornography rule amount to sexism? I don't think so. The question is whether in the views of those setting the standards -- the site owners -- the alleged pornographic materials are obscene or not. The Miller test is informative in this regard and provides a three pronged test for materials which may be considered obscene. In particular, obscene materials appeal to the prurient interest, or as prurient is defined, as "Arousing or appealing to sexual desire." In most communities, displays of male breasts are not considered to appeal to the prurient interest, whereas female breasts are. Thus a display of female breasts may be obscene whereas the man's may not. Is that sexist? I don't think so. There is a documented fetish of female breasts; not so with male breasts. Therefore the prurient interest exists with female breasts and not male breasts. Is that unfair to women or prejudicial? No, I don't think so. It's simply a factual difference between the sexes.

The Court, in an attempt to set such limits devised a set of three criteria which must be met for a work to be legitimately subject to state regulation:

• whether the average person, applying contemporary "community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
  
• whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law (the syllabus of the case mentions only sexual conduct, but excretory functions are explicitly mentioned on page 25 of the majority opinion); and
  
• whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California

The legality of pornography at the federal level has been traditionally determined by implementing the Miller test. This test dictates that the opinion of the local community on a specific pornographic piece is most important in determining its legality. Thus, if a local community determines a pornographic work to meet its standard for obscenity then it is more likely to be banned. This means that a pornographic magazine that might be legal in California could be illegal in Alabama. This standard on pornographic legality is extremely difficult to uphold for the internet given that the internet contains ubiquitous amounts of pornography. It has been argued that if the Miller test were applied to the Internet then, in effect, the community standards for the most conservative community would become the standard for all U.S.-based Web sites. The courts are currently examining this issue.

The first attempt to regulate pornography on the Internet was the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, which prohibited the "knowing" transmission of "indecent" messages to minors and the publication of materials which depict, in a manner "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs", unless those materials were protected from access by minors, for example by the use of credit card systems. Immediately challenged by a group of organizations spearheaded by the ACLU, both of these provisions were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997).[11] The "indecent transmission" and "patently offensive display" provisions were ruled to limit the freedom of speech guarantee of the First Amendment.

A second attempt was made with the narrower Child Online Protection Act (COPA) of 1998, which forced all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to protect their sites from access by minors. "Material harmful to minors" was defined as materials that by "contemporary community standards" are judged to appeal to the "prurient interest" and that show sexual acts or nudity (including female breasts). Several states have since passed similar laws. An injunction blocking the federal government from enforcing COPA was obtained in 1998. In 1999, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction and struck down the law, ruling that it was too broad in using "community standards" as part of the definition of harmful materials. In May 2002, the Supreme Court reviewed this ruling, found the lower court’s given reason insufficient and returned the case to the circuit court. In March 2003, the 3rd Circuit Court again struck down the law as unconstitutional, this time arguing that it would hinder protected speech among adults. The administration appealed; in June 2004 the Supreme Court upheld the injunction against the law, ruling that it was most likely unconstitutional but that a lower court should determine whether newer technical developments could have an impact on this question. On March 22, 2007, COPA was found to violate the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution and was struck down.

Wikipedia: Legal status of internet pornography