Nudity, Is It Sexist In This Forum?

[bennyboy]

Also, we do get to define pornography however we like. You are not required to agree with our definition of pornography or our inclusion of other body parts within the purview of the word. You will, however, abide by the rules that the site owner has laid out and that the staff he chose agreed to---if you want to continue posting.

I've abided by the rules, and agreed that I broke them. I think it is okay for me to assert that the rules are poorly thought-out, and that the stated motivations for the rule (specifically, legal issues) aren't founded in reality, right?

Those pictures were not illegal---none of them. The picture of the children was not lewd or indecent in any way, and would not be against the law in the US. But they were someone else's fucking kids, and we will not allow nude pictures of someone else's children on this website. There are hundreds of lurkers every day who never register who could see those pictures. If there ever was a day when the staff here decided that members posting pictures of nude children was okay, I would leave and never come back. I have faith that that would never happen.

I got my image by going to google.com and typing "nudism." I didn't dig them up in some 4-chan perverts' dungeon. Let's get real. . . if someone is looking for kiddy porn, they aren't going to go to page 27 about a thread on sexism on an atheist site, open up a "hide" tag, and jump for joy that they've found what they could have found in literally 2 seconds on google.com

It's time to get real about this. . . nobody is being protected by these archaic rules. It's clearly about 1) the personal predilections of some (maybe most) AF members; 2) ad revenue (and this has been explicitly stated). I really want to know if it's really about the money. Because if it is, I'll happily pay the $400 for a year for the site all on my own, just to bring you guys into the 21st century of the digital age.

As for our response to the OP, our position is and continues to be that we do not think that being unfair to two sexes is better or preferable to being unfair to one sex. Your chest hair red herring aside, (no one was talking about secondary sexual characteristics) we're not going to pretend that equality is served when we're simply being discriminatory towards everyone instead of a portion.

Breasts ARE a secondary sexual characteristic, by definition. The viewing or showing of breasts is not illegal in the US or any other civilized state. Hiding breasts in hide tags with a warning will more than allow anyone who is personally (because it's not a law) offended by them to avoid viewing them.

But I'm not arguing it's unforgivable to be sexist in some cases. The world isn't fair, and some of that unfairness is sexism. And I personally agree that if the members of this forum don't want to have breasts on the site, there's little need for anyone to post them. But it's clearly a sexist rule. If I were a mod, I'd say, "Yep, totally sexist. It sucks, but that's the society we live in, and it's not the fight we want to fight. I respect your opinions, but it's decided."

While we're at it, maybe you should remove Losty's breast images, as well as the one I quoted (from her), just to keep things completely up-and-up. They do, in fact, violate the rules, and in my opinion really do make my banning look very hypocritical.