Greetings mods and admins,

I'm currently working on a paper for my Woman's health class and the topic of sex vs violence in American culture is my topic. As part of my research, I was wondering if you could please explain to me why graphic, violent gifs and pictures are okay here but not pictures or gifs of bouncing girl parts?

It's also a legitimate question that comes up in Otter from time to time and perhaps it's time for us to have a good answer?

I'd like a reply from those in charge if at all possible. I will make sure to cite this webpage properly in my assignment so as to give proper credit.

Thank you.

I don't think we've ever had a formal discussion about this, but I'd say the standards here are most likely taken from US TV standards as to what's acceptable on the tube. Yes the US TV market is very hung up on nudity, but ok with some violence.

Extremely violent videos and pictures are removed from the site on a regular basis though.

...says the chick with Edward Cullen's sparkly erection as her avatar.

While your eyes see dicks, mine sees rockets.

This is definitely the public standard, for whatever reason. Look at The Walking Dead...no shortage of gruesome gory violence that would get the show a hard "R" if it were a movie...but they'll never show a boob or say "fuck".

This is where I side with our British friends across the pond...they're very cool about sex/nudity, but are very anti blood/gore.

I don't understand why the MPAA gives a R to a movie that depicts someone violently dismembering a body, but an NC-17 to a movie that shows two people making love. It's one of those things that reflects very poorly on the morals of Americans.

Blast off!

I'm curious to see what photobucket does with this.

^ Must remove...meh, too funny.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/j6FER3jPxzg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

come on guys, I got a paper to write

"Suck on a tit, get an NC-17. Hack off a tit, get a PG."

Sadly, expecting many folks around here to behave like mature, responsible adults doesn't work very often.

As for the topic, I think the real issue is a lack of any consistent moral standard. Groups like the MPAA don't treat everything with the same level of scrutiny, and I personally suspect its due to studio or cultural pressure. For example, there's three uses of the F-bomb in "The American President", plus premarital sex and a major endorsement of the ACLU...it got a PG-13. Meanwhile, "The Passion of the Christ" has less brutality than most horror films, and was given an R. I don't care who disagrees; the main reason for the latter was because of who was being tortured, not the violence itself.

What does an endorsement of the ACLU have to do with MPAA ratings?

And The Passion of Christ definitely earned its R for violence.

That thing was Saw/Hostel level brutality.

You asked in particular for responses from mods and admins.

My first point would be that the rules were in place before I became a mod. To the best of my knowledge they were put in place by Geoff Kleinmann the site founder. It might be as well to ask him from whether they were his idea or if they evolved or what.

I would also point out something that has been mentioned before that some of the elements of the overall site may have different standards e.g. what can be posted in the forums over which the mods/admins have some control and what is allowed by those who control the advertising side.

Finally, as a Brit, I must admit that I too am sometimes confused by the disconnect between some aspects of online life and also the apparent view of some folk that the internet in general should reflect the mores of their particular society.

In summation, I am not sure that the mods/admins are really the right people to whom you need to address your queries but, if you do think they are the arbiters, PM might be a more direct communication route.

I would wager that the reason is because we, as a society, are more comfortable with violence than sex.

You can turn on network television any night and see any number of violent acts committed, from murder to assault. But nudity, especially "the naughty bits" (per Monty Python) is still taboo. We can look at lingering shots of people who were flayed alive on Hannibal, and view graphic autopsies on CSI, but a flash of a woman's nipple would be over the line.

I suppose it might have something to do with this country being founded by Puritans and violent revolution. We love guns and warfare, we view violence as being something productive and righteous, but when it comes to sex, while we're obsessed with it, we still feel a great amount of shame over it.

The rules here seem to be pretty standard for most "work safe" sites.

You sort of have three levels of sites.

* One is a site where anything goes like 4chan.

* Another is a mostly work safe site, like DVDTalk, where nudity and certain kinds of "sexy" images are barred, but language is mostly unrestricted.

* A third is one that bars not only nudity, but explicit language, or anything else that might be considered offensive. Don't know any of these offhand. (Actually, DVDTalk used to be one of these, didn't it? I can remember in the old days words like "fuck" and "****" were automatically censored.)

I've always felt that it's more of a subconscious "that's not real" when it comes to violence. I mean, you don't see actual people flayed on TV - it's actors and blood packs. But a boob is a boob.

It is much easier to identify and list in concrete terms things of an explicit sexual nature or nudity. The level of acceptable graphic violence is a personal standard that would be nearly impossible to define in a coherent manner, whereas it is very easy to say for instance that images of female nipples are not permissible.

Co-founder Roger Nash Baldwin said communism was the original goal of his creation. While he later backed away from that sentiment, the present runners of the ACLU will defend just about any cause, unless its unreservedly conservative and/or Christian in nature. People like that are deliberately twisting the text of the Constitution to suit their own ends, instead of sticking by what the Founders originally wanted: a nation where all types of thought were free to be expressed, both public and private. "The American President" was doing okay until the end, when it took a very sharp turn away from American ideals. I mentioned that aspect as a personal gripe; the main distinction was the repeated F-bombs for a PG-13.

Not really; most of it was in the scourging scene, and I don't recall any heads or limbs being hacked off. The main critics of the film were Orthodox Jews and liberals, who hate on principle any film depicting Jesus as the Messiah.

From Wikipedia:

So cool - you're totally wrong. Again.

Perfect

The ACLU still doesn't defend conservatives with the same fervor or dedication as they do liberals. They're the main organization behind the removal of crosses or the Ten Commandments from public display, when such things do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in any way, shape, or form. There's no law which says the government can't prefer one belief system over another; they just can't make it mandatory.

If there's no law against it, then it seems as though the ACLU would have no legal means to have them removed.

I'm closing this thread as it has drifted into the political area and completely off topic. I think Kitty has her answer as to why we have the "safe for work" standards that we do. If Kitty thinks we need to reopen it, she can PM me or one of the other admins. Thanks.