Where do you draw the line?

[Coho]

Brian: The previous comment was posted by a viewer who was disturbed

at the site of a dead child. You chastised another person about an

erect penis. Here:

http://www.photo.net/photo/3778736 we have an image

of torture. Frequently there are photos of women in bondage. Sure,

you can surf photosig.com and plenty of porn sites and find the same

thing. As a healthcare provider who does family practice, I can tell

you that 80% of my patients are female and 20% to 25% of those women

have been sexually abused at some point in their life, usually when

they were younger. At least once a month, I see a woman who has been

beaten by her partner and I must document their injuries. It isn't

pretty. I am aware that bondage photos and bondage art has been a

longtime art theme. To me it is abhorent and unnecessary! The above

stated image is the first male I have seen on PN that has been tied

up. Yes, the women aren't beaten in the bondage images. But what is

the difference? The implication is that women enjoy being dominated

by men. OK, I admit it, I am a SNAG (sensitive new age guy) but I

thought we had already been through the women's movement. Once again,

where do you draw the line? I would rather see an erect penis than a

beaten & tortured male or a female in bondage. What are your values?

[MichaelChang]

David, the author states the source as Madame Tussauds Museum, and this is <a href="http://www.madame-tussauds.co.uk/experience_chamber.asp">the likely location</a> which appears to be entertainment based. I can see your point, though, especially when such an image can be easily taken out of context.

[Coho]

Apparently, in the discussion about the dead child image, someone stated that it was posed and not real. Despite that, many people seemed to be upset about the image whether it was real or not. Not everybody will read the description or comments on the torture image. It is one thing to see this image on PN. It is another to see it at the wax museum. Context is VERY important.

 

During the Vietnam war we regularly saw the horrors of war in the media and perhaps the images of this inhumanity lead to the end of that war. In the current conflagration, those images are censored. But there is a difference and the current administration in the US continues its deceit. Only a small percentage of the Iraq war images, such as the torture at the prison, fortunately escape to remind us of our own inhumanity. Is a single image of torture on PN, out of context, socially redeeming?

 

Violence to women (and to a lesser extent, men), despite pornography, has not really changed. With the internet, there are more and more images of women (and some men) being manipulated and used in the name of any international currency. Women are still being hurt and the S&M and bondage scene, especially when portrayed as ART, probably don't help women in the long run. Tying up and beating men is no different. Both are harmful, both physically and psychologically for a very long time. Just ask my patients with PTSD.

 

I do however feel that nudity, whether male of female, when depicted as form, texture, lighting, contrast is very different than beating or tying people up. While I don't really enjoy looking at an erect penis, how is it any different than a flacid penis? If nobody is being hurt why is it wrong? Is a photo on PN of two nude women kissing or hugging any less sexual than an image of an erect penis?

 

Am I hypocritical because I think nude images (both male and female) are OK and bondage photos, even if the models are fully cooperative and not hurt in their photo sessions? Tough call! Unfortunately, from personal experience with my patients, I have seen too many women who have been hurt in the B & D scene. I worry that bondage as art perpetuates violence against women. So I am really curious this site has issues with an erect penis and not with bondage? Complex question yes. Just curious. With several comments to this forum in the last few days regarding similar issues, I thought it was appropriate to raise this issue.

[Coho]

Quick afterthought for Michael Chang. Pornography considers itself to be entertainment based as does a lot of media where we get to see people hurt or killed. Does that make it OK?

[johncrosley]

David,

 

I read your interesting post on bondage and domination photos. Personally, I find them a turnoff and in whatever context find them anything but sexually arousing.

 

However, there exists a substantial population of people, men and women, for whom such 'play' is an important part of their sexual lives; there are whole communities devoted to the intricacies of B&D, and no shortage of participants, both male and female.

 

No one, least of all me, who also feels that I am what you call a 'sensitive new age guy', wants to see women harmed in any way, but your thesis that somehow the sexual games that people play ultimately leads to abuse and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (if I read you clearly), seems somewhat far from the fact.

 

It may indeed be true that some men who practice that 'play' are in fact brutes who enjoy subjugating women and who will then progress to real abuse. But so far as I can tell, that is a small subset, and not well studied, and that most of the people involved in such play look on it as a lifestyle choice, and photography of that is to depict their eroticism and their lifestyle. Women also are abused by men who do not practice B&D.

 

Also, as I can tell you personally, men also are abused, and such abuse has nothing to do necessarily with B&D play.

 

Again, B&D is not my cup of tea.

 

But I am reminded of something I learned not so long ago, that explains much of what I have been told by a number of women; many women have a 'rape fantasy' but not one in which there is actual harm involved -- just somewhat amorphously being sexually dominated by a surreptitious 'attacker' who is in reality just a dream lover who is at first rejectd, then accepted. That person often is a loved one or an amalgam of 'loved ones' conjured up in dreams or daydreams.

 

No, I do not condone rape; I personally would find it a physical impossibility. But my source about the 'rape fantasy' is very substantial and well recognized, and it suggests that there is in many woman a wish to be 'dominated' sexually on some level by men -- to literally be 'taken' in ways that liberations would deny. (And I have long considered myself a liberationist, and have fought their legal fights from before it was a recognized 'right' with legal protections.

 

Just because some females are abused by males, and some of those injuries occur in B & D play somehow gone awary, is not a necessarily an indication that there is a causal connection, one to the other, between B&D and abuse. Real abusers don't need the excuse of B&D play.

 

However alient to me, B&D enjoys some sort of widespread following. The conclusion that women who engage in such 'play' necessarily will end up being abused is far from warranted by any facts I am aware of.

 

And how do you explain the 'rape fantasy' held by a fairly large section of the female population -- it is a form of female subjugation, but one that is wished for and dreamed about (and the so-called rapist so often is a loved one or an amalgam of desired 'dream' men whose imaged aggressive advances ultimately are yielded to.) (In fact, this 'fantasy' as been pretty well studied, as contradictory as it is to the old-line liberationists)

 

You reference a 'family practice' and you state that of the 80% of your patients who are female, that 20-25% of those have been sexually abused at some point in their life, usually when younger, but that does NOT translate into a repudiation of the consenting adult sexual practices of others.

 

And there is no suggestion by you that those abused young women or girls suffered any 'abuse' as the result of adults engaged in B&D play.

 

There is a substantial difference between bondage images and the depiction of brutality and beating of women. It is not as you state 'what is the difference[?] . . . ' but instead a difference that is most telling.

 

One of the first texts I read on human sexuality was the Kinsey Report on male sexuality followed soon after by the Kinsey report on female sexuality and I have spent a lifetime since then (I was 11) with my eyes open to the vast panoply of practices that people indulge in sexually, without condoning those practices -- just being aware they existd.

 

Most of them I find not to my taste, and B&D is not one of those practices. But to make the suggestion that it somehow is 'abhorrent and unnecessary' is to rain on the parade of those for whom it is a lifestyle choice to be celebrated. (Why, I don't know, but it seems to mean a lot to an awful lot of people).

 

And yes, I can assure you that some women do 'enjoy being dominated by men', and even dream about it. And I daresay, there is a large community of males who desire female domination, as well.

 

I respect your position as a family medical practitioner, and understand that you have written from the heart. No one wants to see Mrs. O.J. Simpson's photos with bruises and black eyes displayed on Photo.net, or any woman to suffer such injuries in real life. And I simply don't even look at B&D photos at all in any context as they simply are not to my taste, and ultimately boring.

 

And I love images of nude women, but still hardly ever even look at the nude photography on Photo.net as so often it is heavy-handed attempts to make try to make 'art' it simply fails to convey the message of eroticism.

 

Classical artists often depicted sexuality in their 'art' but found ways of disguising it by placing it in the context of, say, a Biblical parable or story, or to illustrate some supposed Greek or Roman myth. In truth, they just were inserting eroticism because it assured the artist of an audience and acclaim, and helped their commissions.

 

Churches that frowned upon explicit exhibitions of sexuality often would 'overlook' such exhibitions if disguised as an essential part of a story, and the classical artists understood that. Much of classical eroticism, then was disguised by the artist as a subterfuge against authority dictated by church practices.

 

I applaud your instincts: We should do nothing that causes violence or abuse of women.

 

I suggest, however, you delve into the study of human sexuality and psychology (and psychiatry) a little more before passing blanket judgments about the lifestyle of others, and its depiction.

 

(and poor old me, I'm just an ordinary guy with ordinary tastes, and I carry water for no one in this discussion, but I feel that your conclusions were minus some apparent substantial foundation and should be further discussed.)

 

 

With respect,

 

John (Crosley)

[MichaelChang]

"Quick afterthought for Michael Chang. Pornography considers itself to be entertainment based as does a lot of media where we get to see people hurt or killed. Does that make it OK?"<br><br>

David, it's always a fine line, isn't it? I think we'd both agree moral and ethical boundaries are being challenged and moved constantly to the discomfort of many, but it's also a freight train that is unlikely stopped (at least in North America). Then there's the beheading for the possession, display or sale of "morally eroding material" in some cultures..

[stephen hazelton]

The answer isn't that complicated. Either the administrators make some rules about what is acceptable, or they don't. Once they make any such rule, it is always going to have a certain amount of arbitrariness to it. No two people are ever going to agree exactly on what is and isn't acceptable. Consequently, you're forced to accept the fact that someone else may not object to a photo that you object to, or vice versa. If each one of us expects photo.net to conform to our ideas of acceptability, and fire off another post when they fail, it's just kind of a waste of time for all concerned.

 

Values differ across the country and around the world, but I'm not really aware of any place that just absolutely has no standards as to what is acceptable in print or on the air. When a society becomes so liberal that it accepts "anything", it then finds it necessary to silence those who object- and you have a form of censorship all over again.

[Coho]

To John and Michael: Yes, I probably stereotyped a little too much and I am aware that there is an incredible variety of different sexual acts that people do. Different strokes for different folks. One persons meat is another persons poison, etc. I am not that naive. I have also undergone a lot of human sexuality training. As a health care practitioner, I don't see the people who don't get hurt, only the ones that do. So I may have a slightly skewed perspective. I admit to that.

After reading the post about the dead child and reading Brian's threat to ban a photographer from PN for showing an erect penis I felt it necessary to ask PN: Where does one draw the line? It is entirely a philosophical question. As I stated, I don't care for erect penises in photos. Male nuditiy which depicts a penis in any state rarely gets ratings above 3's. Even female nudity rarely gets ratings above 5's. That in itself probably says something about our society.

 

If people want to urinate or deficate on each other while having sex, let them do it in the privacy of their own home. If they want to cut themselves with a knife or broken glass at the moment of orgasm, let them. Be as kinky as you wish. But don't do it to harm another human being. (I think that includes both sexes.) There are occasionally serious consequences to even normal sex (whatever that is?) And not everyone knows that.

 

Bottom line, nitty gritty, whatever: how does this site develop standards of censorship?

[byronlawrence]

I don't know how many of you watch that late night HBO show I think is called 'real sex'. but it shows a surprising side of human sexuality that many are unaware of. the thing that comes to mind every time I see bondage, roll playing, or S&M stuff it perks a mild curiousity as to the kind of people who enjoy it. I wonder what makes them want to do that. I don't find it fun or attractive and I usually think the girls invovled tend to be unfortunate looking, but I feel it is their choice and they have the right. but I do wonder about them.

[j_autey]

Awwww? Not this discussion again? Listen up; if you don't like photos don't look at them. But as long as their not considered pornographic by US laws (and yes, despite the belief to the contrary there are laws about what is and isn't pornographic in most US jurisdictions) they will probably be let on to the photo.net. And why not? Death? It's a part of life, it may not be art, but it has from day one been a photographic subject. Bondage? One person,s bondage is another person art (Maplethorpe). Any set of so-called decency rules is bond to reflect a very narrow view. Not necessarily conducive to art or exploration. Lastly as was brought up in a previous post, take responsibility for your own viewing and stop trying to make everyone else see through your myopic eyes.

[EricM]

thanks J.

[mbb]

............."Where do you draw the line?"..........

 

Right here:

 

___________________________________________

[Coho]

OK, I think we are all saying the same thing. All I am saying is why is an erect penis any different than anything else on PN?

[melresnick]

David's question is a valid one with, I believe, a simple though unsatisfying answer. PN is forced to conform to puritanical American laws and mores that prohibit the public depiction of nudity but condone the public depiction of violence. The choice to be an open website community doesn't allow for the adminstrators' personal judgement regarding what is moral or immoral, or what is art or pornography.

[melresnick]

Make that "restrict the public depiction of nudity."

[tholte]

PN can't be everything to everybody donch ya know!

[john falkenstine]

Hmm, is domestic violence the fault of photo.net now?

[bill_thorlin]

Probably - depends how much time you spend on it.