Unmentionables - Making the Case for a New Definition of Obscenity

Critics often decry 'obscenity' and say, like late Justice Potter

Stewart: 'I don't know how to describe it, but I know it when I see

it.'

 

I suggest that traditional notions of obscenity are somewhat

outmoded; witness this stroller new the Museum of Photographic Arts

at San Diego's Balboa Park recently. Your ratings and critiques are

invited and most welcome. Please remember that 'aesthetics' does

not just mean 'beauty' but also

encompasses 'impact', 'emotion' 'evocative power' and other, less

obvious factors that may not readily come to mind when thinking of

the word 'aesthetics'. If you rate harshly or very critically

please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your

superior knowledge to help improve my photography (please do not

rate this photo based on your like/dislike of the subject/caption).

Thanks! Enjoy! John ;~))

John, I am speechless :)

Although I must admit to a serious prejudice against obese ladies as far as romantic attraction is concerned, I think this is an interesting photo. I've always admired the courage of fat women in miniskirts at the same time as I avoid them

Enjoyed our many exchanges this year. Merry Christmas

Ransford

'Impact' is the essence of this photo.

 

Thank you for holiday greetings.

 

Likewise.

 

I'll spend my Christmas traveling the Ukrainian countryside on a long distance autobus, an ordinary business day for them.

 

John (Crosley)

Come on out and say it: This is horrible taste. Some people should not wear shorts in public. You're being too politically correct. (An American phenomenon).

 

Here in Ukraine, they wonder at how she could get the courage to do such a thing.

 

But then here they dress up in high heels, short skirts or peddle pushers just to walk downtown on a hot summer day, just to delight the many men fans. (and you wonder why I sometimes come to Ukraine, home of some of the world's most beautiful women. . . . . . where the 45 and 55 year olds look 90 and the 17 through 22 year olds find this old *art fascinating -- yes 'fascinating' an old *art like me.

 

Older than that and they're married and having kids.

 

It spoils me for American women who trade in such words for the older gentry as 'pervert', 'creep' and others of that ilk.

 

But I'm told I'm an exception, even in Ukraine, where a close one, and an old one is addressed as 'vui' and a young one as elsewise. I get addressed as a young one, almost universally. Imagine that. And my age is obvious. Why is that?

 

The older women here (and in America really want nothing to do with me -- and likewise considering their condition), and the younger women are in the flower of their womanhood and the ones I meet usually are incredibly beautiful and stone cold intelligent. (high IQs and low prospects)

 

The men here have it made as far as women are concerned; they're outnumbered.

 

John (Crosley)

 

Happy holidays

 

(having ham for the holidays? -- reference the above)

John

I just ran across this photo it made me laugh and laugh.

Jim

Humour, here, is in far too short supply.

 

I'm glad you laughed.

 

John (Crosley)

LOL!!!

And while I send it via messenger to my man, who sit below, I hear: hahaha.

Yep, it is nothing but the reality of these days.

With regards.

Photos like this one are like magnets to me, I have to keep looking....?

By the way, did you know why people like this one allways have x-shaped legs?

Simple, if their legs would be O-shaped they would collapse :) LOL

Thanks for sharing this with someone special.

 

Shorts for such persons should be outlawed.

 

I'm obese, but you won't find me wearing stuff that makes me look awful. I know my limits.

 

(not so obsese as this, but still . . . one has to have some taste and some self-introspection.)

 

Again, thanks for sharing this with a loved one/that's a very high form of flattery.

 

John (Crosley)

I am glad to see you have a sense of humor; I think you may sense I have one too; after all I am overweight, but I can post such a photo and not out of self-abnegation.

 

This is just tasteless; and the woman had no clue.

 

She apparently is from the great Midwest, and in the winter went to San Diego where it was somewhat warm so, shorts were in order. No matter what they looked like.

 

Maybe a muu-muu.

 

Or even something stylish that was flattering. Nobody said obese people have to look horrible, she has just brought it on herself, hasn't she?

 

I look at this and think of Easter in the US --- we eat ham at Easter.

 

I think 'ham hocks'.

 

;~)

 

John (Crosley)

For your upcoming book John, will you title this photo "ham hocks 'LOL' "? Her family will love you for it. The obscenity is not in the photo.

Meir,

 

I think in view of low rating recently, and some recent objectionable behavior that I cannot give you the benefit of the doubt. It seems your comment is snide, sarcastic, and not in good fun.

 

Low ratings are not objectionable unless done in retaliation or for wrong reasons and I have no objection to being low-rated at all, but when your last rate on a photo was its lowest that all others rated rather highly, it raises my suspicions that it was retaliatory (or comes from a place of a ' very unusual perspective' especially after my having publicly scolded you.

 

When you have established your bona fides, then maybe we can engage in banter and word play, but right now, I find your comment objectionable and apparently just one more attempt to scold me and my manner and behavior in leaving comments, which is not your job, much as you seem to have appointed yourself to do that.

 

Again, when you visit these pages, (you in particular because of past objectionable behavior in trying to critique my manner and style of leaving comments), I require that you confine your critiques and comments to the photo itself, or the topic of discussion and in doing so especially not to derogate me, sarcastically, snidely or otherwise.

 

If this was a bond fide attempt at genuine humor, you have a tin ear for humor as it relates to your relations with me in view of your past transgressions and should refrain from any attempts thereat.

 

John (Crosley)

maybe just nicer to pull the photo?

I agree. It is "sick".

Do you just want 'pretty' photos?

 

What about photos with a message or those that have 'impact'?

 

Oh, Asher, I forgot that 'sick' is a term of approbation (approval) by younger people in this society -- so maybe you were endorsing this photo.

 

Many times I have heard youths term my photos 'sick' when they meant that they were 'great' or ideas to that effect.

 

That idea of saying words that heretofore meant the opposite of what the (former) plain meaning is, appears to have had its origin with Russian youths in Moscow using Russian slang. Good meant bad and bad meant good, and so forth. And that trend appears selectively to have moved across the Atlantic (and Pacific) to the U.S., so perhaps my initial reaction to your post was all wrong and that 'sick' was a term of approval.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Because I feel so bad for this girl and maybe my English was not so good, I will say it again to You et al: Are you willing to go and show this photo to her children and call their mother to their face 'ham hocks'? If not, then the photo should never see the light of day and it is your comments that are the obscene. I am sure you do not have such courage and convition. You and the others are like children teasing and humiliating your 3rd grade classmate. I would have thought that you grew out of that behavior. I never heard such a thing from Diane Arbus who photographed with compassion. Nor would your idol Henri, I am sure, ever say such a things. Yes I agree with the above comment. The photo should be pulled. Your jokes and name calling speak bad of you -another reason to pull it. Perhaps if you were doing a study on obesity in America the photo without "ham hocks" and with the courage to request permission would have some documentary merit and purposful "message" and "impact" -as you call it. I never before saw/read such as this on photo,net. Shame on all of you; THIS IS NOT ABOUT ART -IS IT?

:)

I am FAT.

 

I do not wear revealing clothes because it would be an obscenity.

 

You will not see me on the beach with my belly hanging out.

 

I will not wear a Speedo at Cannes or anywhere else -- not even in my own bedroom.

 

I probably will get somewhat smaller; I take a medicine that medically will make me get smaller in diameter but it has rather strong side effects, so I periodically do not use it. When I stop for six months or more at a time, I am medically bound to get FAT, no matter how little I eat. My metabolism changes and my appetite changes entirely. The medicine completely diminishes my appetite. However, when I take it, I have problem forming certain forms of speech -- a serious side effect.

 

Obesity in America is an epidemic.

 

One only has to read any newspaper or news magazine (or watch a television news or news magazine show regularly) to learn about that.

 

There is documentary in nearly everything I shoot or do; in almost every observation I make, even if it has an element of humor in it.

 

There is no reason this society should be humorless.

 

This woman's face is not shown, and so she has not personally been humiliated at all; this photo is an avatar for all of obesity and how the morbidly obese handle their affliction. I am making NO moral judgment here -- there is a strong argument that morbid obesity (and this person is morbidly obese), is a combination of genetic and developmental factors that render a person almost powerless to fight.

 

And yes, I am an expert on the subject, having studied it at great length with doctors and other medical professionals including to a point in time having read ALL the available medical literature although by now that time passed a while back, so I come by my observations honestly. I am not a medical doctor, and cannot do a medical procedure legally, but I know how each of them was done to a certain point in time and all the risks and rewards of each and their indications -- as well as all related statistics that were published.

 

I remember a small-sized male doctor I met with who specialized in stomach staplings and who was confronted with potentially stapling my morbidly obese client's stomach after she had regained nearly 200 pounds of weight she had previously lost.

 

She had previously had an intestinal bypass, but had developed complications that were horrible, but this constant eater -- absolutely compulsive eater -- had returned to normal weight -- about 145 pounds -- from about 350 pounds.

 

She should have had a stomach stapling immediately after the intestinal bypass was reversed (undone).

 

But she couldn't because the surgeon who undid the intestinal bypass left a sponge in her and didn't tell her or remove it soon -- it was a gigantic laparotomy pad (an euphemism for I think the biggest sponge in the business and just guaranteed to get infected, and after a month or so,when she was to have the new stomach stapling -- she got infected horribly and almost lost her life.

 

Thereafter, she regained about 200 pounds in weight before she could be a surgical candidate again. Yes, she ate, but she could not control her eating. Try to starve yourself for a week, and that is like she felt if she went 30 minutes without food, according to her doctor. She had a horrible set of genes.

 

In the aftermath of that surgery, she regained her weight to about 350 pounds and no surgeon would touch her since she had (1) a malpractice case against the doctor whole left the sponge in causing life-threatening infection, and (2) the doctor who did the intestinal bypass refused to do a stomach stapling which then was called for because he was barely 5 feet tall and he reasoned that because she weighed about 350 pounds by then, he could not manage her on the operating table if she went into distress -- even if he had help. He did not want to be sued for being unable to manage a woman he said was the size of 'a whale'.

 

I come by my knowledge and observations about obesity from personal knowledge and experience and from a place of the highest professionalism that one can attain without having practiced the medical arts.

 

I stand by my remark here; and another photographer (a pro who was nearby) similarly photographed this scene -- legs and lower body only). I saw his shots and they were similar to mine. We both had the same feelings and both remarked that these legs looked remarkably like 'ham hocks'.

 

Neither of us photographed any recognizable feature of her, so that we would not hold her up personally to obloquy or ridicule -- we were both making a statement about obesity in America and obesity in general, and particularly obesity, fashion, and good taste.

 

(Remarks made prior to yours apparently were not made with any intent to protect this anonymous woman but merely to 'stir up the pot' and are to be ignored in my opinion, and complaint has been made to the Administration about that poster at abuse@photo.net.)

 

There is such a thing in medicine as 'gallows humor'. I remember I once was in a hospital, and they had a page for Dr. Blue. That was a coded signal that a patient had died and that freed up a bed in an overcrowded hospital.

 

There was cheering from the emergency room staff.

 

At a patient dying!!!!

 

I was in the emergency ward among the nurses there and saw real rejoicing.

 

That death had meant there was a place then to put one of the suffering that had been languishing on an emergency room bed far too long and clogging up the emergency room, possibly preventing a worthy individual from getting a life-saving operation.

 

I once dated briefly a surgical nurse, who told me that part of her job perquisites was to 'peek under the operating gown' to inspect male genitalia for size' -- and that apparently, she said, was well known and accepted among hospital staff -- both males and females. She was not young and VERY experienced and much in demand for her job.

 

Humor comes in all sizes and shapes, and there are those who would rain on the parade of any who make a joke that offends their thin-skinned sensibilities, AND go out of their way to do so.

 

Go ahead, enjoy your smile and don't be put off.

 

There's a difference between having a quick smirk over something that is both serious and capable of giving offense to the thin-skinned, versus purposely giving offense to someone in a way that hurts them personally - a difference I am sure you can readily see.

 

Since this woman (is it really a woman?) is unidentifiable, the photo stands on its own and harms no one.

 

It is a social observation and if you find brief humor in it; so much the better.

 

(and it was posted alone in a folder that clearly marked it as 'social observation'.

 

John (Crosley)

You mean like "its a horribly good book"

Exactly.

 

John (Crosley)

Then which is correct? "I am my own worst enemy" or the oxymoron "I am my own best enemy"?

Is it oxymoronic? Or is the former? Sort of on the order of a double negative equalling a positive. . . . But then one could have orders or degrees of enemies, and one indeed could be one's worst enemy.

 

However, this is English, and sometimes English, especially in ordinary usage, does not make logical sense.

 

John (Crosley)

When challenged as to his actual existence and whether or not he is a 'sock puppet' for Meir Samel, he has failed to respond.

There is a rule of law and evidence:  when accused if you don't deny, you admit.

Therefore, I have concluded that Asher Lev is a 'sock puppet' for Meir Samel.

It is my firm belief, backed by the appearance of Mr. "Lev' as avatar primarily when Mr. Samel has something to dispute with me and Mr. Lev either chimes in or steps in by himself if Mr. Samel (as in the past) has been banished as he was for a year from being responded to by me.

I personally have concluded that Asher Lev is a fiction, made public challenges to disprove that, to him directly and received no response.  The conclusion to me seems inescapable.

john

John (Crosley)