Hello dears. First I would like to apologise.
In my Dirty Pictures post, I made very sure that the only things above the fold were some boys in swimsuits and what one commenter aptly described as “a sepia-toned poster for a century-old hootchie show”. However, I was entirely remiss in failing (at first) to mark the remainder of the post clearly as NSFW. I did fix it some hours later on Sunday when I saw the entirely justified requests for it to be marked as such. If anyone saw things they didn’t want to see below the fold due to the lack of an NSFW warning, I unreservedly apologise. If I offended anyone, I also apologise, for that was not my intent.
That said, I stand by the post (NSFW) itself as entirely appropriate for Balloon Juice – a sex positive and, indeed, porn positive post on an adult political blog that already has room for threads about food, pets, music and sport and any number of other healthy, sweaty adult pursuits. Apparently quite a few of you like looking at other healthy, sweaty adults as well. Who would have thought?
I also cavil at the idea that a picture of a nude person has to be a Reubens in order to grace the front page, but there you go.
Mention was made of Violentacrez in the comment thread. Frankly, the man is a dickhead who has forgotten both how to be a decent human being, and that freedom of speech is not the right to say or post anything you want at any time, particularly if you want to shout fire in a crowded theater or post jack off fodder for pedophiles.*
However, I think that a time when the internet and the media are talking about the appropriateness of porn, and when porn made by consenting adults for other consenting adults tends to get lumped in with the nasties because omg vagina, is also a good time to for us to talk about porn or pictures of hot men or sex being fun. Even if you do fuck up the NSFW warning the first time.
So, I will do you a deal. If the mood strikes me again one weekend, I will try to ensure that nothing is posted to the front page that would offend, say, Mrs Cole (on the, I suspect, justified assumption that Mrs Cole wouldn’t mind people looking at the odd arty boob or a well turned thigh every now and then). I will always and clearly mark posts that require it as NSFW, but if you click on one of those posts be warned that you may see (as another commenter put it) gratuitous dong shots and all sorts of other brazen yet tasteful depravity. If you feel that something I post is inappropriate for Balloon Juice, or if you just think I am talking out my arse, then please tell me in the thread or by email and if I am awake and online and able to remember my name I will happily have an adult conversation with you about it.
Speaking of gratuitous dong shots, if anyone want to send me gratuitous boob shots, or indeed anything else legal and consenting and little bit cool that takes their particular fancy or which they have made or written (for we are a full service blog), I’ll generally be happy to feature them, even if it is after the fold.
ETA: All of my views are mine. Not Cole’s and not anyone else’s. Just a thought.
EATA: A solution seems to have emerged in which I will post nice things here, with a carefully NSFW marked link at the end to rude things at my blog, Sarah, Proud and Tall, for those of you who want to follow me down the rabbit hole. I have also (goddam you all) emailed Cole with my proposal, but don’t really expect a response.
I have a post on the boil already – on Balloon Juice: a selection of quite beautiful photographic portraits of (fully clothed) young gentlemen and a few spicy reminiscences from the War; while on Sarah Proud and Tall, some lovely erotic linocuts for sale on eBay and a rather rude story about Pat Nixon and her secret service body double, which involves Richard Nixon being bitten on the dick by a Yorkshire terrier.
Image: The top picture is from a blog called Sepiatone, a link to which was sent to me by its owner, a gentleman called Mu. The charming Mu likes posting vintage pictures of handsome men and of cats. It’s quite lovely. The picture of Congressman Ryan is an animated gif. I don’t know if it works on the front page, but if you click on it you can see it in all its horror.
* Yesterday Greg Ross at the wonderful Futility Closet posted this quote from William Hazlitt’s On the Conversation of Authors that I think is apposite to Violentacrez (and indeed our own pack of little trolls):
“This litigious humour is bad enough: but there is one character still worse — that of a person who goes into company, not to contradict, but to talk at you. This is the greatest nuisance in civilised society. Such a person does not come armed to defend himself at all points, but to unsettle, if he can, and throw a slur on all your favourite opinions. If he has a notion that anyone in the room is fond of poetry, he immediately volunteers a contemptuous tirade against the idle jingle of verse. If he suspects you have a delight in pictures, he endeavours, not by fair argument, but by a side-wind, to put you out of conceit with so frivolous an art. If you have a taste for music, he does not think much good is to be done by this tickling of the ears. If you speak in praise of a comedy, he does not see the use of wit: if you say you have been to a tragedy, he shakes his head at this mockery of human misery, and thinks it ought to be prohibited. He tries to find out beforehand whatever it is that you take a particular pride or pleasure in, that he may annoy your self-love in the tenderest point (as if he were probing a wound) and make you dissatisfied with yourself and your pursuits for several days afterwards. A person might as well make a practice of throwing out scandalous aspersions against your dearest friends or nearest relations, by way of ingratiating himself into your favour. Such ill-timed impertinence is ‘villainous, and shows a pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.’
Emma
Are you telling me that people freaked out over those pictures? Sheesh.
zzyzx
I didn’t see the pictures, but I disagree wholeheartedly that this is a place for porn. People used to freak out over ads that had women in bikinis (IIRC, they were blocked for me). A lot of people surf political sites from work and if you start putting porn on them, they will stop which means that the community will suffer.
JGabriel
Sarah @ Top:
To be fair, it’s not entirely clear that he ever knew.
.
mistermix
Oh, please. A little frank and beans–especially below the fold–is not a problem unless you’re short of problems.
zzyzx
@mistermix: or unless you have a job that you want to keep.
There are 10,000,000 places on the Internet to get porn.
PeakVT
The only thing you should be apologizing for is posting that pic of Neidermeyer again.
mistermix
@zzyzx: I disagree. As long as it’s below the fold and marked NSFW, I think we’ve more than done our duty to warn readers about a possible workplace infraction.
Violet
I enjoyed the post, and found your links, including the ones you put in comments in a previous post, interesting. I didn’t know there was that much antique p0rn available.
My point about putting nude photos on the front page, even old ones, is that by putting it on the front page, seeing it is then non-optional for anyone who is visiting the site. Some people may be in situations where having a nude photo visible on their computer can make things difficult for them. Places like work, a public location, visiting challenging relatives (where you just don’t want to deal with their crap).
I would hate for Balloon Juice to become a place where people are afraid to visit it because they are concerned the visible front page content could get them fired or cause them some other kind of problem. Maybe some of the language and commie soshulist writing does all that already, though.
Z. Mulls
I think it’s a lot easier (for work surfers) to avoid NSFW *video*, than it is to avoid NSFW *pictures* — especially if one wants to click through to read comments and enjoy the discussion.
I certainly wasn’t offended personally buy the pix, and was understandably titillated. But they did look out of place, in their frank(and bean)ness on Balloon Juice.
As much as I personally enjoy a post like that, narrated by a true afficianado, it would make me skittish about clicking around while at work. It might be good policy to put seriously NSFW pictures in as links, so those with the inclination (and the right environs) could click through?
Violet
@mistermix: So were you okay with the photo of a naked woman above the fold? It was one of three photos in one image, but on a large monitor it would be visible.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@zzyzx:
I’m not talking about flooding Balloon Juice with porn (not that you said I was). All I am talking about is the odd bit of Victoriana, or a few rude pen sketches, or a dirty story someone wrote.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Where’s a fainting couch when you need one? Community standards! Nekkid old beefcakes with schlongs! Gaaah!
SP&T, you’re cool. :)
Odie Hugh Manatee
@PeakVT:
And I thought that was Jughead.
mistermix
@Violet: Probably better under the fold, but let’s be reasonable. It would have to be a very large monitor. And it was posted at midnight (Eastern) on Saturday, not the middle of the work day.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Violet:
I do agree with you, I promise. I will do my utmost to avoid posting anything not safe for work above the fold.
Violet
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: I do not work at this place now, but did for awhile work at a place where the photo with the naked woman on it, the one that was above the fold, could have gotten me fired. I guess that’s why I’m sensitive to it.
If you haven’t worked in an environment like that, maybe it seems unbelievable. Those places definitely exist.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Z. Mulls:
I agree, although I suspect there will be as many definitions of “seriously NSFW” as there are Juicers.
Ash Can
Goddammit, Sarah, there you go again with your gratuitous dick shots — and this one’s wearing a fucking baseball cap, yet, and backwards. I mean really, what the fuck??
Seriously, though, yes, the warning labels really are necessary, because never mind about simply offending people, otherwise-delightful smutty pictures really can and do get people fired, should the wrong eyes happen upon the wrong thing at the wrong time. Having said that, though, count me among those looking forward to your next installment of naughty boys and girls from bygone days. :)
chopper
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
my favorite bit about the other thread was the people who never post here, whose names i’ve never even seen before, stepping up and saying the pics violated the standards of the BJ community.
zzyzx
Yeah and the reason why I’m oversensitive is that I work in one of these new spaces that management loves but workers hate where there’s someone 5 feet behind me and someone else a few feet away the other way. I like both of them so I’m probably safe and it’s is considered OK to surf to political sites or facebook, but enough people come by to talk to them that it could be an issue.
MikeJ
Dressing up dog up in a sailor uniform? That’s disgusting.
Punchy
Look, I’m doing my best to lose the gut, so lay off.
SatanicPanic
I didn’t even see those boobs until you guys pointed them out.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@zzyzx:
@Violet:
I’m a dirty old lady so I tend to think everyone else is as well. You are right, of course. I will try to comply with the Mrs Cole test above the fold.
Z. Mulls
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
True. But I think the picture of the strapping gentleman folding another strapping gentleman’s impressively rigid and well-contoured instrument…..and the one of the gentleman in the top hat deep within the woman’s “victorian garden”…..probably would fall on anyone’s list as NSFW……in some places they’d be considered NSFH…..
Violet
@mistermix:
I disagree. I could tell it was a naked woman on my small laptop monitor. With a larger monitor I think it would be visible to anyone walking by.
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Thanks, Sarah. I did really enjoy the post. It’s like an anthropological study in a way. I had no idea that sort of thing existed.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Z. Mulls:
And that’s why they should be marked NSFW, so that people don’t click
on themthrough. Not why they shouldn’t be featured at all.[Edited]
beergoggles
Since we’re on the topic of gratuitous sex and nudity, I just had to mention how hilarious today’s Penny Arcade comic is.
Someone should actually make one of those guides and mail it to every republican in congress.
Violet
@zzyzx: I’m so sympathetic. I worked in a place similar to that where I was surrounded by hard core Christians–the kind who would pray at their desks before they started their day, and at lunch, and had a work Bible study–and if I’d been seen having that the NSFW images on my monitor, they would have reported me and I would have been fired by our boss who was sympathetic to them. No option for appeal, I live in a hire and fire state.
I got out of there as soon as I could. Working there affected my mental health. But those places definitely exist. Glad your work neighbors are reasonable folks.
Ash Can
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
How do we know Mrs. Cole isn’t a dirty old lady herself?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@chopper:
I know, that really made me laugh. Standards? We don’t have no steenking standards! Tell them our department of standards is run by Helen Waite.
If someone is looking for standards here then they need to go to Helen Waite.
Cathy W
I’d like to point out that Google Reader – my primary means for reading Balloon Juice – does not honor “the fold”. No warning and no option to skip it other than “scroll really fast”.
Porco Rosso
If experience has taught me anything, it’s that it’s important to be careful where one sticks their dick[s].
Sensitivities and all.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Ash Can:
Old ladies are never dirty. What a shocking suggestion.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Cathy W:
If any NSFW content was at least a page into the text would it show up when you first opened the document?
ETA: That is, if the above the fold part was at least a page.
Jay C
BTW, Sarah, I agree with your comments – but why did you put a naked painting of Rush Limbaugh in your post?
Z. Mulls
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Well, I’ll just make one last point, and then stop beating it so assiduously…
One can avoid clicking on NSFW videos and still enjoy reading the post around them; but if there are NSFW pictures one can’t enjoy the post — one has to avoid the second half of the post and one can’t even click through to read the discussion.
I can flick my eyes past naughty words (if I wanted to avoid them), and naughty words don’t present the “monitor problem” some folks experience
As I said, I saw the post at home, read and enjoyed it for what it was, and enjoy the erotic ramblings of dirty old women more than I should. But I do see how someone who comes to BJ for the community but doesn’t want to see overtly sexual material might feel just a tad excluded from the non-sexual parts of the post.
Todd
Meh. You run front pages on blogs with the fake identity old ladies you have, rather than with the fake identity old ladies you wish you have.
That said, the penetration and jack off photos were pretty far out there; I could understand if some folks had trouble with it.
Ash Can
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Yes indeed, we bathe daily, and this
has nothing to do with it.
mistermix
@Cathy W: Google Reader user here (not for B-J, since I read the comments) – If I understand Sarah correctly, she’s going to put NSFW in the title, so that will give you a clue to skip it.
azlib
The post was fun and more importantly well written. You have nothing to apologize for. As an aside, the Humanities Research Center at UT Austin where my spouse worked for a number of years, has quite a collection of Victorian pornography. It was part of a collection of one of the royals UT acquired. It was divided into man on man, man on woman and women on women pix. Those Victorian 0.1% sure liked their pornography!
UT Austin does not advertise this collection widely for obvious reasons and it was not the main reason they bought this particular collection, but they had to keep it based on the terms of the sale.
The photography (all black and white) was quite good and some of the poses were, um, quite creative.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Z. Mulls:
I shall be judicious in my dirtiness. I’m a nice dirty old lady too.
murakami
I have no problem with the pictures posted, even if sausage isn’t my favorite meal.
However, I did have a hilarious thought about John’s recent post about how he could never have imagined the path his blog would take when he founded it way back when. I would love to have a time machine and go back and talk to the then-wingnut Cole and tell him his blog would one day feature vintage gay erotica.
eemom
Oh Mrs. Sarah. You owe NO apologies. The antique pron was delightful, and it was Saturday fucking NIGHT. NSFW my ass.
Fuck the watbs. Let me repeat that. Fuck them. They are not fit to….to….well, to do whatever the most menial tasks are that they might perform for a 93 year old literary goddess were they not unfit to perform them because they’re watb.
Cathy W
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: On my current monitor what I see of this post, for example, is the first picture and about half the first paragraph of text. The formatting is altered so that the picture appears first. I don’t remember how the NSFW post from yesterday was reformatted, except that there was no indication that there even was a clickthrough in the post as it appeared on the blog.
Is there some way to code the post so that RSS readers do observe the clickthrough? I appreciate that John lets full posts go out on RSS, in general, but this kind of thing might represent a special case.
karen marie
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Don’t listen to the Puritan fainters, Sarah.
catclub
Stephen Fry wrote a book in which Professor Trefusis, reviews some USian book. The point made was that violence was done to the English language, which the professor cared about.
The sex or whatever that the rest of the world objected to, the professor was not bothered by, at all.
I just want to rant that x many appearances of the word ‘fuck’ in a movie gets it a PG or R rating, and I suspect likewise for the most fleeting instances of nudity. But violence, as explicit as it might be, why do I suspect that there is NO well defined threshold for similar limits.
We are publicly jaded (to violence) and prudish at the same time.
Ash Can
@murakami: This! I had more than a few chuckles Sunday AM (and since) imagining Cole’s reaction to Victorian naughty bits on his blog. (Of course, everything about this is cracking me up. Yay SPT!)
jibeaux
Sometimes I think the blog might be, I dunno, losing its focus just a tad.
Citizen_X
Regarding Paul Ryan, it struck me last night that if Ryan were actually good-looking, he’d look like Aaron Rodgers. Does anyone else see that, that Rodgers could be Ryan’s younger, taller, better-looking brother?
eemom
Can someone tell me who/what this is? I keep seeing it and I have no idea what it’s all about. I am unaware of many internet traditions.
Kay S
The pix are cute, but one objection occurs to me: I have referred people to read BJ, and sometimes I do by talking up the great, informal political discussions found here. I can’t send any semi-winger relatives here now, since this topic proves to such people that their absolute certitude that we are all socialist , homo, left-wing, child molesting, and now, of course, porn fiends, is correct. sigh…
Oh, I forgot atheist, also too.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@jibeaux:
The blog had a focus?
MikeJ
@eemom: Just a troll.
Ash Can
@Citizen_X:
Now that you mention it…
Violet
@eemom: It wasn’t Saturday night if you were in Beijing or Singapore or Perth.
raven
Allerton Park in Monticello, Ill was given to the University of Illinois in 1946. In the late 60’s-early 70’s it was a great place to go on trips. There was incredibly statuary including a gorilla carrying a woman, fu dogs and lots of other trippy stuff. Apparently Robert Allerton was gay and there was a great deal of gay themed art that was stored away when the university took over.
askew
@zzyzx:
That sums up my feelings as well. I have no problem with p0rn on the internet, but if you put it on this site, the entire will get blocked by employers.
jibeaux
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: It is not a firm focus, as it were.
Kadzimiel
I’ve survived pictures of Paul Ryan working out, so I guess I’ll survive some dusty old smut. That said, I don’t think being “porn positive” is anything to be proud of or to aim for.
All this to the side, if you want to see a humongous schlong in action:
http://gawker.com/5951756/all-i-really-need-to-know-about-paul-ryan-i-learned-from-this-soup-kitchen-photo-op
Violet
@eemom: Read this Gawker article about him: http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web
zzyzx
@Violet: Actually one of them is one of the few Republicans in western Washington, but she’s also a fan of some harder edged rock so it’s pretty moderated.
raven
Indian fighting bear Allerton Park
karen marie
@Ash Can: See, this is the thing — if you are worried about getting fired from your job, why are you surfing the internet and visiting clearly non-work-related sites?
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen_X: Fuck you. Nothing personal. Just a Packer fan here who objects strongly to any such comparisons whether accurate or not.
On topic: Since the primary objection seems to be concern about problems relating to inadvertent public viewing, it seems that clear labeling should be a viable solution. However, I would note that clicking on next post within Firefox just opens je page. There is no title or chance to see a NSFW label.
Violet
@zzyzx: Sounds like a pretty tolerable working environment. Being a non-wingnut in a blue state can make for challenging work environments.
@askew:
Yes, it will. And there will be no appeal. Suddenly all sorts of people who visited Balloon Juice during the day at work will no longer be able to. Employers don’t care whether the p0rn is antique or vintage or cute or whatever. They care about naked people and people’s bits going in bits of other people in pictures. And the site gets blocked.
I hope that’s not going to happen for anyone. The photos from the previous post could definitely cause that sort of problem.
Ruckus
I like censors and offended people that come right out and tell me I should be censored or offended by something. It shows me who to mock. Especially when as @catclub: pointed out, that violence is almost always OK. The human form, one of which we all have, on the other hand is the worst thing in the world.
Puritans, what would the world be without them?
BTW if work is a place where one goes to suffer and toil what the hell are you doing surfing the web? Shouldn’t one be there at their desk chest high engaged in, I don’t know, actual work for our wonderful paymasters? Jobs I have been looking at don’t have web surfing time in their descriptions.
raven
@Violet: So this is how BJ will crash and burn? Seems pretty stupid to me.
karen marie
@Z. Mulls: The entire post was pictures of naked people. The comment thread was full of discussion of pictures of naked people. If you’re offended by pictures of naked people, what possible interest could you have in the comments?
Violet
@karen marie: Because some employers are tolerant of some non-work web surfing so long as you are getting your work done, but would not be tolerant at all about non-work web surfing that includes p0rn, however antique it may be.
eemom
Wait a minute. Did you, in fact, do what I see there?
bwaaahaaahaaahaaahaaaa
eemom
@Violet:
Thanks.
Violet
@raven: It is stupid. But you can’t do anything about idiot employers and their stupid rules. I mean, studies have shown that taking a break at work, and checking your email or Facebook or surfing the web actually makes you more productive. But some places won’t allow that at all. Nevermind that their draconian rules slow down productivity.
Ash Can
@karen marie: Not all non-work-related sites are equal. Workplaces tend to have strict regulations about smut specifically, because it brings sexual harassment regulations directly into play. Non-smutty non-work-related sites are more discretionary.
RinaX
The only thing I’m upset about is somehow missing a post about century-old peen. Will have to take a gander when I get home. For historical accuracy or, something, yeah.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Kay S:
I see your point, although if they read anything else on the blog it would probably make them think that anyway. I’m not sure Balloon Juice counts as a political blog anymore, so much as a weird hybrid people mish mash thing with too many cats and the odd political discussion.
karen marie
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: with too many cats
You clearly haven’t met the rest of the internet.
TrabbsBoy
I think this is a good opportunity to thank you for posting that Ice Cream Truck video way back when, Miss Sarah. I have that shit bookmarked for when I need to find it quickly.
hitchhiker
I don’t see a problem. The post was funny and interesting and generally everything we love about SPT.
There’s something strange going on here — Tom’s early modern period images of bloody torture and dismemberment have never raised the slightest hackle, and some of them have been pretty damn cringe-worthy. Nobody said they couldn’t open those pages in front of their bosses or send their friends to this site. I know, I know. Sex is different.
It’s a fact that we’re still in a culture that has a bizarre & stupid relationship to its own sexual practices, but that’s why a post like SPT’s belongs here 100%. What BJ does best is highlight bizarre and stupid things about our culture. This is just one more.
Schlemizel
To those who say because of the day & time NSFW was unnecessary, how nice that you never had a job that was not 9-5, M-F. Yeah, it needed that.
Other than that I had only two thoughts when I first saw it. First, “Well this is a new foray for BJ. BJs on BJ!” Not exactly shocked just puzzled as porn was not a area previously much discussed here.
Second, I wondered how many people would freak if it was va-jay-jays instead of peeps (my, we sure use growed up words around here!). There is a pretty strong anti-porn stream amongst some on the left that is based on feminism as opposed to ‘morality’ and I wondered if you might not hear from that contingent.
Randy
There is no “below the fold” in Google’s RSS reader.
Fortunately my 4 year old granddaughter had turned away for a second while she was watching me goof off on the computer. Obviously, it wouldn’t have scared her for life.
And my non-hipster evaluation of the original post is that it was really, really, really hip.
Schlemizel
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
I absolutely expected some of John’s old friends to link to that posting as a clear indication that all male libs are porn loving pole smokers.
Violet
@hitchhiker: The culture is stupid. I personally think violence is much worse than sex and think our culture is way too immune to violence.
That doesn’t change the fact that employers will fire someone for viewing, or cut off access to a website that features photos of naked people and/or naked people having sex. Far fewer of them will do that for websites featuring violence.
double nickel
I’ve never really understood the whole NSFW thing. Why are you surfing the net at work in the first place?
Shawn in ShowMe
@double nickel:
There are some workplace environments where surfing the web is permissible. The night shift at call centers has to stay awake somehow.
Brachiator
Agreed. There was a controversy?
Eminently reasonable.
MikeJ
@Brachiator:
That will never fly around here.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Schlemizel:
I’d like to think any of my posts would be based in feminism, or at least that I would try.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
I’m making this up as I go along, so I’m sure we’ll make up the rules together as we go.
Perhaps I could link from Balloon Juice to the NSFW post on my blog if that would stop Balloon Juice from being blacklisted (although then someone would complain about that). I don’t know how realistic a danger that is, but i am sure someone can enlighten us.
Z. Mulls
ABL frequently extends her lengthy posts to her own blog. She figures if you *really* want to read the whole post/rant/jeremiad, you can click through. So it’s dealer’s choice — you can leave BJ and follow her secret heart, or….not.
Certainly, if you had posted a few of the not-quite-p0rn pix with your post, and had a NSFW-click-through to your blog for the really explicit stuff, you would have received fewer complaints (if any at all). I know I would have clicked (when I read it at home), but I’d also have known if I followed your link that I wouldn’t be in Kansas anymore.
Maude
This is known as a political blog.
Everything posted on it reflects on John.
If he taught first grade, he would be in trouble for any type of graphic sexual picture.
If kids see it, then there is a problem.
It’s not about being prudes, it’s about what is the norm for this blog.
I don’t think it belongs here.
It wasn’t expected and it could well offend some readers.
This blog gets a lot of traffic.
In some workplaces, if you are seen looking at pictures on the internet like that, your reputation can be tossed into a hopper. The employer could put on file that you were looking at porn. We are in a puritanical country and a lot of people can be fired for minor things.
Brachiator
@Maude:
What about all the photos of naked dogs and cats? Oh, the horror.
I can understand NSFW cautions. More than that is a pointless concession to prudes.
Let’s see. Photo of “Piss Christ,” transgressive art. An incidental dick pic, totally unacceptable, may corrupt kiddies and upset bosses. What a load of tosh.
This is America. You have the right to be offended, and should regularly expect it.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Z. Mulls:
Sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.
Phoenix_rising
I load new posts onto an ereader.
Which I then read at the gym.
Let me say this about that post: Not Safe For Workout Room.
If I need to reset my expectations, or auto-loading, I can, but I can’t be meeting with the director at the Y where I work out to discuss why I’m looking at nekkid pictures on the elliptical trainer.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just context, context, context.
hep kitty
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: I found it fascinating. However, the NSFW was necessary and I saw you put it up there later.
Quite frankly, no one in the corporate world (not the peons, anyway) is supposed to be surfing the net, period, you are being watched! But of course, everyone does. There are many big brother operations in the workplace now so I do understand the concern about that.
Otherwise, it was entertaining, but then it was a Sunday so I wasn’t working!
And, it is Sarah P&T, after all. You’d best expect a bit of smut now and then!
eemom
@Maude:
What a lovely little poem. Did you really connect all those dots by yourself?
I’m lucky it is acceptable in my work place to bang my head on they keyboard and wail when Teh Stoopid is killing me, cuz that’s what I am doing right now.
Maude
@eemom:
Apparently you haven’t banged your head hard enough. You still don’t make sense.
donnah
Slightly off topic, but not totally…I used to work in a picture frame shop and one afternoon a woman came in with a wrapped package. She looked around the shop and finally came to the order desk. She seemed kind of nervous, so I asked if I could help.
She said, “I have a photo that my grandfather gave me, and it’s kind of risque. How do you feel about that sort of thing?”
I said, “Well, it probably won’t bother me, and there aren’t any other customers here right now, so let me see it and if necessary we can take it to the back of the shop”.
Well, she opened the wrapping and showed me an old black and white photo of about a dozen coal miners, all absolutely buck naked except their boots and lantern helmets, standing outside of the mine. Their faces, hands and arms were all coal black, but the rest of their bodies were white as snow. It was both hilarious and quirky, and I told her she shouldn’t be embarrassed. She did go ahead and have it framed, but I don’t know if she “hung” it in her living room or somewhere less open.
Maude
@Brachiator:
Blow it.
Brachiator
@Maude:
Your comment is NSFW. And probably violates somebody’s community standards.
See how that works?
ShyLurker
@Maude: Nicely expressed, and thank you.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Maude:
The norm for this blog used to be John being a wingnut and dozens of people making fun of him. Some things change.
I appreciate the difficulties in writing about erotica (call it what you like – one person’s erotica is another’s porn is another’s going to hell dirty papers) on this blog, but a sizeable proportion of the Balloon Juice commenters apparently want to read about it and see it.
We’ve been having a good discussion about how that could be done in a respectful way, and I’m taking on board everyone’s comments.
eemom
@Brachiator:
[snicker]
Let me take this opportunity, sir, to extend my appreciation for your speaking out against the mind-numbing group-think dumbassery that has been sweeping a greater number of threads than usual lately. That one last night about Mark Sanford for example. omfg.
elftx
@eemom:
I had commented on the other thread about the Redditt/Gawker war going on over this eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww !! human being, and the asshole probably lives about 10 miles from me so I have my bleach in the car anytime I want to drive down Beltline in his direction.
I have no issues with what Sarah is proposing..it is after all up to John.
Just seemed weird to see her first post after reading about the eeeewwww person.
Johnny Coelacanth
One of the privileges of being a front pager is establishing what “the norm” is so please continue posting what you like SP&T, clutched pearls and fainted-upon couches bedamned.
kc
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
OK, NOW I’m offended . . .
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
It was Sunday morning on this side of the world, so most of the Juicitariat wouldn’t have been at work anyway.
muddy
This is long and late, I have had my plate full here, but anyway… As far as this post under discussion was concerned, I was mighty taken aback when I went to “read on” that evening. Not that I was at work nor am I against nudity. I’d just rather have had the NSFW so that I would have been prepared. I’d thought it would go along in the same vein, scantily clothed antique peeps. I have PTSD from being sexually abused when I was young and was *not at all* triggered by that surprise, but I know people who might have been, and had the poses been different it might have triggered me, I dunno.
But I *don’t* want it to be like some blogs where you can’t say boo without giving trigger warnings though, and it ends up with 80% of the threads with a warning. Visual nudity, or violence for that matter seems different, if you just see it for a second, you have seen it. It’s not like you have to go on and on like reading.
As far as whether or not an old painting should have warnings, I will just note that mostly they are somewhat modest, and generally reclining etc, it’s a different mood in my mind.
Maybe it’s like religions, Mormons and Scientologists seem so silly, but really their stories are no weirder than the bizarre stories in longer established religions. I think it just seems worse because they made the weird shit up in modern times. The other religions have tradition, and were invented by people long ago who didn’t know science. Perhaps there is a similar division between painting and photography, even though they may have been done in the same era. Although I loved that Goya of Saturn eating his children, that did upset me at first. It’s not frontal, and it’s not sexual, it could be that the notion of a parent eating their young was a sensitive one to me. I don’t know where that falls on other people’s NSFW line.
I have absolutely nothing against any of the content, I just would like a heads up is all. I look at things differently if I am ready for the content than if it catches me by surprise. That’s my vote for what that’s worth.
For those that like vintage pics, let me recommend Shorpy.com, they have some glamour shots but are always safe for work. And the panoramas are amazing. Sorry I don’t know how to embed a link.
geg6
Jeebus Fucking Keerist people, grow the fuck up.
Sarah, I adore your p0rn, I adore the whole vintage p0rn thing, I adore erotica of all kinds and types. I have no problem with having on the front page or wherever else, but can see why others have a problem with that. However, the idea that BJ can’t have any mild p0rn or erotica is ridiculous. We’re all adults here. If you don’t like the stuff, don’t read it. You generally don’t see me in threads that don’t interest me, like anything having to do with soccer, baseball, or, for me, the most awful and poisonous threads of all, Dr. Who and any thread where Cole is posting about the awful music he loves. I skip them. If you don’t like Sarah’s threads, don’t go into them.
Keep it up, SPT. I adore you and I adored the weekend thread. It was awesome.
Elizabelle
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Sarah: Personally, I really think this would be best. You’re a spectacular enough writer that people would follow you over for the vintage erotica posts. Martinis in hand.
I recommend this blog a lot — as a POLITICAL BLOG, which it pretty much is, along with snark, pets, recipes, gardens.
Your post was fascinating, but count me among those who thought it was a step too far on the under the fold stuff. Even with a NSFW tag. The top hat and muff photo was huge.
In fact, I could not check in on Balloon Juice at lunch today. Blocked, and it was not last week.
Go ahead and call me a WATB, and eff you too, eemom, but that’s how I feel.
I know I’m in the minority on this. So be it.
hep kitty
Anyone who may have been offended by the post pics, I sure hope they didn’t visit that tumblr! yeeikes!
Violet
@Elizabelle:
Dang, that makes me sad. I’ve been afraid that Balloon Juice would get big enough to catch the eyes of the workplace censors. First time I’ve heard of it happening. Ugh.
hep kitty
@Elizabelle: I get where you are coming from. Lots of naughty little girls and boys surf the nets during work. But times have changed and big brother is indeed watching so I can understand the concern.
It doesn’t even matter what you are looking at, you’re supposed to be working all 8 hours. Email is monitored, sites visited are monitored.
However, if we were good little boys & girls, we would wait till we got home to read BJ after we have missed about 15 threads during the work day. And that is frustrating.
I’m lucky my employer is not this way but I sure know there are plenty out there, the bigger they are the more invasive.
Maude
@Elizabelle:
Your point is valid.
Softail
I also liked it and the linked tumblrs. It *was* titled dirty pictures or something like that, you’d think that was a clue.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Elizabelle:
I have no intention of doing that, because you aren’t. All of your points are valid, and I think the two blog solution is a good one.
I have a post on the boil already – on Balloon Juice: a selection of quite beautiful photographic portraits of (fully clothed) young gentlemen and a few spicy reminiscences from the War; while on Sarah Proud and Tall, some lovely erotic linocuts found on eBay and a rather rude story about Pat Nixon and her secret service body double, which involves Richard Nixon being bitten on the dick by a Yorkshire terrier.
AA+ Bonds
I’ll be sure to email the link to this post to my boss
AA+ Bonds
Soft-core pornography is a good fit for liberal politics anyway and the Village Voice figured this out a while back
AA+ Bonds
If they had amped up the porn about 20-25% IMO they’d still be in business
ShyLurker
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
“Richard Nixon being bitten on the dick by a Yorkshire terrier”
Awesome!!
furklempt
Say I like pastry. Say I have a neighbor who daily brings me a delicious representative of whatever pastry he has made for his family. Say that, one day, my very generous neighbor–who asks nothing in return–brings me a cream puff, and I just happen to hate cream puffs. Excoriating my neighbor for having the audacity to make a pastry that I don’t like, even though the pastries are not produced for my sole enjoyment, makes me seem like an enormously selfish asshole.
Violet
@furklempt: You forgot the part where if you are seen by a representative of your Home Owners Association to be anywhere in the vicinity of a cream puff, you will be thrown out of your home, your mortgage will be determined to be delinquent and your home will be sold out from under you. Except for that oversight, your analogy works well.
Z. Mulls
Hmmm….I’m not sure I think the analogy is apt. Cream puff vs. , say, éclair is a point of personal preference, but there’s no larger societal issue. You can’t offend anyone (other than the most extreme patissiers) with a cream puff.
I have a very high tolerance for certain types of images, but I understand I am far on one end of the tolerance line, and try to appreciate some folks’ personal journeys and personal preferences. It’s not censorship to be considerate at times.
Can we agree there is a qualitative difference between:
A) 1. A picture of a stud in swim trucks
2. A picture of a girl showing a lot of thigh, and
B) 1. A picture of a nude man with a discreetly visible (and flaccid) dong
2. A picture of a woman showing a lot of skin and a nip slip
Right there you’ve gone past what would be acceptable for a work filter or even a personal filter (like, someone who likes to look at BJ on their iPad while their kids are nearby).
And surely there’s a qualitative difference between A & B and:
C) 1. A picture of two men, one of whom is fondling the impressive and rigid erection of another man
2. A picture of a woman’s generous bush being plowed by a well-dressed gentleman
That’s in another realm altogether. I emphasize that I liked the pictures. I will probably look at them again when I get home. I reserve the right to get out of bed at 2am, fire up the computer, and stare at them again, intently, for a good
20 minutes.minute or two.Let me try a different analogy. John Cole runs a hardware store. A lot of members of the community start to come in to buy hardware, and a lot of conversation ensues. Some folks start asking John to sell other things in his store, that aren’t hardware. The store becomes a hardware shop with a lot of odds and ends on consignment.
Some folks start selling art cards, and vintage picture postcards. Some of the images are offensive to some of the customers (and aren’t appropriate for their kids), so John sets up a back room for more adult content, like light erotica and nude paintings.
One member of the community enjoys more explicit images and offers up highly sexual vintage postcards, showing erect or moist genitalia not just on display, but ‘in use.’ Some folks might like to come into the back room but don’t want to be exposed to the most explicit images.
It’s always hard to know where to draw the line. Some folks’ reasonable limits are someone else’s censorship. It’s a delicate balancing act to know what belongs in the public room, what belongs in the discreet side room, and what might be best put in a different building.
furklempt
@Violet:
Then just wait until you get home to read BJ. It’s a voluntary exercise, after all.
muddy
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: @ShyLurker:
eemom
As always on this blog, the moral of the story is that that there is no horse so dead it can’t be beaten any more.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@eemom:
Ain’t it fun?
Z. Mulls
Johnny Coelacanth
“the moral of the story is that that there is no horse so dead it can’t be beaten any more.”
There’s a term for that: Sadistic Equine Necromancy.
Rathskeller
To repeat the point others have made, please never post NSFW pictures here, even below the fold.
Because John had given McCain (or his fluffers, I forget), the Golden Penis award back in 2008, I was suddenly unable to look at Balloon Juice while at work. It was a really funny image he made, and totally apt, but it still triggered a censoring mechanism that I had no control over.
Bmaccnm
@eemom: It has nothing to do with WATBism. Some people work at night. Me, for one. Everyone’s life is not like your life. I would lose my job if anyone saw those pix on a hospital computer. Please mark this stuff NSFW.
eemom
@Bmaccnm:
Point taken, and I hereby apologize and modify WATB to exclude people in that situation.
There were, however, plenty of WATB on the original thread and this one caterwauling about the post for no such valid reason.
YellowJournalism
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Different stroke for different folks, especially in this case!
Violet
@furklempt: Well, of course, that’s always an option. As is not reading Balloon Juice at all.
But for people who have been able to read Balloon Juice at work without any problems, posts like the original one present a bit of a problem. What would otherwise be an acceptable site to visit at work may now be a site that might either be blocked by work management or cause one to get in trouble at work, if not fired.
I doubt that’s Sarah’s intent for her post, and maybe John and others don’t care if people are no longer able to visit the site during their work hours, but a lot of people who do visit during breaks at work would be disappointed. I’d be disappointed if it cut down on the lively commentary that happens here during the day.
dance around in your bones
As the grandmother of three little boys, I see little dicks all day long – sometimes hard-ons as well. (One of my grandboys said to me one day “Nana, look how big my pe.nis is!” ) a little 3 inch boner, yay.
I do not object to pron, different strokes for different folks and all; I just find it kinda bores me after the first 3-4 exciting minutes or so.
Just – graphic pics below the fold. Sarah P&T, I love y’all no matter what. Your posts add a hell of a lot to this blog, and are we nothing if not diverse?
ETA: Oh, and P.S. – why is it always erect dongs we see? No spread vaginas? Enlarged clits? I sense a one-sidedness here, hmmm….
(Not saying that I actually want to see them. I can always look at my own, TYVM).
JohnK
My Dear Ms Sara P&T, I have been meaning to post a note to say how much I enjoy your finely crafted posts. It is sometimes difficult to believe you are a hip, 95 year old, globetrotting party girl. I try not to think about it much except it makes me dizzy sometimes thinking that you must have been really hawt when you were young somewhere in the vicinity of 50 or 60, maybe.
Don’t you find it odd that someone should expect posts on a blog named “BJ” be labeled NSFW? What employer would willingly approve of employees spending work time and money reading or commenting on a goofy blog having nothing at all to do with work, with or without naughty vintage photos? Besides, they were really tiny. Please proceed as you see best as most everyone should be made aware of the internet traditions regarding BJ posts and Sara P&T vintage pictures.
PS, are you related to the L&T Casey?
BSR
I have been reading this blog for years, since Cole was a wingnut. Today is the first time I have seen it blocked by my workplace.
I hope the pics of someones junk are worth losing long time readers. Seems like a bad trade to me, but it’s Cole’s site.
Thanks for years of entertainment and simulating commentary by the way!
Uncle Ebeneezer
Every workplace causes some limitation on net surfing. I’ve worked at places where I could not surf at all. Some places where I could read political blogs on breaks. And I’ve worked at places where pretty much anything that wasn’t blocked was fair game. I would never expect a blog to base their content balance on the particulars of my work situation. It’s fairly easy to save a blog, or certain posts for later when Big Brother is not around. NSFW warnings and maybe linking the pix to the SP&T site instead of displaying them on the page, and I really can’t see a need for anything more.
Smedley the Uncertain
@Violet: Perhaps then you’d get on with what your paid to do, finish the job and then escape to your cave to wallow in your particular form of depravity… BJ comments come to mind. The blog is for the many, not just for those chained to their desks… So please, don’t constrain this wonderful free flowing blog to meet the petty needs of the wage slaves.
fuckwit
I miss the animated GIF of Santorum cock-sucking an ice-cream cone.
But then, I found that hilarious.