On 8/15/2015 8:40 AM, Matthew Brett wrote:
> It's a detail from a pornographic image
One may oppose the image without exaggerating:
the original photo was merely erotic, not pornographic.
And as for the cropped image that has become a reference
standard, it is unobjectionable if culturally archaic.
If we're being precise about language, this image is not unobjectionable: there are indeed people who have objections to it:
An excess of political correctness is difficult
to distinguish from censorship.
We could have a discussion about culture, feminism, microaggressions, and the potential for widespread small choices to do harm. Such discussions are often ugly and divisive, perhaps because the harms under discussion are not apparent to some people. But this image is not being proposed for removal for feminist reasons. It is being proposed for removal because the license is a problem.
For my part, I think the license problem is real and reason enough for removal. The feminist issues with the image are part of why I have no motivation to attempt to obtain permission. (Perhaps one could obtain permission to include the image but only with a Playboy-bunny watermark?)
Just to be clear, I am not trying to make a case
for including the image. There may be some case
for skimage.data.lena() to fetch the image from
the USC-SIPI Image Database
http://sipi.usc.edu/database/download.php?vol=misc&img=4.2.04
but I am not trying to make that case either.
I am merely addressing an issue of the debasement
of language.
Please don't play devil's advocate or language-lawyer with social-justice issues. It makes the discussions more stressful and unpleasant without actually raising substantive points.
Thanks,
Anne