Paul Rudnick's Naughty Bedtime Stories— And the NSFW Bogeyman
Who's afraid of naughty words? Not The New Yorker this week, but it made me wonder what would happen if I, a simple blograt, ran the same darn thing:
"A children’s book that included the word “scrotum” was recently the subject of great controversy in school libraries nationwide. A Google search has discovered several more questionable titles and excerpts from other works intended for readers twelve and under.
From "Inappropriate," by Paul Rudnick, The New Yorker, 2007-03-12
“The Pretty Little Bunny”
Melissa, the pretty little bunny, woke up one morning in May and said, “I think I’ll hop-hop-hop over to the carrot patch. I’m so pretty that all of the carrots will jump right out of the ground to see me.”
“You are very pretty,” said Melissa’s Bunny Mommy. “But your sister is pretty, too, and she doesn’t spend all of her time looking at herself in the mirror.”
“But is she as pretty as me?” asked Melissa. “Just look at my vagina.”
“The Clattery Caboose”
Carl the Caboose had worked for the railroad for a long time. He loved it when little children ran alongside the tracks and waved to him. But Carl was getting older. His bright-red paint was peeling, his wheels were getting squeaky, and don’t even ask about his prostate.
“Betsy Barstow, Colonial Girl”
One fine morning, as Betsy went to the village well in the Olde Massachusetts Baye colony, she ran into her best friend, feisty Katey Karmody.
“Oh, Katey,” said Betsy, “I have such news! My father and my brothers are joining up with the militia to fight the British, so that we may all be free!”
“Oh, Betsy, that is news!” cried Katey. “My nipples are like muskets!”
Oh, he never stops... Go read the whole thing this week before they archive it; it's contagious!
But now, I must interrupt my giggle fit to reveal a little stone in my shoe. The New Yorker runs clever, sexually sophisticated stories all the time. They say "fuck." They publish critically acclaimed erotic, and nude, photography. They discuss and illustrate the lives of famous artists (who can forget the Balthus story?) who may be highly eccentric fetishists with every sort of paraphilia.
Some of these articles receive wide discussion, like Daphne Merkin's "Spanking Piece." But even with less-known stories and photos, the NYer delivers a steady diet of grown-up arts and politics which resonates with thousands of readers.
Nowhere, in all the internet, would you ever hear The New Yorker described as "Not Safe for Work": NSFW. Whether you brought their magazine to the office, or searched their web site on line, the firewall/censorship/Dilbert Nightmare of NSFW would never crease a NYEr reader's brow.
You could say the exact same thing about Vogue, the fashion magazine— nudity in virtually every issue. Vanity Fair, a supermarket favorite, regularly publishes profane words, nudity, and explicit commentary on sexual controversies.
Newspapers belong to this daring group too. The New York Times reports with great gusto on every sexual debate. When it comes to art, they're no wilting flowers— they just published a gorgeous slide show of naked women and their young children.
These photos were especially daring, because they violate the letter of U.S. Federal law, which stipulates that no nude photographs may be published or exhibited of minors, no matter what the context. Ever. Without exception.
This is why you hear stories about parents being dragged sobbing into court, their kids taken away, because their photos of their naked toddlers in the plastic play-pool were seized by do-gooders at a drugstore photo lab.
The law is sickeningly wrong. It's unjust, it's anti-art, anti-kid, and purely phobic. I love that the Times, Vogue, The New Yorker— and other high-status members of the publishing world— stick their neck out on this issue to prove a point.
I'm just as delighted that they don't have to deal the provincial denigration or censor of their web sites with the appellation "NSFW."
When editors at such periodicals send their email to academic colleagues and other publishers, their letters aren't deleted because of a NSFW "origin." What a privelege...
NSFW exists because of undefined and bigoted conceits. It's more outrageous, in its own DIY-Prude fashion, than the federal "child porn" law, the Hays Code, or the MPAA. Why? Because it is unmandated, unlegislated, censorship.
If NSFW means filtering out something that is "sexually explicit" or that uses profanity, what does that mean, exactly? Is there a list of seven profane words, while others make the cut? Is a woman's breast sexually explicit in every context, be it eroticism, cancer, or nursing? And if the material in question is published by a major corporation, does that render NSFW moot? Exactly how does that get argued?
NSFW has no meaning in print— in paper journalism or publishing. It has no place in a newsroom or the bookstore. It only exists on the Internet— which is ironically notorious for its libertarianism. NSFW, whoever dreamed it up, is a Bowdlerization of the Web, a Scarlet Letter. It exists because fearful people believe in it, like a bad fairy. It says more about the psychological fears and prejudices of the person using it, than it does about the content in question. Why do web authors put up with it?
The "W" in NSFW seems to imply that the "workplace" is an environment where all must be defended against impropriety and loss of efficiency. But surely clock-watching bosses have noticed that employees can just as easily daydream about online seed catalogs as they can about porn.
Public libraries seem to have figured out how to have unfettered Internet access for their patrons— why can't corporate America get a clue?
"The "S" stands for "Safe"— although it seems more of a "Satire." What is the danger of seeing or reading something you don't agree with? Will you fly through a windshield? Where are the corpses of those who died from being offended?
Yes, I'm at the end of my rope. My blog and internet communications have, many times, been dragged to a standstill because my blog, or even my email, was characterized by the ever-mysterious and anonymous mob of "Some People" as NSFW.
I have friends at major universities who can't get my email because it has my URL in it Do you think professors should have email banned from susiebright.com?
I work with major publishers and NEWS organizations who can't receive my email if there are any "NSFW" words in the message text! Yes, these are the same handful of corporations that own 99% of the American media.
One colleague taught me how to misspell words like "Crp" so that her international wire service could receive my correspondence. She can't read my blog at work, even though it directly comments on issues she writes on, every day.
But it's not just the major corporations that censor in this manner.
It galls me when I see that someone has blogged about one of my stories, or passed it around a newsletter, and added the note: "Oh by the way, you better be careful because it's NSFW."
But if my same story is in one of the aforementioned magazines— no problem! No one seems to be terrified of being caught at the lunch table reading a copy of... Harpers Bazaar. Rolling Stone. And I've got a long way to go before I can catch up with their nudity and profanity.
When I started my first web page, NSFW didn't exist, and therefore, I didn't get tarred with the brush. Amazingly, it never came up. The world hung onto its axis. U.S. productivity continued unimpaired.
When I blogged years later, and more importantly, when I blogged about women's issues, like abortion and birth control, I found myself stabbed with NSFW daggers for the first time. My editorials on the South Dakota abortion ban— which included video footage from primetime SD television news— were the items that nailed my Safety-Free coffin.
There is not a single feminist political blogger I've met who hasn't dealt with this issue. I brought it up at the last Blogher conference, and it was like the Zoolander explosion at the gas station.
Of course, it's not just mouthy women who get the NSFW tattoo. Needless to say, if you're gay— in any fashion— you are NSFW. If you use a "bad" word that would otherwise be published in Entertainment Weekly without blinking an eye, you're NSFW. If you present photographs of antique, artistic, or educational breasts! — In Any Form!— You. Are. So. Wrong. Nursing Mothers can just forget about it.
The NSFW prejudice is entirely dependent on size, with a soupcon of prejudice thrown in. There are certainly a few quiet, no-fuss lactation sites that haven't been destroyed by NSFW, but they exist in a sheltered world. If they get political, or uppity, just watch the backlash.
That's the odd case though. It's usually about the money. If you reach a critical mass, or have the imprinteur of high society, you can run ANYTHING on your site, no matter how sensational or sexually bizarre— no matter how many religions it offends, or work hours it squanders. No one will dream of calling you names and sending you to the sidelines. No longer are you NSFW— you are Safe for Bank, baby.
How much does it "cost" to get your NSFW wings clipped? I asked a Google AdSense rep that once. He turned down my application because of... well, you know. This was before I had one bare breast on my page. I argued with him, by pointing to all the sexually vivid stories that were in the Times the same week I put in my application.
He agreed; he said, I was "absolutely right." "But they have millions of hits," he wrote me. "And you don't."
When I point out the ethical disaster of NSFW, many shake their heads. Of course it's about money, what isn't? How could I be so naive?
What's interesting, is how few characterize the hypocrisy of NSFW group-think as unAmerican, undemocratic, illegal— or unethical. All that fuss and bother to make democratic publishing possible was just a mistake, a joke. It's as if everyone gave up.
If you see an R-rated film advertised, you can elect to avoid it, or not bring your small child to the theater. It's not banned from your neighborhood. Can you imagine— think of all the Oscar-winning movies this year that were rated 'R"— if you never heard of these films, if you weren't allowed to hear of them, because there was a theatrical firewall in your town? And what if the people who dared to take a peek at these censored films were castigated and looked upon as perverts?
I'm sure many people must be disappointed when they arrive at my "NSFW" site. Too many words, a jack-off disaster. I talk about sex, and then something else, without even counting! I write as if I thought I was Paul Rudnick or something, like I was a... journalist. An essayist. A political activist. A human being.
Is your journalism, art, and publishing compromised on the Internet because of NSFW? Is your communication, reading, and education suffering from NSFW? Is your mom unable to receive your email at her office because of this crp?
I'd like to hear your NSFW stories. I'd like to know your NSFW questions, arguments, and perhaps your success stories of ethical challenges. I've been thinking of hosting a NSFW Carnival and we might as well start here.
Photos, from top to bottom: My very own copy of Nurse Nancy; a Balthus painting that is way tame compared to what The New Yorker printed— but they don't have it archived online, sorry!; Mapplethorpe nude from Vogue magazine, and Justine Kurland's wonderful exhibit as discussed in the NYT.
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I'd like to hear your NSFW horror stories. I'd like to know your NSFW questions, and perhaps your success stories at activism and pulling this nonsense down.
One of the reasons it's called NSFW is that people get in trouble at work over viewing porn. Should all workplaces should be OK spaces for people to view porn? Clearly not.
Help us out here. What does "pulling this nonsense down" mean. Right now, it's an empty slogan. If you're going to put out a call for activism, it's fairly lame to to have an end state for where you want your activism to lead, and now, I'm not seeing it from you.
You're usually better than this angry nonspecific pseudo activism. There's no consideration of the possible validity of the 'NSFW' concept. It'd be a lot more respectful of people who mark thing NSFW to examine the issue before deciding to destroy it and replace it with a non-defined future.
If you want to talk about sexuality in the workplace, go for it. But drop the hostile tone towards people who mght want to moderate some forms sexual expression at work, because clearly *all* forms are not appropriate for all work. There's a balance. Perhaps we're best served by having it be something vague. Social cues are important. Non-spoken 'rules' have a way of making groups run smoother sometimes than strict definitions.
Talk about it, but don't talk down to people who find it useful.
Posted by: Josh Jasper | March 08, 2007 at 07:06 AM
God Susie! SCREAM it from the mountain top! I am so with you on this. It drives me crazy. The problem is you've simply identified the underlying bedrock of the ill educated American majority, largely church-going blatherers who use "child protection" as a cloak. As a nation, we are a bunch of pathetic hypocrites.
One of the most fun things I have done in the past several years was when I took a bunch of library paraprofessionals, put them in a computer lab, and made everyone type in the "dirtiest" word they could think of. We tried it with various levels of filtering turned on, just so I could show them what a pathetic waste of money that technology is. It worked - they saw the light. Sadly, Congress did not, and all libraries, pretty much, are forced to filter. But you've never seen anything like a room full of librarians typing words like fuck, cunt, titties, piss, shit, and felch into various search engines. My friend Rebecca helped me, and we had a blast encouraging these people to get as vulgar as they could. My my my. You should see the kind of stuff a bunch of library workers can come up with when they have a little encouragement.
Sadly, the ability to "buy" respectability applies in so many ways more than just literary license. Think about how easy it is for a celebrity to pull off a murder, for instance. I'm sure you can think of other ways. As a society, we're sick - money and celebrity are given a pass. The little guy ends up paying the price. I doubt we can just blame it on capitalism, but it's kind of tempting, isn't it?
Posted by: Steve | March 08, 2007 at 08:24 PM
--And try being a paranoid employer!
I was invited to attend a workshop on sexual harrassment issues for one of my businesses out of town. I didn't attend, but I heard enough about what the sexual harrassment consultant had to say to make me think that we need to consider castration for all male employees and a hysterectomy for all female employees...with no hormone replacement therapy for either now non-sexes in order to be free from the Sword of Damocles of sexual harrassment suits.
Employers are now encouraged...even practically ordered... not to make any mention of any employee's appearance, to not use even mildly sexual language; to make no mention of any sex act or desire in any context; no comments on sexual preference, acts, thoughts, or whatever in any employee's presence.
In other words, if employers even hint that there is a sexual world out there...other than allowing breast feeding and maternity leave...we can get sued by some disgruntled lame-ass employee we just fired for perfectly good reasons.
I carefully considered this on my last firing... a woman who presented at work as so asexual as to test the limits of my understanding. We carefully documented our work issues with her week after week, memo after memo, to where there could be no chance of her slapping us with a bogus sex harassment/unjustified firing suit.
And this is how we as employers have to think in this stupidly anti-sex litigious society we live in. Sex...words about sex...these are stupidly legal issues now.
Sure, assholes in business have harassed. Assholes in politics have harrassed. But the pendulum swing is pretty weird when we can have Paris fucking Hilton and Pamela fucking Anderson and Howard fucking Stern in our collective face at every turn, and raunch radio is drowning out good music AND I can't even hint that maybe I got laid last night and it was great.
And I can't tell my CFO that she's looking good today because that might mean I'm hitting on her.
Weird shit, Susie...gotta keep weaving sex into normal life...
Posted by: Third Man | March 08, 2007 at 10:38 PM
Oddly enough, just this morning I had a blog owner, who basically publishes soft core porn, take down one of my comments because I used the word "pussy." Just doesn't compute.
I do agree with Third Man - as an employer it's a fucking minefield.
Posted by: Steve | March 09, 2007 at 05:58 AM
Hey Third Man, don't forget to mention Rev. James "Fuck-us on the Family" Dobson and Rev. Ted "Fuck-Me" Haggard! People like them are half the reason that so many Americans are sexually maladjusted, resulting in the interesting times in which all employers and employees now live.
But seriously, the art of goofing off at work has been around long before the Internet. How many pre-Web break rooms were the scene of lunchtime gawkfests centered around a copy of Playboy, Hustler or Bound Babes Monthly? If I were an employer I'm not sure I'd want my employees gazing at web porn - or conducting personal Ebay auctions, or writing novels or downloading music - on company time. They should be working. The fun stuff should be reserved for lunch break or quitting time.
But if the truth be known, NOTHING is safe for work anymore, and won't ever be again. To wit:
http://www.spectorsoft.com
Posted by: C.S. Lewiston | March 09, 2007 at 06:30 AM
I can sympathize with the first commenter, I guess, as I'm a parent with a preschooler whose workplace is at home. I do think it's going way too far; pictures...um, given our society's sniggering, childish attitude toward human bodies, pictures of body parts can be a problem. But writing should be another matter.
When I blog, I tend to censor myself. The way I write isn't exactly the way I speak around other adults. I've chosen not to write about sex at all, for various reasons. I'm not comfortable with my decision sometimes, and it may change with time, but that's how it is for now.
As an aside, the "Nurse Nancy" Golden Book is the funniest thing I've seen this morning.
Posted by: spyderkl | March 09, 2007 at 07:19 AM
Despite much frustration with politically correct fascism at workplaces, what is anyone doing about it? I see much apathy, a kind of acceptance of "that's what you have to accept." And the cruel irony is that the pioneers of feminism and sexual liberation hardly had this kind of nonsense in mind. Dworkinism triumphed in the pettiest of ways, hasn't it? Instead of everyone becoming lesbians and separatists, its just a way to be vindictive over b.s. on the job. How lovely. Why is it accepted as the status quo?
You can run a worksite with integrity and sensitivity. You can guide and protect your kids relationship to media.
But here's what you can't do: you can't abridge freedom of speech without losing something irreplaceable. You can't stop the slippery slope of repression once you start skating. You can't think you won't be "next." Unspoken rules are the kind of things that lead to untenable social corruption and cruelty. We're not talking about table manners here.
I think many Americans think "modified" pablumized "sorta free" speech is okay, because it seems theoretical to them. It doesn't, for some reason, until
it personally destroys THEM, seem to amount to much. People think, "oh I'll just take down my batik print of Aphrodite at work cause it offended someone," or "I'll just label anything that makes me blink NSFW," and it's no more threatening than grabbing an extra napkin. Or, perhaps they get mileage out of imagining how they're going to take down other people by playing "gotcha." All the while thinking it doesn't injure them in the least.
People talk a lot about how the news is manipulated. This is directly because of free speech censorship. And where does censorship begin? With sex. Every single time. Sexual speech is the first on teh chipping block, the thing that no one "wants" to defend, and provides excuses for everythign else. Remind me to run another rant sometime on why sexual speech is the foundation of democracy.
Posted by: Susie Bright | March 09, 2007 at 08:08 AM
I live a life of net dichotomies.
In my full time employment I work in a doctor's office where the internet is a service of the local hospital, which has fairly draconian limits. It is common to try to follow a link and find "this website has been listed by your management as a bozo no-no" pages popping up.
Of course my other employment, at Jane's Guide, is from home where a term of my employment is that my management pay for my internet access so that I can look at porn and get paid for my efforts.
Is it any wonder I turned into a fence-sitter?
Posted by: Peter Throckmorton | March 09, 2007 at 08:35 AM
Susie, you are so right. But the courts have backed up this kind of shit in the workplace with rules that say the employer CAN monitor what workers view, and also define certain types of limits as to use. And the courts have backed up employers who have fired people, and they have allowed settlements to stand where claims of sexual harrassment have been made. I agree with you, but I think those who just meekly bow down and accept the situation in favor of keeping a paycheck don't necessarily have a choice. It's not like we can ask "Is it ok if I view porn during work hours?" while sitting in a job interview. We'd all be homeless.
Yes, it does ALWAYS start with sex, and it NEVER ends there. I agree with you completely that it sucks. But, like so many other things, I truly do not know what to do about it.
This has been such a huge issue in libraries - still is - because many tax paying citizens who, in my opinion, have the right to demand they be able to access porn sites on library computers and networks that are paid for by THEIR tax dollars, just like everyone else. Not many do. I had one board member years ago who buttonholed me and asked me if I would add pornography to his library. I said I would if he would back me up when people complained. I also explained that we would need a special area to house the collection where we could check ID's because it wouldn't be legal to expose anyone under 18 to the material. And we also discussed the problem of being able to afford a broad enough spectrum to suit everyone's personal fetishes on an extremely limited budget. In the end, he pronounced me "ok" and agreed it would be much more efficient for him to buy his favorite tranny porn himself. But you know what? I wish he had pursued it. His taxes support the library too, and he claimed porn is the only stuff he reads. Why shouldn't he have the right to find that kind of stuff in the library?
Posted by: Steve | March 09, 2007 at 05:44 PM
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post on how people can circumvent their workplace's censoring servers because my site had been deemed NSFW by a reader's work server. I myself am not in the corporate world. I probably will never be in the corporate world, at least not any way but tangentially. I therefore must admit my wide gulf of knowledge about how the corporate world works.
Obviously, companies have a right to expect their employees to work when at work. And obviously, companies have the duty to protect themselves legally.
What worries me is what seems to be an increasing infantalization of culture--as if every one of us needs to be protected all the time from everything. Clearly, the creation of teh Internets has changed the way that we as a culture get our information--good, bad, or sexy. It used to be somewhat more difficult to get porn. Now we have hot and cold running XXX. And that access is, at least potentially, a problem.
I'm just very skeptical that slapping on the "NSFW" label does much, other than to point out hipocrisy, arbitrarily block off communication, and keep people who don't want to actively make decisions from having to use their own critical thinking.
Posted by: chelsea girl | March 09, 2007 at 09:08 PM
Chelsea Girl, what is the URL of your blog post? Of course I'm dying to read it.
I just read a critique of my NSFW rant here, that I thought was really intersting:
http://theorylicious.vox.com/library/post/nsfw-or-the-culture-war-isnt-over.html
This all made me have another question: In countries where prudery is not the order of the day, how do they handle diverse web page imagery, language, and news? I mean that in a day to day, working in the office kinda way.
Or what happened in the States before NSFW became ubiquitous? It's so recent?
Finally, have any of you ever seen anyone get in "trouble".. .any kind of trouble... for reading a story from one of the major mags i mentioned above?
Posted by: Susie Bright | March 10, 2007 at 05:28 AM
(Wrote this up the first time it showed up, managed to copy it before it went away.)
Well, I'll admit, I had a bit of work on the NSFW here. More importantly, since I made the recommendation (i.e. actually wrote) the Internet policy, I actually just said "we are all adults, if you think someone is going to be offended, don't leave it on your screen." It's pretty much known that people view the occasional porn sites during the break and also about a third actually go to the various *chans (4chan, 2chan, 7chan, etc).
I mainly picked it for a "sane" policy. It wasn't a matter of something being specifically forbidden, but more of a guideline to make sure it didn't interfer with your job and you weren't wasting toner printing it (though I have no clue why people would print porn, but I know ones that do).
Of course, pretty much everyone also knows that I write erotica, have one published novel that most won't want to read (some have declared that after reading the first ten pages of said novel), and generally have no illusions that I'm almost as "bad" as the sites they go to. :)
Posted by: t'Sade | March 11, 2007 at 02:40 PM
I find myself incredibly impatient with arguments about how the corporate culture is necessarily repressive, and thus we need to conform to the needs of the folks who are entrapped in that culture.
FUCK that culture! It's a soul killer.
Don't get me wrong, I'm an unrepentant capitalist. But I don't understand why folks who sell their labor to The Man also feel they have to sell their souls and their genitals to Him. There ain't no salary worth that.
Sexual harassment litigation is a huge problem for employers. The law is busted, what else is new? But unless you're an employer, it's not your problem, so what are you doing labeling websites for employer convenience?
And folks who've sold themselves into cubicle bondage (a valid choice, sometimes, though not one palatable to me) may find NSFW labeling convenient. But again, why are their link-previewing-difficulties a problem for the rest of us?
NSFW labels are a problem for all free peoples because once you've labeled a group of social undesireables, it becomes much easier to liquidate that group. (Don't believe me? Ask the Warsaw Jews, if you can find one.) Sure, somebody slapping a NSFW tag on a link may think they're just making life easier for cubicle rats, but as Susie has discovered, they are also making life easier for filtering companies and censors of all sorts.
Posted by: Bacchus | March 11, 2007 at 03:20 PM
I think what needs to be taken into consideration on the issue of ‘NSFW’ is the public's attitude towards the Internet. Comparisons can be made between internet columns and columns in print, but they're not perfect metaphors. The New Yorker – and publishing - has decades of foundation to stand on in the mind of the public, and the internet doesn’t.
Despite the break-neck speed in which it’s seemingly becoming an essential of American life, and how fast corporate America is jumping in to monopolize it, I’d say that the internet is still, and often, regarded with open suspicion and fear as a global database of depravity. Sometimes, I don’t know if that particular perception is phasing out, or becoming sturdily established in America’s mind.
This isn’t to say that All Is Lost. I just think that when considering the issue, it’s interesting to note America’s attitude towards the internet as it relates to sex and sexuality, as well as America’s attitude towards sex and sexuality in the workplace, or in general.
Posted by: Marlowe | March 11, 2007 at 06:06 PM
Despite much frustration with politically correct fascism at workplaces, what is anyone doing about it?
What *would* you have us do? Please be specific? You're talking around the issue here.
You can run a worksite with integrity and sensitivity.
What *does* any of this mean? Context, please!
But here's what you can't do: you can't abridge freedom of speech without losing something irreplaceable.
There is no "freedom of speech" on someone else's dime. Really. While you're at work, your freedom of speech isn't curtailed at all. What is limited is your right to be employed while saying, downloading, or talking about any damn thing you want.
Freedom of speech is not at issue here, and it cheapens an important could-have-been discussion on the grey areas of work appropriate sex talk to make it sound like a civil liberty is at risk.
You're better than this. Please talk to us as if we were rational adults, not an audience for a political speech.
We could have a real discussion on how to keep workplaces sane areas where some sexual talk is permitted, but it has to be a conversation, not a set of slogans. I'm disheartened at everyone's unwillingness to do so.
Posted by: Josh Jasper | March 11, 2007 at 08:18 PM
(re: Steve’s comment above), I agree with the shield created by the child protection excuse. To me, it’s an excuse for some parents to shove their kids in front of PC’s and have free time, escape supervising their kids, basically to make their ‘job’ easier. I’m a parent and am continually frustrated each time I read about the justification of censorship based on child protection; that percentage of the adult population is willing allow a government, or corporation, to have so much power and then, years down the track, those same people will complain simply because they can’t handle coming across a word like ‘cock’ or ‘pussy’, and some can’t put their foot down, so they form coalitions against profanity.
I don’t think I’ve ever used the term NSFW. Since transferring to typepad, I’ll add things under the ‘continued’ cut, and that’s it. If an adult can’t monitor their child’s Internet usage, that’s their problem (as far as I’m concerned); I had issues with these kinds of things ever since those black and white ‘this CD may contain profanity’ labels came out.
At the organization I work at, there’s a huge emphasis on personal email; some were recently caught ‘downloading’ porn (allegedly, but they were probably accessing Google reader to read a couple of blogs, so we all lost Google email access, and everything that came with it - mind you, we couldn’t access the Web, so the search engine was useless), even though they can’t access the web, and were immediately dismissed. It’s advised that any ‘rude’ joke be deleted, and this type of thing is everywhere.
I‘m not sure if NFSW notation is used frequently here in Australia(I haven‘t noticed it in the last six years), and I’m not sure if online content or email content would be filtered if NSFW appeared on a page or email.
I sometimes think it’s about establishing a climate of fear; the last company I worked at didn’t have the means to filter everything, and the IT department didn’t have the time to focus on every staff member. Excessive downloading (music, in particular) was more of an issue than reading an adult blog, due to the excess charges per megabyte. Other times being caught relates more to people reporting on their coworkers (content they see in passing), than being detected. This happened to a colleague of mine who was spammed with adult email from various porn sites, because another co-worker happened to walk past and glimpse his Outlook inbox.
I do think these labels jeopardize personal freedom, not to mention privacy. I’ll only go as far as to verbally state/type that content is meant for adults over the age of 18, but there’s no way I’ll add a black and white sign in order to comply (I think it’s the height of contradiction to have a web front page full of explicit adult content and a teeny tiny black and white ‘over 18’ only label in the top left or right hand corner of the page) or ‘NFSW’.
Ace topic though...one that will no doubt be an ongoing topic as long as there are people out there hell bent on oppressing artistic and/or literary expression.
Posted by: Anastasia | March 12, 2007 at 12:58 AM
On NSFW, the real red flag tends to be more around photos and sites with LOTS of sex-related terms. But what's "safe" wildly variable from place to place.
I'm at least mildly sympathetic about the photo issue. Many of us have worked in places with cubicles. If I'm crossing an area with lots of cubes, I often wind up seeing what's on people's screens, even if I'm not deliberately looking. Do I want to see sex-related content on my way from one place to the other? Does it have anything at all to do with work?
I've worked in one place where you could not view any non-work-related Web sites. Period. For any reason. Most places will permit a little shopping, Web surfing or news reading from time to time.
I think there's a huge difference between limitations work may put on Internet use and censoring the Web iteself.
Posted by: Laurie D. T. Mann | March 12, 2007 at 06:31 PM
I agree with some of your points, but as someone who has a job with a lot of down time in which it's acceptable for me to surf the web (but not look at porn) NSFW labels have helped me out several times when used appropriately. I think the problem is the way that it's being applied, not that it exists.
I don't think there's anything wrong with my boss asking that I not look at porn while I'm at work. On the other hand, I doubt my boss would have a problem with me looking at your lovely blog, and I know that despite the label yours is a fine link to click on. I don't really know anything about the automatic filters, but that's messed up and treats everyone like small children.
Posted by: Zoe | March 12, 2007 at 08:30 PM
I agree with Josh; there needs to be a compromise point. Sure, I can bring The New Yorker to work, but it's unlikely that someone walking by will be able to read the text from more than a couple feet away; I have a hard enough time. But people can see my screen from across the office (no cubicle walls) and often comment on the photos I use as a screen saver (food porn, not people porn).
It's unfortunate that people are offended by porn, but some of them are. And I agree that people should be more comfortable talking about sex, even in the workplace. Heaven knows most are thinking about it anyway.
My work doesn't filter on things that say NSFW, but if something is labeled as such, I simply flag the post and read it later. This post, for instance, I stuck in the background and went back to work so that I could read it later without worrying that someone was going to sneak up behind me and *gasp* see boobies. I just think it's polite.
Posted by: Derrick Schneider | March 12, 2007 at 09:17 PM
I think you are confusing two issues here. If people can't reach your web site because it's declared NSFW, that's a 3rd party imposing their judgment - which is censorship. They're not directly involved in any communications.
However, if a web site talks about your page and appends a NSFW, it's not censorship - it's a curtesy to their readers. They're not blocking you or the readers from anything, but they're saying "Here, look at this. But you might not want to do this when kids are around".
To claim it doesn't exist in print is disingeneous. Books with adult topics are clearly separated from non-adult books in most book stores. Most sexually explicit magazines are separated from the rest of the magazine. Yes, you can drag the "art" discussion into it, but the point remains - yours is not a blog that everybody wants to read in front of the kids.
As long as NSFW is an informational tag, this is no problem at all. The problem comes in when NSFW mandates behavior. (Even then, I do believe that a workplace can filter whatever they deem inappropriate. As long as I as a private person can do what I want, this is not censorship)
Posted by: Robert 'Groby' Blum | March 13, 2007 at 08:43 AM
I understand Robert's distinction between an 'alert' and a filter— but I believe they're kissing cousins. One informs the other. The consciousness that, for example, that a text-only story about abortion should be NSFW might originate in a filter designed by a conservative, that then influences everyone who's in contact with it. Or, there might be a group of people gossiping about something that's supposed to be NSFW, and it ends up being added to some filter-maker's to-do list. One enables the other, frequently.
I've been in the book business for thirty years, on both sides of the counter. Aside from the "children's section," books are not divided by anything called an "adult topic." If you peruse novels, or any other standard book section, you will find a wide range of language, style, illustration. Of course some stores have niche self-help categories, like sex and relationship advice, but you're not going to find Miller, Roth, Bukowski, and Updike shelved in some special "adult" section. Oh my god they'd go ballistic, the ones who are alive.
Similiarly, Conde Naste magazines, and the others I mentioned are not segragated from other magazines. I'm sure you buy your Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Rolling Stone, New York, etc. along with everything else at the airport stands.
I don't have to drag "art" anywhere... we're already soaking in it.
Posted by: Susie Bright | March 13, 2007 at 09:23 AM
I agree with the posts above that say that NSFW is about sexual-harassment liability, rather than sexual censorship. Thats why its not SAFE for WORK. Its about WORKplace sexual issues. Its about being SAFE from lawsuits. And as an employee, the boss doesn't care a whit whether I am reading about sex, or cars, or the Red Sox. He cares that I am working.
Except when it can get his ass sued off. Thats when I get fired.
That doesn't sound very safe.
Posted by: Alfred | March 13, 2007 at 10:11 AM
I work in the adult industry where I usually only read things considered "NSFW." In fact, I was such an idiot when I first started and I saw a link on Sex Drive Daily marked as such, I turned to my officemate and asked, "Can I click on this?" because it hadn't quite sunk in that it's only unsafe for work if your work doesn't let you look at porn. Mine advocates it. (To be fair, I was a middle school teacher before I came to my current position.)
In my own personal blog, I use it because I know the small audience to which I'm writing and I know that most of them are either college-age students on the campus of their uni or still living at home or it's middle-aged mothers with children -- all of whom have a reason to not want to click on pages that will flash boobs at them. I use it mostly as a courtesy to them, although sometimes I forget about it because it doesn't mean anything to me.
I rarely, if ever, mark words NSFW, no matter what I'm talking about, be it erotica or porn or queer issues -- that's where you get into a trouble with censorship when it becomes more about the meaning behind the words and that's what you're warning for instead of helping college kids to keep from tits pop up on their screen while they're in a uni comp lab.
Posted by: KB | March 13, 2007 at 12:43 PM
The bottom line is this; say I'm on my lunch break eating in my office. If I click on an article about an erotic art exhibit in New York this coming weekend and the lead image is a beautifully composed black and white photograph of a naked young woman and my female boss happens to come into my office and sees my screen, it doesn't matter whether its raunchy porn or legitimate art...its boobs on the screen at work. If there was an "NSFW" designation on the link, I know to copy it and email it to myself for viewing later when I'm at home. It's not censorship, its common courtesy.
You clearly do not work in an environment where this would be an issue or else you'd think about it a little differently. There is a big difference between censoring content and giving a little heads-up that, in our overly PC corporate environments, could save someone from being put in an awkward or potentially career damaging situation.
My workplace openly allows employees to use the Internet for personal purposes, within reason, because we understand that sometimes you need to take care of personal matters during the day. We also do not restrict or even monitor internet traffic because as long as someone is getting their work done well and on time, we could care less if someone surfs ESPN for an hour. We do ask that everyone respect one another and to use good judgment when it comes to what is viewed on work PCs. "NSFW" designations on certain links and content are valuable markers to help us judge what to check out now, and what to check out later. That's all.
Posted by: Tom G | March 13, 2007 at 01:53 PM
I'm a fellow who will almost always follow a NSFW link just out of curiosity, and as a fan of porn and sexuality it isn't a question of something offending me, because I'm more than happy to close a page if I'm not interested in viewing its contents.
There is one context which I greatly appreciate NSFW link labels, for example, I'll often browse Wired News feeds for information on technology and trends, so I'm not expecting sexualized or even sexually referential content, the closest it gets is Regina Lynn's column. As a consumer, I like to know what product I am receiving so I can choose the appropriate time and companions to share it with.
If I'm at a blog like your own, or one that deals with sexual content, I am aware and expecting that a link may contain related content. If I'm reading a motorcycle blog and a link will take me to a page with hardcore sex on motorcycles, I'd appreciate a warning.
When I am with friends or my sexual partners, I am happy to discuss and share content which relates to sex but if my nieces or nephews or even my parents happen to be around, I'd rather not inadvertently click a link showing young girls with ponies.
Mostly because it leads to conversations I'd just prefer to avoid. While women and ponies in a sexual context isn't something I seek out, with friends and lovers it can be amusing if bizarre, explaining to my seven year old niece why a woman would deep throat a donkey is just a bit beyond my parenting skills as a 30-something bachelor and I'd really be in for a world of shit from my sister (not to mention in many states legally liable for exposing a minor to such content).
While I currently work for myself (and so am only subject to self-censorship), at one time I worked at Microsoft and agree with their approach. They censor no internet sites or emails instead rely on employees to self-censor both in terms of content and time spent. Essentially they treat their employees like adults and expect you to get your work done and avoid using the internet inappropriately, whether that inappropriate use is spending hours on ebay or visiting a pornographic website.
When an employee fails to correctly use their time, they respond appropriately. In such a context I appreciate NSFW links as they allow me, as a responsible adult, to be aware of what material I consume and to do so in a responsible manner.
Posted by: Plural | March 13, 2007 at 02:18 PM