Mona Lisae

by prokofy on 20/07/07 at 9:58 am

Lisae_001_2 Fishy man, fishing in troubled waters.

By Prokofy Neva, Art Dept.

Art — and the figures in and around it — can be inscrutable. In the much-commented thread about the raid in Blister, Dutch amateur artist Lisae Boucher finally provides a link to another SL store where her controversial works are on sale — images that she says Michael Linden has cleared for “keeping SL safe together”. The parcel in Blister is now renamed, and put on “buy pass” for $20, and the art that was the subject of abuse reports, visits, and more than 100 comments at the Herald, has been removed — apparently out of respect for the neighbours’ sensibilities.

In a thread already filled with her threats to report this site to the Internet service provider and claims that her privacy is invaded, Lisae offers to send me the link to her other store inworld, but challenges me not to publish it, claiming that if it *is* published, that could lead to more harassment in world, more abuse reports, even more Lindens. Receiving a poisoned chalice like that isn’t easy, but after she sent the landmark, I visited the store in question I had no doubt that the link could be provided to the public. Why?

Because it’s a store in a giant mall, checked off as a “mature” parcel in a mature region, and a store not only with 22,558 traffic today, before it was written about by the Herald, and when it is not obviously linked to the other site that became the target of vigilantes, but it even has dance poles paying out $2 to build the traffic. The landmark Lisae provided to me teleported me directly into a camper’s pole, and while the store was deserted, she reports that word had evidently gotten out and sales were brisk. When a store is *already* at 22,558 with camp chairs and porn art all over it for sale, you can’t blame a Herald link for visitors.

Perusing the vendor, I pondered whether the images could be construed as child porn. The images are very realistic, but not RL humans. I’m not an expert on this subject — but then, few of us are. And I can only provide my own opinion: the pictures of a tall, black man in an erotic pose next to a short, white, pre-pubescent girl in a shy pose can very likely be construed as falling under the newly-interpreted Community Standards against “broadly offensive material”. Look, this isn’t Gumby and Pokey here.

I think few people looking through the portfolio would disagree. Why? Because Lisae’s stories about difficulties placing penises just right, or calculations of the angle of erection, fall apart when you see the pictures, which show the figure of the man — described as a pearl fisher — in various poses and states. Why does the observer conclude that he is tumescent? Because he’s shown as flaccid in other pictures. The contrast is very clear.

The girl isn’t anything at all like any 18-year-old or even 16-year-old; she’s more like 12. In one scene, strangely, she is lying naked in a tent flashing the finger at the viewer with an angry look on her face. She’s running in another, and in a third, looking angry and seeming to throw a tantrum, shaking her fists.

On Lisae’s website, she has added a back-story of sorts dated July 19, after my first story appeared, explaining that the girl — Pearl, Princess of the Amazon — was kidnapped along with her mother, who was forced to jump off a cliff to her doom for fear of capture, and yet somehow Pearl was saved by the pearl fisherman…The pearl fisher is described as variously “her step-father” and “her father”.

Lisae runs an amateur website which she advertises on her profile, with pictures that seems to have a membership system. I couldn’t help thinking that operating in SL, she felt much of the same set of circumstances applied — that only certain friends or people on various networks, who registered, who seemed to be “like-minded” would be sharing these pictures on the Internet, and by the same token, in SL, it might work the same way.

But SL is and isn’t the Internet. The Internet is so big that your own little amateur site with pictures that you get loose networks of friends and friends of friends to see can actually be a very small pond, be totally lost, and not get much traffic. And SL is so much like a small town — yet a big place, too — that when you put out a store with adult art of this nature, instead of just a close circle of friends, you may well cause a stir and get a stampede of visitors.

You can’t claim on a parcel that has 20,000 traffic and camping poles and art for sale, checked off to be in SEARCH and found with strings of terms (in this case “Club, Art, Shop, sex rooms, nude naked women, free items & money, nice, gadgets, rental shops. 18+ only! Playboy missing…”), with art for sale in vendors, that this is a Tupperware party and that anyone who writes about it and places a link is guilty of “causing harassment” and shouldn’t publish the link.

So, am I suggesting this art should be abuse-reported? No, nothing of the kind. I’d actually encourage people not to do so, in fact. Because as I’ve repeatedly stated, I don’t think any of us should be playing this wierd game with the Lindens, where they pretend there are community standards that a “community” has supposedly defined, and we pretend that we are defining them by abuse-reporting images that appear to qualify both under the LL TOS/CS as “Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors.” No, not until we get better clarification of just how to understand this with concrete examples — examples we are not ever likely to get due to the desire of LL to avoid appearing to control content and specify boundaries that it can’t keep.

Michael Linden has supposedly “cleared” on this art, yet I find it strange that he has, and inscrutable. Did he really see this particular vendor, or only those that remained after the images that drew the abuse reports were removed? I certainly don’t wish to copy the image here in full — and I don’t even wish to use those black boxes sometimes appearing in the tabloid press because to do so would still present a very disturbing picture of an adult and child in a questionable pose.

Why? Well, it seems like it might well qualify under an ISP’s TOS about obscenity, but more likely, it would inspire even the maker of the images to engage in a curious form of gotcha and report the site as obscene. It’s like the old SSG trick in TSO — they’d trash somebody’s home and make an obscene picture and spell out banned words in floor tiles, then…abuse report it as in violation of the TOS — and get it to stick.

I have faith in the readers of the Herald, however, that by and large, most have no desire to sic any volunteers, neighbours, or Lindens on someone merely because they make art that seems by probably anybody’s admission, at least borderline “non-socially redeeming”. Judging from the sales reported, however, there are plenty of customers for whatever is redeeming or not. Efforts to show that this or that Internet site or this or that store in SL may have far more graphic and questionable stuff are beside the point; it’s *this* set of paintings that we are told are “cleared by the Lindens” and that’s why it’s of interest so that we can start to understand the parameters of what is allowable even under what seems a draconian policy.

All kinds of scenarios are possible, of course. Lisae may not be a real Dutch woman of 18, as stated on her profile, but a sting operation by some vice squad of RL police (not likely, given her meandering justifications of nudism and such in comments). Or she could be Dutch, but a 300-pound 47-year-old truck driver logging on from a truck stop.

But in Second Life, as I have said, everybody knows you’re a dog. If you say you are a young person just starting out learning poser and having difficulty learning to put clothes on the figures, or find it technically challenging to get dicks at the right angle, that’s all plausible, and in the virtuality of SL, we have to take you at your word, at face value. It might very well be that this rather short young figure is really “18 or 19″ as the back story says. And the pink chibi may well have cleared it, and struck a blow for freedom of expression in spite of what appears to be a blanket suppression of it.

I just can’t be sure.

So I’ll let the reader decide. Mona Lisae…or Phony Lisae?

74 Responses to “Mona Lisae”

  1. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 22nd, 2007

    You still didn’t tell us where you got the quote from, Prokofy. You are quoting something here, but no one seems to know who you’re quoting since none of the other comments mention this.
    So you’re even inadequate in your own quotes. You’re making yourself completely unbelievable.

  2. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 22nd, 2007

    Wow. Lindens updated the traffic today finally, 48 hours after this story appeared, so we have a chance now to see if Herald coverage leads to far more traffic for a parcel. The traffic that appeared BEFORE the post of this story on July 20 was NOT due to the Herald as it was never posted, nor the location even discussed! So the claim is that coverage by the Herald would bring a deluge of traffic, and possibly abuse.

    Indeed, for fear of such an influx, Lisae gave the link, but urged that it not be published. I published it, because I knew it was important to call her bluff and prevent manipulation of the press.

    No, Herald coverage didn’t increase traffic. Oops, that theory just doesn’t work.

    The traffic is: 18504. Down from July 20′s 22,548.

    So, rework the theory now? Insist that Herald coverage makes traffic go down? Which is it?

  3. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 22nd, 2007

    You still didn’t tell us where you got the quote from, Prokofy. You are quoting something here, but no one seems to know who you’re quoting since none of the other comments mention this.
    So you’re even inadequate in your own quotes. You’re making yourself completely unbelievable.

  4. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 22nd, 2007

    And about the traffic reduction? I’ve removed a few camping items and reduced the pay-out for a few more. That helps to reduce the traffic again. Fact is, someone has to pay for the money that those camping chairs are giving away and they are becoming a bit too expensive now due to the large amount of traffic.
    But by limiting their numbers and their pay-outs I am also sending away some visitors to other locations.

    More reliable is my visitor log, which keeps track of all visitors, where they visited my land and how long they’ve stayed. But it’s a log that I won’t share. For the last 24 hours, I’ve had 511 different visitors. Before the Herald article, this number was less than 300.

    Btw, this quote: Indeed, for fear of such an influx, Lisae gave the link, but urged that it not be published.

    Lol. You still can’t handle the fact that I knew you would publish it, can you? Think about it, if I did not even want it to be reported then why would I even provide that link to you? It was a suggestion from my girlfriend, btw. Just a test to see how reliable you would be as a reporter. You would have been more reliable if you had not reported about those links, just as you’ve never reported about those persons who gave you the tips that started your previous article.
    And who knows? It’s a Sunday, the weather is nice between after the many rain showers that we’ve had here. So perhaps people just decided to do something in real life instead. You should not just compare the traffic of my land now with that of a few days ago. You should also take the total amount of active players into account. Information that you can request at http://secondlife.com/httprequest/homepage.php and then use for any personal statistics.

    Still, the clearest indication was the rise in expenses for my camping chairs. Those doubled during the last week, just like the number of visitors. Which is why I’ve reduced and removed a few of them.

  5. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 22nd, 2007

    >You still didn’t tell us where you got the quote from, Prokofy. You are quoting something here, but no one seems to know who you’re quoting since none of the other comments mention this. So you’re even inadequate in your own quotes. You’re making yourself completely unbelievable.

    Lisae, again, you can’t understand English. It’s been explained twice. Others, then you *yourself* brought up the issue of the RL press, with this statement:

    “Which will just raise the question if they’re even going to be interested in this story. Maybe they will, more likely they won’t. It’s not much of a discussion since much of it is open for debate. Furthermore, many newspapers will also realize what kinds of effects such stories can have on the generic public. ”

    And I responded:

    >I think the Dutch press would be more than interested in covering this, and people in Holland them would have a chance to more democratically weigh in and give the lie to some of Lisae’s claims here ROFL.

    Those are MY words, NOT some quote, nor do I claim it to be a quote. There is a carrot there only because your own quote inadvertently got erased. That’s all, there isn’t some “quote of someone else”. It’s merely an inconsequential error, not any “claim to be a quote.”

    I then proceed to quote YOUR words immediately after that:

    >Every time a new report is published then the number of players, visitors and whatever just become higher than before. A negative news item on local television in the Netherlands actually made this game quite popular.

    YOU brought up the issue of the press, NOT ME. I RESPONDED. Are you somehow obsessing about a misplaced carrot and imagining there is a “quote” when there isnt’? Is THAT what you mean? (I can’t imagine what else you could possible mean). But anyone can see there isn’t a quote of those words; those are MY words, obviously, in distinctly my style. Any idiot with a “find” on their page tools can see that. So your obsession about this is odd. Your notion of how the RL press would cover this is also skewed and silly, as you imagine them balancing all kinds of things, and savaging me, when in fact you’ll find that the questions they’ll ask to be even more penetrating about YOU and absolutely uninterested in me.

    Um, I don’t CARE what you thought I would do or not do. I respond genuinely, not by playing tricks, manipulating people, and using “college psychology” like your girlfriend or you. I merely call it as I see it. If someone who has a MALL in SEARCH tells me prissily and coyly and manipulatingly that I can’t publish a link, of course I’ll publish it *shrugs*.

    The public can judge for themselves.

    And…you overestimate the power of the Herald, clearly, as traffic dropped from 22,548 to 18,604. Can’t dispute those numbers!

    Now, you are trying to cook up some bullshit with some “unique visitors remaining for X time” or some crap and claiming that you can’t show us the numbers. It’s all crap. Traffic is down, and the Herald providing a link is insignificant simply. Those are the facts.

    Obviously, someone who puts camping chairs on their lot to RAISE TRAFFIC can’t be terribly worried about a link in the Herald that appears because of their scandalous behaviour *shrugs*. And they sure as hell can’t blame the Herald for causing more traffic, and more possible ARs. And as some kind of manipulative and shrewd “loyalty test” to see if a reporter will “break omerta and betray the tribe,” it merely shows you up.

    Your little gambit has failed.

    “Think about it, if I did not even want it to be reported then why would I even provide that link to you? It was a suggestion from my girlfriend, btw. Just a test to see how reliable you would be as a reporter. You would have been more reliable if you had not reported about those links, just as you’ve never reported about those persons who gave you the tips that started your previous article.”

    No, a reliable report reports news, and news in the public interest. A raid on child porn is news. A link that somebody claims can’t be published is news — when it is discovered to lead to a mall with 22,000 traffic.

    No, reliable reporters merely uncover your bullshit and expose you as a phony. They show how you coyly give out a link and ask it to be published, which is of course a manipulative gambit, advised by your big college psych girlfriend (laughter), to in fact go ahead and publish the link. So…your little silly bluff is called and now…walla…we see there is less traffic.

    Mission accomplished : )

  6. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    This will be my last post for now, until the editorial policy is changed, and writers of long standing like myself are restored to full and equal posting privileges, like Uri, Walker, Pixeleen, and Pat the Rat.

    Read all about it on my blog, where you can stay tuned for the news and views about SL without fear or favour!

    http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/07/whats-happeni-2.html
    http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/07/whats-happeni-1.html
    http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/07/whats-happening.html

    “You have not convinced a man because you have silenced him”

    Prokofy Neva

  7. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    Quote: It’s merely an inconsequential error, not any “claim to be a quote.”

    An error? I have reasons to believe you made that error on purpose…

    Quote: This will be my last post for now, until the editorial policy is changed, and writers of long standing like myself are restored to full and equal posting privileges

    Maybe you should just consider why you don’t have such privileges anymore. As it is now, you’re blaming others for your own misbehavior.

    You tend to blame others for your own stupid mistakes, Prokofy. First you blame a group of volunteers from abusing their powers. Then you blame me for something you consider inappropriate. Now you blame the Herald because they don’t let you misuse it for your offensive remarks. So what can we conclude? You seem to blame everyone except the right person. Take a look in the mirror, Prokofy. Try to be a bit more professional. You behave like a little child who doesn’t get what it wants and thus starts to whine until people finally listen. But sorry, but we are all just too old for your age-play.

  8. Kryss Wanweird

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    Melissa:

    “And I didn’t read any comment of somebody who saw the images and didn’t find them disturbing. So, it is correct to say that, till now, 100% of people who saw the images had the same feeling.”

    “In this context, “so” is equivalent to “therefore,” i.e. you are asserting an implication. Note also that in your original comment you did not qualify the “100% of people who saw the images” with the added constraint “and posted.”

    Notice that I said “I didn’t read any COMMENT….”. So, to add “and posted”, in the next sentence, would be redundant, since it is impossible to have a comment from pepole who didn’t post…

  9. Prokofy Neva

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    Again, it’s sad that the Herald is brought to its knees by the fear of a “libel complaint” from a petulant, cunning, and ultimately vicious little pornographer who then feels absolutely no compunction about lying bald-facedly through her teeth in the comments here, secure in the knowledge that the editors will only pat her on the head. So in the absence of no clarification by the editors of their policies and prescriptions, I’ll have to defend myself, though I definitely do not wish to be coming back here to Herald comments to do so, and will be taking up most such defense more substantively on my own blog.

    >You tend to blame others for your own stupid mistakes, Prokofy.

    I haven’t made any mistakes in any articles I’ve published, including a controversial one that was *cleared by Pixeleen*. I realize that you’re like a little child trying to play parents off against each other, but those are the facts. There aren’t mistakes in the piece, and my probing questions in the comments helped more of the story come out. That’s made you, at the ripe age of 18 overconfident in your pornography rights, feel angry and defensive and wish to lash out and harm the reporter who covered that obvious features of the story. It’s appalling that such a tantrum can then get traction with lenient and oblivious Herald editors, but those are the perilous times we live in. You’re like a child whose parents never were able to say “no”.

    No, Lisae, your pornography is indeed objectionable. And no, I didn’t call for it to be AR’d because I completely eschew such a position. In fact, I wrote an article about Volunteers witch-hunting, that in fact was sympathetic to your position. That’s hard to grasp, such a nuance, given that I also asked some hard questions about your version of the story, that had a lot of holes — but that’s what reporters do — or at least *used to do* at the Herald.

    >First you blame a group of volunteers from abusing their powers.

    But they *did* abuse their powers. Have we forgot that? They abuse reported something at the behest of neighbours with a grudge; they all piled on; they networked and got multiple reports; they engaged in all the behaviour that should be repudiated. It shows a terrible danger within the entire system of volunteers; it shows the terrible outcome of this overly-broad policy. And BTW, it isn’t “blame,” but a report *on their behaviour*.

    I guess in your tendentious haze of self-justification and self-righteousness, you’re now ready to bless the Volunteers and not see the larger issues. Why am I a not surprised…

    >Then you blame me for something you consider inappropriate.

    Huh? I didn’t blame you for anything inappropriate. I did question your misleading story. You claimed it was “cleared by the Lindens”. Yet…you put it away. You invoked the same neighbours who five minutes ago you were whining were overly zealous in abuse reporting you. Sorry, but you don’t get to have it both ways.

    >Now you blame the Herald because they don’t let you misuse it for your offensive remarks.

    I haven’t made any offensive remarks in my stories, nor reprimanded for the content of my stories, including critical stories about based on the same information that the Herald editor knows to be true. No, it’s fear, it’s conformity, and its cautiousness, and they have a child to thank for it. I hope they can live with it, and while I recognize in their anger at their own impotency they’ll lash out at me, I’ve called this one properly.

    So far from it being me putting something objectionable in my articles, rather, YOU have spooked the Herald editors into wishing to vet every piece out of FEAR that idiots like you can get takedown notices issued. That’s really, really scary.

    >So what can we conclude? You seem to blame everyone except the right person. Take a look in the mirror, Prokofy. Try to be a bit more professional. You behave like a little child who doesn’t get what it wants and thus starts to whine until people finally listen. But sorry, but we are all just too old for your age-play.

    Sounds to me like the real child is you, petulant, conniving, bullying, cajoling, prevaricating, distracting. Fortunately, the entire panoply of odious behaviour is on display here, and the readers can judge for themselves.

    In the parochial cesspools of Second Life, there isn’t much tolerance for me, I realize, but that says more about them than me.

    I do hope that the editors come up with a coherent editorial to explain themselves instead of wimping out yet again, as to why they can’t behave like other blogs with groups of contributors, and why the inner core would suddenly have to demote one of their own members and then suddenly claim they were “de-FICifying” when in fact that left starkly open the question as to why a half dozen other authors didn’t have posting privileges TOO.

    The Herald’s readership has dropped 30 percent or more by the Alexa ratings, in part as a trend of all SL-related things but in part because the stories in the headlines aren’t interesting. While someone might imagine there is a drop of readers driven away by comment-fisking and comment retaliation, the reality is, most people glance at a headline or a story on planetsl and don’t keep clicking. And given that I’m in a minority of stories here and am not the “face” of the Herald (the furries, war legends, girlie picks, etc. are that face), you can ask whether SL is finding such a need for a tabloid.

    I don’t think the tabloid furrysex/ageplay/wargames recipe for readership will keep driving the hits as people anticipate. I think probably the Herald has to move to more urbane, ironic, sophisticated coverage that includes better satire to become more successful.

  10. Anonymous

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    “You have not convinced a man because you have insulted him”

    –Me

  11. Cocoanut Koala

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    I want to see these pictures in question, Lisae. If you will agree to show them to me, I’ll contact you in game when I get a chance – or maybe you could send me an im in game (Cocoanut Koala) giving me a time when you’d be available and I can arrange to meet with you then, ok?

    coco

  12. DaveOner

    Jul 23rd, 2007

    Wow, Prok. You’ve outdone yourself with the shifting of blame…

    “The Herald’s readership has dropped 30 percent or more by the Alexa ratings, in part as a trend of all SL-related things but in part because the stories in the headlines aren’t interesting.”

    Looks like you’d better brush up on the Journalism correspondence course! Simply signing up doesn’t mean you know shit!

    “And given that I’m in a minority of stories here and am not the “face” of the Herald…”

    …except for how you were the author of 6 of the 17 articles on the front page…that’s roughly more than 1/3 and I don’t think there are just 3 writers for the SLH. This doesn’t include the multiple article-length comments full of insults and bile you spew on each of them.

    Now you’re constantly dropping links to your little blog since SLH isn’t playing by your rules anymore.

    I agree, Prok. This formula isn’t working too well for SLH. Maybe you should jump ship while you can! ;)

  13. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 24th, 2007

    Actually, Coco, the original article already provides the SLURL to the vendor containing the images. I’m not too sure when I’m online in the game again, though. Most of the times I’m not at home but I can use a remote desktop session to connect to my computer at home. Unfortunately, you cannot play Second Life through a remote desktop.

    Quote: I agree, Prok. This formula isn’t working too well for SLH. Maybe you should jump ship while you can!

    Actually, after reading some of the articles that Prokofy linked to and noticing how often he uses the F-word and other swearwords, combined with other abusive behavior I don’t even see why people even bother to respond to him. He behaves just like any other griefer. He’s doing this for the attention and he even proves it by first saying “This will be my last post for now” and then do some follow-up posts again. You would think that he meant he would not post anymore but no, that means he’ll lose the attention that he’s craving for.
    That’s so sad and typical griefer behavior…

  14. Coincidental Avatar

    Jul 24th, 2007

    ““There is a risk that you committed a crime and promote crime here.””

    “I believe the reason you made this comment is that you have the actual intention of suing me, and you should definitely do it. Just IM me, I will be glad to give you the necessary RL details and eager to see you in court.”

    I want that you clarify immediately here on what legal grounds your belief on my claimed intention of suing you is based.

  15. Coincidental Avatar

    Jul 24th, 2007

    “The Herald’s readership has dropped 30 percent or more by the Alexa ratings”

    Well, a bitch fighting men is interesting but bitches fighting each others is boring.

    And the rise of legal threats makes normal people shit on their pants. People love to read about crime (in SL too), but they don’t want it here, or in their backyard.

    I think that for example the story of this thread started fine, but Prokofy Neva didn’t understand that it was her responsibility to maintain the legality of Second Lie & Hearsay. She took care of that in her writings, but that was not enough.

    I think that the other writers in Second Lie & Hearsay didn’t provide accurate enough guidance. I see some repeated over-management which implies that too blunt tools were in use. The staff of Second Lie & Hearsay should understand that unfair competitive practices are the business standard of the small crooks in SL.

    Somebody could see that Prokofy was trolled out third time. I trick you once, shame on me; I trick you thrice, shame on you.

    This time it is not completely her fault and causes collateral damage to Second Lie & Hearsay. I suggest putting Lisae on probation to see, if she brings good or bad to Second Lie & Hearsay.

    Damn you Americans are so naive.

    So, it seems that Prokofy was baited to make this article, and in the subsequent comments played out.

    Tactically it was a mistake to open up the comments by Uri, when Prokofy didn’t want it. The bigger mistake followed when Uri didn’t comprehend to moderate the comments himself. (This is where the SLH staff dropped the ball.) I would have suggested a reduced pay from the extra work caused.

    Prokofy feels that she is treated unfairly by the other staff. Well, (s)he tends to wander where others don’t go and creating rules after her wanderings is more bad management work than being unfair.

    I suggest that remaining SLH staff have a crisis meeting on analyzing their mistakes, preventing further immediate damage and drafting future policies preventing them being screwed again.

  16. Anonymous

    Jul 24th, 2007

    @ Seconlulz Vigilante:

    “Sometimes griefers do things that even I can’t blame them for doing. Virtual pedophelia sucks even if it isn’t real.

    Sometimes you just have to look at the bigger picture, ya know? ;)

    So… PN being from 7chan…
    Care to explain the lolicon and shotacon boards on 7 chan?
    FULL of anime and manga child porn.
    Oh and let’s not forget that one series from a bestiality comic with a male dog and a 7 or so year old girl. Explain that.

    All found on the homechan of our beloved PN, who will help us get rid of furry filth. Uh-huh.

  17. Anonymous

    Jul 24th, 2007

    @Prok:

    “Yet they don’t make that *the norm*. It is not *common* or *normal* for people in Europe to appear on TV with their breasts bare.”

    Fa, a shower gel brand, had a commercial on Dutch primetime television featuring a women comletely naked under the shower, in full glory. No sexual organs were shown, but breasts and nipples galore.

    There is a manufacturer of hottubs and showers and such that has trucks driving all across the country, showing the head and chest of a women under a showerhead, looking very seductively into the camera. Full nipples showing. (and bnoy, are they pretty)

    I dispute you7r claim, and state that showing nipples, both male as female, is pretty normal in Europe.

    And no, in Europe we don’t see nudism as any sort of a fetish as you claim elsewhere. Being nude is seen as completely natural, even tho inappropriate in most cases and locations.

    I very much still wonder tho: How is it, that there is such a shitstorm about one famous lady’s nipple being uncovered during some award event, while National Geographic, Discovery channel and what not can show African tribes on TV where there’s also nipples showing of the women there that don’t wear covering?

    What’s the difference between one woman’s nipple and another’s?

  18. Alexander Hayes

    Jul 24th, 2007

    adding to the that comments of the fa commercian and stuff, a few years ago there was some exposition in groningen about some photgrapher who made a certain type of photographs. the city had placed flyers displaying some of the works all over town. however, some people didn’t agree with what those flyers showed. judge decided that the flyers were legal unless they were within some distance of schools or churches. anywhere else, not problem since the flyers were made to promote artwork.
    what kind of artwork do you ask? close-ups of genitals including pictures of peeing women. and several pictures of male penises. those images were also displayed on the flyers and funnier, they were displayed in the news on television and the discussion program (nova) that followed. and they showed the pictures without any black bars or whatever.

    there was one other advertisement that was considered mostly inappropiate. it was a woman and child posing in a commercial and billboards promoting some mobile phone company. girl and woman both only wore a white bikini and the advertisement was that they offered subscriptions for both adults and children. the company scarlet was awarded the price for most irritating commercial because of this. but legal actions against the advertisement were unsuccesful. and scarlet became very well-known by this negative publicity and became quite big in a very short amount of time.

    is it me or does it appear as if milady prok is using alternate identities to post here?

  19. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 24th, 2007

    Quote: What’s the difference between one woman’s nipple and another’s?

    Well, in general, texture and color. Size is also different most of the times. Some women have nipples that hide mostly inside the breast and only come out when it’s cold. others have extra long nipples. and of course, several women have a piercing through their nipples. Having them pierced is a bit painful but it gives a great toy for your partner to such on and to play with.

    On Dutch television, nudity tends to be common. Sex however is not, unless those irritating sexlines commercials that are broadcast in the middle of the night. I still remember when they showed a report about the first World Naked Bike Ride. Several dozens of people who would ride a bike naked in protest against the huge oil consumption. Lots of penises in that report since the majority of protesters were mostly males.
    A more recent report was about the preparations for the next ride which would accidentally happen at the same moment some Christian school or whatever would also be holding a bike ride. So there were a few news items about this conflict. The ride itself made page 5, I think.
    And the most recent bike ride has barely no news value. Naked people on a bike? What’s so special about that?

  20. Anonymous

    Jul 24th, 2007

    >Damn you Americans are so naive.

    Ignorance is generalizing.

  21. Mark

    Jul 24th, 2007

    I was born into a second generation nudist family. And family is the key word here, because that is how the club I belonged to at that time,(and many other clubs for conventions I have attended across Canada and the US), and virtually all others under the same Association, are VERY family oriented. In fact, all most all the events that take place are for children – mainly sports, but there are other events and completions besides just sports, and plenty for adults too (no sex involved ya pervs!). There are grandparents, there are infants, and there are all ages in between. They are not impractical. They see the need to wear clothing at work, when it’s storming or cold out and so on, so the “practicality” argument is DUMB Prok. Dumb. They carry a towel everywhere they go, to sit on, so there is no risk of sitting in someone elses germs.

    Painting nudism as a cult is flat wrong. It is just not, and until you’ve actually experienced nudism for a any length of time, you’re talking out your ass by calling it a cult. That is just fucking stupid talk.

    As far as Prokofy’s take on nudism in Europe and it’s prevalence, thats just more ass talking. She obviously has no clue and is just trying to buffalo her way through this, so as to paint nudism as ZOMG teh ev0l!. Hell, even here in the US, there have been things in advertising that pushed the lines but were accepted. Do we remember the suntan lotion ads with the dog pulling on the topless little girls bikini exposing almost her whole butt? Oh, and just to add another dent into Prok’s claims on nudism and its acceptance in the US – at the club I belonged to, when I was a teen of about 14 or 15, a local news crew came out and filmed our annual summer anniversary one year, and they showed (OMG!) our butts. Full butts of teen kids on local TV! They did so because we had one of our members, who was an artist paint the club logo on our butts. Some people would call that sick. I call it fun and I am glad that that local channel wasn’t scared by puritans like Prok into not airing it. Though in this day in age, even though you’d think we (the US) would have advanced a bit more – I doubt highly that it would be put on TV today. That’s a shame, because it means we are going backwards as Europe and Asia and South America go forward.

    While it’s pretty obvious that Prokofy is woefully un/misinformed about nudism, Lisae, you’re starting to become overly pedantic. In fact, you’re playing right into Prokofy’s hand by continuing to do so – she is and will continue to use that against you. We are all adults here and we know that penises and boobs and nipples all look different – including Prok, so spare us the anatomy lessons please.

  22. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 24th, 2007

    Quote: Lisae, you’re starting to become overly pedantic.

    Yeah, I’m starting to realize that. Am trying to avoid responding to Prokofy anyways. And there are a few others who’re also pestering me but I’m not allowing them to tell me what I can and cannot do.

  23. Lisae Boucher

    Jul 24th, 2007

    Just one thing to add. Traffic today is 23188. So all I can say is that it’s just been a slow weekend. :-)

  24. Lisae Boucher

    Aug 6th, 2007

    And now traffic is back to 14000 which was the amount of traffic I had before Prokofy started his articles about me. But that’s because no one is reading the old articles at the Herald, I guess. :-)

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