LL Hopes For Nipple Free 5th Birthday Celebration
by kris on 16/06/08 at 9:21 pm
Artfox Daviau protests with statue double mascectomy — machine guns escape un-harmed
by Kris Dibou
LL lays down the law – these plywood nipples are banned!
I was visiting with Australian artist and writer Artfox Daviau on Sanctuary Bay the other day. Although Art is best known for his Wildwaves product, you will find his artwork in various galleries across the grid, including a display at the Secondlife 5th Birthday celebration.
Artfox Daviau: Did you know I got censored? in SL5B?
Artfox Daviau: had to make my sculpture PG
Kris Dibou: what’s that?
Artfox Daviau: SL 5th Birthday
Kris Dibou: oh, like the fig leaf on the statue of David?
Artfox Daviau: yes ‘cept I just removed the offending parts
Artfox Daviau: and left them in a pile
Artfox Daviau: with a sign
Artfox Daviau: saying I have been censored
Artfox Daviau: let me find a photo
Kris Dibou: these are just tasteful shots before she was censored?
Artfox Daviau: yes
Kris Dibou: how did you handle the boobies, Art?
Artfox Daviau: gently
Artfox Daviau: sensitively
Artfox Daviau: it’s very sad
Artfox Daviau: it seems that we have to restrict art galleries in rl and sl to those over 18
Artfox Daviau: but interestingly, across the road is an avatar guns blazing
Artfox Daviau: and that is ok
SL 5th birthday – some disassembly required
Artfox Daviau: PG-13 no nipples (even textured in wood)
Artfox Daviau: no genitalia
Artfox Daviau: the coordinator said ‘it’s a great sculpture’
Artfox Daviau: I said ‘it was’
Artfox Daviau: I can take a close-up
Artfox Daviau: here
Artfox Daviau: sad
Artfox Daviau: I was told hands must cover the breasts
Artfox Daviau: I thought that will involve hours
Artfox Daviau: so I removed them entirely and left her still beating heart inside
Kris Dibou: you could make a black bar that says ‘censored by sl’….and lay it across them…
Artfox Daviau: I will take a photo of what I did
Artfox Daviau: I put up a sign too
Artfox Daviau: I was a bit peed off
Artfox Daviau: poor lil inoffensive dimpled prims
Artfox Daviau: but I didn’t
Artfox Daviau: I removed the offending prims and left them in a pile
formerly shocking and dangerous prims now safely disarmed and left in a pile
Kris Dibou: he made her an ambidextrous Amazonian warrior 
Artfox Daviau: well I made it a statement
Artfox Daviau: it’s still art I guess
Artfox Daviau: and, having taken off her breasts
Artfox Daviau: so the kiddies 13-18 would not get scared
Artfox Daviau: I opened her chest and added a still beating heart inside
Artfox Daviau: the blog said it would be mature
Artfox Daviau: they changed their minds somewhere
Artfox Daviau: but I missed it
Artfox Daviau: I found it later on the blog site
Artfox Daviau: but I did ask the sim coordinator if it was too much
Artfox Daviau: and the coordinator made the final decision
Artfox Daviau: I am willing to comply but it was sad to pull her to bits
Artfox Daviau: moving all the hand prims would have changed the pose
Artfox Daviau: and taken a few days to redo
Kris Dibou: oh, I know what you could have done….
Kris Dibou: tell them it’s not a girl, but an 80 year old man with a facelift and Grecian formula in his hair
Artfox Daviau: lol
Artfox Daviau: male nipples are banned too
Kris Dibou: oooo
Artfox Daviau: look in the blog
Kris Dibou: don’t blame them for that; I know when I see male nipples I want to blow buildings up
Artfox Daviau: lolol
Artfox Daviau: blowing up bridges is ok that’s just normal violence
Artfox Daviau: pictures of blazing machine guns is cool
Artfox Daviau: chopping a breast off is ok
Artfox Daviau: you just can’t kiss it
Artfox Daviau: hehe I think that’s what I have done effectively
Artfox Daviau: well the exhibition is about ‘culture’ so I guess it’s culture that imposes these limits
Artfox Daviau’s sign of the times
Artemis Fate
Jun 16th, 2008
It’s so cute when LL tries to pretend that most of it’s user base and reason for existing isn’t adult themed in nature.
anon
Jun 16th, 2008
it actually looks better broken like that
it has somewhat of a message behind it, not in the censorship angle but in the miscellaneous little pieces strewn about
otherwise it’s largely meaningless
Sin Sin
Jun 16th, 2008
The Lindens were damn right to ban the nipples from their birthday party. Nipples – they are the ultimate evil! They make children grab guns and go on a school rampage, they cause trailer park trash to cut their wives into tiny bits and pieces with a chainsaw, they make the ordinary Wal Mart forklift truck driver grab a knife and stab his workmates … Or was that the media? I am confused. Oh yes, nipples … we don’t do nipples – we are Americans! A heavily mutilated corpse with limbs chopped off all covered in blood and gore, perfectly ok. But nipples – no way.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 17th, 2008
Geez, what a short memory, and how retarded all this is — not on the part of the Lindens, but on the part of residents who whine and mewl and provactively put up nipples in PG, even though it is clearly stipulated as not allowed for PG, and then rant and rave that it’s all evil imperialist America’s fault blah blah blah. The same exact same thing happened last year, where Iridium Linden took down somebody’s nipple statue.
Yawn.
Like…cut up breasts put on a table are…better than just complying with the rule? No one requires that you be in this birthday. You could make your own on a mature sim instead of grandstand to get attention.
PG is PG. It has to have meaning. If it doesn’t have meaning just because of whining “artists,” then the Lindens’ can’t uphold their goal of making public spaces truly for the general public, instead of arenas to be subject to the whipsaws of this or that sectarian or extremist group.
You really have to be a very good artist to get away with making a piece of art with bare breasts that doesn’t distract and really accomplishes some higher goal.
This doesn’t.
Uccello Poultry
Jun 17th, 2008
While working on the exhibit for the Isle of Lesbos I asked two coordinators if the paintings of Cleopatra, Sappho, Aphrodite, and Pandora — all classics hanging in real-life museums — were PG enough. The reply “The ones with the nipples?” told me that I should airbrush in some extra modesty and re-upload the textures. L$30 later (Pandora seems to have been born without nipples) the sun was shining again and my prim allotment doubled.
Honestly, I don’t mind that much, though I suppose I should. Maybe folks will stand there and try to find the nipples then take the time to click the swirling hearts in one display to learn about discrimination, life-saving resources, and the culture of lesbians. We will be at hhttp://slurl.com/secondlife/SL5B%20Physical/243/32/24
Ti Dinzeo
Jun 17th, 2008
@Prokofy
So kids shouldn’t look in th mirror when they’re naked because they’re going to see their own nipples? What’s the difference?
2 cents
Jun 17th, 2008
I wonder if a detailed and correct representation of Da Vinchi’s Venus de Milo would be permitted or not. If we’re talking about truly great artists.
And yes, I do believe one would be correct in assuming this fear of offending parts is the American part talking. Making war, always been okay, making love, not so very much.
I also wonder if that’s because of a still burning hate towards hippies in the 60′s who called out for the opposite…
Anyway, it was very much obvious that LL woulndt allow any showing of any nippleage, so whining after the fact is indeed silly. PG is PG and this event was announced as beng PG.
Dr. Internet
Jun 17th, 2008
BAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
LOOKS LIKE SHIT ANYWAY.
Corona Anatine
Jun 17th, 2008
if female nipples are not permitted to be seen by anyone under 16 / 18
then how come babies are allowed to see them when they breast feed
someone at Linden Lab is clearly deranged
the whole of Secomnd life is supposed to be adults only
they ban the child avatars rom taking part and then make it pg
totally insane somewhere
Lord Kamina
Jun 17th, 2008
Man, if they’re freaking out over stacked circles, Just wait till the Lindens see their birthday present.
TT
Jun 17th, 2008
“So kids shouldn’t look in th mirror when they’re naked because they’re going to see their own nipples? What’s the difference?”
Uh… how many children do you know strip and look at themselves in a mirror on a public street? No one cares what they do in private.
No one cares what this artist makes in his own land, but when he brings it into the public forum of the SL5B, there should be some kind of decency.
“if female nipples are not permitted to be seen by anyone under 16 / 18
then how come babies are allowed to see them when they breast feed”
This is overlooking the spirit of the law by taking it to its letter. These kinds of rules were proposed in real life to protect children, to allow them to grow up without sex, drugs, and violence (although the last two have been, to varying degrees, dismal failures).
The PG lands in SL were meant to preserve public lands in SL without having others solicit you for sex or be confronted with sex, just as no damage lands were intended to protect people from guns. And despite the fact that nipples are used to breastfeed, it is also true that nipples are erogenous to many and often aren’t interpreted strictly by anatomy.
“I wonder if a detailed and correct representation of Da Vinchi’s Venus de Milo would be permitted or not. If we’re talking about truly great artists.”
Probably would hit the same roadblock Artfox did.
I’m just laying down PG land as I’ve seen the Lindens handle it, I think it’s incredibly stupid as well. From what I’ve seen, when Linden says “PG” they literally mean : No cursing, no nudity. As someone said, in a typical American fashion, violence is somewhat permitted. This is what Linden Lab has done, as a precedent. Whether or not a small name artist or Da Vinci decides to break that Linden barrier, they’ll block it all the same.
Ti Dinzeo
Jun 17th, 2008
What is wrong with realism in art though? And why are nipples considered in some way bad?
To be honest, I don’t have problems with people depicting full frontal nudes as art, and no, I wouldn’t stop kids from looking at them. One of my biggest problems with western society today, I can’t speak to any other as I have no experience, is it’s hang up on sex. We all do it, we’re all interested. Just be open and honest about it so we can all move on to more important problems, like hunger and war for example.
Ti Dinzeo (Bastet to those who know of me but don’t know me.)
Geoners
Jun 17th, 2008
Damn guys my statue with boobs on it got veto’d. It now has a meaning maaan. IT’S ART MAAAAAN.
Just because it has meaning now doesn’t mean it had any meaning at all to begin with. it’s still an incredibly dull wooden still life caricature, with generic handling of imagination. (Or the lack thereof. Just how many times have we seen that particular pose in magazine ads? Or perhaps in other stuff where it’s specifically done to have sexuality sell a product?) Fact is, what’s the point here? It’s not worth any merit to whine and then claim wolf about attacking ‘art’, when in reality it was distinctly made in the usual genericness of every other statue of a human form.
You wanna bitch about art? Go make something that is unique and important to you. Put your heart in it. Then, deal with the issue of people telling you to get rid of it from all angles because it’s not in their little box of what normalcy is. There’s what REAL pain of the artists and visionaries is like.
Jessica Holyoke
Jun 17th, 2008
Two main things stick out
One is the return of the Censor’s Argument. It is not that they are banning speech or saying if you are approved for something you must change what you produced. Rather, it is that you have the opportunity to speak somewhere else, on someone else’s dime, without realizing that the closest thing residents have to a government is passing judgment on speech here. That begs the question, which speech will they pass judgment on next?
Two is the concept of the tightest control. In many countries, it is not unusual to see actual, physical bare breasted women, including in the West. In New York State, at least at one point, it was legal for a woman to walk the street bare breasted. But because the US believes that nipples *must* be covered, residents around the world must follow this rule as well in order to be considered PG.
(Two more points: Point one is the Naked Rule, the person you least want to see naked is the one most likely to be naked. Point two is how fast do you think it will be before someone mentions US servers, US laws when that same person stated European Residents, European Laws.)
Corona Anatine
Jun 18th, 2008
Two main things stick out
nicely put Jessica
Angel
Jun 18th, 2008
Everyone seems to miss the point that Male nipples are banned too. You *must* wear a shirt, no bare chests.
Not PG, not even as low as G (Junglebook has male nipples and it’s G rated), this is just weird.
Cat Whitman
Jun 18th, 2008
>> “Da Vinchi’s [sic] Venus de Milo”
Da Vinci’s WHAT??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo
ROTFLMAO
Melissa Yeuxdoux
Jun 18th, 2008
Oh, you know, Kat… da Vinci’s Venus de Milo, modeled after Praxiteles’s Mona Lisa.
2cents
Jun 19th, 2008
Heh, funny. I had always thought the Venus was by Da Vinchi. I stand corrected.
My point still stands, tho.
GreenLantern Excelsior
Jun 21st, 2008
The great Aphrodite by Phideas
Once shocked the ultra-fastidious,
And all the old aunties
Swore she must wear panties,
Which made her look utterly hideous.
So Linden Lab said “Come and display your art.”
And the artist plonked down a nude female form.
In a PG sim.
And then got all indignant when LL pointed out that the content didn’t match the rating.
We all acknowledged that we understood and would abide by the Terms of Service and the Community Standards when we signed up for Second Life. Maybe a little refresher training is in order:
“Community Standards
5. Indecency
Second Life is an adult community, but Mature material is not necessarily appropriate in all areas (see Global Standards below). Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M). Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines.”
“Policies and Policing
Global Standards, Local Ratings
All areas of Second Life, including the http://www.secondlife.com website and the Second Life Forums, adhere to the same Community Standards. Locations within Second Life are noted as Safe or Unsafe and rated Mature (M) or non-Mature (PG), and behavior must conform to the local ratings. Any unrated area of Second Life or the Second Life website should be considered non-Mature (PG).”
We all know what this means, and when a Second Life resident violates the CS and then claims censorship and prudishness, that is unreasonable. He knew the rules when he walked into the place, and he disregarded them, and then he whined when they were enforced. The mention of machine guns is an attempt to divert the discussion. I’ll bet if he had been attacked with a machine gun in a non-combat sim, he would have been one of the first to wrap himself in the CS and write an Abuse Report. But it’s okay to disregard the rules when it suits his purpose.
Witness X
Jun 21st, 2008
Well, you’d be the expert in that, wouldn’t you Lantern?
Ti Dinzeo
Jun 21st, 2008
Good point, well made GreenLantern. Just goes to show that we should all actually read the EULA’s and ToS’s when we enter these worlds. Alas most, including myself, just assume we know what it says and click accept.
Whilst I don’t agree with what they would rate as ‘mature’ I did agree to abide by their rules and definitions when I first entered Second Life. And much as I would like to be able to say otherwise, the content in question did in fact breach the clause you listed.
Ti Dinzeo. (Bastet to those who know of me but don’t know me)