this is long and a bit of a personal rant (so-fair warning) and also
a bit of an explanation as to why I suggested that the moderators get involved in the current fracas here (btw, have we self policed yet?). I'm putting it in the Philosophy forum because I'm struggling with issues of what's right.
I am a moderator on another site. (I'm not going to name it here, but you could probably find it. If you really want to know, pm me.) It's a body piercing site that I have been very involved with for a number of years. It's a moderated site with an active team of administrators and moderators., with a forum, piercing experiences and photos, etc. There are
very good reasons for this active moderation--we've had a number of heavy-duty trolls over the years (one managed to crash the entire site and it was down for months), we have all ages looking for information, we have photo galleries, avatars, and now blogs. We also have rules against self-piercing posts. The mods delete duplicate posts, stop thread drifts and flaming where applicable, and, most pertinent for this discussion--
remove pics which are inappropriate. So, I'm quite used to moderators taking an active role in forum content and behavior. We are required to be on every day and view every thread.
As you can imagine,
when discussing body piercings, issues of sex and genital piercings come up. We also have lots of underage kids that come on the site looking for info on piercings. That's fine, although we carefully watch the participants that are underage, and we have certain safeguards in place.
Here's the problem: Not too long ago, the site owners added more "social networking" crap. Lots of people are now coming on with personal blogs, and adding a lot of pics in their personal galleries.
Lots of very lewd pics. Sure, it's perfectly appropriate to post pics of your freshly done nipples or prince albert piercings or whatever, but there's a line. As long as the focus is on a body modification, okay. but --
Where is the line? Sure, there's no problem with removing pics that show intercourse or cum shots or stuff--that's clearly inappropriate. Are nude photos that don't show piercings or body modifications okay? What about poses with lewd invitations that do show, say -- a tattoo? And etc. Do we follow the "rules" to the letter, or the spirit?
I never set out to be a porn cop. I like sex just fine, and nude pics are great--in context.
The problem is now we are just attracting voyeurs and lewd comments. Straight or gay, people are just coming on to our site and surfing the pics, making gross comments. Pic after pic of needless erections. Hundreds of pics of blown up wet vaginas or other lubed orifices right in your face. Bent over fuck me poses with stilletos, dildos, and on and on.
Where are the piercings?
SCREAM!
Okay, now I feel better.
I suppose you think it might be fun looking at all those pics, but I tell you--it's not. It actually took us a while to notice this, because the site is sort of split into forums and this other stuff. After years and years of trying to educate people on best practices, safety, quality jewelry, etc., we are now reduced to this.
It's a site that's close to my heart, and it really makes me mad and sad to witness this.
