9 ms·

The Penis Poster That Rubbed People the Wrong Way (2018)

82 points by wombatmobile 5y ago

dstick 5y ago
I'm not sure if it's filtered / edited due to prudishness, but you have to give a good headline credit where credit's due: "The Penis Poster That Rubbed People the Wrong Way"
- _pgu 5y ago
  "Words by Colin Dickey"
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  The title made me wonder which Hacker News poster it was about, and hope it wasn't me.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  I submitted the article headline verbatim, but the word "Penis" was auto filtered in the title by HN.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    ... and now the HN article title has expanded to include that word. I wonder if that was the work of a human editor, or a more powerful bot?
    - dang 5y ago
      The software takes penises away and the moderators dole them back out.
      - tptacek 5y ago
        You're getting a coffee mug with this printed on it.
tromp 5y ago
An image of the poster may be found at https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7u7tyUIGt1qzicj3o1_1280.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7u7tyUIGt1qzicj3o1_1280....
- jmuguy 5y ago
  I don't know how many times I've come across articles like this where the subject is an image or a video or some other media and yet the article doesn't actually contain it. This one is like an extreme version of that where they have quite a few nice illustrations... but not the actual poster.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    It's mentioned in the article that the artist has sued people over unauthorized use in the past, so maybe that worried their lawyers. Though you'd think they'd have a reasonable fair use case here.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Fair use is a defense. But if someone sues you, you still have the expense associated with going to court. Even if you win, you'll probably still be out thousands of dollars.
      - simias 5y ago
        In theory, would such such an article even qualify as "fair use" if it reproduced the original work in its entirety in a decent resolution?
        ghaff 5y ago
        That would be for a judge to decide. Certainly one of the things that makes reproducing photos/artwork tricky is that you're reproducing the complete work. Fair use is rarely completely straightforward.
    - 5y ago
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
"At most, it’s an image worth a few minutes of analysis" Got to say I chuckled at that, while reading an article the author spent hours writing about it.
duckfang 5y ago
The company was a shell company owned by Greetings, across from Peoples' Park. They sell lots of novelty goods like this still.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  That’s not what the article says, and they seem to have done their research. Do you have a citation?
meepmorp 5y ago
> Knowlton had been a graduate student at Columbia University, working on a PhD in particle physics, when he first concocted the idea for the poster. Who says grad school is useless?
geocrasher 5y ago
I came across this poster, or perhaps an enhanced version of it, while at a customer's location where I was working on their computers. It was in the bathroom. So poignant.
hprotagonist 5y ago
Well, i know what ebay search alert i’m going to add to my account today…
nsxwolf 5y ago
Wow, I remember a girl in high school showed me this ad in the back of a magazine in the library and we had a laugh. What a delightful surprise to be reminded of that with a whole article!
hettygreen 5y ago
I thought for sure this was going to be about the Dead Kennedy's album Frankenchrist.
pmoriarty 5y ago
It's so funny/sad how many people can get incredibly upset over seeing certain human body parts. Doubly so when there's a double standard about certain body parts. A woman can be thrown in jail for revealing her nipples, while no one will blink twice when men do it. You'd think that in the 21st Century we'd be long past such taboos.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  And even in our “progressive” tech bubble it’s taboo. Male nipples are a-okay on social media while female nipples violate community standards on most of the major platforms.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    The progressive tech bubble gets all of its money elsewhere from ads. Theyre the ones making the calls, doesn't matter how progressive Facebook is
- tgv 5y ago
  Why?
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Where's the boundary between "such taboos" and taboos which are actually supposed to be enforced?
- refurb 5y ago
  What’s so special about the 21st century that “wed be long past such taboos”? I mean taboos have been around for thousands of years, new ones are created, old ones die. Why do you think the end game is “no taboos”?
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
Of course it rubbed people the wrong way. It's absolutely disgusting! It should have been called the "Penes of the Animal Kingdom".
- teekert 5y ago
  Penii if you’re a person of culture. (Well it ends in “us” in my language)
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    I'm curious. What language is that? Edit: your name gives off Dutch vibes, so now I'm looking up "penis" in all the Dutch-adjacent languages, Low German, Frisian, Low German, Limburgish, Luxembourgish, etc., but so far no luck.
    - teekert 5y ago
      Oops you’re right, I tried to save my comment after reading [0] but I made a second mistake… [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Penii https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Penii
  - GauntletWizard 5y ago
    Penopodes
dls2016 5y ago
I thought this was going to be about HR Giger's "Penis Landscape", which almost bankrupted Jello Biafra's record label. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_Landscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_Landscape
jrsj 5y ago
When I first read the title I thought of a person posting penises instead of a poster with penises on it. Internet slang has made me dumber.
parenthesis 5y ago
Before I look, I'm going to guess this is the Benetton ad? And I'm wrong.
rendall 5y ago
" Further, Lehman notes, “Heterosexual men may fear that the representation of the penis gives women a basis for comparison and judgment, and, although men have long engaged in such behavior toward women, the thought of the tables being turned is nearly unbearable.” As a result, representations of human penises tend to be strictly regulated." I rolled my eyes so hard I sprained them. I don't know what it is with a certain class of people who need to explain everything in reference to straight men. If there were no regulation on representations of human penises, these same people would explain that due to straight men: "Because heterosexual men have penises, representations of penises are celebrated and glorified..."
- xdennis 5y ago
  Not to mention that the exact opposite is true. Nude men in statues and paintings often have penises with pubic hair, while women have no pubic hair and no genitalia at all.
- kodah 5y ago
  > I don't know what it is with a certain class of people who need to explain everything in reference to straight men. > these same people would explain that due to straight men: "Because heterosexual men have penises, representations of penises are celebrated and glorified..." You are setting up a bit of a weak man fallacy by presenting it this way without evidence, but I imagine there probably is cognitive dissonance around this (and other topics about men). Partly, I think it's because there are no groups that represent or advocate for men. This hypothetical group, in the current cultural climate, could be hijacked by bad actors or other identity groups, or it could result in an even more monolithic or myopic view of men than exists in pop culture today. Such a group would need to be prepared to deal with these issues without being exclusionary, divisive, or dehumanizing. I think this challenging and would take all the right people to organize such a group. Identity based groups tend to project a monolithic image of people that is inaccurate. For instance, if you browse the internet long enough you'll probably develop a fairly myopic view that lends towards some -isms that certain groups have, however, if you talk to people in different cultural regions you'll likely discover that what large groups represent is largely in-contest. Edit: the earlier version of this comment confusingly stated that there's "good reasons" that these groups don't exist.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
neomantra 5y ago
I met Jim Knowlton when he came to attend the IgNobel ceremony (as an alum) in 1994 or 1995. He was great friends with the Post-Doc I worked for, both having earned PhDs at Columbia. Of course that poster was on every door in my dorm, so it was great fun to meet him! The poster comes with an insert that gives extra detail about the penises. I asked him to read the clip "The porpoise has a remarkable penis..." I had to dig way deep (disk image backup within disk image backup 5 layers deep), but I have found it and now you too can experience his narration: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2g5irqb7s1vpee/porpoise_penis.wav?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2g5irqb7s1vpee/porpoise_penis.wav...
ithkuil 5y ago
I see only: > TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of null Some nerdy innuendo or the site used to work and has some content?

82 points by wombatmobile 5y ago

I'm not sure if it's filtered / edited due to prudishness, but you have to give a good headline credit where credit's due: "The Penis Poster That Rubbed People the Wrong Way"

_pgu 5y ago
"Words by Colin Dickey"
DonHopkins 5y ago
The title made me wonder which Hacker News poster it was about, and hope it wasn't me.
wombatmobile 5y ago
I submitted the article headline verbatim, but the word "Penis" was auto filtered in the title by HN.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  ... and now the HN article title has expanded to include that word. I wonder if that was the work of a human editor, or a more powerful bot?
  - dang 5y ago
    The software takes penises away and the moderators dole them back out.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      You're getting a coffee mug with this printed on it.

tromp 5y ago

An image of the poster may be found at https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7u7tyUIGt1qzicj3o1_1280.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7u7tyUIGt1qzicj3o1_1280....

jmuguy 5y ago
I don't know how many times I've come across articles like this where the subject is an image or a video or some other media and yet the article doesn't actually contain it. This one is like an extreme version of that where they have quite a few nice illustrations... but not the actual poster.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  It's mentioned in the article that the artist has sued people over unauthorized use in the past, so maybe that worried their lawyers. Though you'd think they'd have a reasonable fair use case here.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Fair use is a defense. But if someone sues you, you still have the expense associated with going to court. Even if you win, you'll probably still be out thousands of dollars.
    - simias 5y ago
      In theory, would such such an article even qualify as "fair use" if it reproduced the original work in its entirety in a decent resolution?
      - ghaff 5y ago
        That would be for a judge to decide. Certainly one of the things that makes reproducing photos/artwork tricky is that you're reproducing the complete work. Fair use is rarely completely straightforward.
  - 5y ago

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

"At most, it’s an image worth a few minutes of analysis" Got to say I chuckled at that, while reading an article the author spent hours writing about it.

duckfang 5y ago

The company was a shell company owned by Greetings, across from Peoples' Park. They sell lots of novelty goods like this still.

ComputerGuru 5y ago
That’s not what the article says, and they seem to have done their research. Do you have a citation?

meepmorp 5y ago

> Knowlton had been a graduate student at Columbia University, working on a PhD in particle physics, when he first concocted the idea for the poster. Who says grad school is useless?

geocrasher 5y ago

I came across this poster, or perhaps an enhanced version of it, while at a customer's location where I was working on their computers. It was in the bathroom. So poignant.

hprotagonist 5y ago

Well, i know what ebay search alert i’m going to add to my account today…

nsxwolf 5y ago

Wow, I remember a girl in high school showed me this ad in the back of a magazine in the library and we had a laugh. What a delightful surprise to be reminded of that with a whole article!

hettygreen 5y ago

I thought for sure this was going to be about the Dead Kennedy's album Frankenchrist.

pmoriarty 5y ago

It's so funny/sad how many people can get incredibly upset over seeing certain human body parts. Doubly so when there's a double standard about certain body parts. A woman can be thrown in jail for revealing her nipples, while no one will blink twice when men do it. You'd think that in the 21st Century we'd be long past such taboos.

elliekelly 5y ago
And even in our “progressive” tech bubble it’s taboo. Male nipples are a-okay on social media while female nipples violate community standards on most of the major platforms.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  The progressive tech bubble gets all of its money elsewhere from ads. Theyre the ones making the calls, doesn't matter how progressive Facebook is
tgv 5y ago
Why?
exporectomy 5y ago
Where's the boundary between "such taboos" and taboos which are actually supposed to be enforced?
refurb 5y ago
What’s so special about the 21st century that “wed be long past such taboos”? I mean taboos have been around for thousands of years, new ones are created, old ones die. Why do you think the end game is “no taboos”?

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago

Of course it rubbed people the wrong way. It's absolutely disgusting! It should have been called the "Penes of the Animal Kingdom".

teekert 5y ago
Penii if you’re a person of culture. (Well it ends in “us” in my language)
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  I'm curious. What language is that? Edit: your name gives off Dutch vibes, so now I'm looking up "penis" in all the Dutch-adjacent languages, Low German, Frisian, Low German, Limburgish, Luxembourgish, etc., but so far no luck.
  - teekert 5y ago
    Oops you’re right, I tried to save my comment after reading [0] but I made a second mistake… [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Penii https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Penii
- GauntletWizard 5y ago
  Penopodes

dls2016 5y ago

I thought this was going to be about HR Giger's "Penis Landscape", which almost bankrupted Jello Biafra's record label. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_Landscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_Landscape

jrsj 5y ago

When I first read the title I thought of a person posting penises instead of a poster with penises on it. Internet slang has made me dumber.

parenthesis 5y ago

Before I look, I'm going to guess this is the Benetton ad? And I'm wrong.

rendall 5y ago

" Further, Lehman notes, “Heterosexual men may fear that the representation of the penis gives women a basis for comparison and judgment, and, although men have long engaged in such behavior toward women, the thought of the tables being turned is nearly unbearable.” As a result, representations of human penises tend to be strictly regulated." I rolled my eyes so hard I sprained them. I don't know what it is with a certain class of people who need to explain everything in reference to straight men. If there were no regulation on representations of human penises, these same people would explain that due to straight men: "Because heterosexual men have penises, representations of penises are celebrated and glorified..."

xdennis 5y ago
Not to mention that the exact opposite is true. Nude men in statues and paintings often have penises with pubic hair, while women have no pubic hair and no genitalia at all.
kodah 5y ago
> I don't know what it is with a certain class of people who need to explain everything in reference to straight men. > these same people would explain that due to straight men: "Because heterosexual men have penises, representations of penises are celebrated and glorified..." You are setting up a bit of a weak man fallacy by presenting it this way without evidence, but I imagine there probably is cognitive dissonance around this (and other topics about men). Partly, I think it's because there are no groups that represent or advocate for men. This hypothetical group, in the current cultural climate, could be hijacked by bad actors or other identity groups, or it could result in an even more monolithic or myopic view of men than exists in pop culture today. Such a group would need to be prepared to deal with these issues without being exclusionary, divisive, or dehumanizing. I think this challenging and would take all the right people to organize such a group. Identity based groups tend to project a monolithic image of people that is inaccurate. For instance, if you browse the internet long enough you'll probably develop a fairly myopic view that lends towards some -isms that certain groups have, however, if you talk to people in different cultural regions you'll likely discover that what large groups represent is largely in-contest. Edit: the earlier version of this comment confusingly stated that there's "good reasons" that these groups don't exist.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

neomantra 5y ago

I met Jim Knowlton when he came to attend the IgNobel ceremony (as an alum) in 1994 or 1995. He was great friends with the Post-Doc I worked for, both having earned PhDs at Columbia. Of course that poster was on every door in my dorm, so it was great fun to meet him! The poster comes with an insert that gives extra detail about the penises. I asked him to read the clip "The porpoise has a remarkable penis..." I had to dig way deep (disk image backup within disk image backup 5 layers deep), but I have found it and now you too can experience his narration: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2g5irqb7s1vpee/porpoise_penis.wav?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2g5irqb7s1vpee/porpoise_penis.wav...

ithkuil 5y ago

I see only: > TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of null Some nerdy innuendo or the site used to work and has some content?