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> The image attached to this blog post is a stock photo of a nude pregnant woman. Absolutely nothing sexual. How is this not sexual? The fact that it's a stock

> The image attached to this blog post is a stock photo of a nude pregnant woman. Absolutely nothing sexual. How is this not sexual? The fact that it's a stock photo, or that the woman is pregnant, is irrelevant. It's very clearly a sexual picture.

macintux 1y ago
The question comes down to: is nudity inherently sexual? Not everyone feels it is.
- laurent_du 1y ago
  Let's be real, everyone feels nudity is inherently sexual, except on HN and probably on reddit where men love to claim that it's not. I don't know if it's virtue-signalling, sexual frustration, or something else. It does sound weird and creepy to me - grown up men who claim that naked women are not arousing, the same men who rally en masse every time pornography censorship is discussed, to complain about freedom of expression, when they are really just afraid they will lose the ability to stare at naked women having sex. Another, more charitable, explanation, would be that a lot of people around here are asexual. It's possible - but to this extent? I am skeptical.
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    Nude beaches are pretty old as a concept? Always a niche community but there's definitely been hippies talking about non sexual nudism for decades and etc It must have been non sexual at some point in our historical development, before clothes. So I can't really agree that it's inherently so - just that we've culturally made it a sexual thing for basically all of history. That might be close though to functionally be inherent to human society depending on your viewpoint though.
  - aaomidi 1y ago
    There are plenty of people who grew up in naked households. Ranging from just being nude at home to being intermittently undressed around others. Do you think those people found nudity sexual? How about doctors and nurses that see naked people all the time? Is simple nudity sexual for them? How about athletes that shower in open showers together. Are they experiencing a sexual experience when they’re showering after practice? There’s so many counter examples to this that saying nudity is sexual is just silly.
  - AdkamEup 1y ago
    > I don't know if it's virtue-signalling, sexual frustration, or something else. I think de-sensitization [*] may play a big role here; I'm convinced that the more porn you look at, the higher your threshold goes. I've not consumed any porn for years now (as I write in my other comment), and I find the lady in the picture extremely sexual. Yes, she's not suggesting / soliciting / provoking; she is just standing there. I agree. Yet she's no less sexual for that fact. [*] edited comment for fixing my wrong use of the term
    - cindyllm 1y ago
      [dead]
    - nemomarx 1y ago
      I think I would agree that she's sexy / attractive depending on terms, but I don't think that makes it a suggestive or sexual photo strictly I guess. I can be turned on by a partner fully clothed and showing a little shoulder, if I'm in the right mood! But that wouldn't make it a sexy outfit, I'm biased by my emotions about her. I think this is why there's a lot of pedantry and "know it when I see it" to the discussion
  - amiga386 1y ago
    > everyone feels nudity is inherently sexual I propose you watch 5 minutes of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Jungle with nude Keith Chegwin, and you will be disabused of that notion. Your argument will be reduced to "everyone feels some kinds of nudity, preferably not featuring Keith Chegwin, are inherently sexual"
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    "let's be real" isn't a strong argument tbh; your argument doesn't apply to a lot of cultures. Ever been to a sauna? Nudist areas? Ever seen South-American, African, Indonesian tribes? Whether nudity is considered sexual is cultural, not "inherently", and you claiming that "everyone" feels like it is is highlighting your own blinkered world view. You don't speak for "everyone".
    - ta1243 1y ago
      It seems a lot of Americans (main users of this site) wear clothes in saunas, or in the shower after going swimming
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    Plenty of "normal" people outside of HN visit saunas, nudist parks, and nude beaches. It's perfectly alright not to be comfortable with doing so yourself, but other people feel differently. Then again, there are societies that will shame (and do worse things to) women for showing their hair or skin to strangers. If you're (un)lucky, your innocent holiday pictures may make the front page of Wikifeet, but that doesn't mean you're a creep for posting your holiday pictures online. There's a spectrum here and claiming to know the absolute truth and branding everyone else as perverts is silly. Personally, I find the puritan idea that any nudity is sexual to be quite childish and immature.
  - danaris 1y ago
    Tell me you've never been outside the US without saying you've never been outside the US. Taking just one example, in Finland it is extremely common for people to visit saunas, and from what I've heard, you'd be laughed at if you tried to wear clothes (or even a towel) in the sauna. One Finn posting online I saw a while back remarked that a lot of the problems Americans have would be resolved if we all saw our grandmas naked regularly.
    - laurent_du 1y ago
      I have never been in the US, and have been living in Finland for more than 15 years. Hilarious how wrong you are.
  - spacemadness 1y ago
    All of this is in your head and projection, especially the part about others being creepy. You think sex and nudity is creepy and people are arguing for easier access to being extra creepy. That’s on you, but your judgments on others is not a healthy truth.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    No, even you do not think nudity is sexual. I imagine you've been to a locker room before - was that sexual? Of course not. But you're not gay, you might say. So then it's not nudity - it's your own inclination to sex. If you see the world sexually, you'll sexualize nudity.
EGG_CREAM 1y ago
No it’s not. It’s just a picture of a naked pregnant woman showering. She’s not in a suggestive pose, having sex, or anything else that would suggest sexual content. There’s nothing inherently sexual about nudity by itself. If you say “everyone’s idea of what is sexual can be different,” I would agree, which I think is part of the point of posts like this: why does the most restrictive definition of sexual content always seem to be the point of view our lawmakers are protecting? Edit: she’s not showering, I think. I went back and looked at it, when I read the post from my phone I thought she was showering.
- worldofmatthew 1y ago
  Its a picture of a women staring forward, laying against a wall, taken at a semi-side angle.
AdkamEup 1y ago
Wow, you've gotten downvoted. I came here for your comment. That stock photo is strikingly sexual; it immediately makes me horny. (I'm a cis-het guy nearing 50 years of age, I have an active and satisfying sex life with my wife, and I've not looked at porn, or engaged in self-pleasing, for several years now. The reason I find the photo sexual is not that "I'm not getting any". I've been getting plenty, thank you very much.) I had had regular sex with my wife during all of her pregnancies; if anything, pregnancy makes women more arousing to me (without it being a "kink" for me).
- diggan 1y ago
  > it immediately makes me horny Some people suffer/enjoy getting aroused by cars, does that mean every car picture is sexual? Probably not. While fun to hear about others perspective, "suggestively sexual" usually requires at least some attempt at being suggestive, a pregnant woman just existing probably isn't suggestive, even though you find it so because of your sexual preferences. I don't know how old you are, but this paragraph from the article felt strikingly accurate (and familiar): > Every person’s idea of “adult” imagery is different. A young child or an adult won’t automatically think any image including breasts or nudity is sexual, but a horny teenager (generally) will.
  - AdkamEup 1y ago
    I wasn't debating "suggestive". The fine article claimed (and the parent quoted), "Absolutely nothing sexual"; that's what I disagree with. I agree that the photo is not suggestive; in other words, I fully agree that in the picture, she's not "soliciting" or even "provoking" (even without having any actual intent to participate). That's fine. She doesn't have to be suggestive, or to do anything other than exist and be visible (like this), for me to find her sexually (very) attractive, and to make me horny.
    - diggan 1y ago
      So your argument is that because you happen to find the person attractive, the image itself is sexual? That would quickly lead us to classifying 90% of everything on the internet as sexual, as there is a wide range of stuff that makes people aroused, like people having sexual attraction to cars. Maybe being able to discern our own perspectives and sexual preferences from a wider labeling of content might be beneficial?
diggan 1y ago
Lots of people think any nudity is sexual, you included it would seem. Others draw a line between "this person is nude" and "this person is nude and sexually suggestive", I'm guessing that includes the author of the post.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
brabel 1y ago
No, nudity != sexual
mnw21cam 1y ago
I agree. Different people have very different thresholds for what is "sexual", so it's incorrect to make a blanket statement that it is not sexual. It's sexual for a decent proportion of people - just the fact that this article was tagged NSFW shows that.
- diggan 1y ago
  > It's sexual for a decent proportion of people - just the fact that this article was tagged NSFW shows that I don't think it shows that at all. Any content not suitable for a work computer in the typical office gets a NSFW label, it's literally in the name. An image of some war-time event can be as NSFW as an image of a woman removing her clothes, and at the same time neither images can be sexual.
  - spacemadness 1y ago
    Yeah it’s certainly not safe for work. Should it be? I mean, ideally yes. In practice? Hell no. I don’t need Karen from accounting coming up with her own reasons why I’m looking at a naked pregnant lady even though I know there is nothing wrong with it.
- kube-system 1y ago
  > It's sexual for a decent proportion of people - just the fact that this article was tagged NSFW shows that. Most workplaces would find there to be many categories of inappropriate things other than sexual content: violence, profanity, non-sexual imagery of people in unprofessional contexts, etc.
  - mnw21cam 1y ago
    I don't think anyone is seriously considering that this article was flagged as NSFW for the reasons you quote.
    - kube-system 1y ago
      Office environments expect a certain degree of modesty, far beyond most people's bar for "sexuality".
ta1243 1y ago
The advert on this page https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2021/8/firearms-and-the-phallus-using-guns-to-reclaim-masculinity https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2021/8/firearms-and-the-ph... Is 1) far more sexual 2) far more dangerous than the picture on the linked site And that's nowhere near the level of say this: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-girl-licking-her-gun-image2321510 https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-girl-licking-her-gun-...
- AdkamEup 1y ago
  I find the girl licking her gun repulsive. An instant boner killer. I hate guns, and she's a total fake, too. She may be "soliciting" alright, but the whole pose is off-putting.
  - kube-system 1y ago
    The criteria by which something is "sexual" may be debated, but there is one thing that is 100% certain: it doesn't revolve around your personal preferences.
jfengel 1y ago
Ok, but what does the distinction mean? Let's stipulate that it's sexual. Now what?

macintux 1y ago

The question comes down to: is nudity inherently sexual? Not everyone feels it is.

laurent_du 1y ago
Let's be real, everyone feels nudity is inherently sexual, except on HN and probably on reddit where men love to claim that it's not. I don't know if it's virtue-signalling, sexual frustration, or something else. It does sound weird and creepy to me - grown up men who claim that naked women are not arousing, the same men who rally en masse every time pornography censorship is discussed, to complain about freedom of expression, when they are really just afraid they will lose the ability to stare at naked women having sex. Another, more charitable, explanation, would be that a lot of people around here are asexual. It's possible - but to this extent? I am skeptical.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  Nude beaches are pretty old as a concept? Always a niche community but there's definitely been hippies talking about non sexual nudism for decades and etc It must have been non sexual at some point in our historical development, before clothes. So I can't really agree that it's inherently so - just that we've culturally made it a sexual thing for basically all of history. That might be close though to functionally be inherent to human society depending on your viewpoint though.
- aaomidi 1y ago
  There are plenty of people who grew up in naked households. Ranging from just being nude at home to being intermittently undressed around others. Do you think those people found nudity sexual? How about doctors and nurses that see naked people all the time? Is simple nudity sexual for them? How about athletes that shower in open showers together. Are they experiencing a sexual experience when they’re showering after practice? There’s so many counter examples to this that saying nudity is sexual is just silly.
- AdkamEup 1y ago
  > I don't know if it's virtue-signalling, sexual frustration, or something else. I think de-sensitization [*] may play a big role here; I'm convinced that the more porn you look at, the higher your threshold goes. I've not consumed any porn for years now (as I write in my other comment), and I find the lady in the picture extremely sexual. Yes, she's not suggesting / soliciting / provoking; she is just standing there. I agree. Yet she's no less sexual for that fact. [*] edited comment for fixing my wrong use of the term
  - cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    I think I would agree that she's sexy / attractive depending on terms, but I don't think that makes it a suggestive or sexual photo strictly I guess. I can be turned on by a partner fully clothed and showing a little shoulder, if I'm in the right mood! But that wouldn't make it a sexy outfit, I'm biased by my emotions about her. I think this is why there's a lot of pedantry and "know it when I see it" to the discussion
- amiga386 1y ago
  > everyone feels nudity is inherently sexual I propose you watch 5 minutes of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Jungle with nude Keith Chegwin, and you will be disabused of that notion. Your argument will be reduced to "everyone feels some kinds of nudity, preferably not featuring Keith Chegwin, are inherently sexual"
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  "let's be real" isn't a strong argument tbh; your argument doesn't apply to a lot of cultures. Ever been to a sauna? Nudist areas? Ever seen South-American, African, Indonesian tribes? Whether nudity is considered sexual is cultural, not "inherently", and you claiming that "everyone" feels like it is is highlighting your own blinkered world view. You don't speak for "everyone".
  - ta1243 1y ago
    It seems a lot of Americans (main users of this site) wear clothes in saunas, or in the shower after going swimming
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Plenty of "normal" people outside of HN visit saunas, nudist parks, and nude beaches. It's perfectly alright not to be comfortable with doing so yourself, but other people feel differently. Then again, there are societies that will shame (and do worse things to) women for showing their hair or skin to strangers. If you're (un)lucky, your innocent holiday pictures may make the front page of Wikifeet, but that doesn't mean you're a creep for posting your holiday pictures online. There's a spectrum here and claiming to know the absolute truth and branding everyone else as perverts is silly. Personally, I find the puritan idea that any nudity is sexual to be quite childish and immature.
- danaris 1y ago
  Tell me you've never been outside the US without saying you've never been outside the US. Taking just one example, in Finland it is extremely common for people to visit saunas, and from what I've heard, you'd be laughed at if you tried to wear clothes (or even a towel) in the sauna. One Finn posting online I saw a while back remarked that a lot of the problems Americans have would be resolved if we all saw our grandmas naked regularly.
  - laurent_du 1y ago
    I have never been in the US, and have been living in Finland for more than 15 years. Hilarious how wrong you are.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  All of this is in your head and projection, especially the part about others being creepy. You think sex and nudity is creepy and people are arguing for easier access to being extra creepy. That’s on you, but your judgments on others is not a healthy truth.
- const_cast 1y ago
  No, even you do not think nudity is sexual. I imagine you've been to a locker room before - was that sexual? Of course not. But you're not gay, you might say. So then it's not nudity - it's your own inclination to sex. If you see the world sexually, you'll sexualize nudity.

EGG_CREAM 1y ago

No it’s not. It’s just a picture of a naked pregnant woman showering. She’s not in a suggestive pose, having sex, or anything else that would suggest sexual content. There’s nothing inherently sexual about nudity by itself. If you say “everyone’s idea of what is sexual can be different,” I would agree, which I think is part of the point of posts like this: why does the most restrictive definition of sexual content always seem to be the point of view our lawmakers are protecting? Edit: she’s not showering, I think. I went back and looked at it, when I read the post from my phone I thought she was showering.

worldofmatthew 1y ago
Its a picture of a women staring forward, laying against a wall, taken at a semi-side angle.

AdkamEup 1y ago

Wow, you've gotten downvoted. I came here for your comment. That stock photo is strikingly sexual; it immediately makes me horny. (I'm a cis-het guy nearing 50 years of age, I have an active and satisfying sex life with my wife, and I've not looked at porn, or engaged in self-pleasing, for several years now. The reason I find the photo sexual is not that "I'm not getting any". I've been getting plenty, thank you very much.) I had had regular sex with my wife during all of her pregnancies; if anything, pregnancy makes women more arousing to me (without it being a "kink" for me).

diggan 1y ago
> it immediately makes me horny Some people suffer/enjoy getting aroused by cars, does that mean every car picture is sexual? Probably not. While fun to hear about others perspective, "suggestively sexual" usually requires at least some attempt at being suggestive, a pregnant woman just existing probably isn't suggestive, even though you find it so because of your sexual preferences. I don't know how old you are, but this paragraph from the article felt strikingly accurate (and familiar): > Every person’s idea of “adult” imagery is different. A young child or an adult won’t automatically think any image including breasts or nudity is sexual, but a horny teenager (generally) will.
- AdkamEup 1y ago
  I wasn't debating "suggestive". The fine article claimed (and the parent quoted), "Absolutely nothing sexual"; that's what I disagree with. I agree that the photo is not suggestive; in other words, I fully agree that in the picture, she's not "soliciting" or even "provoking" (even without having any actual intent to participate). That's fine. She doesn't have to be suggestive, or to do anything other than exist and be visible (like this), for me to find her sexually (very) attractive, and to make me horny.
  - diggan 1y ago
    So your argument is that because you happen to find the person attractive, the image itself is sexual? That would quickly lead us to classifying 90% of everything on the internet as sexual, as there is a wide range of stuff that makes people aroused, like people having sexual attraction to cars. Maybe being able to discern our own perspectives and sexual preferences from a wider labeling of content might be beneficial?

diggan 1y ago

Lots of people think any nudity is sexual, you included it would seem. Others draw a line between "this person is nude" and "this person is nude and sexually suggestive", I'm guessing that includes the author of the post.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

brabel 1y ago

No, nudity != sexual

mnw21cam 1y ago

I agree. Different people have very different thresholds for what is "sexual", so it's incorrect to make a blanket statement that it is not sexual. It's sexual for a decent proportion of people - just the fact that this article was tagged NSFW shows that.

diggan 1y ago
> It's sexual for a decent proportion of people - just the fact that this article was tagged NSFW shows that I don't think it shows that at all. Any content not suitable for a work computer in the typical office gets a NSFW label, it's literally in the name. An image of some war-time event can be as NSFW as an image of a woman removing her clothes, and at the same time neither images can be sexual.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  Yeah it’s certainly not safe for work. Should it be? I mean, ideally yes. In practice? Hell no. I don’t need Karen from accounting coming up with her own reasons why I’m looking at a naked pregnant lady even though I know there is nothing wrong with it.
kube-system 1y ago
> It's sexual for a decent proportion of people - just the fact that this article was tagged NSFW shows that. Most workplaces would find there to be many categories of inappropriate things other than sexual content: violence, profanity, non-sexual imagery of people in unprofessional contexts, etc.
- mnw21cam 1y ago
  I don't think anyone is seriously considering that this article was flagged as NSFW for the reasons you quote.
  - kube-system 1y ago
    Office environments expect a certain degree of modesty, far beyond most people's bar for "sexuality".

ta1243 1y ago

The advert on this page https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2021/8/firearms-and-the-phallus-using-guns-to-reclaim-masculinity https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2021/8/firearms-and-the-ph... Is 1) far more sexual 2) far more dangerous than the picture on the linked site And that's nowhere near the level of say this: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-girl-licking-her-gun-image2321510 https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-girl-licking-her-gun-...

AdkamEup 1y ago
I find the girl licking her gun repulsive. An instant boner killer. I hate guns, and she's a total fake, too. She may be "soliciting" alright, but the whole pose is off-putting.
- kube-system 1y ago
  The criteria by which something is "sexual" may be debated, but there is one thing that is 100% certain: it doesn't revolve around your personal preferences.

jfengel 1y ago

Ok, but what does the distinction mean? Let's stipulate that it's sexual. Now what?