6 ms·

Its not so much that the image is pornographic, the interesting part is that most computer graphics group is male. If there was a 50/50 male to female split, I

by afhof 13y ago

Its not so much that the image is pornographic, the interesting part is that most computer graphics group is male. If there was a 50/50 male to female split, I doubt this image would have become the de facto test case.

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Eh, as a graphics researcher, I'd say it's not a gender issue. Anyone who spends a significant amount of time researching the human visual system in a fair an unbiased way is inexorably pulled to the conclusion that comparing pictures of nude bodies is one of the major tests of whether you're achieving acceptable results, whether you're making a painting or developing a compression algorithm. Humans are hardwired to notice details in naked bodies, possibly moreso than faces (or at least we notice a different set of details than faces). They were onto something important when they chose the Lenna picture, and it's a shame that the original had to be cropped due to technical limitations. And it shouldn't be taboo to use a male model any more than a female one -- both are equally important.
- skybrian 13y ago
  Do you want to have more female co-workers or not? Working with nude images when you don't really need to is a great way to discourage people from working with you.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    It wouldn't be controversial to say that humans are more prone to see green than blue or red, or more interested in faces than in leaves, so I hope graphics researchers won't be offended by the truth that preserving details in naked bodies is a wholly necessary benchmark for a compression algorithm, just like it is for a painting.
    - skybrian 13y ago
      Okay, let me put it differently: I'm not an image compression researcher, but I find it hard to believe that you actually need pictures of naked women to judge compression quality. Pictures of people, sure, and maybe even showing some skin. But beach photos would work fine for that, as did the cropped picture of Lena back in the day. So: citation needed.
      - aa0 13y ago
        You're such a brave white knight aren't you.
      - ibisum 13y ago
        The human body has evolved to detect nudity. Its one of the most important features of our vision system. To ignore this fact in vision research, for what are essentially moral, not scientific reasons, is to limit the research to a region outside of what we've evolved into ..
  - asgard1024 13y ago
    Why? Does it discourage models from working with photographers or artists? There seems to be plenty of female photographers or artists that have no problem with nudity, too.
    - girvo 13y ago
      My favorite nude photographers are female, interestingly enough. They really know how to make the female body shine, if you will.
    - Steuard 13y ago
      Your comment is hard for me to interpret. I would normally take it as a given that the culture and male/female dynamic in computer science research is (or at least ought to be) different than the culture in the modelling industry (and especially the nude modelling industry).
      - asgard1024 13y ago
        Ok, let me try to explain a bit better. The parent poster seems to say that women are somehow "put off" by nudity. That's a perfectly valid hypothesis. But then art (and I am talking primarily about art, not modelling) is a problem, which requires further explanation. Because artists seem to be, at least to me, totally obsessed with nudity (and I think sex, too, but feel free to disagree here). So why that attracts women, in droves in fact, if they are put off by it? My answer is that the hypothesis is wrong. Females are not put off by computer scientists, that's not the reason why they don't do computer science. In particular, I doubt you would find CS people more sexist than other group of men, I actually believe they are mostly nicer (and also lot more honest about their views, which can strongly bias it). The reason why women don't do CS is they lack confidence and positive role models to do it. You can actually see the differentiation happening in high school, where no one really knows how it works on the workplace yet. And that's where, or maybe even earlier, the problem needs to be addressed. It's probably cultural and frankly, whether the cause is wrong beliefs of men or wrong beliefs of women is irrelevant for the solution (wrong here in the sense "differing from reality"). Edit: You could argue (I think you do) that the cultural norms about nudity in art and computing should be different. I don't disagree (in fact, they are, which makes it a moot point anyway). But then, isn't this a case of someone projecting their own cultural norms to somebody else? Is that really a failure of some culture that it doesn't respect your (rather arbitrary and harmless, compared to art) norms?
  - hnha 13y ago
    You are such a brave white knight.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    You assume that females are put off by that. That's sexist.
    - Steuard 13y ago
      (If you were just aiming for humor here, my apologies for missing the point. I blame the usual issues of unemotional text.) Whether or not any given woman is fond of looking at pictures of naked women isn't the point. The issue is that it's difficult to give women assurances that they are being treated equally as colleagues if the professional environment also embraces cultural norms that treat women as eye candy or playthings. And this isn't an assumption, in any case. Plenty of women have been quite explicit about feeling uncomfortable about erotically charged images in the workplace. (You know this.) I'm sure some women think it's fine, too, but that doesn't make the feelings of the others any less valid. (Also, "females"? Really?)
      - Tichy 13y ago
        "if the professional environment also embraces cultural norms that treat women as eye candy or playthings." I think sexual attraction will always exist between the sexes, so any professional environment will have to deal with that. I don't agree that erotica imply that women are just playthings. The image used was just the head of a model, btw. Probably some men disagree about the use of the picture, too. Everybody is free to use another picture, though. I wonder if some women feel uncomfortable about the display of an unveiled female head in a photograph - only veiled photographs would be really OK? Lastly, what if I don't want to work with somebody who is uptight about that sort of thing? I think it should be possible to build a team of people who get along. Presumably there could be some workplaces with uptight rules, and some more lose workplaces. Why should "uptight" always win?
        Steuard 13y ago
        Look, it's not about the Lenna image in particular (even though it was the inspiration for this thread): given the cropping and the long history, I think there are much bigger issues for the community to worry about. But it sounds like you're addressing the broader issues just like I was: you suggest that you might not want to work with someone who was "uptight about that sort of thing". All I can offer is this: I've heard multiple stories from female engineers at tech conferences who have had trouble getting attendees to talk to them because everyone assumed they were just there as some sort of booth babe. It can't be good for their companies to have an engineer's time wasted in that way, and it's certainly not good for the women's careers if they're unable to network as effectively as their male peers. I won't try to claim that I can nail down a specific causal chain, but it seems pretty clear that a culture that routinely uses women purely as attention-getting devices or for visual enjoyment would naturally tend to undermine women who work in technical roles in this way. And when you drive away or devalue half of the potential talent pool just because a few guys don't see it as a problem, that's a bad thing. [Oh, and a side note to whoever is downvoting out there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3782124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3782124 I'm open to the suggestion that my comments in this thread have "provided no substance or insight", but I'd love to know why. If you just happen to disagree with my point (or anyone else's), that's not what the Hacker News downvote button is for.]
- Sharlin 13y ago
  Why are we talking about naked bodies when the crop of the Lenna picture that's actually used only contains a face? And a bare shoulder, but I don't think that's been pornographic for the last 100 years.
- schrijver 13y ago
  > And it shouldn't be taboo to use a male model any more than a female one -- both are equally important. Correct, and if there would be a tradition of using both, that would already be different. I see what you’re getting at, judging skin tones etcetera is important, but the Lenna picture doesn’t represent only nudity—she’s a playmate, and represents all the cultural luggage that comes along with that. If you’re looking for an inviting workplace open to others than cis straight males, making a playmate a central part of your research culture is silly.
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Perhaps, but that wouldn't be because women don't like looking at pictures of naked women. [G]ay men overwhelmingly become sexually aroused by images of men and heterosexual men by images of women. In other words, men’s sexual arousal patterns seem obvious. ... In contrast to men, both heterosexual and lesbian women tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have a bisexual arousal pattern. http://web.archive.org/web/20070806123743/http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/media_relations/releases/2003_06/bailey_text.html http://web.archive.org/web/20070806123743/http://www.northwe...
brazzy 13y ago
I am actually fairly sure the (cropped) image that is actually used appeals to women as much as to men. It could be straight from the cover of a fashion magazine.

by afhof 13y ago

sillysaurus2 13y ago

Eh, as a graphics researcher, I'd say it's not a gender issue. Anyone who spends a significant amount of time researching the human visual system in a fair an unbiased way is inexorably pulled to the conclusion that comparing pictures of nude bodies is one of the major tests of whether you're achieving acceptable results, whether you're making a painting or developing a compression algorithm. Humans are hardwired to notice details in naked bodies, possibly moreso than faces (or at least we notice a different set of details than faces). They were onto something important when they chose the Lenna picture, and it's a shame that the original had to be cropped due to technical limitations. And it shouldn't be taboo to use a male model any more than a female one -- both are equally important.

skybrian 13y ago
Do you want to have more female co-workers or not? Working with nude images when you don't really need to is a great way to discourage people from working with you.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  It wouldn't be controversial to say that humans are more prone to see green than blue or red, or more interested in faces than in leaves, so I hope graphics researchers won't be offended by the truth that preserving details in naked bodies is a wholly necessary benchmark for a compression algorithm, just like it is for a painting.
  - skybrian 13y ago
    Okay, let me put it differently: I'm not an image compression researcher, but I find it hard to believe that you actually need pictures of naked women to judge compression quality. Pictures of people, sure, and maybe even showing some skin. But beach photos would work fine for that, as did the cropped picture of Lena back in the day. So: citation needed.
    - aa0 13y ago
      You're such a brave white knight aren't you.
    - ibisum 13y ago
      The human body has evolved to detect nudity. Its one of the most important features of our vision system. To ignore this fact in vision research, for what are essentially moral, not scientific reasons, is to limit the research to a region outside of what we've evolved into ..
- asgard1024 13y ago
  Why? Does it discourage models from working with photographers or artists? There seems to be plenty of female photographers or artists that have no problem with nudity, too.
  - girvo 13y ago
    My favorite nude photographers are female, interestingly enough. They really know how to make the female body shine, if you will.
  - Steuard 13y ago
    Your comment is hard for me to interpret. I would normally take it as a given that the culture and male/female dynamic in computer science research is (or at least ought to be) different than the culture in the modelling industry (and especially the nude modelling industry).
    - asgard1024 13y ago
      Ok, let me try to explain a bit better. The parent poster seems to say that women are somehow "put off" by nudity. That's a perfectly valid hypothesis. But then art (and I am talking primarily about art, not modelling) is a problem, which requires further explanation. Because artists seem to be, at least to me, totally obsessed with nudity (and I think sex, too, but feel free to disagree here). So why that attracts women, in droves in fact, if they are put off by it? My answer is that the hypothesis is wrong. Females are not put off by computer scientists, that's not the reason why they don't do computer science. In particular, I doubt you would find CS people more sexist than other group of men, I actually believe they are mostly nicer (and also lot more honest about their views, which can strongly bias it). The reason why women don't do CS is they lack confidence and positive role models to do it. You can actually see the differentiation happening in high school, where no one really knows how it works on the workplace yet. And that's where, or maybe even earlier, the problem needs to be addressed. It's probably cultural and frankly, whether the cause is wrong beliefs of men or wrong beliefs of women is irrelevant for the solution (wrong here in the sense "differing from reality"). Edit: You could argue (I think you do) that the cultural norms about nudity in art and computing should be different. I don't disagree (in fact, they are, which makes it a moot point anyway). But then, isn't this a case of someone projecting their own cultural norms to somebody else? Is that really a failure of some culture that it doesn't respect your (rather arbitrary and harmless, compared to art) norms?
- hnha 13y ago
  You are such a brave white knight.
- Tichy 13y ago
  You assume that females are put off by that. That's sexist.
  - Steuard 13y ago
    (If you were just aiming for humor here, my apologies for missing the point. I blame the usual issues of unemotional text.) Whether or not any given woman is fond of looking at pictures of naked women isn't the point. The issue is that it's difficult to give women assurances that they are being treated equally as colleagues if the professional environment also embraces cultural norms that treat women as eye candy or playthings. And this isn't an assumption, in any case. Plenty of women have been quite explicit about feeling uncomfortable about erotically charged images in the workplace. (You know this.) I'm sure some women think it's fine, too, but that doesn't make the feelings of the others any less valid. (Also, "females"? Really?)
    - Tichy 13y ago
      "if the professional environment also embraces cultural norms that treat women as eye candy or playthings." I think sexual attraction will always exist between the sexes, so any professional environment will have to deal with that. I don't agree that erotica imply that women are just playthings. The image used was just the head of a model, btw. Probably some men disagree about the use of the picture, too. Everybody is free to use another picture, though. I wonder if some women feel uncomfortable about the display of an unveiled female head in a photograph - only veiled photographs would be really OK? Lastly, what if I don't want to work with somebody who is uptight about that sort of thing? I think it should be possible to build a team of people who get along. Presumably there could be some workplaces with uptight rules, and some more lose workplaces. Why should "uptight" always win?
      - Steuard 13y ago
        Look, it's not about the Lenna image in particular (even though it was the inspiration for this thread): given the cropping and the long history, I think there are much bigger issues for the community to worry about. But it sounds like you're addressing the broader issues just like I was: you suggest that you might not want to work with someone who was "uptight about that sort of thing". All I can offer is this: I've heard multiple stories from female engineers at tech conferences who have had trouble getting attendees to talk to them because everyone assumed they were just there as some sort of booth babe. It can't be good for their companies to have an engineer's time wasted in that way, and it's certainly not good for the women's careers if they're unable to network as effectively as their male peers. I won't try to claim that I can nail down a specific causal chain, but it seems pretty clear that a culture that routinely uses women purely as attention-getting devices or for visual enjoyment would naturally tend to undermine women who work in technical roles in this way. And when you drive away or devalue half of the potential talent pool just because a few guys don't see it as a problem, that's a bad thing. [Oh, and a side note to whoever is downvoting out there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3782124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3782124 I'm open to the suggestion that my comments in this thread have "provided no substance or insight", but I'd love to know why. If you just happen to disagree with my point (or anyone else's), that's not what the Hacker News downvote button is for.]
Sharlin 13y ago
Why are we talking about naked bodies when the crop of the Lenna picture that's actually used only contains a face? And a bare shoulder, but I don't think that's been pornographic for the last 100 years.
schrijver 13y ago
> And it shouldn't be taboo to use a male model any more than a female one -- both are equally important. Correct, and if there would be a tradition of using both, that would already be different. I see what you’re getting at, judging skin tones etcetera is important, but the Lenna picture doesn’t represent only nudity—she’s a playmate, and represents all the cultural luggage that comes along with that. If you’re looking for an inviting workplace open to others than cis straight males, making a playmate a central part of your research culture is silly.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

Perhaps, but that wouldn't be because women don't like looking at pictures of naked women. [G]ay men overwhelmingly become sexually aroused by images of men and heterosexual men by images of women. In other words, men’s sexual arousal patterns seem obvious. ... In contrast to men, both heterosexual and lesbian women tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have a bisexual arousal pattern. http://web.archive.org/web/20070806123743/http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/media_relations/releases/2003_06/bailey_text.html http://web.archive.org/web/20070806123743/http://www.northwe...

brazzy 13y ago

I am actually fairly sure the (cropped) image that is actually used appeals to women as much as to men. It could be straight from the cover of a fashion magazine.