Starmer’s order to Apple and Google would block nude images on children’s phones by default. The technology doing the blocking cannot tell a body from a crime.
Evan, There are times that I really do not like reading your articles. This is one of them. The article is clear and well written, albeit the issue is completely out of balance due to the proposed government actions. As the human form continues to be the linchpin for sexual abuse, making any argument for healthy family naturism becomes more challenging due to the lack of content that can or may be provided. It is so aggravating that when any natural body is viewed that so many people only see the negative sexual attributes and not the wholesomeness of an exquisite life form. The early nudists started using the term sunbathing and gymnosophy since the commercial sex markets had prolonged the term nude and nudist to promote their adult entertainment industry. We continue along that line of thinking, but now with images versus words. How do you remove the taint from the healthy skin? It is not by removing the healthy skin. As the song goes "Going natural, going nude. How something simple can be misconstrued."
Sorry Evan but kids don’t benefit from internet nudes. They just re enforce unnatural stereotypes of perfect bodies in alluring poses. Kids benefit from real people in person social nudity precisely because it illustrates real diversity in body shapes. So let them ban it with the understanding that naturist environments are the wholesome alternative to normalize human bodies.
But this stops naturism and average bodies from being depicted too, and thus prevents people from being able to see that non-sexualized nudity is possible. It bans the entire lifestyle from being able to be seen on what is supposed to be a vehicle for open communication and expression. Not just certain websites which are privately run organizations, but the entire internet as a whole and on a hardware level which has never been able to be made yet. All overcorrection to a non-issue, since this is just basic anatomy that we are trying to prevent kids from seeing, which they already know about from seeing themselves in the bathroom mirror. The human body is not some shocking secret, but prudish British society thinks it is forbidden dangerous knowledge just to see a nipple, something babies have no problem with. So it's a government with less maturity than a newborn baby. You have fallen for the "protect the children" ruse so that you give permission/roll out the red carpet for a surveillance state, making their agenda of taking away your and everyone else's rights of privacy and free expression that much easier
For a long time, I’ve struggled to find a place to publish my nude drawings. After trying numerous platforms, I always end up facing the exact same binary choice: either the platform has zero tolerance and bans everything instantly even a prudish artistic drawing or a woman breastfeeding or it allows nudity, and you find your work drowned in a sea of pornography.
There is no gray area; it’s either black or white.
Yet, the representation of the human body serves so many different purposes and contexts. This total lack of nuance leads to completely absurd situations.
"Read the government’s own language and you will see three different things treated as one. Starmer’s sentences slide from “nude images” to “sexually explicit images” to “pornography” as if they were synonyms. The mechanism is described over and over as nudity detection. Not abuse detection. Not grooming detection. Nudity."
I find this so important. Something similar caught my attention recently. A couple of weeks ago, Apple had their usual annual event to introduce the new iPhone operating system, and one of the "features" was an option to blur or block nude images automatically. It's the same logic as what you were saying about Starmer's sentencing, as if nudity were the same as sexually explicit content or pornography. It really shows how so many people think... which is a pity. At the same time, we know public opinion can change.
Evan, There are times that I really do not like reading your articles. This is one of them. The article is clear and well written, albeit the issue is completely out of balance due to the proposed government actions. As the human form continues to be the linchpin for sexual abuse, making any argument for healthy family naturism becomes more challenging due to the lack of content that can or may be provided. It is so aggravating that when any natural body is viewed that so many people only see the negative sexual attributes and not the wholesomeness of an exquisite life form. The early nudists started using the term sunbathing and gymnosophy since the commercial sex markets had prolonged the term nude and nudist to promote their adult entertainment industry. We continue along that line of thinking, but now with images versus words. How do you remove the taint from the healthy skin? It is not by removing the healthy skin. As the song goes "Going natural, going nude. How something simple can be misconstrued."
Way too much to unpack here except that he has gone way off the rails
Sorry Evan but kids don’t benefit from internet nudes. They just re enforce unnatural stereotypes of perfect bodies in alluring poses. Kids benefit from real people in person social nudity precisely because it illustrates real diversity in body shapes. So let them ban it with the understanding that naturist environments are the wholesome alternative to normalize human bodies.
But this stops naturism and average bodies from being depicted too, and thus prevents people from being able to see that non-sexualized nudity is possible. It bans the entire lifestyle from being able to be seen on what is supposed to be a vehicle for open communication and expression. Not just certain websites which are privately run organizations, but the entire internet as a whole and on a hardware level which has never been able to be made yet. All overcorrection to a non-issue, since this is just basic anatomy that we are trying to prevent kids from seeing, which they already know about from seeing themselves in the bathroom mirror. The human body is not some shocking secret, but prudish British society thinks it is forbidden dangerous knowledge just to see a nipple, something babies have no problem with. So it's a government with less maturity than a newborn baby. You have fallen for the "protect the children" ruse so that you give permission/roll out the red carpet for a surveillance state, making their agenda of taking away your and everyone else's rights of privacy and free expression that much easier
For a long time, I’ve struggled to find a place to publish my nude drawings. After trying numerous platforms, I always end up facing the exact same binary choice: either the platform has zero tolerance and bans everything instantly even a prudish artistic drawing or a woman breastfeeding or it allows nudity, and you find your work drowned in a sea of pornography.
There is no gray area; it’s either black or white.
Yet, the representation of the human body serves so many different purposes and contexts. This total lack of nuance leads to completely absurd situations.
"Read the government’s own language and you will see three different things treated as one. Starmer’s sentences slide from “nude images” to “sexually explicit images” to “pornography” as if they were synonyms. The mechanism is described over and over as nudity detection. Not abuse detection. Not grooming detection. Nudity."
I find this so important. Something similar caught my attention recently. A couple of weeks ago, Apple had their usual annual event to introduce the new iPhone operating system, and one of the "features" was an option to blur or block nude images automatically. It's the same logic as what you were saying about Starmer's sentencing, as if nudity were the same as sexually explicit content or pornography. It really shows how so many people think... which is a pity. At the same time, we know public opinion can change.