[Itse]

Originally Posted by pylon

Once you start saying it is bad to look at pictures of beautiful women, because they are just that, you have pretty much crossed a line you can't come back from.

Right now the discussion is ultimately about YLYL thread on this forum, even though sexism in general is a big part of it.

You don't have to think that girlie pics are a problem to think that there's a limited number of ok places for them and this forum is not one of those places.

For me it's undoubtedly true that the thread is a part of the way women are sexualized and objectified. Even if the thread only had pictures which we knew were consensually spread in the internet, which we don't, it's still a part of a problematic culture where it's considered normal that we have such a gender-specifically objectifying thread in a forum which otherwise isn't that.

There is nothing wrong whatsoever about pictures of beautiful women, or chiseled sculptured men being looked at if the photographs are consensual by all parties.

Agreed. But that thread is not about consent. We don't know the women, mostly not even their names, nor their consent. It is in fact fairly safe to say that some of those pictures are there without the approval of the women in those pictures, even if we don't know which ones specifically.

Just because a woman has agreed to be in a sexy photo sometime somewhere not equal her consenting to be oogled by everyone everywhere all the time forever.

The whole thread is probably one huge copyright violation. This is not relevant to me in from the IP point of view, but because it underlines the fact that most of those pictures were taken for a purpose. A magazine, an ad, something. When posted without a name they do not provide the women a chance to get their name out in the modeling market or in any other sense. It's not a consensual relationship of admirers and willingly sexualized women, it's one sided objectification of any female that has a certain type of a picture on the internet.

It is the human condition to want to look at the best physical specimens of our species.

It's human condition to want lots of things. That does not make it okay. Civilization is about developing ways to serve our needs without harming others.

The only people that truly could have a problem with it, are those that envy people with physical gifts, they do not have.

Nonsense.

There is nothing wrong about admiring the human form. And most of us choose to admire people who have the ideal version of it.

By a rough estimate I'd say there are less than 5% actual human forms on that thread. Most of it is photoshop magic. It's not real, and pretending that it is is a huge problem in our society.

I am all for being politically correct to a certain degree, but shutting down that thread is pushing it way to far. Maybe curb the comments, and get rid of the borderline pictures. But anything beyond that, is going into some pretty extremist Disney'esque territory.

I think you just very clearly underlined the basic problem with that thread. There is nothing extreme in not having a girlie pic thread on a hockey forum. That thread permeates a stupid idea of what is normal.

In other words, you convinced me that that the thread is a problem.

I'd be for banning it now.

Or, alternatively, make it mandatory to post pictures with names, and allow only proper modelling pictures. No paparazzi pictures, no selfies (unless the person is a model), no amateur pics.

(Yes, this would mean the thread would turn from 95% photoshopped to 100% photoshopped.)

With those limitations I think you might have a fairly strong argument that the thread is consensual enough, considering the society we live in.