Snapshot: Young Woman Reclining
so the other day, i scanned a photo (not this photo, another one) of a young woman sitting cross-legged on a bed with a towel wrapped around her, only, her breasts, the little nipple parts of her breasts, had kind of popped over the top of the towel and were just sitting there. it was kind of a cute picture. and she had her hair wrapped in another towel, like she had just gotten out of the shower. it's a color snapshot, and the woman has a lovely smile, and i was thinking about putting it up here on flickr, with maybe a medium content restriction. and as is my wont, just to be neighborly, i shared this photo with one of my flickr contacts. and my contact says to me, "oh, how thoughtful of you, to keep this private and preserve her privacy."
and of course I was thinking no such thing. I was ready to put her out there, boobs and all, and let everybody look at her. and this comment from my contact brought me up short, and I started thinking about what rights i have to display the images that come in to my possession, and about what our rights to privacy are, and about why this question is so problematic. and so here is a photo that perhaps sits somewhere on the edge of that question. here is a young attractive woman, posed seductively, on a bed, alluring, but still fully clothed. i own this photograph. do i have the right to post it here on flickr, for anybody to see? if I answer yes to that question, then where do I draw the line?
If this were a photograph of Cleopatra lying on a bed, posed seductively, clothed or unclothed, and I had it in my possession, is there anybody who would not say that I should make it public? if Cleopatra were lying there on her royal divan totally naked, with her womanly bits hoisted up for all the world to see, do you not think that she would not show up everywhere, on the BBC, on Fox News, with her womanly bits pixellated into blurry unrecognizability, but still, out there, for everybody. And of course you would be able to go over to TMS and see the FullMonty, if that was your wish.
I mean, what's the deal? This girl is a woman. She has womanly bits. She has inclinations. All woman have womanly bits. That's why they're women. All men have manly bits (more, or less). That's why they're men. I mean, there is a spectrum of human sexual equipment, let's say. Out on the extreme left (let's say, at the farthest end of womanhood, there's Jayne Mansfield (we have to give her her head back) and out at the farthest extreme on the other end, the end of manliness, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, let's say. And everybody falls somewhere in that spectrum, with the hermaphrodites in the middle. So everybody has his or her manly or womanly bits, or a little bit of both. What's the big deal? Even when people are walking around with their clothes on, they're carrying their manly, or womanly, bits with them, and everybody knows. When you say the word "he" or the word "she" it means that you have taken notice of manly, or womanly, bits. So really, sex is on everybody's mind, all the time. mrwaterslide is just more honest than most everybody else.
Snapshot: Young Woman Reclining
so the other day, i scanned a photo (not this photo, another one) of a young woman sitting cross-legged on a bed with a towel wrapped around her, only, her breasts, the little nipple parts of her breasts, had kind of popped over the top of the towel and were just sitting there. it was kind of a cute picture. and she had her hair wrapped in another towel, like she had just gotten out of the shower. it's a color snapshot, and the woman has a lovely smile, and i was thinking about putting it up here on flickr, with maybe a medium content restriction. and as is my wont, just to be neighborly, i shared this photo with one of my flickr contacts. and my contact says to me, "oh, how thoughtful of you, to keep this private and preserve her privacy."
and of course I was thinking no such thing. I was ready to put her out there, boobs and all, and let everybody look at her. and this comment from my contact brought me up short, and I started thinking about what rights i have to display the images that come in to my possession, and about what our rights to privacy are, and about why this question is so problematic. and so here is a photo that perhaps sits somewhere on the edge of that question. here is a young attractive woman, posed seductively, on a bed, alluring, but still fully clothed. i own this photograph. do i have the right to post it here on flickr, for anybody to see? if I answer yes to that question, then where do I draw the line?
If this were a photograph of Cleopatra lying on a bed, posed seductively, clothed or unclothed, and I had it in my possession, is there anybody who would not say that I should make it public? if Cleopatra were lying there on her royal divan totally naked, with her womanly bits hoisted up for all the world to see, do you not think that she would not show up everywhere, on the BBC, on Fox News, with her womanly bits pixellated into blurry unrecognizability, but still, out there, for everybody. And of course you would be able to go over to TMS and see the FullMonty, if that was your wish.
I mean, what's the deal? This girl is a woman. She has womanly bits. She has inclinations. All woman have womanly bits. That's why they're women. All men have manly bits (more, or less). That's why they're men. I mean, there is a spectrum of human sexual equipment, let's say. Out on the extreme left (let's say, at the farthest end of womanhood, there's Jayne Mansfield (we have to give her her head back) and out at the farthest extreme on the other end, the end of manliness, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, let's say. And everybody falls somewhere in that spectrum, with the hermaphrodites in the middle. So everybody has his or her manly or womanly bits, or a little bit of both. What's the big deal? Even when people are walking around with their clothes on, they're carrying their manly, or womanly, bits with them, and everybody knows. When you say the word "he" or the word "she" it means that you have taken notice of manly, or womanly, bits. So really, sex is on everybody's mind, all the time. mrwaterslide is just more honest than most everybody else.