Oh, the irony
May. 25th, 2006 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatarperegrineOn Tuesday I wrote about the arrival of my possessions, including a beloved nude mermaid drawing that the Qatari censors happily failed to notice. In the message I posted an image of said drawing. I didn't even mark it NSFW because, c'mon, it's art.
This afternoon, an anonymous reader pointed out that my picture of the drawing had been removed by my (U.S.-based) image hosting service. Check it out: mermaid.jpg is now
Apparently it wasn't the Qatari censors I needed to worry about.
We Americans think we're so laissez-faire. We look down on societies that restrict people's right to show body parts we deem socially acceptable, like shoulders and knees. We don't tend to notice that we have our own roster of inappropriate body parts, and our roster is (if not quite as restrictive) just as arbitrary.
I swear, give me one more year in Qatar and I'll be an outright libertarian. This kind of paternalism is just ridiculous. "The public must be protected from the evil influence of pencil drawings of body parts!!!" For crying out loud!
(And, just to clarify, I am very aware of the difference between governmental censorship and private entities' terms of service. Photobucket has every right to delete my picture. I just think it's idiotic.)
This afternoon, an anonymous reader pointed out that my picture of the drawing had been removed by my (U.S.-based) image hosting service. Check it out: mermaid.jpg is now
Apparently it wasn't the Qatari censors I needed to worry about.
We Americans think we're so laissez-faire. We look down on societies that restrict people's right to show body parts we deem socially acceptable, like shoulders and knees. We don't tend to notice that we have our own roster of inappropriate body parts, and our roster is (if not quite as restrictive) just as arbitrary.
I swear, give me one more year in Qatar and I'll be an outright libertarian. This kind of paternalism is just ridiculous. "The public must be protected from the evil influence of pencil drawings of body parts!!!" For crying out loud!
(And, just to clarify, I am very aware of the difference between governmental censorship and private entities' terms of service. Photobucket has every right to delete my picture. I just think it's idiotic.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 04:44 pm (UTC)from what I can see
Date: 2006-05-25 05:49 pm (UTC)Do you want webspace to hold it on so you can repost it? ( I have some space here that is neither US nor Qatar and I doubt that censors in Germany care much. ( of course there are things forbidden here too, but they are rather hardcore which this picture is not. )
Re: from what I can see
Date: 2006-05-25 05:53 pm (UTC)I can put it on our own website once I get the new password from my husband. (We changed web hosts last week.) But thank you for the offer!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-26 09:25 am (UTC)