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Comment by maxbond | Hacker News Reader

She felt violated and wanted people to stop [ETA: Or not, see below]. Why isn't that harm? Why would using pornography in a professional context (outside of the pornography industry or other edge cases) be considered appropriate? Of course it's off-putting to people, women and otherwise.

I just don't see your point at all.

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People have projected that onto her, but it's not true.

https://www.wired.com/story/finding-lena-the-patron-saint-of...

> In her view, the photograph is an immense accomplishment that just happened to take on a life of its own. “I’m really proud of that picture,” she said.

Probably more harm has been done by the internet mob demanding she feel a certain way about her picture, than any harm done by the image itself.

My mistake on that claim, I still roll my eyes at people who say it's totally normal and okay. How many racey pictures of men have been canonicalized like that? There's a leering element to it.

> How many racey pictures of men have been canonicalized like that?

To be fair, very few other racy pictures of women have been canonicalized like that, either; about the only pictures I can think of are paintings, specifically the Mona Lisa, which is hardly racy, and Boticelli’s Birth of Venus, which I suppose you might look at as racy, though I wouldn’t particularly. There’s a couple other non-picture works of art that are canonicalized in that way, but aren’t themselves pictures – Michaelangelo’s David as mentioned in a sibling comment is a good example. But then, even though the canonicalization makes them into something else, it is usually based on upon perceived artistic importance, the Lenna is a different and arguably sui generis phenomenon.

Racy picture? Wait, what photo are we talking about? Is this still about the one in andrewfromx's article that shows a woman's face and shoulder?

It's cropped from an explicit photograph published in Playboy.

But the topic of this subthread is the cropped, non-racy image that got circulated. Is there anyone who actually got offended by a picture of a woman’s face and shoulder? Besides maybe people in ultra-religious societies that insist on women’s shoulders being covered?

I think people got offended when they found out the source of the image.

The original is a nude, but calling it “explicit” is…quite a stretch. [0]

[0] a scan of the full centerfold is included in this piece (NSFW, obviously): https://kevinrye.net/index_files/1972_playboy_magazine_the_l...

Maybe I should have used NSFW instead of explicit, I just don't like to mix initialisms into my speech.

The statue of David comes to mind immediately. It's been canonicalized like that for over over 500 years, yet I don't hear anybody saying that it's not ok, or talking about how it projects an unhealthy stereotype of men.

The comment you are replying to is simply bad faith white knighting. As soon as I indicated I felt violated by their comment, suddenly it was "different."

You're trying to stir me into anger by, yourself, acting in bad faith. It's a cheap trick which won't work, and patently obvious to most any observer.

If you had a point, you wouldn't need to behave this way. (As opposed to some other people who disagree with me in this thread, who do have a point, and don't feel compelled to do this.)

I think my point is made. You're creating a standard that even you refuse to satisfy.

That photo is not pornography.

(Not arguing for using a photo of someone who minds it.)

> That photo is not pornography.

The full image from which it is clipped is, at a minimum, erotic photography (where the boundary with pornography is…well, opinions differ considerably.)

But, yeah, the crop that has become known as “the Lenna” isn’t (considered on its own) even that.

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