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Comment by JohnnyFlash | Hacker News Reader

The trouble is that the guidelines aren't black and white. They are somewhat grey. This means that 2 reviews will rarely result in the same action.

I would argue the Kama Sutra is both historical and educational and not sexually explicit at all. Perhaps a celebration of human bodies even, I don't know.

It seems though that Apple particularly feel that its customers require a squeaky clean filter to assess everything they access.

For cloned and low quality app's this is great! Restricting porn... I guess it is a good thing. Kid's can browse the app store. However this grey area between what is clean and what isn't is something they have never mastered.

It is really sad to see Google following this path of over-censorship..

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I think a guide to sex positions is as sexually explicit as it can get, it's just not necessarily pornographic.

I also think that the argument that it keeps the store clean so kids can browse it does not really work. Other online stores like Amazon don't have this, you can search for and buy porn there and nobody is outraged. A much better idea would be to give apps a suggested user age, so you could filter the store.

I've always thought the keyword is "explicit" for which the most relevant definition is probably: "described or shown in realistic detail"

I had the iKarmasutra app and it was great; slightly coy and fun, but detailed enough to understand how each position worked. The images were tastefully drawn with the same emphasis. But the detail couldn't be described as "realistic"

I don't think you even need to argue the historical/educational angle.

I would argue the Kama Sutra is both historical and educational and not sexually explicit at all. Perhaps a celebration of human bodies even, I don't know.

The problem is that there is no one objective definition of seuxality explicit. "I'll know it when I see it" is almost as good as you can get.

I would argue the Kama Sutra is both historical and educational and not sexually explicit at all.

What does "sexual explicit" mean? It is quite explicit about sex -- it is wholly concerned with sex.

However the app in question is not the historic Kama Sutra. It is a list of sexual positions, and by their own admission, with some subtle between the lines commentary, they seemed to be pushing boundaries on what graphically was allowed.

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