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Comment by low_tech_love | Hacker News Reader

In the spectrum of postmodern quasi-meaningless decisions made to give some appearance of action to appease people who are more likely to complain than do something useful, this is on the harmless side. What really bothers me is the underlying idea that a picture of a beautiful woman is offensive. It seems like we’re on a path of “regression to the mean” where only mediocrity is acceptable, and anything remarkable is offensive. If I felt offended every time I saw a picture of a man more beautiful (and attractive) than me I might as well disconnect and go live in the woods.

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It’s not about the woman being beautiful. It’s about the in-joke where the cropped image itself is tame but the implicit context is pornographic. This in joke makes (many) women uncomfortable, I think.

Personally I don’t care either way, I just like to understand differing perspectives. Being offended by this one seems fairly reasonable as far as things go though.

Replace Lena.jpg with calm.jpg

Trying to imagine the reverse, if I were in a field dominated by women and there were "Lenny" images used frequently and used as an in joke or commonality, I think I'd feel uncomfortable too as would many of us. From the comments I'm seeing though, I don't believe we're exercising the empathy needed to understand.

I dunno; that sounds very hypothetical. Do you have a more specific example? I don't see why I'd be unhappy about, eg, working with a group of nurses with a fireman calendar in the lunch room [0]. Even though it is unprofessional, since that is active sexualisation, this is just a girl with a pretty face.

Very attractive people of both the equivalent and opposite gender exist. I can't speak to your instincts and interpretations, but objectively they are not a threat to my emotions.

[0] https://www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com/

This is also sexualization: Playboy isn’t a fine art magazine or anatomy textbook where you’d at least have some plausible professional context. If someone just took a picture of a pretty woman which wasn’t intended to be pornography, nobody would be talking about this.

Would you ask for it to be formally banned by a scientific umbrella organisation?

Aren't we supposed to be decades past "women has no sexual desire, sex are for men" era? I support the ban, it's kind of weird a cutout porn is the benchmark, but I just don't see how LGBT-era human modeling and anti-porn stancing go together. Hypocritically speaking, the notion that cis-male/bi-person/lesbian-women porn[0] as reference image makes women uncomfortable has to be wrong.

0: and this is very rough edged caricature, no reason gender has to be specified here or subject has to be ignored

Would you bring a copy of Playboy into the office? Would you say it’s okay because you won’t show anyone more than the upper half of an image?

That’s the problem: it’s nothing to do with what people do in their private lives, it’s about bringing pornography into a professional context. In this case it’s also objectively an obsolete choice for anyone working on modern imaging technology so it’s not even defensible on technical merits.

I don't object to removal itself, and I don't find it too appropriate, I just have problems with post-hoc rationalization that comes attached to it. "Images of attractive woman offends other women" shouldn't even be a politically safe statement to make. That'll be one hell of a hallucination if an LLM said it.

It’s not attractive women but pornography. Nobody would care if this was a picture a computer scientist had taken of herself at work because they needed a test image, it’s the “produced for the sexual pleasure of male viewers” part that makes some people worry that their colleagues view them the same way.

> Nobody would care if this was a picture a computer scientist had taken of herself at work because they needed a test image

I've seen, although from great distances, enough of these instances. They WILL come at that person and harder in those cases. Sexual content are less likely to be cancelled when more male is involved, contrary to superficial reasoning. This applies even if gender of creators are not apparent at all. It's a really gross primal phenomenon.

Do you have any examples? I’ve never heard of anything remotely like that happening.

> Sexual content are less likely to be cancelled when more male is involved, contrary to superficial reasoning.

It’s true that many men don’t mind sexualizing women, but that’s restating the problem that this creates a hostile atmosphere for everyone else.

> That'll be one hell of a hallucination if an LLM said it.

And it's also an hallucination when you say it, given that it's not even close to the issues raised and just a straw man.

I guess being offended or not by this is entirely subjective, as we can see from our wildly different perspectives on the matter. I guess that’s why we should never base a ban on it, right?

I too think we're growing hypersensitive, but that's not the only argument for switching to a different picture: the the model has requested the image not be used, long ago IIRC.

And decades before she was always fine/amused/proud with it being used. Probably she is just being tired being always asked about the issue.

https://media.wired.com/photos/5c5354d391d0df22c1dee493/mast...

AND found a way to sound cool while doing that. (My fingers are itching to add some comment about the fact that she’s Swedish but I’m sure that has no correlation whatsoever with jumping in on meaningless postmodern cancel culture bandwagons)

Picture of a beautiful woman is offensive

I don't think that's it. I think it's the idea that Playboy objectifies women, and "porn" objectifies people. Which is understandable.

From that lens, Lena's picture could be seen as the IEEE equivalent of plastering the locker room doors with porn mag photos.

If Playboy objectifies women (Playboy falls firmly in the category softporn) then I guess some people are really worried about websites like Xhamster, Pornhub, and Onlyfans.

Playboy shows no intercourse (AFAIK, been a while), it contains stories and background info, and professional and entertaining poses. It falls firmly in the category of softporn.

I know this is a Whataboutism 101, and you could say 'it is objectified woman in marginalized profession'. I'm not saying I disagree. What I am saying is that there must be a long road ahead. It seems the cat is out of the bag?

Now, my daughter is in pre-puberty. Back when I was in puberty, I bought a Playboy or two and one Penthouse. Would I have an issue if my daughter bought a magazine with men (and/or women) posing (half-)naked if she were in puberty? I'd be surprised, given what you can find for free on the internet, with [much] worse curation. No, that seems normal to me, even healthy to be curious like that. But I am honestly scared shitless of all the crap which can be found on certain websites, as well as things happening in school like revenge porn (which recently became illegal within its own category in my country; a step I very much agree with).

My point being that, to me, there seem to be much worse issues ahead worth tackling.

You're missing the point entirely. It's not that this image or porn is bad (or not), but that an image from a soft-porn magazine is used in a professional setting when you're not explicitly wanting to go down that road. What others do on their own is fine. But this image gives porn-connotations to people just wanting to do their job.

It's equivalent to having a poster of a woman in the office bathroom. Have it in your own home, it's fine, but don't push it on others.

It is cancel culture 101.

I'm not for or against cancel culture, btw. I understand pros, but also cons.

A poster of a woman, would depend on what that entails. If it is a poster with a function, with the face of a woman, it'd be OK. No matter the source. The source ought to be OK with it (with regards to copyright) but other than that, I don't find it relevant. Because people don't see the source; they see the derivative.

As an analogy, would you run code by a convicted murderer? As in, would you be opposed to run code programmed by Hans Reiser? Ie. would you use Btrfs? Would you run code by a company who are morally bankrupt?

No, it's not cancel culture. You're just making things up to fit your outrage.

Your last whataboutisms aren't relevant. If people don't like having to work with an image whose origin is from a porn magazine and which the woman has asked people to stop using it, that's a perfectly valid feeling.

Oh it absolutely is cancel culture 101. It just that in this case the person isn't cancelled but society moral values have changed, and this is somehow an important hill to die on (I think not). Ie. there were 2 artists: the model and the person shooting the picture.

If they're not fine with it they can pick an alternative. One was posted in this very thread.

The woman in question and the author of the picture were also OK with it in past, right? Not like it was a case of copyright infringement?

I'm sure there are also people who deeply care about not using programs written by a convicted criminal. Most people don't realize that when they use Linux because it is hidden in plain sight. Just like the fact that this photograph is from a pornography magazine, and that the woman in question was naked (softcore still), is obscure as well. Obscure in this context also means harmless. Ie. I can show this portrait picture of this woman to my pre-puberty daughter, and it'd be completely OK. Just like running Linux kernel with code by a convicted murderer is also OK. OK, as in harmless.

My pre-puberty daughter is a great case of where I draw the line between NSFW, ie. with regards to recent terrorism in Russia and torture of suspects. Would I feel ashamed if she saw this picture of Lena? Not at all. If needed, I could tell her the context of it being a picture from a different time in our past with different society moral values (though they're still very much alive in some areas in the world).

There is also a huge difference between hardcore intercourse and a (half-)naked, posing woman. And of the former, with women who are exploited, is much more rampant on the internet. That seems to be a valid hill to die on.

> Obscure in this context also means harmless

It's not obscure for the scientists working in this field, so what you deem moral or not for your teenager is irrelevant. Especially so when the scientists in this field have voiced their opinion which should count far more. Why should they not be heard? Why are you the one trying to cancel the opinions of these female scientists?

Except "people" didn't make this ban, IEEE did. If people don't want to work with this image, then they might as well not work with it?

Look, the point here is not whether using the image is a good idea or not; it's about whether an organization such as IEEE should ban it. The fact that using this image is technically a disaster (for all the technical reasons presented by so many people) only makes it easier for the ban to be instated and convince people like you that it's ok to do that. But the fact is that the technical reasons were not what supported the ban, and when you keep defending it using other arguments which are not the ones that led to the ban, you're just feeding a monster.

> Except "people" didn't make this ban, IEEE did.

Isn't IEEE made up of people?

> If people don't want to work with this image, then they might as well not work with it?

Lucky for you that you're oblivious to these kind of issues, but it's not as easy as you portray it to be. Most people will shut up and "just accept it" to not stir the pot. People aren't writing a paper in isolation using this, so can't easily just switch if the rest of the community uses it to benchmark, the co-authors want to use it etc.

> and convince people like you that it's ok to do that.

Please define "people like me". Tread carefully.

> and when you keep defending it using other arguments which are not the ones that led to the ban, you're just feeding a monster.

Don't lie. I've only used the arguments put forward by IEEE in the article.

And that's where I say leaving HTTP 402 as a warning sign that the Internet should not be used for economically significant purposes was a grave mistake; those people ARE worried, and Internet censorship enforced through advertisement, credit card payment processing, and App Store reviewing process, driven by those people, is getting us barreling down that road towards 1984/BNW.

Pornography aside, YouTube had effectively removed "die" from vocabulary in some languages through that, and people are adapting by changing accents. Soon it'll be a shibboleth. We're literally living 1984.

"It is also a sexually suggestive photo of an attractive woman, and its use by men in the computer field has garnered criticism over the decades, especially from female scientists and engineers..."

I'm offended by the notion that any woman depicted nude is somehow pornographic. I'm also offended that people say it objectifies women- as if they lack agency.

I personally won't be satisfied until GitHub changes their default branch name to using_the_lenna_image_is_violence.

Then, and only then, will I know that meaningful change has taken place.

Being offended by cropped image of something that viewers may not know is a nude image is just another level of discovery of what can potentially be rated offensive.

I remember this article where some girl dropped her PhD to do onlyfans and made like millions in very short time. Wonder what she was offended by? Perhaps offensively expensive tutoring costs, or generally non-competitive pay in academia which it seems is not to be discussed as something researchers from all genders are usually put off by?

Sorry, this is such a hypocritical nonsense to ban the Lena image, that it really amazes me somebody cared to be so politically correct while on a daily basis a researcher around the world is marginalised by their seniors by not being listed as the first author of an article. THAT is offensive, not some pixels in the age of TikTok and Insta.

The subject of the photo, Lena Forsén, has explicitly called for it to be retired. No need to get all up in arms about what's "offensive"

Thats another story, and while my previous comment on a general basis stands (or rather I stand firm with this position), because the same twisted logic gets applied to other "bans", I stand corrected in the light of your note. Lena has a right to demand the image to be retired. But last time I read interview with her this demand was not included in her responses. thanks for update.

That’s misleading. She has been quoted multiple times saying she was amused and thought nothing of it. Until a bunch of activists came and told her she should be offended, and that the matter was of great importance to the future of mankind. Then of course she changed her mind, why not.

I would assume that as an adult she’s capable of making her decisions and we should respect that. Even if you disagree, there is no reason why we need to continue using it and it’s not a good choice purely on technical grounds, so a better question would be asking why anyone would be so committed to continuing to use an objectively obsolete image over the objection of its subject.

She's capable of making her own decisions now, but not when, for many years, she thought it was harmless?

It's weird that papers are banned based on which sample images they pick, rather than technical merits.

When will the HeLa cell line papers be cancelled? To this day scientific experiments are being carried out on cells take from a black woman without her consent.

> She's capable of making her own decisions now, but not when, for many years, she thought it was harmless?

The IEEE is acting now, so her current position seems most relevant. It’s not the primary reason - that’s the technical limitations and general wisdom of using pornography in professional publications – but it’s a good third point. Switching is trivially easy, why not do what the subject requests?

Your comparison with HeLa is interesting because it directly highlights the difference: nobody’s work depends on LENNA.JPG - anyone doing serious work is using multiple images, and there are many easy alternatives so nobody’s paper is getting rejected unless they throw a performative tantrum trying to get an interview with Tucker Carlson.

HeLa is different in several ways: it does things which other cell lines could not, allowing some fundamental research to be performed which wasn’t possible when cell lines could only survive for a few days, and the owner isn’t around to tell us how she feels about this. Most relevant, of course, is the reaction in the field: you know about that because it’s been widely recognized as an ethical failure, it’s taught as such in schools, there’s going to be a building named after her on Johns Hopkins’ campus, and there’s a scholarship fund in her honor.

Lenna’s contribution is far less significant from an academic standpoint but I can’t help but notice that none of the people complaining are actually doing anything which would benefit her – it’s all about personal entitlement to continue using her photo without compensation.

I think you're getting hung up on the "bunch of activists being offended" bit of the story here. I'm just trying to respect the original models wishes, I don't care about the activists.

Maybe you should learn from her. Updating your position on something when you get more knowledge is laudable. Instead of digging your heels in.

I wonder why you mean she's incapable of making her own decisions? I hope it has nothing to do with her sex, but I do feel it's weird how you and others in this thread are very quick to dismiss both her and the women scientists not wanting to use the picture. It paints a picture..

Somehow I think a true researcher knows enough about STEM and the reason for existence of certain bodily processes and attributes to not be offended by an image of testicles or clitoris. Otherwise we would not have such images in the schoolbooks for children (at least in most developed countries these images are part of the education).

Indeed you can argue that usage of pornographic material in academic articles is similarly offensive as going to school with horn implants. Or perhaps the horn implants are not so offensive? But then the question here is whether the image of someone's face, which originates from a pornographic material is offensive. I find it hard to make a concrete decision about this, because Lena's face (and many other women and men's faces) is very very lovely taken out of the pornographic context. Besides pornography seems offensive only to few people as a percent of the world's population...

This also reminds me how children across the world answer the question whether a drawing of a head is image of a person or image of a head. If I remember this correctly, a story was told by psychology teacher back in school, so long time ago, the children in Europe see a person, the children of natives in Northern America see a head. So this all is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Thus being offended by the usage of Lena image implies the author knows the source of it and imagines the missing pornographic part.

What a deeply weird comment, these are all tangential remarks at best.

Also what is your obsession with "horn implants" and "third tit"s

> time to bring it back then, alongside horn implants, and third tit.

From my understanding part of the issue is that people would use it as a test image for the sake of using Lena as a test image rather than actually picking a suitable image for their testing.

I mean also this is a scientific publication which should try to stray towards neutrality and this image is a cropped playboy still. This is blatantly not an appropriate image to use in an academic publishing not even getting into copyright issues. If you absolutely need to use a photo of a beautiful woman for your testing you could use literally any photo taken in a standard photo shoot which isn’t overly sexualized that is appropriately licensed.

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