I don’t know if this should go here as it isn’t specifically about the column, but:
The illustration accompanying this weeks column is a little on the graphic side.
I know Cecil runs in alternative papers but I am wondering if anybody noticed whether their local alt pulled the cartoon? Or if perhaps there was an alternative illustration.
There’s an alternate illustration.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=24012
I’m usually a pretty liberal thinker, but I do agree with obfusciatrist – that picture was a bit vile. If someone had put that picture in a posting in the Pit (or now should I say, put a link in), it probably would have been yanked immediately with a good ‘I know this is the Pit, but there are limits’ or ‘this is a bad example for the Newbies’ scolding.
I’m sure that this picture had to pass through many hands before getting posted, and I am a bit surprised that every person involved said, ‘umm, yeah, sure, this is a perfectly tasteful picture to post on a web site that may be viewed young people. heh-heh.’
I have been quite crude on this board (I know, 'he who is without sin cast the first stone…" Ooowwww!!), but I try to keep it in the Pit, and I would think that there are different, higher standards for the ‘higher ups.’
I was in Chicago last weekend, and made a point (as usual) of finding a copy of the Reader. I seem to recall that the PG13 version appeared in there - will verify when I get home from work.
Probably any “young people” seeing it would have “gotten it.” I didn’t, not right away. I had to sit there and look at it for a minute. But then, most of Slug’s artwork is like that for me, and it can’t be Slug, so it must be me…
But as far as “tasteful”, no, of course not. Neither was the National Lampoon, a formative part of my young adult life. Man, I sure miss that.
Confirmed - The Chicago Reader has the PG-13 version.
There’s a related thread on About This Message Board:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=24012
A gift for notthemama: http://www.nationallampoon.com
In response to other responses, I guess there will always be people who will, just for the sake of arguing or hearing their head rattle, say something retarded like ‘ooooh, shit is yummy’ and defend the hell out of it. I guess I had an erroneous preconceived notion of the level of tastefulness in certain areas of this board. A thread that I was on in the Pit was closed due to crassness, but there can be a drawing of a naked woman spewing goo from her vagina on the home page. (I am just describing the picture as I see it – if you don’t want your art discussed, don’t display it.) A little consistency is always nice.
I think that there is enough filth out there to outlast the human race, and I do think that there may be a place for “filth”, but just as I don’t f*** on my front porch in the daytime, I don’t think that that picture is appropriate on the home page.
Yeah, it’s awful when I drive down the street and see Slug’s dirty pictures plastered on telephone poles and billboards all over the whole city, not to mention the people distributing Xerox copies of it door-to-door like Jehovah’s Witnesses, and calling me on the phone all the time saying, “Hey, check out page 3 of the paper today, big full-page ad with this week’s illustration blown-up full-size.” Sheesh, is he running for office or what?
Slythe: All I can say is, “thank you”.
I agree with the people who say this week’s posted picture is somewhat over the top. If I were one of the women who contributed information for the column, I’d be a little embarassed to show someone this site this week. Ed has said he likes the picture–and I understand sometimes in the magazine business you do things to shock people a little, sort of like Newsweek running dead-body photos–but I won’t miss this drawing it when it disappears next week.
By the way, the local paper doesn’t run Slug’s illustrations, so it’ll be interesting what his picture for the current “Rule of Thumb” column looks like.
Hopefully, you did not get that from my response. This page is visited by young teenagers. I’m not sure if you have kids or not, or what you teach them, but I personally wouldn’t want my kids to see that. What kind of respect for a woman and for their own bodies does that teach them? At least the article was somewhat tastefully written, given the subject. There was an article in the paper about a woman who was arrested for having sex with her boyfriend in front of her kids to teach them about the birds and the bees. That disgusts me. You may find it to be okay, and if so, that is your opinion. Apparently, that woman’s opinion was that this was the right thing to do – she couldn’t see how sick she was being. Just because she thinks it’s okay to do what she did, does that make it okay for everyone else to accept it? If I left some toys out for Cecil’s kids to play with, and I attached drawings of people having oral sex to the toys, I think that I would be paid a visit by a very pissed-off Mr. Adams.
As I said, there may be a place for pornography and such, but if you are having open-house, please don’t tape it to your front door.
Who’s going to buy that from someone named** Mind Fucker?**
That’s like someone telling me, “Who’s going to buy that coming from a black guy?” I do apologize for the name, for those it offends – it is a carryover from my more impressionable days of looking at drawings of women spewing from their crotches. Most people don’t get it (the name), from what I can tell, but underestimating people is a problem just about everyone has at one time or another.
I respectfully ask that you ignore the name and read the posts.
I respectfully ask that you ignore the illustration and read the column.
You need to post that to a different thread. This thread is specifically talking about how graphic the illustration on the home page is. I don’t see the relevance of or the logic in ignoring the subject of a thread in order to make a comment on it.
Subject: Orgasm illustration
If you’d care to read the thread, you’ll see that I stated clearly that the column was done in a relatively tasteful manner, given the subject.
(note to self: DFTTards)
Nice try, pally, but I don’t think that even registered on the ol’ Flame-o-Meter.
My point, and I believe Diagonal Twin’s as well, is that it’s hard to understand moralizing about the effects of public tastelessness when it comes from someone whose screen name is pronounced “Mind Fucker.”
No. It isn’t. It’s like Bill Clinton decrying adultery. Sure, he has a point, but he has no moral authority. Why should anyone take seriously a person who lambasts others for doing what he himself is doing? And in your case, you’re doing it right now, IMO. You’re saying that Slug’s illustration is not appropriate for teenagers or children, but you “Mind Fucker” SN is irrelevant, and besides the kids don’t get it anyway.
You can’t have it both ways.
Andros – It was worth a shot, wasn’t it? 
You have made a very valid point, in a way. Part of intelligence is being able to separate very valid points from bs. I have to hear loads of bs every day and glean the valid points from the chafe. Can you at least try to do that? I am so sorry that I gave you such an easy (and irrelevant) angle to attack from. I was going to get a sock puppet, but I assumed that no one would take that route, so it would be a wasted effort. (wrong!) I do try to keep my posting in the Pit, and that is where that illustration should go.
If my screen name was ever on the home page, I would certainly change it to something that you would feel comfortable showing to your kids or your mother.
If you feel comfortable knowing that very intelligent ladies have to view a picture of a naked woman with fluid emitting from her vaginal area and coating what appears to be a lab technician in order to go into the Straight Dope, and you will not take into consideration my and the points of others, then we really have nothing more to say to each other.
Would you like to see a drawing of a naked man with electrodes on his penis ejaculating all over a lab tech – basically a male version of the current home page picture? My side of this is that I want to convince you that that picture is vulgar and shouldn’t be on the home page. If you feel strongly otherwise, please convince me.
If Cecil gives that drawing to his mother for Mother’s Day, please let me know.
Well, you won’t convince me, I’m afraid, and I have no desire to convince you. I don’t find the 'toon vulgar or inappropriate; you do. Graphic, perhaps, but I get worse than that in my morning spam. The article’s about female ejaculation, the cartoon depicts female ejaculation in a typically Signorino fashion. It’s NOT pornography.
Further, if the cartoon were to be pulled because it’s “inappropriate” for whatever reason, I’d expect the Powers That Be™to pull all of Cecil’s columns dealing with “adult” material. All the cussing, the entire Sperm Trees Debate™, the caloric content of semen, the lot. After all, kids can read that stuff, too. Do you propose cleansing the site of everything you wouldn’t want your kids seeing?
And any one of the above could be linked on the home page. You say you’d change your SN if you knew it would appear on the SD home page, yes? Why is that? The entire sire is open to the public. If viewers of the page are offended they can leave. No harm, no foul. (And if you want to argue that viewing pictures of human biological functions is damaging to anyone, you’ll have to take it up in GD. Or just jump in on one of the “What is Porn” threads.)
I’m sorry you find the illustration to be so offensive. I do not, nor does my (extremely intelligent and very female) SO. Clearly the Reader agrees with me. The best way to make your views known (and have them matter) would be to contact the Reader directly and let them know you’re either A) canceling your subscription to their paper, B) canceling your subscription to one of the papers carrying TSD, or C) not returning to http://www.straightdope.com . Hit them in the pocketbook.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read up on the etymology of “fuck.”
Wow, I finally started a thread that got a response! And a bit of a flame war to boot!
I’d just like to say that the illustration doesn’t bother me at all (it is tasteless, but is that really so wrong?). But I knew it would exceed the standards of some papers (even some alts) and wondered what they were doing about it.
Thanks for the answers!
