It’s a penis. It’s a bodypart owned by 49% of the human race. It’s not some Lovecraftian horror or perverse sex act or morgue photos of a someone who was mangled to death or [insert horror of your choice]. Yes, I think society acting like the mere sight of a penis in a photo is something damaging is prudish. As always with opinions your mileage may vary.
Yeah, I think there should be some consequences but this isn’t worth screwing up the kid’s future prospects in life.
It’s not about how much skin is showing.
Acting like part of a penis showing in a photograph is worth a court case is, as I said, prudish and puritanical. This wasn’t a sex act, it was a prank.
Yes, it is a prank.
He should get some sort of penalty, I think having him pay to reprint the offending books would be appropriate although given his age he’ll probably need to be on a payment plan. Charging him with possible jail time or other long-term consequences is stupid. This isn’t worth screwing up his life long term, how does society gain from that? And honestly, who was harmed here?
Can we get away from the notion that the sight of a penis is something inherently damaging? It’s not the penis, it’s what you do with the penis. What he was doing with his was pretty innocuous.
I was yearbook photographer for my Highschool class of 76. In a group shot, a friend “gave the finger” (and told me about it). We both kept quiet about it and nobody ever noticed until yearbooks were printed and distributed, at which time he told everyone.
No police charges, just a scowl from the principal.
I can’t watch the video and cannot even see his dick, at least not in the online picture. What a bunch of overblown nonsense. Also can’t believe that no one caught it (when my friends and I flipped off the camera in our 8th grade class photo they blurred it), or how it was finally caught. Sure, he’s a dipshit, like a great many 19 year olds. BFD say I.
About the same time what we were trying to sneak in were drug references. Our advisors knew my class well enough that they went over every photo like US Intel going over the photos/area around Normandy before D-Day. Not one of the shots made it through.
The kid was a dumbass, and should be punished – but by the school. But actually thinking this was worth criminal charges? You’ve got to be shitting me.
And the yearbook staff, the publishers, nobody else noticed this until now? WTF?
Please, please tell me I’m being whooshed and these are not seriously your ideas of “half naked”.
So when my uncle mooned his neighbor he was “exposing himself to the public in a sexually explicit way”? Please. :dubious:
I would stop it if it were about to occur given that people get very offended by such things, but yes, giving a rats about some guy showing his penis is prudish.
What word would you use (that is not careful euphemism) for disliking public exposure of genitalia? I would have thought prudishness is exactly the right word.
Puritanical is perhaps a broader term and might not be apt in any given case.
Well the US is teh weird because it has very prudish parts and very liberal parts, and it has a very strong freedom of speech clause in the constitution which means that there are things that are lawful in spite of how parts of the US population feels about them.
Which is in my view silly. In ten years time (or sooner) the yearbooks with the penis will be treasured by the alumni as being a hilarious reminder of the prank their dumbass classmate pulled. The yearbooks without the penis will be in the bin.
Every single person who is now complaining opened the yearbook when they heard about this outrage, and looked for the penis. I guarantee it. The offenderati could have ignored it but will have chosen not to, I bet. I suggest they buy a black marker pen and put a little “censored” line over the penis. Then they won’t have to see it. Which is what they want, right? It’s not like they want to be offended or have a chance to get into a glorious huff about it, no, no, no. Never.
That’s my reaction. I wouldn’t even make him pay to have the books reprinted. If anyone’s at fault it’s the faculty members who were charged with overseeing the yearbook.
The young man on the stairway wearing glasses was holding his hand up so he could “legally” flip the bird. None of the people in that picture had any idea that their life expectancy could be measured in hours.
It’s the 1961 U.S. figure skating team, who were killed in a plane crash in Belgium while en route to the world championships, which were cancelled as a result.
This thread reminded me of a old-time baseball “prank” in which Boston Beaneaters star pitcher “Hoss” Radbourn gave the finger to the cameraman taking the 1886 team photo:
What is there to notice? The area is in shadow in the gap between two other players arms. If you weren’t told to look for it you wouldn’t see it at all.
I’m a photographer: and I had one of these buggers do this to me. I was covering a large schools event: took 10,000 photos during the day, culled/edited and delivered 3000 to the client. I shoot this sort of event in JPEG so I do very little editing: at most I spend a second or two reviewing an image to decide whether or not its a keeper then I move onto the next image.
But the thing about my workflow is that when you are reviewing images at that speed they look like a movie. So when I was shooting this teams photo I saw a guy look at his mate, then reach down to his pants and he pulled out his wang. If I hadn’t have been reviewing at speed I may have missed it all together. I contemplated for a couple of seconds reporting the boy to his school: but ended up just deleting all the shots with the wang.
Waaay excessive. Maybe a bit of public service and a personal apology to the whole school in return for a clean record might be in order, but any formal charges for this immature triviality would be a waste of public money and this kid’s life.
No the charges are not excessive. Kids need to learn there will be consequences for their actions. If they learn they can violate rules/laws and get away with it, then they will continue to do these things as adults.
We are seeing this happen these days. Geeze COLLEGES are now having “lockdowns”!
