Hello, people!
I haven’t posted a “Hello August” post, but that’s mostly because I greeted August with a gun in my hand, and he ran away. Truth be told it wasn’t August’s fault – not even July’s. Neither of these poor fellows has any power to either make laws – fascistic or of any other kind – or to enforce them – either properly or to an extent and to places they shouldn’t.
Right!
The Definition of Porn
A friend sent me this screenshot from BlueSky. It’s from a post of his which, as you can see, is flagged by BlueSky as “Adult Content – Explicit sexual images”.
As the actual post is darkened – it happens when you click to see what labels have been added – you might find it difficult to see the actual post. So, here it is the same image, with “Levels” tempered on GIMP so you can clearly see the post.
As you can see he simply shared my post from here of “The Discomfort of Being Real”. And, naturally, the featured image appears. I wonder, in what sense a drawing of a nude guy – in some distance, too – walking alone in a corn field is an “explicit sexual image”? Keep in mind that BlueSky has “non sexual nude” in its censorship categories.
Yeah… Twitter is a lost cause. My art account there is absolutely useless now. I didn’t have much hope for BlueSky either, and this – unfortunately – confirmed I was right.
So, yes, August (since the 25th of July) has been a roller-coaster. During July I worked quite a lot (until the 25th) on resurrecting my main account (@YorgosKC) and it was showing some results. I also made plans for resurrecting my art account (@YorgoskcN – don’t ask me why KC is in lower case, that’s Twitter’s decision). I prepared a few drawing/painting tips tweets. I even matched them with images and… the law came. Since my art account flags everything as “containing adult content” nothing was visible. So, these tips wouldn’t be visible either.
Now, things have become even more absurd, as retweets of content that is considered “suitable for all audiences” were you to see them from the original poster, appear as “containing adult content”, if you see them as my retweets.
All these make sense… I don’t know to whom!
Anyway!
No Safe Harbour for Stories
On top of those, I was trying to find an alternative for Wattpad to post my newer stories. This didn’t go well either. All places I could find either wanted me to put my stories behind paywall or reduce the sex scenes to, “they had sex”. Preferably insinuate this, actually. Yeah, right!
I thought I found one place which was more open-minded. Scribble. It doesn’t have an app and hence it doesn’t need to comply with Google’s puritanism. So, I joined. I uploaded an avatar. The same image I have here, on Twitter, BlueSky, Wattpad… everywhere. And I searched the stories. Read the first chapter of one that looked interesting. I voted for the chapter – from the site’s system, like a “like”. No comment or anything. And hence, I was banned.
Why? Is it forbidden to read a story there, or is it forbidden to like one? Or, is it maybe that they hate pink? I don’t know. I sent them an email asking why and I haven’t received a reply.
All of these clipped my wings and I was looking at WordPress very suspiciously. Every day I was logging in wondering if my site is still accessible.
Support That Saved the Month
But! I said August was a roller-coaster and I’ve only described the down-ride. There were some good things, too. Unexpected and very good things, actually.
Two people here, one I knew from Twitter and one I met here, showed a humongous support to my work. They are “To Love Beauty” and “ReNude Pride: Guys Without Boxers!” (those are their sites, of course, not the people). I really can’t thank them enough. I would probably have given up on WordPress, too, were they not there screaming my work matters. Really, really thank you, guys!
Another good thing happened when I clicked on a link of one of “To Love Beauty”’s reviews, and there I found “Nifty Archive”. This site hosts uncensored LGBTQ+ romance and erotica stories, and it has no intention to follow stupid laws. In fact, it seems that they have already won a lawsuit against them, demanding they become “proper”, and they won this lawsuit because the literature they host is constitutionally protected. Which means, if the constitution of the USA doesn’t change, their openness won’t change. Sounds safe enough – for now.
Surprisingly, this wonderful site is operating since 1992 (or that’s from when the oldest stories I could find are) but I had never heard of it.
I haven’t posted anything there, yet, but if I post anywhere other than here, it will probably be that site. Unfortunately, they don’t accept stories of other genres and they have some peculiar criteria about what a “bisexual” story is. If I got it right, “The House in the Lake” will be considered “bisexual” because in its prequel I mention that Lugh’s parents had sex. So, I need to investigate a little more.
The Bunny Remembers the Title
And it just occurred to me that this post should have been named “Goodbye August!” So let’s try to justify the actual title. (The original title didn’t include the parenthesis.)
As you might have noticed I have uploaded quite a few artworks. The mass uploads will now stop. From now on, I decided to dedicate Mondays to art. Therefore, you can expect articles about art pieces, or about art on a Monday. These posts will come to your mailbox, if you are subscribed to receive email notifications.
On the other hand, if for any reason I need to mass upload artwork, those posts, just like with the ones I’ve already uploaded, won’t spam your mailbox.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed my site’s description has changed and says that you should consider the whole site as containing adult content. Therefore, there won’t be any further warnings, neither for art nor for stories, if they have content the Holy Inquisition or its representatives (Cardinals Zuckerberg, Musk, Starmer and others) would find offensive.
If you don’t want such content in your mailbox, feel free to unsubscribe. If, on the other hand, you want to check my art, take a look at my Gallery. (The links for the collections at the very bottom are still inactive, but the rooms are active.)
Also, I’ve been bragging lately a lot. If you haven’t noticed – despite my efforts 😏 – please check my Bragging page.
Finally, if you are interested in checking my 31 10-word stories I published for celebrating my ten years on Twitter and Wattpad, you can find them all on Wattpad by clicking here. According to Wattpad, to read the whole “book” it will take you less than 5 minutes.
That’s all for now!
Stay naked, be improper and do have a wonderful month!
Love and Kisses!
😘😘😘😘😘
💖💖💖💖💖
Yorgos KC
Your post really touched me, Yorgos. I can only imagine how frustrating and disheartening those restrictions must have been—especially when your art is nothing but honest, expressive, and deeply human.
About that post, I appealed the moment I saw the label (August 26) and kept checking for changes. Until yesterday nothing had changed, but today (September 1) it turned to “Non-sexual Nudity”.
I feel honoured that you mentioned me alongside your words. Supporting your work never felt like an effort—it’s a privilege. Your writing and art matter, and I’ll keep saying so as loudly as needed.
Here’s to September bringing you more of the “up” moments on the roller coaster. 🍀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, my friend! 😘💖😘
About the post and the appeal… it’s good that they changed the label, even if it happened quite late. By then, the period of it visibility had already passed. Especially on BlueSky, which moves even faster than Twitter. And I suspect that if any of us were to post it anew, it might still get flagged the same way. But still, your appeal made a difference, and I’m truly grateful. And even more so, for your sharing the post in the first place.
😘💖💖
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am so sorry that laws meant to protect kids are being implemented by AI instead of humans. Any human would know the difference between art nudes and pornography. Apparently AI doesn’t. Given how much content AI has scraped off the internet you’d think hard core porn would feature high on its list of things to avoid.
I wonder how Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ is fairing? 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, you know I have no doubt that this law neither intends nor achieves child protection. As for whether it’s AI’s fault… It’s likely that BlueSky uses AI to label everything, but even before AI came into play, Facebook was already unreasonably determining what constitutes porn.
A friend of mine had their account locked several times and ultimately erased due to “repeated offences” for posting “pornographic material”. The final straw was Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”. The previous offences were all pieces that are commonly found in well-known adult entertainment establishments (i.e., museums and galleries). And this was all done by humans. If Venus, covering her breasts and genitals, is considered porn, then surely David, who knows no embarrassment, can’t be viewed any differently, can he?
Although, BlueSky says that they won’t label historically acknowledged pieces of art. This doesn’t help any living artist, but at least, David, on BlueSky, should be safe.
I wonder if my drawing of him is also safe. 🤔
LikeLiked by 1 person
The trouble is, AI is not doing the labelling – it’s grunt workers in Third World countries – e.g. the Philippines. If you’re Catholic in a Catholic country then any kind of nudity would be seen as porn. If you are then paid a miniscule hourly wage to do the labelling for billionaire American corporates, you are not likely to take too much care over how you label things. I’ve got a link to an article about this somewhere. If you want it, I can ferret it out.
Now, let’s define what I call porn, and this is based on just a couple of bad experiences. Okay, #1 my boyfriend at the time and I went to a bbq held in the home of one of our work friends [we all worked together]. She was married to a man who thought it would be great to play a video to all the guests. The video consisted of at least six men and women engaging in every position of sex imaginable, in a huddle, all of them squirming in and around each other like a nest of snakes.
I consider /that/ to be porn.
Then there is the Andrew Tate kind of porn where women apparently enjoy being physically abused and, I assume, begging for the big strong man to come rape them, in every orifice, multiple times.
I consider /that/ to be porn.
And then there are videos of children and babies being groomed for sex. I haven’t seen anything like that but it’s all too easy to imagine.
I consider /that/ to be porn of the second worst kind.
But the worst kind of porn? I believe it’s called ‘snuff porn’ where people are actually killed in front of the camera for sick bastards who can only jerk off when they watch the vilest, lowest examples of human depravity.
I consider /that/ to be worthy of the death penalty.
And then, apparently, there are/were games on Steam and Itchio and wherever, that were basically all these kinds of porn but made interactive.
Yup, I consider /them/ to be porn as well.
And at the moment, teens can by accident or design, view all these kinds of porn online. For a price, of course, and it’s that price which is being protected by the porn industry which is probably the largest commercial enterprise on the net.
Yes, there are people who will suffer because of these regulations – genuine artists top of the list. But there are far /more/ children who will now not be exposed to this depravity during their most formative years.
I know kids, and I know that some of them will circumvent ANY regulation to get what they want. But I also know that the great majority simply stumble across these sites by accident. And given that kids under ten all seem to have mobile phones now, that accident is a psychosis waiting to happen.
No law is perfect, and the fact that AI is being used to ‘police’ this law is a terrible outcome. But. It is still better than allowing multiple generations of children to grow up believing that abuse = arousal. The ramifications of that are obvious in the cult following of Andrew Tate and his monsters.
This is not about the LGBTQI community. Nor is it an attempt to force young people struggling with their sexuality into a hetero box. If you knew me at all you would know that I’m speaking the truth.
I want all young people to be able to find love and caring and /respect/ in their sexual partners. And that includes young girls who make up the majority of people abused sexually and emotionally – because that’s what a lot of /boys/ grow up believing constitutes ‘sex’.
This is bigger than any one segment of society.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Andrea, I do hope that “If you knew me at all” isn’t meant as negatively as it sounds in my Greek mind. If I didn’t know you, if I didn’t know you are a good person, I wouldn’t consider you a friend. I would either respond briefly – instead of with longer-than-the-post replies – or I would ignore you if I believed you were ill-intended. I know that what you say is what you honestly believe – your truth – however, I also believe that you don’t see the whole picture.
At the same time, I don’t trust the honesty or the good intentions of those who made the law and those who enforced it. You want me to believe that someone who tried to outlaw the flying of his country’s flag cares about his country and its people – I don’t. You want me to believe that someone who demanded from Apple (and probably from others as well, but Apple stood their ground) to reduce their encryption and provide him with a backdoor to allow him to spy on everything said and done on iPhones is an advocate of democracy – I don’t. You want me to believe that someone who enforced a British law in countries that don’t have it and shamelessly claims that he restricts this content because of “local laws” is an honest man – I don’t. You want me to believe that someone who considers his own child as good as dead (or worse) cares for the children of people he doesn’t know – I don’t. You want me to believe that the person for whom Bill Gates said he “kills the poorest children in the world” suddenly grew a loving heart – I don’t.
I find betting that the sun will rise from the west tomorrow a safer bet than betting these people give a flying fuck about us or the children, or that they have even a single good intention. Protecting the children, as I said before and will repeat again, is just the excuse. Not the goal. Not to mention, this law does not protect the children; it harms them. Not only are there enough scientific and statistical studies proving that laws like this one don’t resolve the problem they (pretend to) target, but they also create even more problems. Historically, we’ve seen this happen time and time again.
Furthermore, as I said before, accepting a fascistic law is not a means to promote democracy; it’s a way to destroy it. I’m not a fan of Machiavelli and his theories. I don’t believe the end justifies the means. On the contrary, I believe that the means can condemn any cause. If we accept that “the end” can justify “the means”, then that means whether we like that end or not, as long as there is a group that likes it, the means are justified.
For example, if a certain ruler of an Eastern European country wanted to raise his country’s geopolitical and financial power, then it’s just and right for him to start a war, to slaughter innocent people, and to do everything else he does.
I understand that the world is not perfect and sometimes “necessary evils” need to happen. But this is not a necessary evil. If the real goal was to protect the children – which it is not – it could be done better, more efficiently, and without causing harm. Therefore, it’s absolutely unnecessary.
Also, porn and nudes are not the cause of sex-related crimes. On the contrary, the oppression of sexuality is. Countries and eras that are more open-minded have had fewer sexual crimes than those that oppressed sexuality. Both history and present-day statistics show this clearly.
Regarding porn, the last thing you mentioned is not porn; it’s murder. Calling it porn is less accurate than calling it an act of Christian love. After all, the Inquisition tortured and murdered people under the blessings and guidance of the official head of the Church and called it “love”, while the porn industry neither produces such videos nor promotes murder.
Child pornography is indeed porn, and it is – and should be – illegal. But, once again, the porn industry does not produce such videos. Just because those videos show sex doesn’t make them products of the porn industry, just like videos taken by criminals recording their crimes don’t make those videos products of the film industry.
Twitter, PornHub, and every other decent porn site do not have such videos. And it’s these safe sites from where this law bans the children, not the lawless sites.
Sadomasochism and any other fetish, whether you like them or not, are part of human fantasies. Porn exists to fulfil these fantasies. If one doesn’t want to watch these videos, there are plenty of others. But that’s true when one has a choice, like on the decent sites I mentioned. On lawless sites, one will watch what is available. Moreover, I assume you haven’t given a thorough look at PornHub – or any other porn site – so allow me to inform you that sadomasochism exists in every possible combination. It’s not only men dominating women.
You say you know children, but I also remember my teenage self and my classmates in high school, English school, and computer school. There was not even one among us who didn’t watch porn. If I, a timid chicken, did that, you can be certain that everyone does it.
As porn was not so easily available to us, we shared and exchanged information about where we could find it. That’s what is going to happen to British children now, and that’s how they will all find the same thing one finds.
Denying nature does not solve any problem. Accepting it can help us resolve problems. Denying the existence of gravity would never allow humans to fly. It’s because we accepted its existence and tried to understand it that we were able to build aeroplanes. Similarly, denying the fact that teens will seek porn won’t solve the problem. If we wanted to protect children from extreme porn – and I believe we should do this, because they are still building their character – and, of course, from illegal content like child pornography, banning them from porn won’t work. As I said, it will only drive them to more dangerous and probably more extreme-themed places.
Regulating the porn they see is what we should be doing. Japan practically does that. Teens can find enough porn to satisfy their needs – so that they won’t need to search for more extreme porn – in very decent places, such as bookshops. Porn they can legally purchase. Sure, it’s soft, sure it’s partly censored, but it can cover their needs. A human whose need is satisfied won’t risk doing something illegal to satisfy it.
The only classmate – from English school – who didn’t desperately seek porn and never asked where we found ours was a guy whose mother – coincidentally my Ancient Greek high school teacher – was buying it for him. Both magazines and films. I thought she was the coolest mother back then, and I do think she was the wisest now.
Moreover, oppression – of any kind – doesn’t build character; it builds secrecy. Crimes happen more often – just better hidden. If this law is not revoked, I expect school violence to rise year after year in Britain – because in the EU, they can still access porn, just not on Twitter. In three to five years’ time, when these oppressed children become adults in society, criminality will also rise.
Will most of these British children now be as law-abiding as you think, leading to a rise in sex-related crimes when they become adults, or will they mostly be as rebellious as I think, leading to a rise in general criminality when they become adults? For the latter, “criminality” can be tax evasion or things as simple as that, but nonetheless, which one of these possible scenarios is “protecting the children”? Unlawful behaviour will rise because of this law – and laws like this one – not despite it.
Finally, let me say that in my life, I’ve met more boys sexually abused by women (more than ten) than boys sexually abused by men (only two). And only one girl abused by a boy, but this is not objective – I am a guy, so girls wouldn’t feel comfortable confessing such things to me.
Sexual abuse or rape – to call it by its name – isn’t any milder if the one who is being raped is the one penetrating unwillingly. But, due to society’s standards – law included – guys being abused by women are reluctant to talk about it to even their friends, as their friends mock them more often than not. Moreover, legally prosecuting such cases can be very dangerous, as it’s easy for the victim to be convicted instead. If the woman claims she was the one being abused, the law won’t do justice. After all, even if you report the crime right away, if you were not the one being penetrated, there is no physical evidence.
So, do know that the official statistics about this are not accurate.
This is an issue that should be addressed, but this law not only doesn’t address it, but it will make things worse. As I repeatedly said, oppression gives birth to more evil; it doesn’t banish it. Understanding the issue helps. Working with the issue helps. Education helps. Oppression only reinforces the issue and generates new problems.
I can’t believe that Starmer (and now the governor of Mississippi) is stupid, or that he doesn’t have enough knowledge about all these points I mentioned here and in our previous discussion. Therefore, I believe he is ill-intended. What ill intentions he has is debatable. The fact that he has ill intentions is not.
Finally, regarding the article, there is no need to find it. I believe you.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Just a question to start: who are you talking about re Apple?
Secondly, the law is not a blanket prohibition against EVERYONE watching whatever the heck kind of porn they can find. It’s about keeping as many /kids/ from seeing the things I was talking about. You can define porn however you like but if it involves sexual gratification then it /is/ porn. And that includes snuff videos.
Porn has always been around and young men, in particular, will always look for it. That is a fact of life. However there is a world of difference between buying a Penthouse or Playboy under the counter [which was all they had back when I was young] to the volume and awfulness that’s available now, online, where anyone can find it.
As for the intent behind the law, you forget one important fact: the people who demanded a law to protect children were parents like me. I don’t give a fig what kind of person Starmer is. I honestly don’t know, but I do know that the Australian Prime Minister is a compassionate and honourable man [in so far as any politician can remain honourable].
So I do not believe you about the ‘evil intent’. I believe that societal pressure is now so overwhelming that parents need help to protect their children. They can’t do it on their own. And that is the role of government, to protect the most vulnerable when individuals cannot do so.
Clearly this is not something we can compromise on so perhaps we’d better agree to disagree.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Apple is the company with the bitten apple as a logo. UK government tried to force Apple to reduce encryption and provide the UK government with backdoors so they can see what is said and done in iPhones, under the Investigatory Powers Act. Apple refused repeatedly. As the US National Intelligence also took Apples side in the dispute Starmer, apparently, backed down. (Or so the director of National Intelligence tweeted, although the UK government has neither refused nor admitted they did.)
The law I am talking about – whether the Australian one is the same or not, I don’t know – wants anyone to identify themselves to watch anything that includes nudity, as well as porn. Supposedly there will be no misuse of this identification, which I do not believe, because I do care what kind of person Starmer and Musk are. The former is the one who made the law, and the latter is the one who enforced it on Twitter for the EU where he shouldn’t.
And also, you are wrong about what is porn. If anything sexual is porn then also sacred texts that depict sex are porn, the statues of deities in sexual activity with their consorts – or not only – in the temples of India are also porn and so on and so forth. And going with your kind of generalisation can I also say that every sex act is love-making? Or can I say that stabbing a person is a surgery? Why not? It’s a knife cutting flesh.
A crime is a crime. Porn is not a crime.
Also, I don’t care who asked for the regulations. Parents are simple people. They don’t need to know what works and what doesn’t. They only know what they want. The ones in power do know and should know what works, what doesn’t, and what harms. Choosing to use a law the likes of which have been used for different reasons in the past and are historically proven to escalate the issue and produce additional problems, is inexcusable. And about that, too, I do care to know what kind of person made the law to decide whether I’ll believe it’s a mistake – inexcusable or not – or an ill intention.
The role of the government should be to protect the people. All the people. And democracy demands freedom for the people and considering everyone innocent unless proven guilty. A law that harms people – including but not limited to the ones it supposedly protects – and considers everyone as a potential criminal is not a democratic law. Even more so when there are ways to protect the vulnerable without harming the rest.
And indeed, like I said, this is something I won’t compromise, because what I see is not grey. It’s blacker than black. It’s something that makes me feel the world has become a more dangerous place, not a safer one.
So, yes, let’s agree to disagree.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yorgos, I really admire the clarity and thoughtfulness of what you’ve written here. Your replies — here and on The Discomfort of Being Real — add even more depth than the main posts (well worth reading).
LikeLiked by 1 person
💖😘💖
LikeLike
Thank you. It was Musk I was actually asking about. I left Twitter just before he took over so all I know about him is what I’ve read or seen online. My opinion of Musk is so low, only one person to date is lower: tRump. Cheers.
LikeLiked by 1 person