This is not my topic but I thought I’d blog about it because it’s caused a stir.<\/p>\n
Tony Comstock’s distressed crusade against the insanity of Google’s “safe” filters continues. He’s found that, with SafeSearch turned on, Google delivers NO results for the word “clitoris”<\/a> but 33 million results for the word “penis”.<\/p>\n The sexism and stupidity of this speaks for itself, so I won’t write too much as other people have already done it for me:<\/p>\n Here’s Tony’s post: Dragged into Google’s sex ghetto…<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here’s Susie Bright: Clitoris on Google’s banned word list<\/a>.<\/p>\n And here’s Trixie’s passionate response to both Susie and the whole issue of censorship: Can’t find my clit on Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trixie’s post resonated with me, especially given the fact I recently had a heated comment discussion with someone advocating censorship because porn was an evil, capitalist, heterosexist, misogynist, right wing, Patriarchy-with-a-capital-P exploitative abomination. I liked Trixie’s defense of the idea that our celebration of women’s right to pleasure should also extend to men, that feminism should stop being so paranoid about the idea that “every boner sprung is a rape waiting to happen.” <\/p>\n And I also liked her point that there’s an unspoken dividing line happening in these discussions about censorship – that “porn” belongs in the Google ghetto but “artistic” representations of sex or erotica don’t. Considering I’m usually lumped in with the evil capitalist pornographers I’m less than impressed with this way of thinking. One in, all in.<\/p>\n I guess that’s the thing with censorship. Who gets to decide what’s “erotica” and what’s “porn”? Who gets to decide that a penis is safe but a clitoris is dangerous?<\/p>\n Safe Search is essentially supposed to be “for the children.” Most people agree that the majority of porn is inappropriate for kids and that it deals with adult concepts that kids aren’t ready for. Thus the option within Google that filters it out. The problem emerges when people start to think that children must be protected from sexuality at all costs – even if they’re exposed to violence or hate without a moment’s thought. And then weird standards and executive decisions about what is “safe” start to make it illogical and twisted and suddenly little girls are learning that “vagina” and “penis” is a safe word but “clitoris” isn’t.<\/p>\n When you hand over your parenting responsibilities to Google, or the church, or the schools, or the government, there’s always gonna be a problem.<\/p>\n You know, it would really help if people stopped trying to bring the internet down to “kid level”. Some have suggested creating a secondary “children’s network” (e.g. the domain .kid) where everything is child-friendly and pre-vetted. And then the rest of us can get on with being grown ups. It’s not such a bad idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is not my topic but I thought I’d blog about it because it’s caused a stir. Tony Comstock’s distressed crusade against the insanity of Google’s “safe” filters continues. He’s found that, with SafeSearch turned on, Google delivers NO results for the word “clitoris” but 33 million results for the word “penis”. The sexism and stupidity of this speaks for itself, so I won’t write too much as other people Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[193,375],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship","tag-clitoris","tag-google"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t