Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Unpersonals: My Dating Life is NSFW
filed under: Web Sex Index, Unpersonals by Lux Nightmare
Unpersonals. You know them. You probably even have an account on one of them, complete with sassy photos, lots of comments, and a multipage friends list. And of course, you’d never, ever use that kind of site to meet someone. Or stalk someone. Right?
Of course right.
I’ve written before about the shitty filtering software we have at (one of my) office(s). What I neglected to mention, in my previous post, is that, in addition to filtering porn, sex education information, and really anything with the sheer mention of the word “sex” in it, my office also blocks MySpace. And Consumating. And any dating and/or personals site.
Yeah, apparently dating (even Unpersonals style dating) is NSFW.
The bored, lovelorn side of me is outraged: clearly, I should be allowed to Consumate all I want at work. Isn’t work about fucking around on the Internet and pretending to look busy?
The more pragmatic, rational side of me sees things differently: I’m at work, I’m getting paid to be, uh, at work. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t be spending the company time trying to get laid.
Which brings us to the real question at hand: what on earth do we really mean by not safe for work?
We all know that NSFW is really just code for tits, cocks, pussy, and fucking: after all, that video of the cat in the hamster wheel would never be labeled NSFW. But what makes watching funny cats a more valid at-work past time than looking at porn? Neither activity’s likely to pop up in your job description (unless, perhaps, you work at Fleshbot or in the adult industry. Or for some funny cat website.).
Can we be more honest and upfront about what mean when we say NSFW? Can we say, “Hey, this has breasts,” or “Warning: Explicit, intelligent discussion of sex and culture.” Can we abolish NSFW, or at least recognize that just about anything mildly interesting you might be doing at your shitty desk job isn’t something you should be doing?
Because, sure, my personal life is NSFW. But that’s because, you know, it’s my personal life, and not my job.
Comments
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Tits, cocks, pussy, and fucking offends people, and no one wants to offend, especially where you are. Big lawsuits are bad business.
Jonas, no, really? We know. It’s not news. We just beg the questions here: why? At what point do reasonable people get to say, you know what, the answer to being respectful of one another’s public space isn’t to desexualize everything about civic life to the point where… well, we’d say sex is nowhere, but sex in big media, advertising, and sexual moralizing is certainly present, no matter how offensive that material may be.
Maybe the issue is an overly litigious culture as much as sex is, or ought o be, the issue?
Ohh, Lux, thank you. This is the blog post I’ve been wanting to write for months. You beat me to it!
xo,
Gina
[…] of NSFW, Lux Nightmare posted a little ditty on Sexerati about the context behind the […]