We’ve written before about how lame we think the label NSFW is. Cause, seriously: somehow watching episodes of your favorite TV show, reading a gossip blog, and playing Scrabulous are all safe for work; but catching a glimpse of Lindsay Lohan’s nipples isn’t? Thankfully, we’re not the only ones who feel this way: Gawker has a piece questioning what, exactly, NSFW means — and in the course of their questioning, the hit on (what we think is) the crux of the matter:
NSFW exists because of a delusion that people don’t watch NSFW things outside of W. But everyone watches, streams and downloads porn.
Right: it’s okay to play Scrabulous at work, even though it’s engaging in personal activities on company time, because Scrabulous is a socially acceptable activity. But publicly acknowledging an interest in sex — why that’s just downright dirty!
Please excuse us while we hit our heads against the wall repeatedly. But hey — props to Gawker for taking an interest in an issue we care about!
[Photo by stephee]
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Comments
I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit lately. I’m a developer on an adult social networking site, although I wont mention it here because this is a serious line of inquiry, not a plug for my site. We’ve been considering the fact that people love to play with facebook at work (despite it being terribly unproductive), but are probably unlikely to open an adult social networking website in the office, even to check their messages, as it could have boobs and bottoms and other unsavory things.
So, I’ve been thinking of offering the site through an alternative url, which produced a more “office friendly” view of the information, and didn’t show any of those jiggly pink bits I just mentioned. This isn’t that hard from a technical perspective, what’s tricky is the terminology.
The obviously choice is to call it the “Work Safe” version of the site. Everyone knows what that means. Just like you Lux, I find that slightly offensive, or at least sex-negative, as it tends to imply that sex and sexuality are “unsafe”. I recall that some old computer games used to have a “Boss-Key” which would change the screen to a spreadsheet or something when you pressed it to hide your game from the boss. That’s a similar idea. I can’t use nice clear language like “sex-free” or “nudity-free”, because I can’t have the SFW version titled with something including the words “sex” or “nudity”.
So, I guess while I agree that NSFW is a bad term, I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has a better one.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:52 pmCraig:
It’s a debate we have over at Boinkology HQ, too. I can’t fault people for wanting to give out a warning that a link might have a bit of T&A (or, you know, hardcore fucking) — personally, I think “explicit content” is the most appropriate term. It’s upfront about what you’re presenting without being laden with the judgy aspects of NSFW.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:59 pmOf course, that still doesn’t answer the question of what to replace SFW with, I just realized, as nonexplicit carries the same problem as sex-free.
Let me think on it.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:01 pmAs much as I’ve come to hate the term NSFW due in large part to Lux, I think it’s most likely lost the battle to be replaced with something else. I remember looking back on the word “blog” and just hating it… people were reluctant to call it that, but as time went on it caught on with the general public and now sadly, it’s too late to turn back.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:07 pm… the judgy aspects of NSFW.
I am a little perplexed. Do people really think erotic content is not “safe” for work because of moral disapproval? The reason it’s not safe is because many companies have a policy against sexual harassment, violations of which (a) can result in immediate termination, something playing Scrabulous doesn’t usually, and (b) expose the company to the possibility of lawsuits which can cost many millions of dollars.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:42 pmMithras:
People have gotten fired for posting in blogs during work, but I don’t see anyone labeling WordPress NSFW.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:48 pmMithras: Is there really a clear mapping between erotic content and sexual harassment? I realise the legal argument is no doubt very different from the common sense one, but in the latter case certainly, I don’t see how me watching porn in the same office as you could be construed as me harassing you, unless perhaps I stumbled across pictures of your mum.
Lux: The word “explicit content” is probably just as silly. Ok, I realise that one of the dictionary meaning for explicit is actually “sexual”, but that comes from long term misuse of it’s more normal meaning “exactly specified” (the opposite of implicit). As in, a move which implies that sex occurs between two characters is not explicit (it’s implicit), but one that *shows* it is explicit. So in a sense it’s a contraction of “explicitly sexual”. So, since we’re arguing about language here (isn’t it fun), we should probably take the “sexual” part of that phrase as being the meaningful bit, not the explicit bit which I imagine was only used to describe media because it allowed the sensors to avoid saying “sex” a lot.
Based on the above ramblings “non-explicit” is an even sillier term, because it should be synonymous with “implicit”. Perhaps I need to have my two sites at explicit.playfulbent.com and implicit.playfulbent.com, at least I’d amuse the language geeks.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:18 pm[...] BOINKOLOGY | Gawker Agrees With Boinkology: NSFW is Stupid “Right: it’s okay to play Scrabulous at work, even though it’s engaging in personal activities on company time, because Scrabulous is a socially acceptable activity. But publicly acknowledging an interest in sex — why that’s just downright dirty!” (tags: sex sexuality society assholes bullshit tech pinkghetto) [...]
February 25th, 2008 at 6:24 pmCraig:
The implicit/explicit thing had occurred to me. I think that might be an amusing solution to your issue.
Well, I’d be amused.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:54 pmCraig:
Under the relevant statutes, porn viewed on work computers that is ever seen by female workers is prima facie evidence of what’s called “hostile work environment” sexual harassment. The argument, both from a legal and commonsense standpoint, is that men usually end up comparing their female coworkers to the porn chicks, at best, and at worst use porn to send the message that a woman’s sole value is sexual.
Actually, the statutes are phrased omnidirectionally, so that it’s not aimed at men who harass women, but anyone harassing anyone. It’s just usually men harassing women.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:37 pmI think NSFW sucks, but – and I’m kind of ashamed to admit this – I’ve used it myself because I couldn’t think of a less sucky alternative. Laziness on my part, I know.
I’m still pissed about the Download Squad editors slapping a “warning” on my posts. I may get all meta on their asses and write a post about the warning label, and point out that that’s real irony, not Alanis irony.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:27 pmMithras:
Now that I’ve had a little more time to think, allow me to clarify my point. My issue with NSFW isn’t that I think it’s wrong to warn people so that they don’t go looking at porn at work. Obviously, if that’s considered inappropriate at your place of work, you shouldn’t do it.
My issue is more that NSFW is often applied, across the board, to any content that’s remotely sexual in nature — including this very site, which, as far as I can tell, isn’t particularly good jackoff material (to each their own, of course). If you’re going to label something like Boinkology NSFW, you should damn well be applying that label to Facebook, Perez Hilton, Gawker… and pretty much any other site that’s not related to your actual job.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:40 amLux-
February 26th, 2008 at 11:48 pmI see your point. I wouldn’t apply NSFW or any other warning label except to graphic pictures of actual sex. If people are using it on text or non-graphic pictures, then it’s being overapplied.
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