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Playboy image from 1972 gets ban from IEEE computer journals
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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This is kinda interesting. I work in this field and have seen that image show up all the time in papers but never knew the origins.
I think it's the right move to ban it and I'm surprised there's so many people defending it. This isn't about censorship or being a prude or anything like that. It's just a bit weird that it's from a playboy and if you can't understand how that would make some people uncomfortable then you might be a bit lacking in empathy.
The 3d world has Utah teapots and Stanford bunnies and dragons which are all very neutral and don't hurt anyone. Perhaps we can move on and use some less alienating pictures for image processing papers, too.
I think it's nice to have traditions inside areas of research, and if somebody said "let's retire the Utah teapot. It's too simple a construct and has no bearing anymore" I'd be opposed.
Similar with "Lenna". Is it a good test image? Not anymore, but if somebody wants to include it as tradition then let them. It hurts no one. Nobody is making money off it. Most people just know it as an image that's been in many seminal graphics papers they want to emulate, but even if they do know it as being from an issue of Playboy, why is that a problem?
I'm not angry about it. I'm not going to die on any hill about it. I just see it as pointless and infantile for the IEEE to refuse papers over something so trivial.
I'm wary of the argument for any practice continuing being just because it's always happened and is "tradition". Similarly though I'm wary of the argument that a valid practice should cease just because it makes a few people uncomfortable. If the only thing going for the Lena image is "tradition" then there really is no argument for keeping it.
Just about anything can make a few people uncomfortable
The issue was that it did make some people uncomfortable, so it was harmful. You can't just ignore the reasons stated and then say it's pointless. The ban didn't come out of nowhere.
That logic makes me uncomfortable, let's ban you
Well said. I feel like so many people here are missing one of the biggest issues with the photo as far as I understand it, which is encouraging women into STEM. For many women I think this photo felt a bit like walking into a professor's office to see they have bikini photos on their walls. It just cements the feeling that these sciences are boys' clubs.
Banning something harmless is censorship. It's a test image of a beautiful woman, not glorifying violence or terrorism.
It's not censorship. They can choose to publish or not publish anything they want. Anyone is still free to publish the image in other journals that don't ban it.
Offensive to people who react bad to caffeine or whose relatives had been killed by a falling teapot.
Offensive to people who think there's a furry connection.
I can understand that and those people can use another image when making their own examples.
It's not a bad thing to have more empathy, but there's common sense.
https://www.yalescientific.org/2020/11/by-the-numbers-women-in-stem-what-do-the-statistics-reveal-about-ongoing-gender-disparities/
Down the bottom there are some statistics about how many women experience sexual harassment and gender based discrimination in STEM positions. They also tend to have worse outcomes in general and fewer will go on to work in their field.
While this might seem like a small thing, ignoring these kinds of outdated and unnecessary boys club attitudes is exactly the kind of thing perpetuating these sorts of outcomes.
If you can't see how using a cropped image from a playboy for no reason in an image processing paper is different from your made up examples and could make some people feel uncomfortable then maybe you're lacking common sense and empathy.
It wasn't chosen for no reason. It was chosen because it presents good test cases for image processing. Not great ones, just the best they had at that particular moment.
You're right, I wasn't particularly clear. That was certainly the case originally, I just don't think there is a good reason for it going forward.
Historical reasons. I personally used it in a project around 2015 because of its history. And you'd need to use it if you're comparing against anything else that used it, though given its age, that seems unlikely.
But like I said elsewhere, I'm ambivalent about its future use.
Sounds fair. If you can produce it as a more suitable test image than the others available, I'll use it.
The thing is that those reasons are made up just like my examples.
I don't think this is correct.
Maybe I just don't confuse empathy with doing what idiots want me to do.
People were surveyed about the image, there are articles about it, an entire documentary has been made about it with the support of Lenna. How you can just come along and say that's all made up is honestly beyond me. And I'm pretty sure that the collective IEEE and the ethics researchers who have written about this aren't idiots. I really think you are confused about what empathy is, but I don't see myself convincing you of that. So uh, have a nice day.
Yeah, there's a reason experiments are not being replaced by voting.
You may consider this comment of yours valuable if you want.
I would be very surprised if the population of "people upset by the use of a teapot/bunny as a test render" was even within a couple orders of magnitude of "people upset by the use of a porn photo as a test image"
Is a little shoulder porn now?
No. But the fact that it isn't obviously from a porn shoot doesn't change that it's from a porn shoot. The model has indicated she doesn't want it used for this, and other women have indicated they are bothered by this.
Are you really insinuating that there isn't any other possible standard besides this exact photo to demonstrate methods?
See? I can straw-man too.
Your point? (I'd call it more erotica than porn but that's irrelevant.) If your culture sexualizes nudity per se that's not my problem and if nudity offends you well that's your problem. She consented to this, was an adult at the time, got paid for it and moved on (and, for most of her life, couldn't care less).
It's a pretty valid reason to me and it would be nice if people respected that. Do note that Playboy has the rights of the photo though, not her, but chose to let it slide 'cos... free publicity.
I never said that. It's an old photo, along with all the other photos of the time it should've been retired ages ago, on technical grounds.
But these are not the reasons the IEEE is banning the photo, now are they?
This is an interesting video on the matter.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
This
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Sorry, consented to what? And what does that have to do with this? The existence of the photo or its continued use as a photo and as porn are not at issue.
And again, this isn't a rights issue. Lena isn't upset because her rights are being violated, and neither is anyone else.
And I never said photos of shoulders are porn. You made a straw man or my argument, so I made a straw man or yours. Neither one was particularly useful to discuss.
Of course there were reasons the photo was chosen originally, convenience and the fact that it has just the right amount of complicated detail. But those don't really matter now because, as you said:
People are upset because the use of a photo from a porn shoot, especially one that has no other particular reason to use it besides "tradition," is emblematic of a culture that is exclusionary to women.
Any defense of the use of this photo which does not address those points isn't really a good faith argument.
According to you.
Tradition is not really an excuse for anything really.
If you're making arguments on this issue with someone who feels the photo should not be used because using a cropped porn photo is offensive or derogatory, those are the points that should be addressed. Another approach might be to address why it should be used instead of some similar image, but it seems you agree with me that there is no good reason another image couldn't be used.
In this day and age, and considering the model expressed so, there's really no reason to continue to use the image, no.
Saying the crop is a porn photo is like saying homeopathy has an active ingredient because "the water remembers".
Except that people do, in fact, remember. Sure, if society gets destroyed and future archeologists find the cropped photo and that's all that remains of it, it's not a porn photo any more. But for now, people know where it came from. That matters.
Edit: typos, clarity
... By that logic, you are now touching a porn device, since these pixels below are clearly pornography.
I mean obviously this is a porn device, it has access to the Internet. How is that relevant? One's personal devices are exactly where one's porn should be, not in an academic paper about image processing.
I'm lacking in empathy.
Ooooh i'm sure someone, somewhere, somehow will feel offended. Better ban those too.
Yes, the provenance is "questionable", but it's a pic of a human wearing a hat, ffs.
The model being tired of it would be enough reason for me to stop using it (as you mentioned, there are plenty of alternatives); but American prudeness? No.
This isn't about prudishness. No one's offended by the picture. It makes people uncomfortable because it's from a playboy. The problem is that it brings the objectification of women to the fore in a male dominated field where women often face sexual harassment and aren't taken seriously.