Silentiea

I mean we could start taxing capital gains as income, except no we can't because that would never happen.

As a religious trans person, it's deeply insulting how many anti-trans religious authorities say things like "don't let the world tell you who you are, trust in the voice of God in your own heart" or something, and then go all surprised Pikachu when I'm still trans afterwards.

Though the grass may kneel before the slightest breeze, the mighty oak does not bow even to the strongest gale.

I mean I get that this is satire, but was there actually a Pokemon thing?

Tried to make a sex joke about tasting people but I guess I just literally don't know what about that is sexy, so someone else do it

The categories that encompass "man" or "woman" or whatever are socially constructed. The outlines of those categories especially are so far from being absolutes of nature or physical constants.

But people still have an innate sense of themselves and their own identity. So even though the rules are made up and the points don't matter, people can still know which box they go in based on that sense.

For some people, they're just comfortable in the box everyone right they'd go in and never think about it. Stone people don't care which box they're in and so never bother to think about it. There's all our cis folks. Stone people don't really care which box they're in, but they do still think about it and decide they go outside any of them. Some people think they go in one box sometimes and either box at other times. There's the nonbinary folks. And then there's people who can tell they fit in a box, but everyone seemed to think they're actually in the other one until they mistake was pointed out.

The boxes themselves are totally made up, but they still exist. And since they exist, people can still tell which ones they go to. The fact that the boxes are fake doesn't make them not "real", it just makes enforcing them and telling people you know what big they should be on better than they do stupid.

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.

She consented to this, was an adult at the time, got paid for it and moved on

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.

Do note that Playboy has the rights of the photo though, not her

And again, this isn't a rights issue. Lena isn't upset because her rights are being violated, and neither is anyone else.

I never said that.

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:

It's an old photo, along with all the other photos of the time it should've been retired ages ago, on technical grounds.

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.

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.

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.

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

I mean, they're hobbits. They turn to food for comfort.