 | This is an essay on the Wikipedia is not censored policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia should not include images from hardcore pornography. |
Articles about hardcore pornography subjects should not contain pictures or videos which are hardcore pornography.
On the one hand, the articles this essay is concerned with are mostly about obscure sub-genres of pornography. These are not vital articles. They are marginal articles, and any images in them are, perforce, images in a marginal article.
On the other hand, in return for the minimal encyclopedic value imparted by these images, we have that:
- There is a considerable cost to the encyclopedia to host these images. These few images are among the most contentious materials hosted on Wikipedia, degrade Wikipedia's reputation, create a political vulnerability for Wikipedia, and drive away readers and potential new editors (including women; Wikipedia has a serious deficit of female readers and editors, and that is a problem, and this sort of thing doesn't help).
- It is not a good thing for young people to be viewing these images. Other images on Wikipedia may also be problematic, but these images are especially problematic since they depict extreme sexual situations, and in some cases depict events that occur in pornography but not (at a verifiably notable level) in real life. A picture being worth a thousand words, this point may be lost on impressionable viewers.
- Many of these images are misogynistic and degrading to women, and this is by intentional design, since the pornographic genres they illustrate are misogynistic and degrading to women.[1] While it may be appropriate to display images depicting the degradation of women in certain historical or sociological contexts, its not appropriate to use them in what is at least a borderline "fanboy" context.
The Wikipedia community is overwhelmingly composed of single, childless white males;[2][dead link] yet Wikipedia is conceived as a reference work for the general population.
- ^ Gail Dines for example quotes veteran porn actor and producer Bill Margold as stating, "I'd like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that because they get even with the women they can't have." Gail Dines (1 July 2010). Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Beacon Press. p. xxiv. ISBN 9780807044520. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
- ^ Wikipedia Survey by the Wikimedia Foundation and the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT, a joint research and training centre of United Nations University (UNU) and Maastricht University. 24 March 2010.