Kentucky State Fair removes ribbon-winning miniature after realizing it depicted a porn set

dantheclamman@lemmy.world to Not The Onion@lemmy.world – 561 points –
nypost.com
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If they actually removed it, and didn't have anything in the rules about topicality or humor, they suck and should be ridiculed

He got to keep his ribbons, he wasn't disqualified or anything and his other miniatures stayed up.

Some things can be expected not to work as a display in public.

Only people who know would know. I don't see the problem.

I think the problem is they don't want this to become a 'thing' with people trying to push the envelope further and further.

Somebody saw a problem and got it removed. Personally, I couldn't care less because the creator really should have seen this coming, at least as well as they saw them coming.

I mean, I bet that person has fun testing the fences and finding out exactly where the line is.

Eh, we have nude statues in public places, paintings too. Like, not in museums, in the open.

This model isn't even nsfw at all, it just references the subject of pornography, with one specific "genre" that's exemplified by a brand.

But, hey, they didn't penalize the maker, so it's all good to me :)

If you take a statue of a Naiad and have it stuck in a basement window or on it's knees gesturing with a cupped hand, or even with just torn pantyhose and handcuffs, you're probably going to get a lot of complaints.

There is tasteful and agreeable and it's a very blurry line into inappropriate but the line is there.

But are we obligated to submit to arbitrary judgements of appropriateness? And everything you described is arbitrary. I don't disagree people would whinge, (and I know this is diverging from the subject a little, but I believe it's still related), but how is that an obligation to bow to them?

Tasteful and agreeable are inherently subjective, and that makes them impossible to delineate in any universally equitable manner.

Personally, I don't even recognize the majority as being a metric to determine what is and isn't tasteful or agreeable.

I also reject the idea that something being sexual is inherently without taste or agreeableness, even when it verges into the pornographic. It comes down to "who says so?"

Who makes that moral decision for everyone else, and why should they be able to?

But are we obligated to submit to arbitrary judgements of appropriateness?

Yes. The public entity as a whole agrees on what is appropriate and what is not. If you don't like being a part of the public, then you've got every right to leave.

An event official for a state run organization at the fair made this call, likely after consulting with others and hearing complaints.

Ouch, you really went there?

"If you don't like being a part of the public, then you have every right to leave".

Praytell, how does one leave society currently? Other than suicide, since I doubt that's what you meant. If it was, then dude, you gotta check yourself. Which, what you said was bad enough without it being that, so you should check yourself anyway, since nobody can escape society at this point. There simply isn't anywhere that isn't under the authority of one country or another. But that's whatever.

But, you still don't seem to get that "the public as a whole" isn't unified. I certainly haven't agreed that a silly joke model is somehow inappropriate. I know for a fact I'm not alone in that, because other comments have said as much.

Are you saying that the officials are automatically correct in their judgement of what is and isn't agreed on by "the public"? Were the officials in question elected or appointed? What guidelines did they use to reach their decisions?

And, of equal import, if not greater, why should such a narrow and prudish opinion be the default? Because a vocal minority raised a fuss? That doesn't indicate a public agreement at all, it indicates the tyranny of the minority, and officials caving to it without actually consulting the public. Or did they consult the public in some way that isn't evident in the article? You may have information I don't. If that's the case, please do point me towards that.

What I'm saying is that the assumption that a given set of value judgements isn't right just because it happens to be what is common. Nor is a position of authority proof of rightness. That's simply proof of being given authority by someone. An elected official at least can claim majority authority, but an appointed one? Nah, that's specious at best. When that official is applying moral judgement, it needs a higher level of scrutiny.

This model is like hiding an adult joke, in a kid's show, for the parents. They probably would have only had a small amount of locals laugh a bit, maybe get a tiny amount of complaints from pearl clutchers. Now they have Stressand effected the piece. People all over the world now get to see it, and associate it with this local competition.

You know, in most places that legalized it, homosexuality was not seen as something that should be legal by the majority of the population. If we operated the way you propose, homosexuality would have still been a crime, in my country, from 1961, until 2003. If most of the population supports fascism, or a genocide, or slavery, etc. does it mean we should just fall in line?

This is a stupid take

Homosexuality is still a crime in some countries and if your plan is to go there and fuck in public to prove some kind of point then I strongly advise not to.

No point in proving one to someone who, apparently, won't understand it. I am talking about you, btw.

If you thought I would suddenly have an enlightenment about how obscenity doesnt actually exist in any context, you would go get yourself executed? Thats very brave of you, I guess...?

Thank you for proving the point of my last comment. You don't even know what point I was trying to make. You truly do not understand.

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There is no nudity in the miniature. It's an empty room. This is literally an "if you know, you know" situation.

Its an actual 1:1 faithful recreation of a porn set. Cheek prints and stain included.

I'm aware of what it is. Because I've seen porn. Like I said, it's an "if you know, you know" situation. If a kid sees this and knows what it is, that kid has seen porn. Otherwise, it's just a room.

Somebody who knew didn't like it and now people like you are filling up my inbox making a stink about it.

Whats your problem? Other people aren't allowed to be upset about things you like? Their feelings don't matter?

They're allowed to be as upset as they like. People get upset about all sorts of silly things. That doesn't mean they need to be catered to.

And what do you mean your inbox?

So you acknowledge their feelings but you wish them harm, got it.

What are you even talking about?

People are offended by statues of Martin Luther King, Jr. Should we take them down because those people are upset?

Tolerance for all except the intolerant. Porn sets aren't a protected class but keep ypur hopes up for the year 2412

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Ugh that just seems like fighting tightwaddery with more tightwaddery

Do we really need to put "no sex scenes" into the rules for a family friendly event?

What sex scenes? It's an empty room.

But the implication...

...is an implication you would only know if you had already seen porn. So where is the harm?

What sex scene? There isn't one.

What is in the model is, at most a reference to a type of porn, or a specific "brand" of porn.

The model doesn't include any images of any company producing porn, nor any signs visible in the pictures available that anything sexual happened. There's no jizz on the couch, in other words. Edit: there is the sweat stain though, which could be considered a post sexual stain, despite it not being inherently sexual. My couch has an ass shaped spot if I have to sit down after a shower before dressing.

This makes the model a bit of humor, maybe satire if you want to stretch the term satire far enough.

So, if the rules don't prohibit joke models, there's nothing about the model itself that's a problem for a "family friendly" event. Which, that term is getting a little damn old at this point, since it's being used as code for anti-drag arguments as well now. Which is off topic, but you might want to know the term is being coopted by bigots so you can decide if you want to avoid it or not.

Seriously, there is nothing explicit in that model. It references porn tropes, but in a way that the only way someone would know the reference is to have either enjoyed fake casting couch porn themselves, or have run into that trope in other ways (which, let's be real, chances of it being other ways approaches zero).

No kid is going to see this model and be harmed in any way whatsoever. Any kid that would get the joke is either old enough that it isn't a problem, or has way more important issues to be addressed.

So, yeah, if you don't want to allow even the most oblique references to adult subject matter, that needs to be in the rules.

So, if the rules don't prohibit joke models, there's nothing about the model itself that's a problem for a "family friendly" event. Which, that term is getting a little damn old at this point, since it's being used as code for anti-drag arguments as well now. Which is off topic, but you might want to know the term is being coopted by bigots so you can decide if you want to avoid it or not.

I really don't appreciate the insinuation that I'd be one to do that, but at least you said it was off topic. That was out of line. I'd appreciate it if you edited it out. I shouldn't even have to point this out but nothing about a man in a dress is inherently sexual. This model is a snapshot of a room that just finished filming a sex scene. Those are two wildly different things.

I was just musing about how content moderation rules are always easier when you allow for moderator discretion. I remember seeing a very compelling argument made by a moderator here a few weeks ago talking about how in their experience the ones always questioning where the rule they broke were the ones causing problems.

For the record, I don't really have any sort of problem with this model. I like it. I find it very creative and skillfully made. I just asked one question about how we should handle things that aren't explicitly against the rules and rather than talk about that you wanted to write me an essay about why this actually isn't sexual at all and even insinuate that I'm anti-drag.

Your reading comprehension is poor.

I said that you might want to reevaluate the use of one term because bigots are taking it over. This is not a new thing, but not everyone is aware of it. I assumed you aren't a bigot, but also weren't aware of them using the term "family values" as a dog whistle.

I just reread the quoted section three times. Being dyslexic, I thought maybe I messed up something, but tts and a non dyslexic human have verified what I said. I'm not sure how you arrived at the conclusion I was accusing you of anything. I said, "but you might want to know". That right there is the part that indicates I suspect you were unaware.

Seriously, lemmy leans heavily left. Enough so that I default to assuming that bigots are an extreme rarity here. I think I may have run across it a handful of times since the reddit exodus. I would apologize for the misunderstanding, but my dude, you taking what I said wrong is totally on you.

If you think I've misread something you can just say that instead of saying insulting things like "your reading comprehension is poor."

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The cheek prints on the cushion are an excellent touch.

The state fair are a bunch of turds. Art is meant to provoke.

The cheek prints makes me think the judges knew exactly what was happening here since they looked at it closely enough to give it an award. More likely is that some karen made a stink and they removed it to avoid the hassle.

A piece he described as a “creepy sex dungeon” was removed before judging last year.

Yeah, so this isn't this guy's first time pushing the envelope with the miniatures art.

It's official: Kentucky hates fun.

Edit: also, for those who don't want to give the New York Post any clicks- https://www.lpm.org/news/2024-08-21/kentucky-state-fair-removes-winning-miniature-depicting-pornography-set

But the miniature in the photo has a sign that says “Please do not touch.” So if all the miniatures had a sign like that, I don’t see what the problem would have been…

Poling added that “the guys” who may have been dragged to look at the miniature displays “got to enjoy a build that was meant specifically for them, in an area they might not otherwise be entertained.”

I mean.. he isn’t wrong..

15 years ago I did a school paper on the pros of psychoactive drugs, including a presentation in front of my class.

Nowadays I'd have to make a public YouTube video to stop the hate I'd receive. Or at least get kicked out of class.

Nobody really cared about stuff that wasn't affecting them.

Shoutout to the official who had to explain how they recognized this milquetoast office environment as "inappropriate"

I don't think I've ever actually watched casting couch porn but it is a fairly common cultural reference.

Did they somehow not see the camera blatantly on the desk, feeding an image to the monitor, directly of the couch? Did they not see the butt imprint on the couch? Even if they didn't recognize the set it was based on, it was pretty blatant.

Well, it might have been judged by elderly Kentuckians who haven't seen porn since it was shot on film, if ever. So I don't find it surprising they went "Wow, super detailed couch! Give this guy a prize!"

I would have assumed the Stanley parable.

Then Stanley spread his cheeks and waited...

Trying to control art defeats the purpose.