Bernadette Mcmenamin
Wikipedia has come under fire from some users and child protection advocates because its pages about masturbation and ejaculation also contain ‘graphic’ images and footage (see here and here).
Child Wise CEO Bernadette Mcmenamin told News Ltd that while she supports sex education, displaying sexualised images in a freely available online encyclopaedia ‘crosses the line’.
‘Do we really need to see a woman masturbating on Wikipedia? Do we really need to see so many seconds of ejaculation?’
When an encyclopaedia topic is about masturbation, they certainly aren’t unnecessary.
A patented device designed to prevent masturbation by inflicting electric shocks upon the perpetrator, by ringing an alarm bell, and through spikes at the inner edge of the tube into which the penis is inserted.
As touchy or shameful as the subject of sex might be for some people, no act of censorship is more despicable than the censorship of information directly related to our bodies and health.
Wikipedia doesn’t exist to cater to individual morals or ‘lines’, it’s for sharing knowledge. If the images and videos relate to the topic than they should remain, otherwise they can be removed just as unnecessary text is. They shouldn’t be removed just because a child might see them.
Australian Womens Forum ran into trouble just for trying to publish unedited images of the vagina in an article about cosmetic surgery. Despite it being a serious piece on women’s health, the OFLC said the photographs contained genital emphasis (well duuurh) and as such should be classified Category 1 Restricted (QLD stores unable to sell). The last thing we need is for the net to follow the same route (which it is under Senator Conroy’s plan).
Mcmenamin also said:
‘Does that mean that when you type in ‘murder’, you should actually see someone murdering someone else?’
I hate to be the one to break it to her, but images of real murder do exist on Wikipedia, just as they do in your local public library.
Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Viet Cong Captain Nguyen Van Lem: February 1, 1968. Photographer Eddie Adams.
Would Bernadette prefer this banned?
