Can We Cut It Out With The Racy Avatars?

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Kevan, I was ready to jump in, when it looked as if K.V. was going to get run over, but you said everything I wanted to say, much more elegantly than I ever could. Very well put.

We now live in a nation of cowards, afraid to offend, when no offense was meant. We bow to special interest groups when we damn well know that they are wrong. People are immediately judged by their actions, not by their intentions as was the case before P.C. became the norm.

I'm sure everyone on this board chose their avatar because they thought it represented them, something that was important to them, or just because it made them smile. How can that be bad?
 
Taylor-Perry

Good points. All of 'em. I agree with every single one. The one that got me was that this is a private forum. O.k. , I agree. No guidelines. Use the hide feature.
 
I'd like to meet the guy face to face! Yeah, that's right, face to face! (If just to shake his hand...lol)

Love your post(s) there Kev, rock on! :D

Damn, well now, that just about throws my whole damn 'All weomans should be clothed in burka's all of the times, Allah be praised' post right down the toilet now don't it... ;)

K.V.C...love the avatars, the missing burka's aside...lol

Mel
 
You know, once upon a time in America, it was just a normal thing for men to be interested in firearms. In the town where I grew up, the hardware store sold guns and ammunition and this was Southern California! (Not anymore, though...) Now, when people learn you like guns (or knives), they're practically handing you cards from psychiatrists! "You like guns?! Why?!" In some places, just eating meat is enough to get a crappy comment or response---"Meat is dead!" Yeah, well, so are those damned chunks of tofu, but I'm not over here insisting you eat meat, though you certainly look like you could stand to eat some.

Once upon a time in America, when a man asked a woman out on a date, if she wasn't interested, she said no. The National Organization for Women didn't get involved and call for the guy's cojones on a recycled paper plate for "sexual harrassment".

Once upon a time in America, people didn't go looking for BS hidden meanings behind every-frickin'-thing: "Oh, you used the word "niggardly"! Racist! Racist!!"

I remember a Hank Williams Jr. song that was titled "Coalition to Ban Coalitions". Ol' Hank Jr. was saying it best back in the 1980s, back when this PC BS should have first been recognized for the BS it is.

Well, I for one, want my country back.
 
OK..I've been searching our various Forums for the past hour and a half looking for the offending avatars...where are they??!!
 
to tell someone to tone down their avatars because you find offense in it is outright censorship.
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As I said in my first post, sometimes being part of a community means subordinating your won feeling to those of the community as a whole.

Here's a simple test: If your avatar was blown up to poster size, would it be ok to display it prominently on the outside of your house? (That's a dangerous test to suggest given the neighborhoods that I suspect that some of you live in, but you get the idea anyway.)

I would assume most men here have seen a semi-nude woman or women. Most men find the female body attractive, I think we can all agree on that.
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True, but there is a proper place and time for everything. What is acceptible at a shaker bar is not acceptible in a professional office environment and may even get someone fired.


So, the point is, how do we all get along?
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Again, in a community some members must sometimes subordinate their own desires. That's part of "living" in a community. Again, take this test: if your avatar was blown up poster-size, would be ok to put it up in the lunch room at your place of work? In a work community, it is often necessary for individuals to to subordinate their own personal desires.

Many years ago, I worked for a big company in which everyone in my group sat at desks in a big open room. In the back of the room, there was a little area with a sink and a microwave oven. And above the microwave was posted a memo from the boss forbidding microwave popcorn because it, "leaves an unprofessional odor in the area." This is, of course, as opposed to a "professional odor." But once you get over the humor of his wording, you realize what he's saying. In a community, it is sometimes necessary for individuals who desire popcorn to subordinate those desires for the greater good of the community.

So, in many cases, men that find themselves in the company of other men want to act like men.
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But everyone here is not a man.


Another point is, this is a private forum.
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It is NOT private. Most of it is very public. And the public at large will form their opinions about knives and knife knuts based on what they see here. Many of these people come here with predisposed stereotypes. And questionable pictures displayed all over the place only reinforces those stereotypes.

People often give me a hard time because I do wear a dress shirt and a tie a lot. But the fact is that people DO form opionions based on what they see. The old saying about "first impressions are lasting impressions" is true. You can say what you want to about how, "you shouldn't judge a book by its cover," but the fact is that people do. That's why book publishers put fancy jackets on books.

If a person has any interest in knives for any reason, they'll probably do an internet search. And with most search engines, one of the first sites that comes up is bladeforums.com. The general public comes here and looks. And they form their opinions about knives and the knife-community based on what they see here.

If you don't like the sterotypes that many people ascribe to knive knuts, they try not to live up to them.


The way I see it, the "hide" feature for the avatars is the solution.
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People who aren't registered see the Avatars. Go back and read may last few paragraphs again.

Furthermore, why should I have to give up a feature that I find useful just because a certain few members feel like their worth to the community, their contribution is putting up the hottest avatar-babe.


Over the years, I've gone to many tradeshows in various industries. In fact, I'm a bit of a tradeshow junkie. I've been known to con my way into tradeshows for industries that I have no professional involvement in just because I'm interested. What I've found is that the booths with the hottest booth-babes generally has the worst products. They know that their products suck, so they turn to booth-babes to try and get some attention. As the old saying goes, "Sex sells."

But what does sex sell?

The last tradeshow I conned my way into (actually went with a friend who is in the industry) was a threaded-fastener show. Threaded-fastener is a fancy word for screws and nuts and bolts and that sort of thing. I was absolutely amazed by some of these new self-locking fasteners that are coming out now. Amazing. But does sex sell washer and bolts? No. You may attract a bunch of sex-starved engineers. But if your fasteners suck, then when those engineers get back to their drawing boards and the scantily clad ladies are but a fond memory, they're still not going to design your fasterners into their products.

That's what I think about avatar-babes. They're a cheap ploy used by attention-starved people who can't make thoughtful or intelligent or helpful or humorous contributions that people will want to read, so they try to attract the attention they crave by putting up a picture of some woman that they've never met and who probably wouldn't give them the time of day if they did happen to take the same elevator one day.

It's bad for the image of the forum and bad for the image of the knife community. Those who insist on these avatars are putting their own desire for attention before the good of the community.
 
Originally posted by Gollnick
As I said in my first post, sometimes being part of a community means subordinating your won feeling to those of the community as a whole.

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Great, why don't people subordinate their desire to view BF at work or in front of their kids so that the community as a whole can post whatever avatar they like? Where does it end? perhaps signature lines mentioning balisongs should be banned because balisongs are illegal in most places and someone seeing the signature might get the wrong impression of the knife community (or an impressionable child might run out and break the law by buying a balisong)...

RL
 
Well, since you can only turn off avatars when cookies are enabled, and not all machines I use have that as a viable option, and others also do not have that as a viable option, I am stuck with them at least some times.

Solution: NOT.

Please allow me to correct a couple of apparent misconceptions about me. This is not about me being offended. I am not offended. Nor am I shocked nor surprised nor even very educated by any of the racy avatars I have seen. This is not about me thinking the female form is ugly or something to be ashamed of. My wife is beautiful regardless of what or how much she is wearing, but I will not be sharing her or any other women with any of you. My God already knows what each of these women looks like and everything they have ever done. I do not need to know any of this.

If any of you want to share these pictures with each other, that is your choice and I have no intention or even desire to stop you. I just wish that you would stop insisting that you share them with my family, friends, occassional coworker and every first time visiter that has clicked unawares on a thread where you have posted.

This is not really even about bikinis. Complete bikinis, worn anyways.... That and similar is unavoidable in today's world of Sunday ads as has been pointed out. I would prefer to avoid even that, but even I have to be realistic to some degree.

What kicked me over the edge into verboseness and apparent abrasiveness was the topless and apparently bottomless avatars which my most outspoken critics do not even seem to be employing. Do any of the pictures actually descend to official porn? I do not care. My standards for my children are tighter than porn, and many workplaces will find such images actionable as well. If you want my company or friendship you will not kick my dog, curse my wife or flash erotic pictures at my kids.
 
express yourself by wearing nose rings, blue hair, or women's underwear...(not that you do, or don't, but if you did, I wouldn't much concern myself with it)...

Avatars are just another method of self-expression...yet, and btw, and I've been meaning to mention it, yours offends me...seriously.

Oh my, what a quandry... ;)

Mel
 
I gotta' say that I saw one avatar today (not yours Colluci)that, for me, crossed the line - for THIS site. I thought it took avatars to "the next level" IMO. I'll bet most of the posters here know EXACTLY which one I'm talking about.
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What did I miss?:p
 
So I guess that close up of me sitting naked on the toilet is now out of the question? Dang! :cool:
 
3rdWound -

Apparently you didn't miss anything. I put the guy with the "over the line avatar" on my ignore list. End of story.

Just one thing to remember for everyone, including me, who agrees with all the points made by Taylor-Perry. The caveat is: Sooner or later, it's usually one guy who spoils it for everyone else.
 
Gollnick, so, then, sometimes the individual must subordinate his desires for the good of the comunity. "Desires"....hmmm...."desires"....such as, say, the desire to own semi-automatic fireams, handguns, and, yes, even Bali-song knives? Does the good of the community trump those personal liberties? The liberals say yes. I say no. When the community decides to come into peoples' lives and dictate to them what they may or may not own, say, or do (excepting murder, theft, and so forth), that is when the so-called "good of the community" becomes the tyranny of the community. When people are forced to "be good", they are deprived of choice and, thus, are merely "good" through contrived artifice due to the manipulations of the neo-puritans who see demons behind every tree (or avatar, as the case may be.) Let each have the freedom to choose. You may choose to dawdle upon the avatars, or you may scroll past them. If you wish to see even less of the female form, take your TV to the skeet range. For there are far worse things on nutwork TV.

Secondly, pray tell, why are people reading this forum at work when they should be working? That's why it's called "work" and not "full-tilt boogey-down party time". Easy way to keep co-workers from seeing the avatars: Work.

Lastly, as far as the average net surfer coming on here and forming icky-poo negative vibes about us based on those avatars, I can assure you of this: They have already formed those opinions prior to seeing them. Liberals are liberals because they're liberals. They get their opinions spoon-fed to them as pabulum from the likes of Mother Jones magazine and nothing they read here is going to alter those opinions. People who hate weapons do so out of their own hysteria. Not because of anything they read or saw here.
 
Well I had a long response....but then it got erased. Here's the short and simple:

I don't think these people are using their avatars as "ploys" to sell their opinions to anyone. They are there just to look at for those that do and to ignore for those that don't.

As KTP said...if you guys freak out about avatars, why not just change your TV to...oh any television station besides c-span. Theres far worse on television and your kids will ALWAYS find a way to go around that little bit of censorship you try to provide them unless you allow them to make the choices themselves. My parents let me have free roam on the internet and did stuff I shouldn't have when I was younger but I had enough self-control to not become overwhelmed in it like some of my friends did that were limited in access.

I'm not going to tell you how to raise your kids because I don't care, its not my business. There are far worse things out there than 100x100pixel avatars of semi-nude women.
 
Censorship aside, there's always shame. It's just that
these racy-avatar-types seem to have none.

Not the kind of fellows you'd like dating your sister...
 
Where does it end? perhaps signature lines mentioning balisongs
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...."desires"....such as, say, the desire to own semi-automatic fireams, handguns, and, yes, even Bali-song knives?
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This is a knife-discussion forum. People who come here come expecting mention of knives. Knives are the topic at hand.



Secondly, pray tell, why are people reading this forum at work when they should be working?
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Perhaps they're on break. But, even on break, you're still in the office and expected to maintain certain standards. If you want to look at scantily clad women over lunch, head out the the shaker joint. But don't bring it into the office where clients might see it.



They have already formed those opinions prior to seeing them... and nothing they read here is going to alter those opinions.
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Maybe not. But, sometimes when people who meet me in my suit coat and tie find out that I'm a knife collector and that I, in fact, even study knife fighting, they're surprised. I don't fit their pre-defined notions about what a knife knut should be. But the physical evidence is right in front of them: here is a nice guy who also happens to be a knife guy. And that's how prejudices are broken down.

Again, if you don't like the stereotypes and prejudices that people have about knife knuts, then at least don't try to live up to them.

We can't control what prejudices and stereotypes people might come here with, but we can control what image they leave here with.
 
I am having a problem with this subject on "racy" avatars 1st This is private forum not owned by the public.2nd Those who run it set the standards for posting. 3rd Nobody is forcing you to visit here,it is of your own volition. 4th If your worried that these tiny images are going to turn your children into raving sex maniacs you have failed as a parent. 5th If you are worried about your superiors or bosses seeing these avatars, Good! You are stealing from the company you are supposedly working for,very few of us have been hired to browse the knife forums for a living. and don't give me that worn old saw my work is finished, if it is move on to the next job.I do not have an avatar and don't feel I need one to participate here.It is no ones business but mine and the "owner" of the forum if it is acceptable by their standards, and to have a stranger tell me to "tone down"my avatar is like coming into my home as a guest and telling me the pictures on the wall offend your sensibilities and to cover them or take them down, you will have two imprints on your backside, one is the imprint of a boot the second is the imprint of the door knob from your speedy exit from my home. RANT OVER If I have offended someone I must have hit too close to home.
 
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