The advertising art model and the internet police.

EMAIL #1:

Aubrey:

Personally I don't care whether I look at bare-breated photos online or not. Yours are pretty tasteful and attractive.

However. Are you aware that there are lots of kids who visit Craigslist and could easily run across your photos? I'm just old fashioned enough to feel they shouldn't be exposed.

So, I've flagged your posting and will again whenever I run across it

Email #2:
And also, Craigslist has a prohibition against posting more than one item featuring the same thing.

Flagged again.


My Reply:
Hello Tony,

Thank you for getting in touch with me. I am sorry that you were upset by my posts. I have been posting in the artist's community for about 4 years now and it is generally acceptable to post nude images there. I've not run into many problems with it since getting a verified craigslist account and you are the first to actually contact me about it.

I can completely understand your concerns about children being exposed to images way beyond their maturity level. However, being my images are tasteful nudes without explicit or sexually graphic material on par as what one would see in an art gallery, I don't feel it is an issue. That being said, every person has their own feelings about what crosses the line and I respect your right to have an opinion. Given the nature of craigslist, ie: communicating with strangers over the internet via email, children shouldn't actually be using it on their own without their parent's permission. It is basically the classified section of the internet. I believe you must be 18 to even sign up for a craigslist account or else craigslist would be liable for children being exposed to predators and inappropriate content. There isn't much a child could do on craigslist that wouldn't require a parent's permission, anyway. This includes buying, selling, getting a job and going to public events. A child definitely shouldn't be browsing the personals, probably won't be getting an apartment and there is often quite a bit of inappropriate talk in the discussion forums which include the posting of raunchy pictures and improper language. Craigslist is not a site for children.

I know things are different now, but rather than child-proofing the internet and restricting the use of adults on a site geared towards adults, parents should monitor what their children see and where their children go on the internet. I am almost 30. When the internet was new I was about 14 or 15. My parents used to sit next to me and monitor what I did while I was using it.

Given that the artist base for whom corsets and art nudes are different, I was attempting to target both groups with two posts. As odd as it may seem to some one who may not be involved with the internet modeling community, genres can be rather specialized. Some one looking for an art model to pose for their college class may not look twice at a post where a model is in a corset and would rather see the model doing standard "art" poses. On the other hand, some one who is looking to photograph vintage clothing would like to see images of the model int he corset. So this trip I experimented with two posts instead of trying to use one post to incorporate multiple themes. I was also concerned about whether this could be considered "multiple posting" also. Usually, if you do what craigslist considers to be multiple posts, it will physically stop you from posting. It give me the message that my posts were similar, so I considered it to comply with their terms. I considered this to be similar to a construction company who offered two services, such as roofing and plastering. This company would post one post to target the people who would like a new roof with picture examples and another to target people who were interested in plaster work with examples of their plastering skills. Then again, this might just be something I do this month depending on the response rate of diversifying the posts.

Thank you again for getting in touch with me about your concerns. Again, I respect your opinion and your right to flag me. I realize my reply will not change your opinion but I felt I should acknowledge your concerns and explain my side.

Sincerely,
Aubrey