…among others. But let’s concentrate on the First, shall we?
The Swiss Gymnastics Federation (STV) has now banned photographers from taking photos of female gymnasts like the one above of retired female gymnastics champ Gabrielle Douglas.
The association has imposed the ban on such “suggestive” photos to ensure that gymnasts can only be photographed in a way that focuses innocently on their poses and positions, not their bodies. “To protect gymnasts, the STV strives to ensure that no suggestive or otherwise ethically sensitive photos are published and passed on. Especially photos where gymnasts were photographed in the crotch,” STV states in its news guidelines. “The STV is aware that such photos can arise in action photography. However, publication should be avoided. The main concern of the STV is to sensitize the media professionals and to let common sense prevail.”
Oh! Common sense! For example, photographs of female gymnasts in a position showing their legs spread upwards, like Gabby above, will be banned, but this one
wouldn’t be. But this one would be banned, I assume:
Will it be forbidden for a reader to flip the picture over to turn the innocent, legal one into the illegal, salacious one? Why wouldn’t it be? For that matter, if sexually suggestive photos of athletes are unethical, why shouldn’t photos like this one…
…of high school pole-vaulter Allison Stokke, which made her an internet celebrity, be banned too? Or this one
…of pro golf sex symbol Paige Spirinac when she was a college champion? It’s all in the eye of the beholder, and censorious authorities always think that it’s their eyes that matter.
Naomi Kempter, an ethicist at STV, says the ban should have been imposed long ago to protect gymnasts from “sensitive images.” Ethics! An authority decides what images the public is allowed to see and an artist is allowed to create. “We wanted to send a signal that we no longer want such photos. It was high time for something like this,” Kempter said.
Gee, if you no longer want such photos, by all means make it impossible for those who do want such photos—like the gymnasts, their families and boyfriends?—can’t have them.
This year Japan introduced laws to criminalize exploitative “photo voyeurism,” with young athletes in revealing sporting attire in sporting events being the main target of the legislation. Germany is also taking measures to protect gymnasts and ensure that they are only photographed in certain poses and angles.
What is particularly hypocritical for this prohibition to arise in women’s gymnastics is that it is so hypocritical. The sports has exploited the sexualizing of the young women to expand its popularity and make the gymnastic lucrative for its athletes and its organizers. Now it’s saying, “Shame on you for having impure thoughts! It’s time for censorship.
I view this as a wonderful example to reflect on when the U.S. is being lectured about how all those other “civilized, democratic nations” prohibit “hate speech” and opinions the government or the majorities don’t want to have circulated. The United States made freedom of expression, including art and communication of all kinds, a core societal value, and the nation, and the world, have benefited from our citizens having that freedom. The other nations don’t get it; they didn’t before there was a United States, and they don’t now. Yet we are constantly told that the U.S. is out of step ethically, because “everybody (else) does it.”
But the Founders knew best.
Ethics Alarms 
If photographing these athletes in the sports uniforms they wear while competing (in other words, simply capturing what actual onlookers are seeing) is indecent, sounds like burkas should be required.
Jack: “ The sports has exploited the serializing of the young women…”
Sexualizing?
The whole thing is nuts.
The photo of Douglas is not sexualized. It is a perfect example of what is great about gymnasts. I could pose like a gymnast who just stuck the landing. To get a photo of me like the one in the post, I would need to have either a bunch wires (beforehand) or a neck brace (afterward).
What is great about that photo is that it takes precise athletic skill that most people lack.
And swimmers don’t dress that way to be sexualized. It is all geared toward swimming faster.
These people simply do not understand the things they want to regulate.
But, that is probably the problem with all censors.
-Jut
One of my better typos. yes, fixed.
“But, that is probably the problem with all censors.”
Bingo!
A female gymnast doing the splits upside down in midair while leaping from and landing on a balance beam is about 12 orders of magnitude more impressive than a female gymnast doing a split on a mat.
They are trying to ban photos of the actually impressive feats of female gymnasts. Anyone who looks at that photo and sees sexualization instead of a truly amazing feat of balance, strength, grace, and athleticism is a pervert. Why are we letting perverts make the rules? Why does a pervert get to erase an impressive feat of real female athleticism because it gives their special place the jigglies? When did society decide to let malign freaks make all the rules? I am so sick of the freaks calling the shots.
Null Pointer wrote, “When did society decide to let malign freaks make all the rules?”
Seriously?
Haven’t you been paying attention to what’s happening in the USA and the world around us? There are epidemic levels of absurdities infecting our world!!!
Maybe put female athletes in burkas. That should solve the problem and make the STV happy.
That picture of Spiranac is one of the least risque you’ll find….
I was looking for 1) a college shot and 2) one actually showing her playing golf. By the Swiss Gymnastics standards, there ARE no shots of Paige that aren’t risque.
There’s a certain amount of skill, actually a great deal, in capturing anything fast moving. It’s a lot more difficult than it looks to capture, say, the Blue Angel or Thunderbird soloists at the precise moment they do a knife-edge pass or similar maneuver. I’ve been shooting airshows for nine years and I only started to be able to hit that shot last year. It’s also harder than it looks to capture dueling knights or catch a line of Revolutionary War soldiers at the precise moment they fire their muskets. Capturing a flipping gymnast at exactly the right moment is at least as hard as these things, maybe harder. This is the kind of shot that’s designed to show off not only the skill of the photographer, but the skill or wonder of the subject. It’s kind of an insult to both subject and photographer to describe these images as suggestive, leave alone try to ban them, and reflective of small-mindedness on the part of censors, sometimes I wonder how they got the job to begin with.
This is the same garbage that started a decade ago in NJ when some idiot proposed a bill that would outlaw photographing children except one’s own. Yes, we don’t want creeps photographing kids in a state of undress to do whatever with later, but the way the law was worded it would also make it illegal to photograph a parade or a public building if there were children in the background. That was criminalizing ordinary behavior, and why the bill went nowhere. This is criminalizing a profession and depriving photographers of the ability to earn a living.
While I agree that the Swiss Gymnastics Federation (STV) banning of various photo angles is absurd, I view their actions as a dodge. The Swiss, German, British, and US gymnastic programs and governing boards have all been embroiled in various sexual, physical, and emotional abuse scandals in recent years. The abuse, particularly of female children, goes back decades. To think that the governing boards or even the parents knew absolutely nothing of any abuse defies belief. This action is just a coverup and deflection away from their prior negligent oversight.
Jack, your recent post “Not This Issue Again! Arrest These Parents for Child Endangerment, Please” could be ranked as insignificant when compared to an entire multibillion-dollar global industry that is totally dependent on the exploitation of child athletes. Gymnasts, particularly female gymnasts, start their serious training in their pre-teen years. They sacrifice their childhood and health, both physical and mental in many cases, for the amusement and financial benefit of adults. Everyone from media executives down to the parents of these children should be ashamed of themselves. The governing boards of these sports need to have their regulations overhauled to prevent the exploitation and abuse of children by the practitioners of the sport.
Most, if not all, Olympic athletes start serious training in their pre-teen years. The same argument would apply to all the sports and athletes who participate in the Olympics. There might be one or two categories of sports that don’t require intensive practice from an early age, but my guess is that is more due to lack of spotlight on those sports leading to less money and prestige.
NP
I do not dispute what you say regarding other sports. However, just because people in multiple sports do it does not make it right. Additionally, I don’t know that sports really “require” intensive practice from an early age. I would argue that it isn’t a requirement, but it is a choice, and a preteen does not have the cognitive ability or maturity to make an informed choice. They are relying on adults to make decisions for them. I find it hard to believe that those adults who go the route of extensive training of preteens are doing it because it is in the best interest of the child.
I did not mean to imply that the ubiquity of the behavior excused it. I was merely observing that your point would render the treatment of most Olympic athletes unethical. Gymnastics is not unique in the pressures placed on the young who want (or have parents who want) to someday compete at an Olympic level. Everything from figure skating to swimming requires extreme time commitments and total devotion to the sport from a very young age.
Sports like water polo or race walking might not carry quite the burden of skiing or gymnastics simply because they are less popular, and have less people interested in competing for those top slots. Most of the more popular competitions, however, suffer from the same patterns that affect gymnastics. They require people to decide as young children to give up normal childhood and teenage lifestyles in order to spend all their time practicing, traveling for competitions and qualifying for the Olympic Games.
Jack wrote, “The United States made freedom of expression, including art and communication of all kinds, a core societal value, and the nation, and the world, have benefited from our citizens having that freedom. The other nations don’t get it; they didn’t before there was a United States, and they don’t now.”
Anything that is considered a core value of the USA is being intentionally undermined both here and abroad. You can’t effectively tear it down an entire culture without first demonizing every foundational concept that has supported it. The status quo of cultural values that have been typical found in the USA have been under attack since 2008. We are in the midst of a culture war.
Jack wrote, “Yet we are constantly told that the U.S. is out of step ethically, because “everybody (else) does it.””
When indoctrinated people are consumed by the kind of utopian thinking that caused John Lennon to write this…
Awww, isn’t that nice. Now let’s all simply kowtow to the world’s totalitarian utopians so we can be a carbon copy, just like them. It’s blind, cultish, tunnel visioned thinking that completely disregards reality.
I think everyone knows by now that an Orwellian Big Brother is coming to the USA to tell us what we can think, say and do. The totalitarians have already got the foot of their indoctrinated jack-booted thugs in the door and it’s just a matter of time before the whole freedom thing comes crashing down with an epic thud heard round the world and the pure persecution and ugliness of totalitarianism rises up with thunderous applause from the ignorant masses of sheeple.
Jack wrote, “But the Founders knew best.”
The totalitarians would say that anyone saying that must be one of those evil “boomers”.
Fuck totalitarians and anyone that chooses to enable them.
P.S. I found it very refreshing spending the last week+ in the political fly-over states of North and South Dakota talking to some rural American locals. Will that pissed off rural silent majority use their voice and overcome what seems to be eminent?