The Queer Past Gets Deleted on eBay | Hacker News Reader

The Queer Past Gets Deleted on eBay

newyorker.com

23 pointsxrd7 comments

Previous discussion was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342431

I would offer a defence of the New Yorker's slightly NSFW content here. With it they're slightly breaking the same taboo that has led to all this content being purged from eBay. I suppose it makes argument that it's of historical and artistic significance despite its explicitness. Most of early LGBT cultural artifacts are, perhaps unsurprisingly, heavily sexualized with no clear professional/nonprofessional boundary as we might see it today. And so it all goes on the ban list. From the porn, to the personal ads, to the interviews, op eds, advertisements, and news too. Because they were all bound up together in the likes of Drummer magazine.

Nice article for the weekend, I think. While the thing that offends me most° is that dudes in jeans made the cover of this leather magazine, I do think that a NSFW tag is appropriate for art like this, and for example, Courbet's "Origin of the World". Not that I'm a prude, just, I don't want somebody to get fired for clicking the wrong link.

° tongue firmly in cheek

" The rival bidder was being paid to find erotic books on eBay and destroy them."

Who's funding that?

it's not often that I can click a newyorker.com link and be greeted by a ball-sack screen-centre.

eBay's guidelines from [0] says what they allow and don't allow for this category.

From [0]

> Why does eBay have this policy?

> We want to make adult items available to those who wish to purchase them and can do so legally, while preventing those who do not wish to view or purchase these items from easily accessing them.

Do I also use the same 'private platform argument' here as well?

[0] https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-ite...

Private platform for thee, but not for me!

I don't see where the article is saying that?

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