You'll have an easier time convincing me that I'm mistaken if you don't in one minute claim how much you hate debating semantics and then turn around the next minute and claim that your interpretation of how words work is "Linguistics 101".
Again I say: It is a mistake to assume that your sampling of humanity is an accurate representation of a true majority of people in general. If I were to poll the aforementioned adult bookstore for opinions of the cover, I'd be foolish to assume that's a true cross-section of the population at large. Likewise, judging a feminist-leaning group of sites as representing the national zeitgeist is equally misguided.
I would suggest the onus is not on me to produce a poll, however, since I am not the challenger in this case. That honor belongs to those who state that the cover is "porn". Because, to recap (as I saw done on some other blog somewhere):
MARVEL: Hey, here's a cover!
FANGIRLS: EEEWWW that's PORN!
MARVEL: What? No it's not.
It's the feminists making the accusation; they have the obligation to prove the charge.
To date, the evidence that "proves" the cover is porn amounts to "I think it is, and so do all these other people."
Although you kind of dismissed the point, the fact that the cover could not be legally prosecuted as being porn aimed at kids suggests to me that the larger world (and the people who define its laws) doesn't see it as porn. If laws are (theoretically, at least) representative of the majority opinion of the populace, the cover just ain't porn.
BUT! If that indeed does not matter (and I suspect that it really does matter - "porn" can be a charged word, used for derogatory effect, and if the word wasn't important, there'd be no need to use that one word over some other more appropriate terminology), and the real point is that the cover is bad for kids, then we should go back to what I said before, and I quote:
The only people who are going to associate the Heroes for Hire cover with "tentacle rape" are those who actually know what "tentacle rape" is. I was 12 in 1978, when manga had not made significant inroads into the U.S. and there was no World Wide Web. Had I seen that cover then, I would not have seen it as imminent rape, but as "uh-oh, monsters!" It may well be true that 12-year-olds today are able to more easily see things like tentacle rape and therefore get the reference that the cover makes - but at that point, one could argue that the damage has already been done. It's near impossible to un-know something. If a 12-year-old already knows what tentacle rape is, is the HfH cover going to add anything significant to that knowledge? If they don't, is the cover going to magically implant that connotation in their heads?
In light of that, what harm comes from kids seeing the cover? If the link to "tentacle rape" does not exist, or is rendered moot by previous exposure, then what is left is the "sexist" attributes of the picture, such as the submissive faces and postures - which I will concede do not portray the characters in a favorable, admirable light so as to provide a beneficial example for young girls - but these are no more harmful than the same things shown in mass media of all sorts. And that may certainly be something to protest and strive against, but does not make the HfH cover exceptional in that regard.
no subject
Again I say: It is a mistake to assume that your sampling of humanity is an accurate representation of a true majority of people in general. If I were to poll the aforementioned adult bookstore for opinions of the cover, I'd be foolish to assume that's a true cross-section of the population at large. Likewise, judging a feminist-leaning group of sites as representing the national zeitgeist is equally misguided.
I would suggest the onus is not on me to produce a poll, however, since I am not the challenger in this case. That honor belongs to those who state that the cover is "porn". Because, to recap (as I saw done on some other blog somewhere):
MARVEL: Hey, here's a cover!
FANGIRLS: EEEWWW that's PORN!
MARVEL: What? No it's not.
It's the feminists making the accusation; they have the obligation to prove the charge.
To date, the evidence that "proves" the cover is porn amounts to "I think it is, and so do all these other people."
Although you kind of dismissed the point, the fact that the cover could not be legally prosecuted as being porn aimed at kids suggests to me that the larger world (and the people who define its laws) doesn't see it as porn. If laws are (theoretically, at least) representative of the majority opinion of the populace, the cover just ain't porn.
BUT! If that indeed does not matter (and I suspect that it really does matter - "porn" can be a charged word, used for derogatory effect, and if the word wasn't important, there'd be no need to use that one word over some other more appropriate terminology), and the real point is that the cover is bad for kids, then we should go back to what I said before, and I quote:
In light of that, what harm comes from kids seeing the cover? If the link to "tentacle rape" does not exist, or is rendered moot by previous exposure, then what is left is the "sexist" attributes of the picture, such as the submissive faces and postures - which I will concede do not portray the characters in a favorable, admirable light so as to provide a beneficial example for young girls - but these are no more harmful than the same things shown in mass media of all sorts. And that may certainly be something to protest and strive against, but does not make the HfH cover exceptional in that regard.