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 Grot 6 wrote:
Sci-Fi and Fantasy was born from the likes of Boris, Franzetta, and the pages of Heavy Metal, Eerie, Weird tales, comic books by Stan Lee,Bob Kane, Robert Kanigher, Garth Ennis, Todd Mcfarlane, Joe Kubert etc,,,.

Hum what?
Citing Todd McFarlane or Garth Ennis as the inventors of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, really?
I mean, they ARE influential, but both Sci-Fi and Fantasy were very well established when their started their careers. You ought to name Jules Verne or Tolkien.

 Grot 6 wrote:
The slave reference is good. You need them, or the effect of, "These guys are slave raiders, who will as easily skin you alive and laugh at you for fun while you writhe around in agony, then they get powered by it..."

Okay, then were are the male slaves in bikini going out of their way to show off their bottoms and nice chiseled abs, in submissive positions?

 Grot 6 wrote:
When Robert E. Howard wrote Conan, Red Sonja, or the rest, Edger Rice Burroughs writing Tarzan, John Carter, or When Jules Vern wrote 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, or H.P. Lovecraft wrote about the Cthuhlu mythos, they all had no idea that someone was going to come behind them and complain that there was social injustice because they didn't write in enough wuss into the characters and get them all in touch with their feminine side. Nudity and violence is visceral, and raw. They go hand in hand with scifi and fantasy like peanut-butter and jelly.

If you quote Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft to illustrate how nudity and visceral, raw violence goes hand to hand with sci-fi and fantasy, I doubt you read either. Seriously, Verne stories were moralistic books for young readers. All the “morally correct” (for the time) stuff in L'Île mystérieuse became rather tedious to read tbh.
Verne should definitely be the last author you would quote to illustrate your point of unpolitically correct, immoral, violent Sci-Fi designed for adults.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Okay, then were are the male slaves in bikini going out of their way to show off their bottoms and nice chiseled abs, in submissive positions?

I'm guessing because the slaver in question is probably not into the male physique.
There is a severe lack of naked or half-naked males of both chiseled and less muscular variety on the market, though. I tried making a pleasure barge for a Vampire Baroness once, and let me tell you, it's damn near impossible to find suitable miniatures for that.

Still, I can't really fault creators to make what they want to create or feel will sell, especially not when it's practically a hobby operation for most manufacturers.

Sexualization of something is in the eye of the beholder. Nothing has an inherent sexual attribute to it.

A human body has nothing sexual about it. A finger is as "sexual" as a vagina. What makes a body part sexual is the person observing the subject.

This concept is such a simple one, yet, most people either never realize it, or scoff at it without giving it a thought.

For example... I'm a nurse, and I wash private areas all night long. I hand wash butts and breasts and vaginas, but I do not get "sexually" aroused because I, ME, do not find those body parts on those women sexual. Same reason why Doctors don't get hard ons or get wet while operating on a naked body. But if I see my gf's body, I get sexually aroused.

I sexual the subject I view. They are not sexual themselves.

This is why you have certain groups of people FORCE their concepts of what is sexual on other, and other people scratch their heads in confusion.

There are tons of examples of this.... Most people don't sexualize dogs, but some people, do. We can both look at the same dog, but she will get aroused and not me, because what is sexual about that dog is in her head and mine, not inherent to the dog itself. Same for corpses, young kids, feet, couches, car mufflers, etc....

So when an artist creates a nude figure, it is just a piece of art with no inherent sexual attribute. Most of us will paint the figure and use it, but we aren't going to pleasure ourselves over it... Until one person sees the figure, finds it offensive, then decides for the rest of society that the figure is too sexual for all human beings.

One human is forcing their sexual feelings of an object/subject and projecting that onto everyone else.

It's like, if a woman finds a couch sexually attractive, but feels that being sexually attracted to the couch is evil, so she gets couches banned from IKEA.

A nude figure is nothing more than that, a nude figure. Heck, you can be sexually aroused by feet, or hands, or elbows and not breasts or a penis. You're gonna ban a figure because it isn't wearing shoes, and you can't stop getting wet around The Hobbit line of Hobbit figures?

So in my OPINION, and from what research I've done over the years, sexuality is not an attribute of the subject/object, but of the observer's mind/body, and when you censor something based on sexuality, you are forcing your view of sexuality on all other human beings.

Trying to ban nudity because you're offended by it is silly. It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't. If you don't want to buy naked minis, don't. It really is that simple.

 BuFFo wrote:
So when an artist creates a nude figure, it is just a piece of art with no inherent sexual attribute.

No, this is absolutely not true at all. A nude figure is not necessarily sexual, but nude figures often are sexual. There is lots of artistic pornography where the poses/props/setting/etc all scream "THIS IS ABOUT SEX", and even a casual observer can immediately tell that the point of the piece is to communicate sexual ideas. And when we contrast that pornography with, say, the statue of David, we can see a pretty obvious difference between the two. Obviously there are some gray areas involved, but in the case of a lot of the models people often object to it's very clearly a piece where the artist is presenting something sexual.

And I say this as an artist who has done both sexual nudity and non-sexual nudity. If you can't figure out that the sexual stuff is sexual without going into a detailed investigation of the viewer's psychology then either you're a terrible art critic, or I'm a shameful failure as an artist.

and when you censor something based on sexuality, you are forcing your view of sexuality on all other human beings.

Nobody is censoring anything here. You would have a point if, say, people were suggesting that companies who make sexy miniatures should be prosecuted under obscenity laws, but that is simply not happening. Telling a company that you don't like their products is not censorship.


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 Vulcan wrote:
Trying to ban nudity because you're offended by it is silly. It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't. If you don't want to buy naked minis, don't. It really is that simple.

I expect you to be consistent in this principle and never, under any circumstances, criticize the products a company chooses to sell. Don't like GW's latest space marine kit for whatever reason? Too bad, vegetarians and steakhouses.

 Korraz wrote:
I'm guessing because the slaver in question is probably not into the male physique.

As you mention, none seems to.
At that point, maybe we should ask ourselves why…

 BuFFo wrote:
This concept is such a simple one, yet, most people either never realize it, or scoff at it without giving it a thought.

Nah, it's just that you are mixing stuff up. The fact some people are not aroused in strip clubs doesn't meant that strip tease and lap dance aren't explicitly sexual stuff. They are sexual. The fact some people are aroused by naked anatomy illustrations doesn't meant those are sexual. They are not.
People are way better at doing the difference between one or the other than you give them credit for. For instance, that's why children get to see Kirikou, a cartoon full of women going entirely topless, but won't (normally) see sexual cartoons even when there is no explicit nudity on screen. Or that's how clips like this don't get censored off Youtube, while erotic video with the same level of nudity would.
Now that we have shown that people are completely able to make the distinction between sexual nudity and non-sexual nudity when they are not arguing in bad faith (i.e. not to pretend “You are censoring that perfectly non-sexual depiction of a woman in a pose

I think there is a big mix between sexualization used here to describe both the Stylization used to enhance the visual difference between male and female models and the concept of making models sexual.

Both can coexist together witch enhances the confusion.

 Peregrine wrote:

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 Vulcan wrote:
Trying to ban nudity because you're offended by it is silly. It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't. If you don't want to buy naked minis, don't. It really is that simple.

I expect you to be consistent in this principle and never, under any circumstances, criticize the products a company chooses to sell. Don't like GW's latest space marine kit for whatever reason? Too bad, vegetarians and steakhouses.

I don't get how these are connected, he didn't say don't criticize, he said stop trying to enforce a ban on things you do not like.

 Vulcan wrote:
It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't.[…] It really is that simple.

Nope, it's not. I don't want to launch a discussion on vegetarianism in here, but no, it's certainly not that simple. We all agree that some actions are harmful and immoral and that they should be forbidden (say, for instance, murder, torture, …). We don't stop at not doing it ourselves. There are other actions that we just don't want to do ourselves but wouldn't want to forbid other to do. Where to place the cursor is not always as clear as you make it. Some people consider eating meat to be among the actions that are harmful and immoral enough that they should be forbidden. You can talk it out with them, or you can, for the moment pretty safely, ignore them, but you can't pretend it's “just that simple”.

Everyone has the right to be offended.

And I have the right to not care.

However, cheesecake models aren't any use to me. I prefer "realistic" armor.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

As you mention, none seems to.
At that point, maybe we should ask ourselves why…

Probably because
A) The sculptors didn't feel like sculpting scantily clad manhunks
or
B) They didn't feel like the volume they could sell would warrant the production
or a combination of the two. More often than not it's going to be A) though.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

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 Vulcan wrote:
Trying to ban nudity because you're offended by it is silly. It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't. If you don't want to buy naked minis, don't. It really is that simple.

I expect you to be consistent in this principle and never, under any circumstances, criticize the products a company chooses to sell. Don't like GW's latest space marine kit for whatever reason? Too bad, vegetarians and steakhouses.

I don't get how these are connected, he didn't say don't criticize, he said stop trying to enforce a ban on things you do not like.

They are connected because Vulcan somehow equates criticism with banning or censorship. The ban argument seems to only come from the "anti censorship" side who overreact to criticism with slipper slope arguments. Who's for banning stuff? Who would even have the power to actually do this?

As far as I have seen here people want more diversity and variety and they say so repeatedly because companies don't serve them adequately (customer feedback). Companies, of course, can chose what to do (if they read these type of discussions). It's not censorship just because some people don't like your product. One might as well accuse the Dakkadakka community as trying to censor GW products all the time just because people don't like some of their stuff (WHFB -> AoS transition, rules writing, some aesthetic choices). And that would be ridiculous.

Mario wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

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 Vulcan wrote:
Trying to ban nudity because you're offended by it is silly. It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't. If you don't want to buy naked minis, don't. It really is that simple.

I expect you to be consistent in this principle and never, under any circumstances, criticize the products a company chooses to sell. Don't like GW's latest space marine kit for whatever reason? Too bad, vegetarians and steakhouses.

I don't get how these are connected, he didn't say don't criticize, he said stop trying to enforce a ban on things you do not like.

They are connected because Vulcan somehow equates criticism with banning or censorship. The ban argument seems to only come from the "anti censorship" side who overreact to criticism with slipper slope arguments. Who's for banning stuff? Who would even have the power to actually do this?

As far as I have seen here people want more diversity and variety and they say so repeatedly because companies don't serve them adequately (customer feedback). Companies, of course, can chose what to do (if they read these type of discussions). It's not censorship just because some people don't like your product. One might as well accuse the Dakkadakka community as trying to censor GW products all the time just because people don't like some of their stuff (WHFB -> AoS transition, rules writing, some aesthetic choices). And that would be ridiculous.

but it is understandable, one woman was incensed about some breaking bad figs for sale at TRU for adult collectors and got them removed from the store, just because she had a stick up her bum about it.

Asterios wrote:
but it is understandable, one woman was incensed about some breaking bad figs for sale at TRU for adult collectors and got them removed from the store, just because she had a stick up her bum about it.

And? She didn't force the manufacturer to stop selling them or ban people from buying them. And at no point was government intervention (aka real censorship) a concern. I fail to see the problem with a retail store determining that appealing to one market is more profitable than appealing to a different market.


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 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I don't get how these are connected, he didn't say don't criticize, he said stop trying to enforce a ban on things you do not like.

And guess what is also "enforcing a ban on things you do not like": telling GW to stop making more space marine kits and work on new Cadian sculpts. Or telling GW to stop selling AoS and go back to WHFB. Etc.

Mario wrote:
They are connected because Vulcan somehow equates criticism with banning or censorship. The ban argument seems to only come from the "anti censorship" side who overreact to criticism with slipper slope arguments. Who's for banning stuff? Who would even have the power to actually do this?

It's because in general criticism also often comes from the people who want stuff banned or are demanding change rather than just politely suggesting it.

Who would actually have the power to do it? If the groups wanting stuff banned are loud enough they might persuade stores to stop carrying certain stock, they might persuade artists to stop selling it, they might even convince governments to enforce it.

It's not a slippery slope argument, it's cause and effect, stupid stuff gets banned all the time, you can look across the globe and see the entire spectrum of censorship. The forum suggests you are posting from Germany, Germany bans lots of stuff all the time, usually violent in nature rather than sexual, but a lot of stuff that's considered fine in the rest of the western world you won't find on shelves in Germany.

There's lots of people out there who don't just simply not like something, they don't like that you do like it and want to stop you from being able to enjoy that something.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If the groups wanting stuff banned are loud enough they might persuade stores to stop carrying certain stock, they might persuade artists to stop selling it, they might even convince governments to enforce it.

So what? If a store finds that one group of customers makes more money than another group I really fail to see the problem with catering to the first group. If an artist finds that making non-sexual models gives them more income than making sexy models then why should they make the sexy ones? As far as I can see this is just another group of people who are afraid that they aren't a profitable enough market trying to silence the voices of people who they disagree with.

And no, nobody is getting governments to enforce a supposed "ban" on sexy miniatures. Perhaps this is an issue in other situations, but it's not at all one that has been raised in this context.

 Peregrine wrote:

Asterios wrote:
but it is understandable, one woman was incensed about some breaking bad figs for sale at TRU for adult collectors and got them removed from the store, just because she had a stick up her bum about it.

And? She didn't force the manufacturer to stop selling them or ban people from buying them. And at no point was government intervention (aka real censorship) a concern. I fail to see the problem with a retail store determining that appealing to one market is more profitable than appealing to a different market.

what about the Bay Area where you no longer get toys in kids meals? or get a nice piping hot cup of coffee from places anywhere?

Asterios wrote:
what about the Bay Area where you no longer get toys in kids meals?

That is arguably an issue, but not one that is relevant here. Selling stuff to kids is subject to more regulations than selling to adults, and it is not at all plausible that we are going to see a government ban on selling sexy miniatures to adults.

or get a nice piping hot cup of coffee from places anywhere?

You can still get hot coffee.

Usually though it is not a shop or an artist finding X loud voiced group will support them but that X loud voiced group turns away their customers and does not support them when they cave to their demands.

The subject is always complex and complicated I am weary of simplistic explanations.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Trying to ban nudity because you're offended by it is silly. It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't. If you don't want to buy naked minis, don't. It really is that simple.

I expect you to be consistent in this principle and never, under any circumstances, criticize the products a company chooses to sell. Don't like GW's latest space marine kit for whatever reason? Too bad, vegetarians and steakhouses.

Absolutely correct. If it's not to my taste, I don't buy it. Period. Whining about it on the internet never changed anything. Case in point: Age of Sigmar. I can't stand it, so I didn't buy it. If you like it, more power to you. I've moved on to 9th Age, which is more to my taste.

In the end, there's only one way to change how a business does business from the outside. That's to NOT patronize the business while it's doing what you don't like. If enough people do so, the business either changes, or goes out of business.

Needless to say, it doesn't always work. If there are plenty of OTHER people who DO like what the business is doing (or just plain don't care), the business won't care that YOU no longer patronize them.

 Peregrine wrote:

Asterios wrote:
what about the Bay Area where you no longer get toys in kids meals?

That is arguably an issue, but not one that is relevant here. Selling stuff to kids is subject to more regulations than selling to adults, and it is not at all plausible that we are going to see a government ban on selling sexy miniatures to adults.

or get a nice piping hot cup of coffee from places anywhere?

You can still get hot coffee.

actually in the Bay area they banned toys in kids meals because they said it caused kids to want the happy meals and such and gain weight, all because parents don't know how to say no, so yes it is very relevant, if they can ban toys from kids meals because of weak and inadequate parents, they can ban anything.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Usually though it is not a shop or an artist finding X loud voiced group will support them but that X loud voiced group turns away their customers and does not support them when they cave to their demands.

The subject is always complex and complicated I am weary of simplistic explanations.

But the point is that it's still not censorship. It's a business/artist/whatever making their own choices about what is best, not a government forcing them to comply with a rule. The people complaining about sexy miniatures only have power as long as the targets of their attention are willing to listen to them. If an company says "we're going to make sexy miniatures no matter how much you hate them" then the complainers are absolutely powerless. The company will make sexy miniatures, and people who want sexy miniatures will buy them.

So, again, it all comes down to "shut up, I'm afraid you're going to persuade people to do something I don't like".

 Peregrine wrote:

or get a nice piping hot cup of coffee from places anywhere?

You can still get hot coffee.

Just not hot enough to cause third degree burns in seconds, if we're referencing the infamous lawsuit.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
It's the equivalent of trying to ban steakhouses because you're a vegetarian and offended by the idea of ANYONE eating meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't.[…] It really is that simple.

Nope, it's not. I don't want to launch a discussion on vegetarianism in here, but no, it's certainly not that simple. We all agree that some actions are harmful and immoral and that they should be forbidden (say, for instance, murder, torture, …). We don't stop at not doing it ourselves. There are other actions that we just don't want to do ourselves but wouldn't want to forbid other to do. Where to place the cursor is not always as clear as you make it. Some people consider eating meat to be among the actions that are harmful and immoral enough that they should be forbidden. You can talk it out with them, or you can, for the moment pretty safely, ignore them, but you can't pretend it's “just that simple”.

Oh, we're going to get into morality, are we?



Here's my definition of immoral: Someone ELSE is hurt in some way, shape, or form. Anything else doesn't matter.

Is someone hurt by murder, rape, arson, robbery, burglary, petty theft, or even just being a jerk on the internet? Yes.

Is someone hurt in a consensual sexual relationship? No. Even if they are both the same sex.

Is someone hurt by eating a hamburger? Certainly not the person COMPLAINING about someone eating a hamburger.

Is someone hurt by tiny tin or plastic boobs? Nope.

There's my definitions and I live by them. You are free to disagree; I'll not try to force you to change your mind (that would be doing you harm).

Now please grant me the same respect.

Asterios wrote:
actually in the Bay area they banned toys in kids meals because they said it caused kids to want the happy meals and such and gain weight, all because parents don't know how to say no, so yes it is very relevant, if they can ban toys from kids meals because of weak and inadequate parents, they can ban anything.

No they can't ban anything. This is not a representative case for two reasons:

1) The toys in fast food meals were open to banning because they were marketing to children. Like it or not when you're selling products for young children you're subject to more regulation than if you're selling to adults. Miniatures, especially sexy miniatures, are intended for adults (or at least older children) and do not face the same level of regulation.

2) The fast food toys were banned for a legitimate health reason. Fast food is indisputably bad for you, and we have a well-established precedent of restrictions on how harmful things can be marketed (see alcohol and tobacco marketing rules). But no such issue exists with sexy miniatures. You can argue all you want over whether they're a good thing or not, but there is no plausible claim that they are physically harmful (unless they're lead miniatures, but that's a manufacturing issue, not an artistic one).

Finally, let me remind you that it is indisputably legal for adults to buy hardcore pornography. There is absolutely no chance of the government banning the sale of sexy miniatures to adults.


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 Vulcan wrote:
Is someone hurt by eating a hamburger? Certainly not the person COMPLAINING about someone eating a hamburger.

Sigh. Even if you don't agree with the argument it's pretty obvious that the vegetarian argument against meat is that someone is harmed. Their claim is that the animals killed for meat are worthy of being counted when we're talking about who is harmed.

Is someone hurt by tiny tin or plastic boobs? Nope.

And here is where we disagree. Sexy miniatures are part of some rather harmful attitudes towards women. It may be a small part compared to other things, but it's still harm.

 Peregrine wrote:

Asterios wrote:
what about the Bay Area where you no longer get toys in kids meals?

That is arguably an issue, but not one that is relevant here. Selling stuff to kids is subject to more regulations than selling to adults, and it is not at all plausible that we are going to see a government ban on selling sexy miniatures to adults.

You won't find a swastika on model aircraft in Germany because models are viewed as toys. If memory serves, you're allowed to use the swastika in a historical context or I believe in an artistic context, but because models are considered toys it's banned. Even at a model show which I would most definitely consider a historical context and artistic context, you aren't allowed to show them.

The "think of the children!" argument is definitely a possibility for miniatures as well.

The same way video games get banned or censored for children's sake even when they have an adults only rating on it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Asterios wrote:
actually in the Bay area they banned toys in kids meals because they said it caused kids to want the happy meals and such and gain weight, all because parents don't know how to say no, so yes it is very relevant, if they can ban toys from kids meals because of weak and inadequate parents, they can ban anything.

No they can't ban anything. This is not a representative case for two reasons:

1) The toys in fast food meals were open to banning because they were marketing to children. Like it or not when you're selling products for young children you're subject to more regulation than if you're selling to adults. Miniatures, especially sexy miniatures, are intended for adults (or at least older children) and do not face the same level of regulation.

2) The fast food toys were banned for a legitimate health reason. Fast food is indisputably bad for you, and we have a well-established precedent of restrictions on how harmful things can be marketed (see alcohol and tobacco marketing rules). But no such issue exists with sexy miniatures. You can argue all you want over whether they're a good thing or not, but there is no plausible claim that they are physically harmful (unless they're lead miniatures, but that's a manufacturing issue, not an artistic one).

Finally, let me remind you that it is indisputably legal for adults to buy hardcore pornography. There is absolutely no chance of the government banning the sale of sexy miniatures to adults.

so banning of people from smoking in bars, where people are all about smoking how is that harmful to kids?, but it definitely hurt businesses, that is legal? i've seen bars close down because once they lost the smokers, they lost their customers, I've seen other bars just ignore the ban all together, so tell me how does such a ban exist when places had no problem with it before? how is that legal? trust me enough people complain they can get anything banned.

Asterios wrote:
so banning of people from smoking in bars, where no one is mad about it, but it definitely hurt businesses, that is legal? i've seen bars close down because once they lost the smokers, they lost their customers, I've seen other bars just ignore the ban all together, so tell me how does such a ban exist when places had no problem with it before? how is that legal? trust me enough people complain they can get anything banned.

Again, this is a legitimate health issue. Smoking in public can be banned because secondhand smoke is a legitimate health risk. If it was merely a case of "I don't like being around smokers" then there would have been no grounds for a legal ban and individual bars would have to decide whether smokers or people who hate smokers are a more profitable target market. But no such argument exists for miniatures. Outside of toxic material concerns (which, again, is a manufacturing issue, not an artistic issue) there is no health or safety justification for banning sexy miniatures.

And, you seem to have missed it the first time, so I'll say it again. It is indisputably legal for adults to buy hardcore pornography. Sexy miniatures are not going to be banned.


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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You won't find a swastika on model aircraft in Germany because models are viewed as toys. If memory serves, you're allowed to use the swastika in a historical context or I believe in an artistic context, but because models are considered toys it's banned. Even at a model show which I would most definitely consider a historical context and artistic context, you aren't allowed to show them.

This is an issue specific to Germany, I think. And it's not one with a lot of relevance to the issue of sexy miniatures, since those don't have the same "never again" issues attached to them as symbols of Nazi ideology.

The "think of the children!" argument is definitely a possibility for miniatures as well.

The same way video games get banned or censored for children's sake even when they have an adults only rating on it.

Maybe in some countries they do. In the US at least you're free to put whatever you want in a video game. Any "censorship" is done voluntarily by the creator, for the sake of appealing to a broader audience and making more money. But if you aren't concerned with making a ton of money off mass-market appeal you can put all the hardcore pornography, graphic violence, racist propaganda, etc, you like in it and the government is incredibly unlikely to do anything about it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Asterios wrote:
so banning of people from smoking in bars, where no one is mad about it, but it definitely hurt businesses, that is legal? i've seen bars close down because once they lost the smokers, they lost their customers, I've seen other bars just ignore the ban all together, so tell me how does such a ban exist when places had no problem with it before? how is that legal? trust me enough people complain they can get anything banned.

Again, this is a legitimate health issue. Smoking in public can be banned because secondhand smoke is a legitimate health risk. If it was merely a case of "I don't like being around smokers" then there would have been no grounds for a legal ban and individual bars would have to decide whether smokers or people who hate smokers are a more profitable target market. But no such argument exists for miniatures. Outside of toxic material concerns (which, again, is a manufacturing issue, not an artistic issue) there is no health or safety justification for banning sexy miniatures.

And, you seem to have missed it the first time, so I'll say it again. It is indisputably legal for adults to buy hardcore pornography. Sexy miniatures are not going to be banned.

oh so you have evidence that it is a legitimate health risk? do you? or are you going by those ads seen on TV? well guess what a Federal judge would disagree with you:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health-july-dec98-smoking_7-21/

notice the site its on too, not a crack pot site.

furthermore those ads claim smoking causes all kinds of host of problems, me myself I've been smoking over 30 years a pack a day and i'm healthier then many people younger then me. also I scuba Dive, I hike, jog have been sky diving, look younger then my real age and so on and so on, but because people said second hand smoke was dangerous without research to back it up, it is banned.


more info:

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/secondhand-smoke-charade


furthermore if we go by your standard that anything that is a health issue should be banned, then got news for you, just about everything in your place is banned, just about anything in the world is banned, because the EPA says its a health hazard, they say guns are a health hazard, should they be banned?, they say knives are a health hazard should they be banned? they say your pots and pans are a health hazard should they be banned? they saying burning wood is a health hazard should they be banned? and the list goes on and on, so if we go by your standards just about everything you own should be banned.

 Peregrine wrote:
Maybe in some countries they do. In the US...

Indeed, and that's wonderful for the US, it's one of the things I liked when living in the US is the government feels less like it's babysitting me.

But that's my point, it's not a "slippery slope" argument, it's a "oh, this gak happens in the modern world in real life" argument and even in the US there's people who would happily ban things, you just have to make sure the people yelling "freedom of expression" are louder than the people yelling "this hurts my feelings". And even though hardcore porn is legal (and it is in most western countries I think?) I don't particularly want wargames relegated to adults-only backrooms because GW decided to sculpt a boob on a slaneesh model and it's deemed unacceptable for public consumption because it might offend someone or some child might be influenced by an exposed boob on a plastic dolly.

Asterios wrote:
well guess what a Federal judge would disagree with you:

That's nice. A federal judge is not a medical expert, and his ruling was overturned on appeal.

Anyway, regardless of your personal opinions on the subject (enjoy that lung cancer in your future!) the point remains that bans on smoking in public were justified by legitimate health concerns. You can disagree about the extent to which those concerns have been proven to be accurate, but there was clearly a lot more behind the ban than "I find smoking aesthetically unpleasant*". But no such concern exists with sexy miniatures. The only possible health or safety issues involving miniatures are related to manufacturing, not aesthetic choices.


*Which, to be fair, is a pretty strong argument. Smoking is disgusting, and I am perfectly happy with smokers being banned from public places. Keep your smoking in private, and put on some clean clothes before you go out in public.


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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But that's my point, it's not a "slippery slope" argument, it's a "oh, this gak happens in the modern world in real life" argument and even in the US there's people who would happily ban things, you just have to make sure the people yelling "freedom of expression" are louder than the people yelling "this hurts my feelings".

It happens, but I don't think the example you gave is a really relevant one. You're talking about a country where there are still living supporters of the government that murdered people by the millions in horrifying industrialized slaughter. And there are still people who want to return to Nazi policies. It's arguable whether bans on Nazi symbols need to be quite as strict as they are to accomplish the goal of keeping that ideology from gaining support, but it's clearly an exceptional case that goes way beyond the average "I don't like this" complaint.

And even though hardcore porn is legal (and it is in most western countries I think?) I don't particularly want wargames relegated to adults-only backrooms because GW decided to sculpt a boob on a slaneesh model and it's deemed unacceptable for public consumption because it might offend someone or some child might be influenced by an exposed boob on a plastic dolly.

I don't know, I'd be perfectly happy with wargaming getting an 18+ rule attached. I want to play games with other adults, not obnoxious children.

Of course this is really not something to be worried about because there's no sign that anyone is moving in that direction. Not in miniatures, and not in society in general. Things that are sexy but not explicitly pornographic are permitted with little or no regulation, and (effective) opposition to them is focused on getting people to voluntarily change their behavior rather than imposing government bans.