I expect it's the same mentality that had people in an uproar over Janet Jackson's boob/wardrobe malfunction, and why butt cracks are pixelated on Survivor. Nudity freaks some people out.

Oh, remember this bizarro thread on AskMe?

No one wants to be accused of looking at taters by an hysterical colleague.

You work in a cube farm or something where passersby can easily see your monitor. You're male. A co-worker who is opposed to pornography in all its forms passes by at the moment that you are looking at Playboy Poland, or whatever it was.

The co-worker proceeds directly to HR, where you are reported for creating a hostile or harassing workplace environment. Best case, you are disciplined; worst case, your co-worker sues. In court: "Why yes, I was looking at Playboy at work, but it was totally appropriate because it was in the context of a website about photo retouching."

Lots of luck with that.

NSFW seems to more or less mean that there's some sex bits being shown. But I wouldn't want either image showing up on my screen at work. Better safe than sorry, eh?

It must be a national cultural thing because I can't really image anyone who lives/works in the US ever asking this question.

I think ikkyu2 has it (Hey ikkyu2! Long time no see!). It has to do with the male-female dynamics in the North American workplace (I think women are more likely to be opposed to pornography in all its forms, but hey, it's just a hunch, what do I know?). Gender dynamics in a professional setting are, and perhaps will always be touchy, and spotting pictures of one-boobied ladies on some dude's monitor, is probably gonna squick out more than one chick. Personally? I thought the one boob she did have seemed pretty nice.

Has the 'taters' meme progressed beyond the mefi universe? 'Cause it really needs to. It could be big.

"NSFW" is a euphemism like "Adult."

Why does this one not get anyone in trouble, for example?

Female nipples = porn
No female nipples = wholesome

The rule really is this rigid in the US and the UK.

There's nothing wholesome about my nipples. Take my word for it.

"NSFW" is a euphemism like "Adult."

And now there's a shorter euphemism available to us: "CU." (It means "contains uniboob")

Yeh, I think that's distinction. You're right: anything that from across the room looks like something other than work is--to a degree--not safe for work, assuming you will get in trouble for entertaining yourself instead of working. BUT! Most workplaces expect and tolerate a little surfing, so getting caught looking at Salon.com or EW.com might get you a raised eyebrow or a "ok, back to to work", whereas nudity, or soft core images, or something that can get the company in trouble with regard to hostile workplace issues, or offended clients, or weird social misfitness can result in an immediate and harsh disciplinary response from a boss.

Most workplaces expect and tolerate a little surfing

Not only that, but a fair number of jobs expect and require it - like mine, for instance, or that of a magazine or newspaper writer, graphic designer, internet marketer, etc. The internet is a tool we can't really manage without in this day and age - we're always Googling for research, for inspiration, for benchmarking, to find a contact, to find an artist or musician or performer, to read blogs related to the profession, etc. Of course there's some goofing off in there, too, but it blends in with the actual work. In this day and age, in many fields, if you walk by a computer and see a web browser open, you can't assume that the person isn't doing something work-related. It's the content that determines whether it's work-related or not.

That said, express work policies prohibit the use of the internet for any purpose that contravenes the anti-discrimination policy. I just grabbed the manual from my desk, and it reads: "The museum's policy against harassment, in its entirety, applies to the use of all Museum internet access. Inappropriate site access will not be tolerated and will result in immediate disciplinary action. No may use Museum internet access in a manner that may be construed by others as harassment or offensive based upon race, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability, religious beliefs, or any other characterists protected by federal, state, or local law."

While that would equally apply to a racist webpage, it's much easier to spot most instances of nudity, since it's quite obvious at a glance without reading the content of the page.

I'm okay with anti-discrimination policies. We're trying to work. The "hostile work environment" thing has scarred me enough in life already; if I saw somebody chortling over porn in the office, I'd say something, too. To them first, probably, but if a staffer brought the issue to me, I'm one of those bosses who would come down on it. It's illegal for a reason.

These people are looking at a site called "Photoshop Disasters," so everything that shows up on their monitor is going to be a big 'ol photo image. Won't it always be pretty clear that they aren't doing work stuff, with any of these images on their screen?

Looking at a photo image vs looking at boobs is a vastly different situation.

Ikkyu's got it. It's an HR potential-harassment-accusation thing.

It's the digital equivalent of not allowing calendars with porny photos of naked women on them in the office. Yes, it's a calendar, so it's useful and all, and I'm sure that many people would look at the calendar in order to check the date rather than admire the porny photos, but having porny photos of naked women in the office tends to create an environment where female employees feel a little less than respected.

Also, I think the second link you posted should not be appropriate for work, but images of scantily clad women are so ubiquitous in advertising that you'd have to probably have to ban the whole internet (and most magazines) to avoid them.

No, I definitely understand and agree with not looking at porn at work, no porny calendars, etc. This is obvious and reasonable.

My question has more to do with the entirely accidental/incidental image that comes up momentarily, and the user clicks away immediately - and why that would cause someone to get fired when they aren't looking at a porn site (or similar), not making remarks, chortling, or anything obnoxious. It seems extreme and bizarre.

I guess that's exactly the reason for tagging it NSFW, taz - so that it's never accidental/incidental, but that you know ahead of time the link is something you probably shouldn't view at work. That lets you make the decision to either skip it until you get home, or take an informed risk that someone might see you with this content, or find the link in your browser history. I think the assumption with most NSFW content is that people are going to want to look at it for long enough to get the joke, see the point, read the content, or whatever - not that they're going to click off right away. So it's important to let people know that it's the kind of thing you might not be able to get away with viewing at work for any length of time.

When I was an elementary school teacher, one of my colleagues was another teacher, a young dad who had been through an ugly divorce and was trying to get shared custody for his kids. This was back in the day when most of us had computers and internet at work but not at home. So one day after school, feeling frustrated by it all, he searched (not Googled, there wasn't Google yet - he probably AltaVistad or something) on the phrase "single dads support." And from some resulting link from that phrase, he opened up something that generated a waterfall of unending, truly lascivious popup windows. In the classroom. At least the kids had gone home. He panicked and tried to chase the windows around closing them, and was really freaked out that he was going to lose his job. Of course that was not going to happen; innocent mistake.

Another friend of mine worked for a large, banking-related insurer/risk adjustor. The place was full of brash finance frat guys. She was the department admin and managed a lot of their server traffic. Several of the guys would download porn in their offices during the day. She knew what they were doing, but the company culture was such that she was not going to take it on, and she knew she was leaving, anyway. However, the downloading process interfered with their getting email and slowed down the server. So she often had to conduct meetings in which she issued reminders that you can't do "the big downloads" at work - "you know, anything with a lot of pictures, you know, films..." Not so innocent mistakes.

I think it would only cause someone to get fired if it happened repeatedly (most sexual harassment laws require at least one warning), but the issue is that if someone else saw you looking at the image, they don't really need to (and shouldn't have to) have a long discussion with you about why the image makes them uncomfortable, they just need to go to your boss or their boss or HR and complain. (Whereas if someone else just saw you goofing around, there's not really any reason for them to say anything to anyone else.)

So the extreme reaction, I think, comes because it's not just an issue of worrying whether your boss saw, but worrying whether anyone else in the office saw and whether any of those people was offended and whether any of those people are going to complain about it without talking to you.

That said, the only actual experience I've had with this was in an office where someone accidentally clicked a spammy link and then kept getting pop-up after pop-up for a porn site. He was thoroughly embarrassed and apologetic, but the rest of us just laughed it off (we sat in a huge open floor plan, so everyone could pretty much see what was on everyone else's screen at all times).

On non-preview: Hee. Guess the porn pop-ups are reasonably common.

Yeah! They certainly were in those days, too, before the advent of decent firewalls and adblockers.

Also, though, in writing some of these comments I'm starting to lean toward the idea that the immense, over-the-top "OMG! NEED NSFW TAGS!!!!" reaction may be part and parcel of the "Women are so irrational! Who knows what they'll complain about next! Can't I even give innocent compliments anymore?!!? What if I smile at someone and she reports me to HR???" anti-harassment-law weirdness/paranoia.

entirely accidental/incidental image that comes up momentarily, and the user clicks away immediately

This happened to me regularly enough. I'm sure it happens a lot. But I suppose someone else might think it was just an accident.

It seems extreme and bizarre.

Yes, but that's just the kind of world we have.

...might not think...

I really appreciate the tags.

I once worked a temp job at a wholesale meat distributor that issued "girly" calenders to their customers every year. It was all very Dworkenesque, what with the (almost) naked lady photos emblazoned with the "Joe's Meats" (not the real name of the company) logo emblazoned underneath.

They were so old school their computer systems were like, some kind of wierd DOS shit - or maybe it was just the accounting program I was using, I'm not sure, but what I was going to say was, I have no idea whether looking at Playboy online would be acceptable there or not. But I'm pretty sure the answer is "not". Which is weird given the calenders.

Yeah, it was DOUBLE EMBLAZONED!! So what?!

Those calendars used to be so common. My senior year in high school I worked at this Christmas tree farm and worked in the office. They had a lot of calendars, and also posters, for chainsaws and pruners. Most of these depicted a girl attired like Daisy Duke, but wielding a chain saw or pruner. Not with adequate eye protection, either!

That place was also ridiculously sexist in the way they assigned jobs and distributed tips. Not really a coincidence to find both conditions in the same workplace. The owner was one of the creepiest jerks I've ever encountered.

Scantily clad chainsawing seems like pretty much the most terrible idea ever.

This is weird. I was going around one of my high schools with one of our insurance people, doing an inspection, and in the high school weight room were a couple cheesecake-type pics of some in-shape women in bikinis, with their weekly weightlifting regimen. The intention being to tell young women that you can look like this too if you get in there and lift like this (whether that is actually true or not).

He stated that these are illegal in a school, and that sexual harassment charges could be filed. I obviously did not see it this way.

But then, in the dance studio, there were pics of equally scantily clad women in yoga poses, and he said those were OK. I asked him if the "cheesecake" aspect of the former pics was the problem, and he stated that he was unfamiliar with that term, and preferred to call them "eyecandy."

It was a very strange conversation to have.