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Weird and wonderful Suddenly I seem to have a three month
Premium membership ??????? Now either this is a mistake or Santa
is real Or Someone wonderful has given me an Early Xmas pressy.
As there are no notes or comments to shed light on this delightful
surprise if you are the lovely individual who did the deed a thousand
thanks for your generosity

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My deviation Good v Evil Mermen v Sirens was reported for Mature Tag Needed. The report was reviewed by a member of the Staff and action was taken,

A member of staff has reviewed this deviation and has determined that it requires a Mature Content tag. [link]

A General Mature Content Tag is now in place.................

Clearly a site like deviant Art, accessible by minors, needs some form of censorship especially in view of the nature of some of the adult material on show, this is not unreasonable.
I have no problem with this and applaud their efforts to try to maintain a balance between decency and freedom of expression.
I think however that the censorship has become rather lazy. The mere hint of an uncovered nipple on a girls breast inflicts a mature content tag and your artwork is unseen by large tracts of the viewing public.
However the most diaphanous material or a mere colour change of a few pixels to suggest material and nudity is suddenly acceptable because we can pretend the girl in question is clothed. Even naked if her nipples are obscured by a piece of foliage of a piece of seaweed or a fig leaf.... then DA seem to find nudity acceptable.

It seems this is where we are at the moment - prudish Victorian silliness. Its an Art site for goodness sake - its called "Deviant" Its as deviant as an ice cream sundae! Should DA stand up to the forces of stupidity that are compelling them to act in such a childish manner ?

A better guideline for "mature content" would be to consider what is acceptable in the great galleries of Europe and even the USA - or should the few offended viewers start a campaign to have the Hermitage and the Uffizi place mature content signs outside their doors? Does anyone really think that paintings by Raphael Botticelli and Titian could be considered offensive by anyone.

Censorship is clearly needed but lets not be so immature about mature content.
There are three picture in the Wacom semi finals mine is one of them [link] the others are "The Mind's Garden" by elpinoy [link] and "Two" by *YannickBouchard. [link] Would anyone consider them to need a mature content tag?

Maybe the least DA should do if it insists on keeping the sloppy tag system it has, is to change it to read as an "imature content" tag - in other words please don't look at this picture if you are imature and offended by images of the male and female form that have been acceptable to the general public for thousands of years.