Althouse: What if the famous mudflap girl...

November 12, 2011

What if the famous mudflap girl...

... had nipples?

Would you call the cops?

42 comments:

Lucien said...: Too many opportunities to play with "flap" and "mud".

What if she were giving the finger, as at Feministing? Would that be more or less obscene?

(BTW check out last night's Bill Maher show to see a panel in which Andrew Sullivan comes off as a flaming conservative (comparatively), and Chris Matthews abases himself shamelessly before the idols of John & Robert Kennedy. (JFK "Saved the Planet" per Matthews)); 11/12/11, 9:19 AM
Chase said...: Please. What is the reason it is drawn that way? Prayer and meditation? Pride of Country? Inspiration?

The freedom to create pornography exists. Just have the balls to call it what it is.; 11/12/11, 9:19 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: It's not the nipples so much as the pose and the high-heeled shoes. Mudflap girl seems innocent and demure by comparison.; 11/12/11, 9:22 AM
bagoh20 said...: I think the nipple one is far more pornographic than the one without. That small difference makes a big impression in my eye anyway. I wouldn't put it on my car just because I know it would affect some people the way it does. I also would not call the cops because it has that effect. You can't legislate respect far beyond what our constitution does: respect for freedom. The rest is up to us.; 11/12/11, 9:26 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "What if she were giving the finger, as at Feministing? Would that be more or less obscene?"

Don't get me started...; 11/12/11, 9:28 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Click on the "nipples" tag to see my encounter with an mural in Leadville that had nipple in the profile outline of a clothed figure. I found it very funny.; 11/12/11, 9:30 AM
bagoh20 said...: Clearly we'd have a problem if someone were to stick Hustler centerfolds on their car, but I can't really explain why other than aesthetics. I feel unequipped on the pornography debate. I know most people have a strong opinion on it one way or the other, as I do on most other subjects, but I just don't have any clarity on this issue.; 11/12/11, 9:31 AM
ndspinelli said...: Churchill saved the planet. Kennedy's old man tried to undermine him.

I simply can't watch Maher unless I triple my blood pressure meds, and that's not healthy.; 11/12/11, 9:32 AM
gerry said...: Well, we are on the slope to erections-in-profile bumper stickers.

We've had a nice run...; 11/12/11, 9:35 AM
traditionalguy said...: The feelings of ugly women must be protected. Not every woman has long nipples...and size counts. These matters need santorums ruling...he used a ruler; 11/12/11, 9:43 AM
Bill said...: Debates over whether the image counts as pornography or whether the owner has the right to display it increasingly seems like a fools errand.

It's in bad taste and it's inappropriate for something that can/will be viewed by everyone.

That ought to be enough.; 11/12/11, 9:46 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: If no nipples is good enough for Barbie, no nipples is good enough for the mudflap girl!; 11/12/11, 9:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Bill --
"It's in bad taste and it's inappropriate for something that can/will be viewed by everyone.

That ought to be enough."

I say it's not. Your vote is therefore negated.; 11/12/11, 9:57 AM
edutcher said...: Unless my eyes are worse than even The Blonde says, it seems to me you'd have to press your nose right up against it to see it.; 11/12/11, 9:59 AM
Astro said...: Haven't you seen TruckNutz?

I'd call my brother and share a laugh; but not call the cops.; 11/12/11, 10:09 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: I don't get it.

Nipples are the "naughty bits" of the tit?

Why?; 11/12/11, 10:11 AM
Jaske said...: The mud flap is a prostitution call.; 11/12/11, 10:12 AM
virgil xenophon said...: Obscene? Compared to what's on DAYTIME broadcast TV every.single.day on the SOAPS, Jerry Springer, etc.? Surely you jest...; 11/12/11, 10:28 AM
virgil xenophon said...: PS: Yes, I know that the central thrust of Nixon's Presidential Commission on porn was that one should not be subjected to the unexpected exposure to such things (however ultimately defined) in public places, and thus one could argue that a sticker on a roving car fits that bill, but still...; 11/12/11, 10:32 AM
DADvocate said...: Nipples on a woman. Wow.

No worse than balls hanging of a truck.

As Maguro says, the pose adds a lot. A woman ready for immediate sex pose.; 11/12/11, 10:53 AM
dunce said...: It was once common to nurse babies in public. It is men who can not control themselves and become aroused ordinary by ordinary things that complain the loudest. They feel such sights force them to masturbate.; 11/12/11, 11:01 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: virgil xenophon,

Yes, I know that the central thrust of Nixon's Presidential Commission on porn [...]

Now, really.; 11/12/11, 11:26 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: It's the sort of thing my dad would have up.

A better one would have a pole. Especially if it was the kind of picture that shifts through different poses by the angle of viewing like the Jesus pictures. So a pole dancer with nipples.; 11/12/11, 11:26 AM
Jose_K said...: Let see, a woman has the sticker in the window of her van.
And a man complained?
Tell him not to go to Texas. And if so do not park behind a pick up or SUV; 11/12/11, 11:39 AM
Wince said...: The nipples should be comprised of temperature sensitive material, so that they extend only as temperatures dip below a certain degree.

With respect to obscenity, that would provide about as much socially redeeming value as the artistic value added by the dialogue and plot of the average porno movie.

wv - "sadicts" = unhappy junkies; 11/12/11, 11:47 AM
MadisonMan said...: Great Galls resident Brian Smith has waaaaay too much time on his hands.; 11/12/11, 12:03 PM
MadisonMan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/12/11, 12:04 PM
Big Mike said...: I'm sorry, but it's news to anyone that women have nipples?; 11/12/11, 12:18 PM
Anonymous said...: I'd rather see something else on Mudflap Girl.

You all know what that is.

Peter; 11/12/11, 12:23 PM
dhagood said...: channeling titus:

tits

seems to me that pretty much whatever the image in question might be, somebody somewhere will be outraged/horrified/disgusted with it.; 11/12/11, 12:26 PM
Chip S. said...: You can either say that there's no justifiable restriction on anything anyone displays anywhere at any time, or you have to draw a line b/w what's allowable and what's not.

Every possible line will be arbitrary, or appear to be. Every imaginable debate over every possible line will be dominated by insipid arguments.; 11/12/11, 12:29 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: "What if the famous mudflap girl had nipples?

Would you call the cops?"

I dont know..

I'm having a hard time making up my mind.; 11/12/11, 12:54 PM
Carol_Herman said...: What if a mermaid had a vagina? Maybe, she has to roll over on the rock, for it to be possible there's a vagina inside her crack? Or a crack in the rock?

Maybe, when porn stops showing nipples ... there can be a debate about how porn "improved" over time?; 11/12/11, 12:58 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: There is a quote I'm recollecting about pornography and the Supremes.. something about not knowing what it is but you know when you see it?

I'm going to have to look it up.; 11/12/11, 1:02 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain "hard-core" pornography, or what is obscene, by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced... [b]ut I know it when I see it..

I'm gessing its a matter of degree.. and the evolving standards of whatever... meaning that.. The policemen was right?

maybe.; 11/12/11, 1:17 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I see this all the time..

At some point in time it seemed to stop being obscene.; 11/12/11, 1:25 PM
Anonymous said...: dunce -

"It was once common to nurse babies in public. It is men who can not control themselves and become aroused ordinary by ordinary things that complain the loudest."

El wrongo, it was the feminist agenda that made public nursing (along with motherhood) a taboo.

In my entire life, the only one I ever heard carp about public nursing was my corn-cob-in-the-ass grandmother.; 11/12/11, 1:30 PM
rhhardin said...: Alfred Deller Shakespeare.; 11/12/11, 2:16 PM
Ralph L said...: I'm upset that the huge tits, skinny thighs, and voluminous hair create an unrealistic body image for young sluts.; 11/12/11, 2:46 PM
Ralph L said...: At some point in time it seemed to stop being obscene
But the temptation to yank them down never ends.; 11/12/11, 2:49 PM
Theranter said...: According to scotus in "kitty kat lounge" those nipples need pasties on them. I lost my nipples, (and the lovely breasts attached to them) and wanted to go topless in my backyard. Tried to discern what defined "indecent exposure" relating to women not covering their chest area. Men have boobs and they have nipples so why and it is a-ok for them to go topless? I have neither. Got to thinking - what is the factor that separates one being legal and one illegal? Is it that I do not possess a penis? Or that I have a birth canal? Was told by an atty to be safe I better not go topless. Pissed me off. Researched. Found Kitty Kat Lounge. I am legal if I wear pasties over my non-existent nipples. (Funny, they were damn decent - now the area that had the nipples that had to be covered up borders on indecent for an entirely different reason, but since I am female, pasties it is - nips or not.) So the damn decal needs some pasties and then everyone should shut up.

(and if chemo-brain is recalling correctly, the SCOTUS reasoning had nothing to do whether or not you possessed a penis or a birth canal, it was that female breasts [have the capacity to] make milk, ergo you gotta cover up the nips.); 11/12/11, 11:08 PM
tree hugging sister said...: Nipples are outside the bounds. The mudflap girl is kinda like the mermaid at the entrance to the Amsterdam Harbor.

But the hanging testicles on trailer hitches REALLY are the end all and be all of revolting, and should have the authorities called EVERY time.; 11/13/11, 4:00 PM