
One of the more mild photos featured on Wikipedia in
the "striptease" entry |
Wikipedia,
the online "free encyclopedia" written and edited by its users
that contains 9 million articles in 253 languages, now includes
detailed photos of nude homosexual men engaging in sex acts and
a variety of other sexually explicit images and content.
One Wikipedia entry
states, "A fluffer is a hired member of the crew of a
pornographic movie whose role on the set is to sexually arouse
the male participants prior to the filming of scenes requiring
erections."
A photo of two nude men
having anal sex on a bed, and a "fluffer" handing them a towel,
is shown to the right of the entry.
Matt Barber, a
constitutional law attorney who serves as Concerned Women for
America's policy director for cultural issues, expressed outrage
at Wikipedia's decision to allow sexually explicit images.
"Children use Wikipedia
all of the time for reports for school, and this stuff is not
just pornography, this is hard-core pornography," he said. "Much
of it may even be in violation of our nation's obscenity laws."
Barber said many of the
filtering devices people have in their homes and schools are not
geared to protect against Wikipedia's material.
"Children are often able
to bypass these filtering devices and view hard-core, vile
pornography," Barber said. "There is raw, unedited homosexual
pornography and other videos on this Wikipedia website, a site
that so many Americans and people around the world rely upon."
Mark Pelligrini,
regional representative for Wikipedia, told WND, "Wikipedia's
goal is to provide an encyclopedia that contains the sum of all
human knowledge. To that end, Wikipedia does not censor
objectionable material.
"[I]f someone goes to
the articles on 'sex,' 'penis' or any graphic topic, we do
provide frank descriptions and images," Pelligrini said. "For
images, we aim for clinical pictures of the sort you would find
in an anatomy or medical textbook."
However, in addition to
textbook anatomy images, the following can also be found on
Wikipedia:
- Recordings of women
experiencing orgasms
- Videos of nude men
participating in "ejaculation educational demonstrations"
- Detailed
photographs of men and women masturbating
- Images of mammary
intercourse
- Close-up images of
topless women and male and female sexual anatomy
- Large-scale photos
of men performing oral sex on one another (and performing
oral sex on themselves)
- An illustrated list
of sex positions
- Threesomes
- Photos of nude
strippers
- An image called
"Virgin Killer" depicting a naked prepubescent girl from the
1976 cover of a Scorpions album (banned in the U.S.)
"They say they are not
in the business of censorship, but it's not censorship to remove
photographs or make a decision not to place pornography on your
website," Barber said.
The site even
boasts a
"porn star" award template
for "outstanding contributions to pornography articles on
Wikipedia," awarded by Wikipedia: WikiProject Pornography.
Jay Walsh, head of
communications for the Wikimedia foundation, told WND, "We don't
censor any of the content. There are a number of images that
people might be alarmed by. … You could open up a classic
Britannica or World Book Encyclopedia, and you'd find entries on
sex and sexual topics, perhaps not as deep or prolific as you
might find on Wikipedia, but that's kind of a reality of the
21st century."
Barber said he will be
contacting the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's
office to determine whether Wikipedia may be engaging in the
dissemination of illegal obscenity.
"Unfortunately, by
allowing this type of material, Wikipedia has really sullied its
name," Barber said. "If it wants to be viewed as being in the
business of pornography, it is certainly doing a good job of
labeling itself as a bunch of hard-core pornographers."