In which prudish Pinterest slaps me on the wrist

So I got an email from Pinterest.

“Hi eJane Alexander,
We removed a pin from your account because it contained nudity. It was originally pinned from the following address: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_macfecS6W41qjuse9o1_500.jpg.
We don't allow nudity—photos that show breasts, buttocks or genitalia—on Pinterest. This applies to pins on both public and secret boards.
Please remove any other pins you've added that contain nudity. If you don't follow our policies, your account could be suspended.
On behalf of the Pinterest community, we thank you for understanding.
The Pinterest Team”

Ouch. I felt like I’d been called into the headteacher’s office and chastised for, I dunno, smoking behind the bike sheds or locking a teacher in the music cupboard (guilty as charged for the latter; perfectly innocent on the former).

Actually I felt a bit embarrassed as, let’s be frank, some of my pins are in pretty poor taste. Like, er...the puddle people or those poor guys with stomachs that dangle on the floor. Why do they fascinate me so?  I dunno.  I know they shouldn’t but they do. However, when I plucked up courage to look at the offensive image, I found…this…

And, er...this is offensive?  In what way?  What exactly is wrong with nudity? With the human body devoid of clothes? I don’t pin porn (a sentence, come to think of it, that I could not have used until a year or so ago) - and I think this is rather beautiful.  For pity's sake, if you're being picky you can't even see any buttocks or breasts, and any genitalia present are deeply...shadowed.
And, see, what I don’t get is that it’s fine to pin stuff that (IMO) is pretty tasteless and tacky (and some might say offensive) as long as any erogenous zones are clothed.

So... this is fine...

Why? I mean, WHY?

But this isn't...

by Brad Miller...

This is perfectly acceptable...

He looks a bit familiar actually...from Authonomy maybe?

As is this...

I will never EVER complain about my boobs again.

But this, presumably, is not?

Put a furry thong on it for heaven's sake! 

Do you get it?  Cos I don't.  I really don't.  btw, for the sake of your eyes I restrained from posting more extreme examples.  If you want to see the really eye-popping stuff you'll have to do your own research.  

Puddle people, pseudo penises and Pinterest (repinned)

I’ve talked about Pinterest before so forgive another musing. But really, the more I use it, the more I prowl around, the more – odd I find it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still find it hugely useful.  I keep mood boards for my novels there and they jumpstart my imagination if it’s on go-slow. I have what I hope are inspirational boards for readers of my non-fiction books – lately I’ve been pinning seasonal recipes and lifestyle type stuff on The Natural Year board and adding more information on living as chemical-free as possible on The Detox Plan.

It also occurred to me that, while my Kindle books can’t have pictures, I can supplement them with boards. So I have recently started boards for the four little spin-offs from Spirit of the Home – Spirit of the Bedroom, Spirit of the Kitchen, Spirit of the Living Room and Spirit of the Nursery.  I loved this series – small books with lovely design that aimed, not to discuss decoration so much as the mythology, spirituality and energy of each room.

It’s also proving an invaluable resource for research.  I have a couple of non-fiction book proposals going to Frankfurt and Pinterest is the perfect place to stick all my research, so I’ve got images, information (and all the originating websites) neatly filed in one place. 

I see a lot of authors, designers and so on using it pretty much the same way.  But a lot of other people just…pin.  Madly, wildly, obsessively.  And weirdly.  Whatever you care to think of, someone will have a board dedicated to it. ‘Women inexplicably partially submerged in water’.  Yup, serious.  ‘People with big pictures of people’.  Oh yeah. ‘Garden hoses.’ That one’s a work in progress. 

Odd things are huge, just huge, on Pinterest. Tattoos obviously come to mind (there is even a tattoo category), swiftly followed by nail art. There are endless boards dedicated to cupcakes and subdivisions of cupcakes – people even have boards dedicated to a particular colour theme in a particular type of cupcake for cupcake’s sake. 

And slowly, you realize that, well…you’re simply not that special, not that unusual.  Your weird little idiosyncrasies – the ones you thought were pretty awesomely oblique, if not entirely unique – are…run of the mill.  Damnit, half of Pinterest is obsessed with the same shit. It should be comforting, I suppose, that you’re not the only one who has a ‘thing’ about…nah, I’m not going to tell you now cos I feel…kinda ordinary. J

It seems that, within the Pinterest demographic (and let’s be honest, it strikes me it’s a relatively a narrow demographic) everyone pretty much wants to go to the same awesome places and wear the same cool things and decorate their houses in much the same way.  And, by hell, everyone wants to be inspired – pretty much every Pinner has a board for inspirational quotes (I’ve got a whole blog brewing on that) and if everyone were as fit as their fitness boards and as bendy as their yoga boards, we’d be a world of Olympians.

Of course Pinterest has its underbelly and I confess I lurk around there a bit when all the ombre and neon and clean minimalism and perfect sunsets get a bit much.  And then I leave my jaw hanging pretty much on the floor as I discover I still have a morbid fascination (legacy of childhood) for really weird things like puddle people and possess a very infantile amusement at things that look like penises.  And then I just hang my head in shame and…laugh helplessly.