According to the dating website (!) which hosts this little toy, "[t]his rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
- ass (8x)
- death (4x)
- hurt (3x)
- bitch (2x)
- limbs (1x)"
What makes this terribly sad for me is that I actually go to some trouble to keep the language on this blog sort of clean, not pure and spotless, but also not too shocking. Ass, bitch, crap, damn -- all these would have gotten my mouth washed out with Ivory soap if I'd said them in front of my mother when I was a child, or even if she'd heard that I'd said them to someone else -- or that I'd made tiny pamphlets including them with others, their definitions, and some simple illustrations and then passed them around to all my classmates, or that I'd written them on the bathroom wall at school and then signed my best friend's name -- purely hypothetical examples, both of these, of course. Nevertheless, I now hear all these words, unbleeped, on primetime network TV all the time. So I use them freely on this blog, assuming they are now considered perfectly acceptable.
Meanwhile, mothers of the world, as I've noted elsewhere, do flock to this site by ones and twos. Also, in relaying tips, resources, and gear notes, not to mention describing my process of recovery and reassimilation into my own life, I do think I sometimes say things that might be of use to underage amputees, and it is my hope that if my guests and I watch our language, at least inserting appropriate asterisks where there just aren't better words (see previous post for examples), somehow this site will skate past censoring software designed to protect innocent minds.
Heh. Guess not. Guess there's just no playin' the system.
Of course, I'm not sure what system, in this case, might be at play, or how accurately this bloggery toy reflects the truth it purports to represent. If every movie that used the words "death," "hurt," or "limbs" were rated R, I would submit that there might be no milder ratings. I also know I have used the word "limbs" way more than once on this blog, and the word "bitch" way more than twice, so I suspect the rating engine only scans what is posted on the front page at the time the toy is deployed.
Meanwhile, I have also been told that use of the word "feminism" is enough for many brands of innocence-protection software to ban my site.
The moral of the story, I think, is an old one, that when it won't actually do harm to others, it's always best to play your own game. You're always going to piss off someone, no matter what, and life is damn hard and damn short. So while you live, you might as well sing the true song of your own soul in the true tongue of your own heart.
I think I'm still going to use asterisk-enhanced spelling here, though, just in case.
(Hat tip to Kay Olson, with apologies for all the sullying of her own rating which I perpetrated in comments.)
Limbs? Really? I don't get out enough.
Posted by: sognatrice | June 26, 2007 at 11:56 AM
OK, even weirder is that when I just did my blog, it's PG, two mentions of "bitches" and one of...LIMBS???? Seriously, that's gonna haunt me.
Posted by: sognatrice | June 26, 2007 at 12:13 PM
I got an NC17, because my livejournal includes:
* sexy (4x)
* breast (3x)
* hurt (2x)
* pain (1x)
Now, aside from the sexy, all of that is most likely related to my recent breast surgery. So apparently lump removal is NC17. I find it very strange that talking about a skinned knee that hurts, or someone who is a pain could get you a bad rating. crazy!
Posted by: Jess | June 26, 2007 at 02:38 PM
Sognatrice, I know!!! Limbs? LIMBS???
Are these people out of their tree? (Does their tree not have limbs? Is this why they fell out of it?)
Jess, yes, you must NOT use the "b" word in our pornulated society, even if you're going through cancer of it. Who cares if its function is to feed babies? Men of this culture have fetishized it; therefore it's obscene to name it aloud.
You do not want to hear me castigate people who freak out when other people breastfeed their babies in public. It's a very spiteful rant, but related.
Bodies: We all have 'em; we all use 'em. We're supposed to! That's what they're for!
Everybody get over it!
Posted by: Sara | June 26, 2007 at 06:10 PM
Oh, yeah, and the pain and hurt thing? That bugged me, too. I wondered if that only triggered the censor when it was combined with female words (like "bitch" and "breast") and if so whether that had more to do with the potential for pornographic violence to women or for the fact that women are supposed to be pretty and happy all the time and just shut up about where they hurt and when.
Once that gate opens, my mind will wander these places.
Of course, I also wondered if blogs that don't say "bitch" or "breast" but talk frankly about pain and death ever got PG or G ratings. And I couldn't help but wonder as well how blogs that said "penis" and "pain" but not "bitch" or "breast" fared.
Heh -- after these comments post, maybe I'll find out.
Posted by: Sara | June 26, 2007 at 06:19 PM
Okay, so after that comment, I got popped up to NC-17, which I actually hadn't realized is a tougher rating until I saw the graphic. However, this is the list it gave me:
Dirty little censorship engine! I never said "dick," not once!
(Well, I have now.)
Posted by: Sara | June 26, 2007 at 06:27 PM
Gee willikers! Mine is rated G (if they only knew what lurks there on my friends filter...).
Posted by: Nora | June 26, 2007 at 11:52 PM
Oo! Oo! Nora! Are you up for an experiment? If so, please make a post on your blog which contains the words "pain," "hurt," "death," and "limbs," but no -ahem- sensitive body parts or body functions, or names our parents wouldn't like us to call other people or ourselves. (You know the ones; some of them are already listed in comments here.) Then please run the toy again and see if your rating changed. Then please come back here and tell us the results.
Are you game? I hope so.
Cheers!
Posted by: Sara | June 27, 2007 at 09:27 AM
OK, I want to play.
Sara, please e-mail me and explain how to run the "toy." Because my blog is full of "breasts" and "boobs," also "pain" and "death" ... And I think I described my Corvair as a "dick magnet" in one post--maybe that one's not live yet.
Woo hoo. The world is a weird place.
Jeanne
www.assertivepatient.com
Posted by: Jeanne | June 28, 2007 at 10:52 PM
Oh, sorry this is unclear. I hotlinked the rating graphic, so all you have to do is click it and it will take you to the toy's host site where it will be obvious what to do next.
As noted, I don't think it will do a thorough scan of your whole site, but I am sure all that BREAST talk alone will keep you out of the G zone, and probably the PG zone. And, oh horrors, what with you being all assertive and everything, I think you did mention that you felt pain once or twice, out loud and everything. Naughty woman! Scandalous! ;)
Posted by: Sara | June 29, 2007 at 10:21 AM