The definition merely states that material is pornographic if its primary purpose is to appeal to the erotic instincts, without mentioning that it actually has to succeed. It can be easily shown that this is also the commonly understood definition by making the simple observation that most people would agree that granny porn is still porn by virtue of the fact that it was created with the intent to arouse, even if neither you nor I are, in fact, aroused by it. In other words, you have no case, even if I were referring to that, which I wasn't. (Incidentally, that definition came from a dictionary, and is not "my definition", just so we're clear.) Now that we've established that the author need not have been aroused by a picture for it to be considered porn, we can, I suppose, argue forever and a day about whether the author was referring to the full Lena picture or not when he said it was porn, but I won't do that. I interpret it as the author referring to Playboy, the source of the picture, which is by definition porn, but if you interpret it to mean that the author is saying that pictures of "women's faces and feathered hats" are porn, well, then we must agree to disagree, even if I think that is a weird position to take :)
Now, to get down to cases, in the comment I was actually replying to, what you said was this:
What I see is a rather artistic photo. It surely contains nudity, but it's nonetheless a work of art.
Since Lena as used in CS does not contain nudity, you must have been referring to the original Playboy picture, which I doubt you can honestly argue was not created with the intention of appealing to the erotic instincts.
I agree with you. I don't want to keep discussing what is and what is not entitled to be labeled as porn, though. On the other hand, we have the word "nudity" which is more specific than the word "porn". The full Lena image qualifies as nudity for sure. Moreover, there can be porn without nudity. Whatever...
The definition merely states that material is pornographic if its primary purpose is to appeal to the erotic instincts, without mentioning that it actually has to succeed. It can be easily shown that this is also the commonly understood definition by making the simple observation that most people would agree that granny porn is still porn by virtue of the fact that it was created with the intent to arouse, even if neither you nor I are, in fact, aroused by it. In other words, you have no case, even if I were referring to that, which I wasn't. (Incidentally, that definition came from a dictionary, and is not "my definition", just so we're clear.) Now that we've established that the author need not have been aroused by a picture for it to be considered porn, we can, I suppose, argue forever and a day about whether the author was referring to the full Lena picture or not when he said it was porn, but I won't do that. I interpret it as the author referring to Playboy, the source of the picture, which is by definition porn, but if you interpret it to mean that the author is saying that pictures of "women's faces and feathered hats" are porn, well, then we must agree to disagree, even if I think that is a weird position to take :)
Now, to get down to cases, in the comment I was actually replying to, what you said was this:
What I see is a rather artistic photo. It surely contains nudity, but it's nonetheless a work of art.
Since Lena as used in CS does not contain nudity, you must have been referring to the original Playboy picture, which I doubt you can honestly argue was not created with the intention of appealing to the erotic instincts.