Chess Pawn or Chess Porn?

[Michael Mkpadi]

Can you take part in a simple experiment? Ok thanks, now take a look at the two images below


Then take a look at this photo.


What is the difference? Does one of these have more chess content than the other? What makes one of them about exploitation and the other one not?

Why I ask is the results have been astounding. Chess fans assume when a woman is in a picture with a chess board that she is automatically being exploited. This holds true whatever she is wearing, as chess pages get criticised for posting "excess pictures of female chess players". The level of exploitation increases as the ambient temperature of the scene in the photo increases, so a winter day in a woolly jumper causes less offence than a summer day by the pool in a bikini.

Is this a new form of reverse sexism? Men can play chess in a g-string but post a few photos a women playing chess in a winter coat and it's objectification. Net effect no women playing chess please.

I am curious what you think. Shouldn't women be allowed to play chess in burkas or bikinis?

[MJMcCready]

They should be able to play in whatever they like. I noted that the memorychess page, which has an enormous collection of chess images neatly categorized on facebook, has a section for women and there are many pictures that are far more revealing than what you have posted here. They are all quite arty though so not sure if they qualify as being pornographic or demeaning.

[MJMcCready]

Here's some chess history for you.

[MJMcCready]

And...

[MJMcCready]

And you thought history was boring did you?

[MJMcCready]

The photographer is Leslie McAllister http://www.lesliemcallister.com/ a player herself.

[NickFaulks]

Looking at the position on the board, Eloine isn't pondering anything of the sort.

[MJMcCready]

She might be.

[Michael Mkpadi]

Ok I think I'm getting the general feeling some of you are just as confused as me as to why certain photos are targeted as too obscene for chess.

Let me categorise the scenarios as the following:
1)A female at the board in a tournament in a public event
2)1)A female at the board in a tournament in a invitational/private event
3)A female in her leisure time fully clothed at the board
4)A female in her leisure time partially clothed at the board.
5) A female on a photo shoot (fully/partial/glamour) at the board
6)A female on a photo shoot (fully/partial/glamour) with chess board or pieces in the background or a chess motif
7) A female professional chess player doing a non-chess activity

The answers people give as to whether the photographs are normal\racy\erotic\porn\obscene tend to depend on whether the female is a professional chess player or a model and her pose. Also some fans have an additional level of offence for objectification which appears to be normal\borderline exploitation\objectification\sexist.

So if you combine 1-7 with combinations of perception of normal-obscene and levels of perceived objectification from normal-sexist there is an awful lot of scope for offence and each person has their own unique take on things.

For example Victoria's secret at their 2014 Fashion show used a chess theme, I know it looks like a FIDE grand prix opening ceremony (apologies to anyone who thinks this is obscene and sexist). It was on telly.




Another photo featuring Victoria's Secret Fashion Models is below.



Both photos feature Victoria's Secret models working with chess as a motif.

Is it no longer of any chess value because they are female models? (what if they were male models? would we assume they were at least chess.com members?)

The irony is that the 2nd photo features a former Chess Federation president Carmen Kass who until lately could have been just as likely to be in the first photo on the catwalk. Maybe we have to re-assess our perception of these things if we find such photos difficult to see on a chess page.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Of the six pictures posted in the thread so far, I think there are three I'd be happy with on a general chess page.

(This thread, by the way, does not count as a "general chess page"; it's meta-discussion, and I'm happy with all the pictures so far as an item in that meta-discussion. This does not mean I want the pictures of the pin-up girls to spread to other threads.)

[Michael Mkpadi]

What really took the biscuit was when one of our co-admin on a chess page about 4 years ago now suggested we post a photo of female chess players at the board in tournaments every day to raise the profile of chess played by women. There would be information about their FIDE rating, federation and in some cases a link to their best games or a youtube video of them playing. We all thought it was a good idea and have been doing that every day to the present day.

Majority of fans liked the feature but a very vocal minority (men and women) panned it as sexist and demeaning to chess and would troll the posts demanding they were taken down, that this was such a male objectification of females. What? these are professional chess players with photos taken at public tournaments and the players happen to be women . The page is normally full of posts of pictures of male chess players by default.

What they didn't know was that co-admin who came up with the idea was female and the admin team had a female majority.

So what was curious was that you'd have female admin posting the photo of a female chess player at the chess board on a chess page, and male chess fans complaining it was sexist towards females and some how demeaning to the noble game. What an interesting world we live in.