Is Wikipedia wicked porn?

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."

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