I certainly agree that the human body is a proper subject for art and I personally can appreciate that art form a great deal. There is nothing wrong with people depicting the body, learning about it and appreciating it.

My reason for not allowing nude photos is quite simple: the line between art and pornography is notoriously hard to define. In an open forum like this, it is a 100% certainty that some people will push the line as far as they can.

I don't have the time, energy, or inclination to do hair-splitting between the artistic nude and pornography. I don't want the controversy stirred up by nude posts to turn this forum into a nasty battlefield. We have tens of thousands of visitors, and many of them are young kids. Others live in cultures where nudity of any sort is strictly taboo. I don't want to show these visitors controversial materials while we are trying to sort out what is art and what is not.

So my not allowing nude photos is not artistic prejudice and is not arbitrary censorship, it is about keeping this forum alive and well. My years of experience dealing with online forums convince me that this is the only way to keep the forum from being messed up.

I have spent a tremendous amount of time, energy and my own money to build a site the way I envisioned it, and I am not going to put its life at risk.