Is the word "masturbation" NSFW?

Yes, it is, because despite it being a more clinical term, it is the subject that is not appropriate for the workplace.

Remember, the workplace has a very modest standard to meet as to what is not appropriate. Anything sexual can be considered to create a hostile work environment.

As @zenvelo, the key is you have to judge whether this is a word that would be acceptable in a workplace. Would you want your boss to see you reading something about masturbation during your work day? Most people would say no. And the word masturbation is likely to trigger any monitoring software an organisation is using.

So while masturbation isn’t a dirty word, it isn’t a suitable topic for general discussion or intenet surfing in the workplace.

Plus, here in the lagoon, we prefer you to be a master debater first and foremost.

At my job, even though it’s pretty liberal and some may not hesitate to open something with the word “masterbation” in it, I’d err on the side of caution and not open it. I know my job has monitoring software on the computer and they watch. I won’t even type curse words on Fluther or FB when I’m at work, because I don’t want to draw any attention from the eyes in the sky. So yes, the word masterbation is NSFW.

And yet the question Did your parents fuck you up? remains untouched
Inconsistent bullshit again, but hey, no sweat

@ucme: True! I flagged that one and yet it remains up. I agree inconsistency with the modding.

Yes, it is NSFW in the sense that people could get in trouble if somebody saw it on their screen at work.

I’m thinking the “masterbation vs. word fuck” might be worthy of a separate question.

I also think this question (@ibstubro‘s question) should be in Meta. It’s about Fluther.

I asked a separate question in Meta today, about my post above, and it was pushed to editing. I’m not sure why it’s not allowed to remain up as a discussion. In the details of my question, I wrote that I had flagged the “fuck” question and it’s still up, so it’s not clear why it’s been passed over by Fluther.

[Mod says]

Most businesses use keywords which automatically generate flags when employees visit certain parts of the internet. For example, if I googled “nude chicks” at work, an admin would get notified. He would then, most likely, add the page I had visited to the “blocked” list. In most jobs, googling “masturbation” is not a work-related task. There is no reason to visit a site which discusses masturbation while working, so sites which do so will get filtered. We don’t want Fluther blocked, which is why this guideline is in place.

“Fucked up” is different. The amount of sites which use the term “fucked up” in an “innocent” way is huge. If admins banned all pages containing swear words, they’d have a job to do.

So, we try to keep threads marked to stop people which may be browsing from work from inadvertently harming Fluther. It has nothing to do with our moral standards, it’s just about keeping Fluther (and users) out of trouble.

The word “masturbation” appeared in the link in the OP, from Fox News:
Explicit sex ed book causes controversy at Oregon elementary school
“The illustrations in the book include pages of naked teens and adults, some depicting sex acts and even masturbation, the station reported.”

So, is it only headlines that are NSFW? Because the mainstream press is free to use “masturbation” in a technical sense. Not that I’m against FOX News being branded NSFW.

@ibstubro The mod gave a pretty clear explanation of Fluther’s reasoning above. How the hell do we know or care what standards Fox uses? And on Fluther, it would be fine to use the term in the details of the question anyway.

More than anything, a question about masturbation invites NSFW responses, so it deserves the tag.

My own response had a link to an NSFW Amazon product page. (I did tag the link).

I don’t understand your concern about Fox News standards, @janbb?

My question, @longgone:
Is it true that the word masturbation could appear in the details of a question or the body of a provided link without needing or triggering the NSFW tag?

Yes, @Seek, and I would have thought that your tag of your answer would have been the appropriate place for NSFW.

I’m not being argumentative in any way. I think this could be a learning moment. If I’d thought that using the word “masturbation” in the question would trigger NSFW, I would have done so.
If I’d thought that I could ask the question more in the vein of the Fox story and included “masturbation” in the details without triggering NSFW, I would have. Not to circumvent any rules, but to discourage the off-topic humor that some find “NSFW” a red flag for.

@ibstubro You were the one who brought up Fox News first, not me.

My question was not about Fox News, @janbb. It was about when words become NSFW on Fluther.
In the question body?
In the details to the OP?
In links to the OP?

Additional details in my post prior to your last post.

Gotcha.

It was my understanding that questions about sex were to be labeled NSFW and that explicit sex terms could be included in the details and in answers but euphemisms should be used in the question itself. I think this policy evolved some years ago.

“Explicit sex terms” of which I would think “fuck” is about as explicit as it can get

Again (not to sound argumentative, because I’m not), my question was not about sex. If I’d asked, “Is nine years old too young to masturbate?” I would have automatically marked it as (creepy!) NSFW.

But I’m seeing the light.

I have to agree, @jca, that I don’t see an instance where “fuck” is SFW.

[Mod says] If an admin saw “Fox News” pop up in response to the site using a keyword, I’m thinking that would still not get Fox blocked. The average admin is bound to have heard of Fox News. Fluther, not so much. We are small enough to be a target – a site the admin hasn’t heard of will usually get banned, rather than checked out first.

Ideally, we would have no questionable terms in the title of any threads. Bendrew decided ages ago that the acceptable terms in titles are the clinical ones – words like “breasts” and “genitals” are often used in a medical context, so they will usually not be part of a company’s list of keywords. The same goes for terms like “fucked up” – this makes a lot of sense. Think of the false positives all over the internet.

Try to think like a computer. In your title, use terms which are likely to be used in an innocent setting. Clinical terms, whenever possible. If you need to, it’s fine to skirt around the question a little.

The details and answers inside a thread marked [NSFW] are up to you. We would remove anything that’s just obscene, but swearing and even explicit sexual terms are usually fine. If a user was to access those threads during work hours, Fluther would likely get blocked – but the alternative would be banning all sexual content everywhere on Fluther. I don’t think any of us want this. That’s why the compromise of [NSFW] is in place – we’re trying to make keeping Fluther off the blocked lists as easy as possible.

Not something for any place. NSFAP

Well it’s a lot more clinical than “wanking” or “jerking off”. But we are talking about a sexual act here, so in many social surroundings and business company it’s not really appropriate to use this word. That’s where the Not Safe For Work thing comes in, because it’s not advisable that you sit in an office in your lunch break reading content about masturbation.

@NerdyKeith Yeah,you’re right about that. In fact; its “clinicalness” is why it is still in the question title. Its subject is why the [NSFW] is needed. If the OP had used a term like “wanking”, we would have asked him to rephrase the question, along with adding [NSFW].

It’s getting to the point where the very term NSFW is NSFW…

The irony is ironic.