I have to wonder if he obtained the permission of his Iranian-girlfriend-back-in-1989.

(He's a real comedian.)

Uh, should I move this into the BLP forum?

I dunno--it's not a BLP, the photo is claimed to be 20 years old, and who know what happened to the subject. You choose.

This one could make money for a body-waxing business.

She probably got rich in the hair-export business. Did you see that Chris Rock documentary, Good Hair? There's big bucks in that stuff!

Meanwhile, I doubt anyone in the porn industry has even seen a pube in about 15 years, so she's probably safe from those people at least.

May I suggest the tar-pit?

Then we can ask Ottava how old he perceives the subject to be.

Iranian girlfriend with a wedding ring, no less.

Not necessarily. I have a ring almost identical to hers that I wear on my left hand's ring finger, and I'm not married. Granted, I'm not Iranian, so there may be culture differences that I'm not aware of (though she's posing nude for and supposedly granting consent for photographs of her to be posted on Wikipedia, so that may not be the case).

May have given permission for him to take the picture assuming private use, but the 20 years old comment surely guarantees that she gave no consent for its publication into the public domain in 2008 (though it depends under what laws and what time you judge the issue of ownership of the image and the image rights).

Who said "hairy women"?

The photo purports to be an example of Hirsutism but I rather doubt it. Source for this? Original research?

The permission of the subject for this use is very, very shaky. The internet wouldn't have been relevant to her then. But the elephant in this living room is the original research involved, claiming her as an example, when her hair is just not that extraordinary. It's an excuse to put up porn, that's what I think.

The woman in the photo does not appear to meet the definition of "hirsutism" at this medical dictionary.

So why is this photo in the article?

image should be deleted

Very good point. In 1990, it might not even have occurred to her that such a photo would be seen by potentially the whole world, and as the main image on an article about a medical condition that she probably didn't even think of herself as having, if she even knew it was considered a "condition."


I thought that was assumed?


Noting, of course, that the topic in an actual medical dictionary (presumably reviewed by medical professionals) contains no naked pictures of women whatsoever. It's almost like they didn't think such images were absolutely essential to ensuring they were providing "adequate coverage"!

From the link you gave: "Such male-pattern growth of terminal body hair usually occurs in androgen-stimulated locations, such as the face, chest, and areolae". That actually is what's in the pic, last I looked.

Surely by definition naked pictures of women (or even pictures of naked women) don't provide adequate coverage. They don't even illustrate adequate coverage. Still, I wouldn't say that this example proves a great deal. I've looked at more than one medical dictionary, and they'd all benefit from more illustrations. Not necessarily Shankbone-type ones, of course!

Could this kind of thing get you stoned in Iran?

If they don't have marijuana, I guess?

Only if you printed it out, wrapped some hashish in it, and smoked it.

(Edit - Oops, too late! )

I vaguely recall that they do have stoning in some rural Iranian communities for certain offenses (presumably including porn-related ones) under Sharia law, but I don't believe their society is so far-gone as to automatically assume guilt on the part of someone who simply appears in a photograph with no clothes on. As for the guy who took the photo... maybe, but they'd still have to prove malicious intent for a stoning, wouldn't they? Maybe they'd just give him 50 years and have done with it.

The only "crime" stoning is a punishment for under sharia is adultery by a married person, male or female.

Ahh, well then - I actually thought I'd read somewhere that there was some sort of serious corporal punishment for producing pornography, but I could have been mistaken about that. (Though I didn't actually use the word "crime," at least.) Sorry about that.

And I don't even watch Fox News!

To be fair, he may be asking about the hirsutism itself, not than the photo of it.

Naah, Mr. Emperor isn't that ignorant of Persian culture. If Iranians started stoning each other just for being hirsute... well, I could make a joke about this, but that would be highly inappropriate for an occasionally family-friendly website.

Hairy Iranian Women #12 & 35?

Where's Moulton?

NO!! NO!!! DON'T PUT THAT THING ON ME!!!!

AAAGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Looking at her left hand, there appears to be a wedding ring on her third finger. However, I am not sure of the Iranian habit in this area.

It would seem something is wrong then if it is his "girlfriend".

Of course, it is the Wikipedia and so a) it is bogus, b) it is up there for its kinky porn value and c) it is an invasion of the woman's privacy and should be removed.

You're not big on actually reading, are ya.

A mammoth?

Thus, is it a candidate for the Tar-pit?

It would definitely be a candidate for the tar-pit if WP were to remove the image from the article in question. Given that they probably won't do that, I don't believe our Google-footprint is big enough to make much difference juice-wise in a search for, say, "hairy women," but if someone were to convince us otherwise, I would probably go along with it.

I realize that some WP'ers will see this as a form of blackmail, which is fine as far as I'm concerned (though I wouldn't have intended this, and it's a bit of a stretch in any event considering how limited our influence is over there). If they can't independently verify who this person is, and all they have is "I took the picture with the consent of my Iranian girlfriend" from the guy who uploaded it, they shouldn't be running it anywhere on the page, much less at the very top. How do we even know that the statement isn't a dodge? His "Iranian girlfriend" might have "consented" for him to take the photo of a completely different person, who might not even be Iranian!

Of course, that's just my opinion, and I can sympathize with the argument that the woman is barely recognizable... but who knows, maybe that's an argument in favor of removal, since people might more easily mistake the subject for someone they know? (Assuming they haven't seen her naked already?)

Perhaps we need a BLY(*) forum.

(*) Biographies of Living Yetis

This is true ... it might just be a racist stab. Whatever it is, it is all wrong and should be deleted.

If they need illustrations, they should be akin to medical journals and not pornographically posed.

Tried Google--this thread has no visibility that I can find.
It did get posted on Reddit yesterday.....and that DID end up on the Google hit-parade.

surely we have readers who can do something about this.

Maybe the thread title is preventing people from reading any of it? After all, hardly anybody these days is really "into hairy women," and those who are... well, less said the better, I suppose. (No offense to any women reading this who might consider themselves "hairy," of course.)

Now, back in the 15th Century... things was different.

She's hairier than I am. By far.

The glabrous girl and the hispid boy
Made all the flowers mad with joy,
While the hispid girl and the glabrous youth
Made even roses seem uncouth....

So, to your respective sexes, flee!
Hispidity, glabrosity.


I don't know who wrote that. Hilaire Belloc, maybe.

Rename to 'Anyone into getting hairy women out of the Wikipedia?'

15 months later, and the photo is still on Commons.

What were you expecting? I can make something happen, if you like, but did you really expect anyone at Commons to act on their own?

Actually, it seems they cropped the face out a few months ago (look at the file history).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...h_hirsutism.jpg

They uploaded a cropped version and deleted the old file history with "privacy issue" as the stated reason due to the following deletion discussion:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:...h_hirsutism.jpg

I may as well do this here and see if anyone decides to pick it up at Commons.

The hairy woman image was originally uploaded by Commons user "The Duke of Geography" on 8 July 2008. The original file name was"IRAN-01.JPG" and a Google search will find copies of it under that name.

It is obvious to me from the vertical banding that the source of the image is a printout or older colour photocopy. The cropping of the face has also cropped out a red dot in the upper left hand corner. That red dot is a push pin. This is an photo of a printed image tacked up to something. That may be more apparent when one sees the original uncropped version where part of the surrounding are visible (not the one that was uploaded to Commons and subsequently cropped to remove the face). While this may not have been known to Commons editors at the time, it should be sufficient now to get the image deleted. Oh wait, this is Commons we're talking about, of course that won't be enough!

Let's look at the source, then. The Duke of Geography uploaded a number of copyvio images of American football players, all of which were deleted. Odd that anyone would trust the user's claims on subsequent image upload but again, this is Commons. Over on WP, that same user was blocked briefly (never to return) after this outbursts like this and:
So, a valued contributor. What about the user's other uploads of hirsute women? All taken from an article in a dermatological journal. If everything else uploaded by the user is a copyright violation, even Commons admins may be able to overlook the fact that it's an image of a naked woman and bring themselves to delete it. If not, let me know - there's more where that came from.

Carbuncle, it is amazing what you're able to uncover, yet it's all there in broad daylight. The Wikimedia PR machine keeps stories like this from percolating down to the general public.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:...ke_of_Geography

@carbuncle: Thanks for pointing out these possible copyright violations. I've started a deletion discussion based on what you said.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...&action=history

Two weeks later, and there hasn't been anything done to fix the problems I've brought to their attention.

I suspect this is due to a general lack of interest in deleting images on commons rather than anything else. Regardless, it is well past time for these images to go. Agreeing to have pictures of your medical condition published in a special purpose medical journal does not mean that you are ok with fetishists uploading those pictures to WP or Commons. I've tagged them as copyright violations for speedy deletion. I'll deal with the remaining, original image after these are gone.

Gone. I've deleted them myself. Don't worry, they'll be back at DRV in 5 .. 4 .. 3 ...

Nice. Good work.