Update: Apple Bans Saga #12 For Gay Sex Scene

[Milanezi]

The big question is this, did they ban it due to gay sex or just due to sex?

I answered that in the third paragraph. Saga is FULL of sex.

You mentioned sexual characters but not two characters...doing it so to speak. Boobs and gore I guess are OK based on what you wrote but the line is drawn at penetration.

The planet is called "Sextillion" What do you think happens there?

Spoiler: THIS

Mod edit: Image removed.

Yeah, but THAT scene is hardly even erotic, it's way different from a Milo Manara Heavy Metal special edition sort of downright porn. What I see in that scene I've seen in Batwoman and Earth 2 (which showed the Green Lantern dude lying naked and embraced with a sort of "phantasm", by the way they're gay) by DC Comics itself. That scene which is "full of sex" is a far fetch from any downright explicit penetration sex scene, like, again, you wold see in most Milo Manara works...

Edit on it being also a problem with the rating system: if you go to the "newstand" thing on the iPad you DO have a wide variety of periodicals, including porn and gay oriented. Again, I sense the problem with this issue is somewhat deeper than it seems. And for everyone complaining about slave labor, most of what you own probably has slave labor imbued in it in one way or the other, it's wrong but it's there, it sucks; the fact we don't have world peace also sucks.

 

[Skeggers]

"If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app."

No. Bad Apple. Why railroad your developers and customers like that, you big dumb bastards?

 

[Falseprophet]

This is the company that a couple years ago banned a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models app from the App Store--no nudity, just girls in bikinis--and an app that mimicked the sound of farting. Meanwhile, my cousin's 13-year-old showed me an app from the App Store that perfectly mimicked the sound of real world firearms. So Apple is apparently against girls in bikinis (when you can find far more explicit material in seconds with the Safari browser) and flatulence, but something that could put my cousin's son's school into lockdown is perfectly okay.

That's when I decided I wanted nothing to do with Apple and their walled garden of arbitrary morality. I have not given them a thin dime since.

 

[Requia]

Judging by the images that actually got the comic banned, they actually are worse than what Grey posted earlier as these things are measured (read: Erect Penis).

I think people are jumping to conclusions about homophobia on Apple's part, they just flat out like censoring stuff, whether that's Chaucer, comic books, or Google Maps. It's a shit practice, but there'd have to be a bigger pattern before you can accuse them of Amazon style gay bashing.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Mmmmmm they were pushing their luck to start with and now got hit, they are lucky the whole series was no pulled. Would have been better to sell it in the Ibookstore.

 

[geizr]

I will agree that Apple should cease with trying so much to police content. About the furtherest I think they should go on that is to simply categorize it, label it well and clearly, and put it in its own corner. The people who are interested in that sort of thing will go into that corner to seek it out, and the people that are not interested will simply stay out of that corner. Very much like the porno section in some video stores that's hidden behind the labeled curtain or door, "Must be 18+ to enter".

Of course, no matter what one does, there's always going to be some contingent, on both sides, that's going to ***** and go on a crusade to refashion all of existence to conform to their ideology.

 

[Seneschal]

Brain K. Vaughn is a genius. His tenure on the Runaways was amazing, especially for people who are starting off with comics. The nerve on them; the app store doesn't deserve him.

 

[geizr]

Apple uses oppressed commie child labor to increase their quarterly earnings reports, what do you expect? They don't care because most of their customers don't care.

If you're going to use that, you've pretty much decided to not use a large chunk of modern computing devices. Here's a list of just the major clients of Foxconn:

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)
Apple Inc. (United States)
ASRock (Taiwan)
Asus (Taiwan)
Barnes & Noble (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
EVGA Corporation (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)
Intel (United States)
IBM (United States)
Lenovo (China)
Logitech (Switzerland)
Microsoft (United States)
MSI (Taiwan)
Motorola (United States)
Netgear (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)
Panasonic (Japan)
Philips (Netherlands)
Samsung (South Korea)
Sharp (Japan)
Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

As far as I know from reports, of those, only Apple has actually been DOING anything about the Chinese labor issue. If I recall correctly, Hewlett-Packard even complained about Apple doing audits and petitioning for higher wages for the workers because Hewlett-Packard was afraid of price increases to their own products. Pretty much, all over the web, it has been shown that anyone using this little bit of tripe to hold against Apple is just being a hypocrite and a tool. So, you might want to find a better reason than this one, cause, in general, it just makes one look silly rather than being a truly valid reason.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

From the sounds of it, I'd be glad to see it banned for being entirely gross and twisted and not suited to the platform.

 

[Scrimshaw13]

The big question is this, did they ban it due to gay sex or just due to sex?

Saga has several depictions of full on sex, like here's a penis, and its inside someone kind of sex, as well as a ton of "here's two people doing it, buck naked, in a sexual postion, but no penis" stuff too. It goes from HBO level to above back and forth a bunch. This is not the first time in the series we've seen a penis, and not the first time we've seen one inside of someone, it just happens to be a dudes mouth this time.

 

[Madman123456]

-Snip.-

And that attitude gets us where? *snip again*

Nowhere. I wasn't trying to move anything anywhere and my Point was: neither does Apple. They didn't remove this Comic because they're staffed by homophobes, they did that because they thought they'd make more money. It doesn't have anything to do with anything being ok or not because they're a corporation.

They chose whoever they like to pander to and if i don't think they're motivated by something that i object to, being a backwards prick would fit that, i'm ok with whatever pandering they're doing.


Bleh, we should limit our use of "homophobes" a bit since homophobia is an actual mental Illness; since you don't chose to be a homophobe, like you don't chose your sexual Orientation i'd be ok with a homophobe if that person seeks professional help. Because unlike sexual Orientation you do hurt others and unlike sexual orientation there can and should be done something about that.

 

[Milanezi]

Apple uses oppressed commie child labor to increase their quarterly earnings reports, what do you expect? They don't care because most of their customers don't care.

If you're going to use that, you've pretty much decided to not use a large chunk of modern computing devices. Here's a list of just the major clients of Foxconn:

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)
Apple Inc. (United States)
ASRock (Taiwan)
Asus (Taiwan)
Barnes & Noble (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
EVGA Corporation (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)
Intel (United States)
IBM (United States)
Lenovo (China)
Logitech (Switzerland)
Microsoft (United States)
MSI (Taiwan)
Motorola (United States)
Netgear (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)
Panasonic (Japan)
Philips (Netherlands)
Samsung (South Korea)
Sharp (Japan)
Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

As far as I know from reports, of those, only Apple has actually been DOING anything about the Chinese labor issue. If I recall correctly, Hewlett-Packard even complained about Apple doing audits and petitioning for higher wages for the workers because Hewlett-Packard was afraid of price increases to their own products. Pretty much, all over the web, it has been shown that anyone using this little bit of tripe to hold against Apple is just being a hypocrite and a tool. So, you might want to find a better reason than this one, cause, in general, it just makes one look silly rather than being a truly valid reason.

If this was Facebook, I'd hit "like" on your comment sir.

 

[Lightknight]

I actually just picked up the first trade (a compilation of issues and the first one includes this issue) and read it a few nights ago. It's funny but I actually read this article's headline thinking "If they banned issue number 12 then why didn't they ban the first trade too", but then I saw the picture and realized it was exactly what I was thinking about. This bounty hunter guy is on some sort of prostitute world/themepark as the article says. The series in general has a lot of nudity and it certainly isn't for kids. But most of these scenes are actually leading up to something, as in they have a purpose. This one in particular illustrates the pointlessness and lack of fulfillment of meaningless (non-relationship-based) sex. It's a legitimate point to be made and once it makes that point there is actually a reason for him being there. It is character development.

As for the "postage stamp sized images..." comment. That's completely bogus and the only direct complaint I have with the article, though you did mention this was just a quote and not necessarily factual. Not that the size of the image matters, but we're talking a two page-spanning orgy with the main character walking down the center. Maybe if you're reading it on a small phone or something but that's more of formatting constraint than an actual comment on original image size. I also question the claim that this ban was because of it having gay sex as opposed to the sheer amount and variety of sexual acts being depicted here.

My question is how consistent is Apple with this policy regarding other sexual images? It's their prerogative to make such a curation of their products but it would be unethically sound if they aren't consistent. I'll admit that this issue is significantly more graphic than the others which contain single sexual acts here and there between people who actually care for eachother. But that scene is only one of several, the next page then has a bunch of frontally nude men in a pyramid while a woman spanks them with a whip. He is then offered a six-year old girl (fully clothed) who had been trained to respond in certain ways while asked if she was decent. I mean, if you're going to have any policy against such things, this comic would clearly throw a flag. The point of this scene was for him to meet that girl though.

I'm not a fan of nudity in comics. But there is a difference between gratuitous sexual drawings and ones that actually serve a purpose. There is also a lot of silliness in censorship that just doesn't make sense. This series as a whole is a remarkable story and has really stuck with me. Absolutely one of the best ones I've read and enough to make me overlook the nudity.

If apple is consistent with blocking these kinds of comics even when just heterosexual ones, then I don't really care about this being blocked. If not, then they're presenting a double standard.

Either way, if you're going to buy comics, buy them from your local comic book store. I recommend buying trades instead of individual issues.

 

[Lightknight]

Nowhere. I wasn't trying to move anything anywhere and my Point was: neither does Apple. They didn't remove this Comic because they're staffed by homophobes, they did that because they thought they'd make more money. It doesn't have anything to do with anything being ok or not because they're a corporation.

Huh? You're going to have to explain to me why you think blocking a popular comic would get them more money somehow.

I have to repeat my complaint about the assumption the the issue was blocked because of the gay acts. The very next page has something like seven men in a human pyramid (weiners fully exposed) while a woman spanks them with a whip. The page that includes gay sex was a full two-page spread (from what I recall, I'm at work, not at home where the trade is) of graphic nudity of what could be described as an orgy. And, as I said in the post immediately above, this character was then offered a six-year old girl who I believe will serve as an important plot device later on. While she was fully clothed and of course the guy rejected the atrocity in a pleasing fashion, it's still a rather troublesome scenario.

So all I mean to say is, there's a LOT going on in there that could throw red flags in the curation process and I'd be surprised if Apple said it was because of those two specific images rather than the entirety of the issue. If they did it because of the homosexuality being expressed, that's a double standard. If they did it because the issue crossed the overall line because of the variety and explicitness of images depicted then that's simply proper curation with standards we don't have to agree with.

 

[Xarathox]

So with Steve Jobs dead, Apple's still being ran by douchebags.

 

[Lightknight]

So with Steve Jobs dead, Apple's still being ran by douchebags.

The potentially slanderous thread title would indicate that. If you had read the comic you would understand why this issue may be curated out. FAR more is going on than just that scene. Read my post immediately above yours for a quick summary of just the stuff I remembered.

So Apple lets in...

multi-breasted centipede hookers, phallic architecture, evil pedophile aliens.

But the moment some gay love occurs the issue gets thrown out?

Did you also ban ME3 for its 'gay love' as well?

There is nothing that has told us that they would have let the rest of it in without those particular scenes. The claim that the issue was only blocked for that is disregarding that all those things you just quoted were ALSO in there. There's no reason why it being blocked wasn't the combination of all of them together in one issue. What we need to see is some sort of documentation that states this as the specific reason. As is, the issue is totally crossing the line as far as typical Apple curation is concerned (as far as I can tell) all by itself without the fact that members of the same sex (let alone members of different species) were with eachother.

Again, I love the comic and strongly recommend it to people who enjoy comics. But we're assuming a lot of things here without doing the appropriate research.

 

[JarinArenos]

So with Steve Jobs dead, Apple's still being ran by douchebags.

The potentially slanderous thread title would indicate that. If you had read the comic you would understand why this issue may be curated out. FAR more is going on than just that scene. Read my post immediately above yours for a quick summary of just the stuff I remembered.

So Apple lets in...

multi-breasted centipede hookers, phallic architecture, evil pedophile aliens.

But the moment some gay love occurs the issue gets thrown out?

Did you also ban ME3 for its 'gay love' as well?

There is nothing that has told us that they would have let the rest of it in without those particular scenes. The claim that the issue was only blocked for that is disregarding that all those things you just quoted were ALSO in there. There's no reason why it being blocked wasn't the combination of all of them together in one issue. What we need to see is some sort of documentation that states this as the specific reason. As is, the issue is totally crossing the line as far as typical Apple curation is concerned (as far as I can tell) all by itself without the fact that members of the same sex (let alone members of different species) were with eachother.

Again, I love the comic and strongly recommend it to people who enjoy comics. But we're assuming a lot of things here without doing the appropriate research.

I think you missed the facts of the case. The issues containing those elements (orgy, etc) were in *other issues that were not banned*. Apple *permitted* those elements, and only blocked some background images of what appears to be gay fellatio in an otherwise unrelated scene.

 

[HBaskerville]

Curious that the headline was not changed. Link bait, I guess.

 

[QtheMuse]

Journalistic Sensationalistic Article Title strikes again. Reporters are suppose to report the facts, not editorialize. Journalism 101.