What's the story about the pictures?

The pictures were a temporary victim of a particularly nasty example of free speech on the Internet. After my home page was included on a tacky little page called "Babes on the Web," I decided to pull the pictures for a while.

The Babes page consists of lists of women who have home pages with pictures on the World Wide Web, and each entry is rated on a scale of one to four--"babe-o-rama to dog-o-matic". I would have preferred to have the perpetrator simply remove me from his list; however, he has on repeated occasions refused to do this for other women, so I didn't waste any bandwidth repeating the plea. After all, he reasons...I put my picture on the page, so I was "asking for it."

Does the Babes page constitute sexual harassment? In and of itself, I'd say no. It's just another display of what someone with a limited social life can create. However, the refusal to remove links upon request seems to me to skirt pretty close to the level of harassment. Realistically, however, there's not much anybody can do about it. Complaints, public or private, simply increase the author's sense of importance, and fan the flames of the controversy.

Tell me more about this "Babes" guy!

When I first set this page up, I included a picture of Robert M. Toups, Jr.--the young man who has appointed himself the babe-meister. I invited visitors to judge for themselves how likely he was to get any closer to an attractive woman than the picture on her home page. However, Robert apparently can't take what he dishes out, and has removed that picture from his site, and replaced it with a large file that slows to a crawl any system trying to load it. So you'll just have to imagine what he looks like. Shouldn't be too tough--you've probably seen them by the busloads in your local computer center.

If you're really curious, you can dig up a copy of the August 1995 issue of Wired. They ran a full-page shot of Robert in the all-around (protected in key places by a PowerBook) on page 35. I've gotta give the guy credit for guts...especially if he saw the proofs before he let them print it!

Other Responses to Robert's Work

Ellen Spertus: Ellen has the most measured and rational response to the Babes page, and this discussion is well worth taking a look at. She quite rightly points out that the greatest risk of the page is not that it will significantly hurt any of the women he lists, but that it will be one of many factors that can cause women to avoid the Internet altogether.
Cirocco: This woman has a wonderful wit, and in addition to her explanation of why she removed her pictures, she provides annotated copies of her correspondence with young master Toups. You go girl!
Kilroy: This page has an entertaining critique of Robert's efforts. It also provides you with the opportunity to rate Robert yourself.

ELL / liz@itcs.com