I was at dinner a few nights ago with a large group of friends and other people (other people being those who aren't really my friends, but I'm nice to them 'coz I don't want to make anyone upset), and the discussion eventually turned, as it so often does here in Silicon Valley, to those crazy emails so-and-so had sent to the group, and how side-splittingly funny they were.

One of the "other people" in particular had a point to make about sending these emails around. She started telling a story about an email she had gotten a few days before with the caption "two refugees looking for a home". She opened the attachment to find a picture of a pair of a woman's breasts. Thinking this was hilarious and that her co-workers would appreciate the humor, she forwarded it on. She was later warned by the IT director that she should be careful who she forwarded pornographic material to, since someone could take offense and then she'd be in trouble. She then went on to rant for a good half hour about the nerve of this man telling her to be careful, when he was known for forwarding similar material. I didn't say anything, but I suspect that the warning had nothing to do with the IT director, but rather one of the other recipients of the email in question who had complained.

Still, the only way she could rationalize her action was to say, over and over again, that others in the office had forwarded similar material in the past, oftentimes much worse than her innocent little picture of a pair of breasts. In fact, she went so far as to say that they were not pornographic. Her rationalization for this statement was that in Europe a picture like that would not be looked at twice.

In these days of rampant sexual discrimination lawsuits, regardless of their validity, I could not believe that someone would send something of a pornographic nature -- and no matter how much you rationalize it, a picture of a woman's breasts, with the caption of "two refugees looking for a home" is of a pornographic nature, even in Europe -- and not recognize the risk they put themselves at. Or at least, that she would go to such lengths to convince everyone else that she was in the right.

Ah well, here's a good article that describes the problem internet users are facing it comes to friends, co-workers, email, and sex:
And They Told Two Friends...: Sexual Boasting and the Internet Don't Mix

Link via Zannah