“Common decency is missing at the European Parliament”, he protests.
Then he puts a strong, bold warning into his post:
Warning - do not scroll further if you are offended by disturbing images.
I am not. Not much can offend me. They are just images. But it looked exciting—soft porn and controversial. I was hooked. So I bravely scrolled down, getting excited.
But no images. More strong words:
While we were at the European Union last week, there was an art exhibit in the parliament building that many of us found shocking. More than shocking, these images were deeply disturbing […]
Uh, I wanted to see them now.
He continued to report that there was some mainstream reporting, but they had made “light of the actual images by having pro and con critiques voice opinions” and stated that:
In the case of mainstream media, the images weren’t shown in any of the news articles, so readers were left wondering what all the fuss was about.
I got even more excited. They must be evil if not shown. And I fully agreed with Dr Malone when he stated:
I completely understand why. They are disgusting. However, there is only one way to draw attention to an issue such as this, and that is to show the public just what is being displayed in the European Parliament as public art. Without seeing the images, how can people possibly judge for themselves?
Bring it on, Doc. Please. I am on Tenterhooks. I had to use all my willpower not to jump straight to the bottom. Now he was deliberately teasing me:
The pornographic feel to these paintings, combined with their clearly intentionally blasphemous content, left many at the COVID Summit meeting shocked and upset.
Blasphemous and pornographic? I WANT TO SEE THEM NOW.
After another paragraph where he expressed his feeling of great shame for the gays, lesbians and transgender people for being misrepresented as “sluts” in these pictures, he finally moved on to bringing the images:
Without further ado:
And that was the end of it.
He put an frickn paywall in. Shut the gate, Bill! No pictures unless you upgrade to paid? Seriously. After all that teasing.
I understand. We all need to make a buck—a few writers use paywalls. I hate them. But it is a free substack world. People should do what they want to do.
I have been a paid subscriber for Dr Malone to support his work. He was one of the first people I ever subscribed to on Substack—most of the time as a free subscriber. I have been reading his posts for almost a year. To me, this is a first. I might be wrong. I often am. But I cannot recall any other paywall ever.
Once again, everyone is entitled to put paywalls up or not. I also don’t have an issue with his opinions regarding the exhibition.
But I am just annoyed. And I find it a bit weird, to be honest.
If you want new paid subscribers, teasing them with blasphemous and pornographic art probably works well, especially since you seem to be the only one with the images.
But doesn’t the sale of these images makes him look slightly hypocritical?
On the one hand, he is shocked, disgusted and opposed and feels the whole world needs to see this.
On the other hand, he then restricts access. And makes money by showing them only to paid subscribers. I don’t know. Maybe I am just jealous. You tell me in the comments. Perhaps I am just annoyed.
Overall, I like Dr Malone and support his work. But everybody is corruptable. Nobody can be fully trusted. So I want to keep people in power honest.
Anyway. I did some digging, and it wasn’t easy to get some images. After some pasting and copying, I got two for you. No paywall.
I understand that all of them are from the controversial lesbian photographer Elisabeth Olsen.
Thank you for actually providing these images.
No, not particularly tasteful, IMO. But at least we now have an idea of what the fuss is about!
And I agree - that tease-then-paywall strategy sucks. I've been unsubscribing to the writers who do this - though this has to be the worst tease ever!
Please clarify "This looks like Australia".