Work-Safe Pr0n

About

Work-Safe Porn, also known as “SFW Porn”, is a fad that involves taking pornographic media and painting over it with image- or video-editing software to make it appear as if the subjects are not engaged in sexual activity. (See also: Unncessary Censorship)

Origin

On September 9th, 2002, a round-up of work-safe porn images titled “Make Porn Work-Safe”^[1] appeared in the “Comedy Goldmine” section on the website Something Awful.

The Something Awful Forums goons have been cooking up another batch of humorous humor, and this week’s Goldmine is all about making porn into images that are socially acceptable and work-safe, should your boss peer over your shoulder at the exact moment you pull up your pin-up girl favorites.

Spread

The first YTMND titled “Skin Flute”^[2] was created by DeitysWarrior on April 2nd, 2006. The fad popped back on the Something Awful forums on June 13th, 2006 in a thread titled “DPPH classic – make porn work safe”.^[3] On September 14th, 2007 it reached the Newgrounds forums in a thread titled “Work Safe Porn Thread”.^[4]

Several single topic websites have been created dedicated to work-safe porn images including Not NSFW^[8], SFW-Porn^[9] and Porn SFW.^[10]

Viral Marketing

In June of 2008, the content filtering software company Porn Blocker started a viral marketing campaign for their “Ishield” anti-porn software, and used work-safe porn images in ads accompanied by the tagline “gives the internet back its innoncence.”

In September of 2008, the Italian fashion clothing company Diesel released a work-safe porn video, produced by the viral marketing production company The Viral Factory, to celebrate their 30th birthday . On September 25th, the video was mentioned in The Guardian^[5], the French website 20 Minutes^[6], and was featured on Something Awful.^[7]

Notable Derivatives

Search

Search queries related to work-safe porn peaked in October of 2008, the month after the Diesel ad was released.

External Links