Not Safe For Work (NSFW) and 18+ Adult Content

By Chongchen Saelee

What a prolific Internet meme.  What does "not safe for work" really mean?  Do people browse the Internet all day from work?  Does that mean that people actually don't work when they're suppose to?  And all the while, they're looking up pornography.  My, how productive.


It's become the equivalent of the advisory label on music CDs or cover art.  It becomes part of the graphic design/marketing.  In the case of "not safe for work", it'll only be so effective in text searches.  Before NSFW, there was XXX.  It's not enough to have one X, but three X's means the content is extra dirty.

I find it strange that when pornographers try to sell their smut that XXX is stamped across covers.  You would think it would be obvious with the big tits and spread pussy on the covers.

There was this phenomenon, too, with the advent of DVDs when "uncensored director's cut" was slapped all over the covers.  It didn't really guarantee anything more raunchy, but that was the illusion.

But maybe there's something exotic about the exclusivity of the meme.  Maybe people get tired of the practicality of "adult content" or even the word "sex".  It's not that people don't actively look those words up or that they don't want to be known looking them up.  Maybe it's thrilling to look up smut under some inconspicuity (is that a word?)

It's like when a woman's panties come off and she has pubic hair that is neatly groomed and you wouldn't have known otherwise, assuming she was a shaver or cave bear.  An educated adult knows a woman has pubic hair, and should expect it there, but they don't want to just stare at those medical photos of aloof, homely women.  Even then, we want to pull the panties aside and take a peak.  What do we see behind the curtain of curtains?

I wonder if putting NSFW as a keyword can conjure up any traffic as a spread pussy shot could.  Depends on how tempting the illusion of coveted explicitness is.