Well, looking at the photo of the artwork in question, I'll admit I have more of a problem with the fact that the character facing the man (god??) with the erection has his hands bound. That creeps me out no end -- looks like he's going to be sacraficed. Mapplethorpe's images are controversial in the extreme at least in this country. I'm not saying his stuff isn't art, but it is art that is offensive to a large segment of the population here (in the US). Would many of his images violate the TOS on Renderosity?? Oh, you betcha. Big time. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the idea behind Renderosity is to give artists the widest audience possible for their work. Not necessarily to foment controversy. Also, not everything that is on display at a public park in any individual country is automatically appropriate for world viewership. It might not even be appropriate for public viewers in that individual country, but somebody there made the decision that it was ... so there it is. Example ... and I'll make this a bit extreme only in trying to get the point across. Let's take a fictional Arabic country (a theocracy) where they hate and are actively persecuting non-Islamic people. That's the setting. Now, say that one is executed and mutilated under the laws of that country because he is actively practicing a religion other than Islam. OK, now imagine that his body is put on display for the public because that's what they do in that country. Does that mean that it's suddenly "ok" to stick bodies of execution victims out in public everywhere in the world? No. Would a photo of the body be something I would want to see posted here? No. It's certainly newsworthy, and could even be a commentary on brutality, the photo might even be artistic, but ... well, I wouldn't want anyone (especially a child) to accidentally run across something like that even in a thumbnail form. As noted above ... the moderators are human and have to make choices. If in deleting an image the viewer or the artist feels the moderators made the wrong choice ... by all means let them know. I would agree that this statue does not depict sexual arousal so much as it does cruelty to others in the name of religion. The Pretty Lady with her hands down her pants likely violates the letter of (as well as the spirit of) the TOS more than this statue.

Could be worse, could be raining.