Every print company out there must eventually decide on a policy for printing pornography. In the beginning, it was a non-issue for our company since we were not receiving sexually explicit artwork, but as we grew questionable art began trickling in, and we had no policy on the matter. To make matters worse, My partner and I had opposite perspectives on how to handle art containing nudity and sexually explicit content leading to much friction.

Perspective 1

As partner one, I have a pretty liberal viewpoint when it comes to printing. Basically, if it isn’t illegal or copyright, then we should print and not judge peoples’ artwork. What I feel about a subject matter is irrelevant. I think we walk a slippery slope when trying to label anyones’ art as pornography or anything else for that matter. I do not agree with censorship when printing for customers.

Perspective 2

My partner, on the other hand, was a completely different story. He believed that printing pornography went against everything he believed as a Christian. In fact, he was so conservative on the matter, he recommended that we reject all art consisting of any nudity at all.

The Tension Grows

We constantly bickered about handling incoming artwork. I would approve production of art that he didn’t agree with and he would reject art I deemed acceptable leading to discourse in our business relation and fostered a very confusing environment for employees.

It got so bad, a huge argument burst and he threatened to leave the company, and I agreed that he should. However, we are not only business partners, but good friends as well. Both of us felt we had to draft some kind of agreement where compromising would be necessary on both sides. That meant a long discussion at IHOP.

Additionally

We both knew that we could possibly lose current print customers or prospects if we decided to print pornography. Many other large online print companies seem to have a strict policy (or hide it well) concerning obscene material so we really needed to clarify our stance, and more importantly, be personally proud of our decision.

The Agreement

I agreed that we would not print pornography only if he agreed that nudity was not necessarily pornography. This lead to us properly defining pornography and determining what that means to us.

Pornography: obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit. – http://dictionary.reference.com

Okay, so this definition seems pretty vague. To me, art can be sexual, and who are we to determine what is repugnant or has artistic merit?

We finally agreed to not print sexually explicit, obscene drawings or photographs that included nudity. It may seem silly, but we both compromised and created a clear policy for employees to understand. Additionally, we both trust each other’s judgement when an employee can not decide. My decisions may be more liberal than my partner’s, but I stay within the policy parameter and we both continue to respect each other while growing our business.

I may have compromised a little more than my partner, but it wasn’t worth fighting my partner over something he was so passionate about. We can still print nudity (my main problem) and material he dislikes, but at least we can both agree we won’t print full-fledged and obvious pornography.

In the end, each business owner in the print industry has to make a decision. Good luck. We’d love to hear your story.