I consider this perfectly safe for work. It's just a newspaper article. The topic of discussion being sexuality doesn't make it nsfw. The line is crossed when the purpose of the material is to titillate.

I appreciate that! And moderating topics like these is frankly nearly impossible as it's a clash of science and "moral".

My gist is simple: NSFW is literally: "would you mind a coworker seeing you looking at this?". After all marking something as NSFW is a form of self censorship: "I recommend you not looking at this at work!".

From this I deduce two things: a) text should have a higher barrier for NSFW than images. Other people need to actively read what you're looking at and it's way harder to claim that text is not workplace appropriate compared to a picture of primary sedual organs. b) What's actually depicted and said? The Wikipedia page about human reproduction falls at least at my workplace not under NSFW although a penis is clearly depicted.

Now to the OP: it's an article discussion the struggle of sex workers (well promotion of a book about it but same same). The issue here is that marking articles like these as NSFW perpetuates the core issue of the content discussed: that this is a woman problem that should be talked about in private.

I guess that's where the majority of downvotes come from as well: "this should not be viewed in the workplace" is a catastrophic signal in this context for the message.

Now to your point of respectdirectly: OP doesn't disrespect the people who filter out NSFW content because this article should be visible and even discussed in professional contexts if we as human society want to progress. It's source is a newspaper, it's content socially relevant and aimed at (provocatively!) educating and it's topic is sadly very relevant.

All of this is my personal opinion of course but I wanted to leave you with more than just a two word comment!

Fundamentally I guess there is a disconnect here around what "safe for work" means, and what the "not safe for work" function is for.

To me, unless you work in a primary school or something a journalistic article from a reputable newspaper that discusses (but does not explicitly depict) sex or sex work wouldn't be considered inappropriate content for someone to be reading. It's journalism, it's intent is not to be titillating or lewd . If this was "my life as a sex worker" published on someone's onlyfans then that's probably different; different context and different intent.

Imo, the "NSFW" flag should be reserved for the "would it be ok if I scrolled past this on the bus with a child sitting next to me" - explicit or graphic violence or sex.

Mastodon does this better - beyond the NSFW flag, you can add arbitrary content warning flags, so if you think your content might offend or upset, you can highlight that fact so people can choose to skip it.

Just my $0.02. I'm from a European background so I guess attitudes and norms about sex might be a bit different compared to the US.

As stated, images are reasonable to blur, because having them in your screen would Not be Safe For Work. Text generally doesn't really make sense to blur, especially an article published by a major news source. If it could be seen in print sitting on a lobby coffee table, it probably doesn't qualify as NSFW.