Censorship Of Female Nudity Is Harmful

Censorship Of Female Nudity Encourages Harmful Taboos
Ruby Rose

By Jarrod Miller
There remains a strange taboo toward the image of the female nipple, given that the modern American society is already saturated with sexualized images of women. From the magazine covers that peer out from every checkout lane to the commercials that are interwoven throughout our favorite shows, this hyper-sexualized portrayal of women is everywhere. Yet, for some reason, there remains some taboo surrounding the female nipple.

Miley Cyrus nip slip during VMAs

The first pair I ever saw (Jenny Mccarthy)

Last week, a man named James Shamsi successfully revealed the hypocrisy of Instagram’s censorship toward female nudity. According to an article by The Telegraph titled, “Moob censorship backtrack ‘exposes Instagram’s double standards’,” Shamsi had posted a cropped picture of his own chest, which was quickly removed by Instagram due to its ban on female nudity. When Shamsi complained to Instagram staff, citing it was his own two nipples, Instagram quickly reinstated the picture, revealing the hypocrisy of their rules.
Tove Lo has some nice boobs
James Shamsi did not reveal in his demonstration anything we did not already know. Americans are already aware of the nation’s strict tendencies toward female nudity, with critics often condemning the nation’s allowance of violence and censorship of nudity.

Lara Stone

Instead, Shamsi’s reveal showed how silly modern censorship rules are. The picture of Shamsi’s breasts showed that often the only difference between men and women’s nipples is the arbitrary weight society gives them.
Amber Valetta

In society, there remains a strange taboo toward the image of the female nipple, given that the modern American society is already saturated with sexualized images of women. From the magazine covers that peer out from every checkout lane to the commercials that are interwoven throughout our favorite shows, this hyper-sexualized portrayal of women is everywhere.
Yet, for some reason, there remains some taboo surrounding the female nipple. If women should go topless in Lubbock, it is obscene. Breastfeeding alone is an act of controversy, proved by Facebook deleting pictures of breastfeeding mothers in 2009, according to a Time Magazine article called, “The Top 16 Breastfeeding Controversies.”

Evan Rachel Wood – Across The Universe

Interestingly enough, both sides of this public-nudity controversy believe they are protecting women. For example, many critics of public female nudity argue that by prohibiting it, they are protecting the decency of their children as well as protecting women against further sexualization.
Dita Von Teese

One example of this would be the public outrage of Janet Jackson’s nipple being shown in the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. According to a recent Rolling Stone article titled “Nipple Ripples,” approximately 540,000 people filed complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), arguing the action was inappropriate and indecent for the audience.
However, by censoring the breast in media and condemning those who protest it, the female breast is further sexualized. I was 11 years old when I saw Jackson’s breast on television and I remember the sheer amazement my friends and I felt upon seeing it. It was a feeling of exposed secrecy; growing up in Lubbock, not many of us had seen many breasts. When we saw Jackson’s slip, it felt like we had witnessed something we were not supposed to see, a forbidden fruit of society.
After experiencing situations like this, it is apparent that enforcing this taboo is creating the American fetishism of the female breast. By hiding these human qualities both in public and in social media, it makes them more enticing. Additionally, when nudity is considered indecent, the only examples of nudity one sees are the distorted images of nudity in media, marketing and, worst of all, pornography.
If caring citizens really were concerned with women’s happiness and safety, they would aim to give women the same social expectations as men. It is of interest to note that men, too, were once prohibited from going topless, until protests began in 1935 and the stigma was dissolved, according to a 2012 Huffington Post article on ‘Go Topless Day.’
Of course, the large social media giants such as Facebook and Instagram have the right to block nudity or whatever content they so desire. While equal rights are important in the U.S., so are the rights of the private business.
However, for Instagram to block these pictures because their rules ban, according to their terms of use, “violent, nude, partially nude … pornographic or sexually suggestive photos” is a bit pointless. Instagram is already full of sexualized content, ranging from the random amateur models who consistently add me, to the supposed sexual exploits of Instagram celebrity Dan Bilzerian.
To pretend that censoring the female nipple is keeping their services less sexual is actually very harmful — it maintains the taboo toward the female breast and prohibits the women who want to protest from speaking out.
As women continue to protest the taboos that society has constructed against their bodies, only time will tell if they succeed. With the #freethenipple movement on Instagram and the topless protests occurring throughout the world, perhaps the public attitude is changing. Until then, however, Instagram and Facebook could play a large role in the women’s rights protesters journey by stopping their overbearing censorship.

Carla Gugino