tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/free-the-nipple-24377/articles
Free the Nipple – The Conversation
2023-02-03T05:57:17Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198531
2023-02-03T05:57:17Z
2023-02-03T05:57:17Z
Nipple ban on Instagram and Facebook reveals how bizarre our attitude is towards different genders
<p>Some women consign themselves to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7372974/">breastfeeding in public toilets</a> to prevent their apparently sexually explosive nipples causing offence. On hot days, meanwhile, males of all ages, shapes and sizes, peel off their tops without a second thought.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2202258/Nipplegate-controversy-ignites-New-Yorker-cartoon-Adam-Eve-banned-Facebook-explicit.html">For over a decade</a> many social media platforms banned the exposure of female, but not male nipples. Tech CEOs say they fear unleashing torrents of pornographic imagery. These platforms do allow images of female nipples in some contexts <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/24/technology/facebook-content-guidelines-list/index.html">such as breastfeeding and medical issues</a>.</p>
<p>However, the oversight board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and
Instagram, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/17/free-the-nipple-meta-facebook-instagram">recently instructed both platforms to re-examine their policy</a> on nipple exposure. It also recommends that Meta change its Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity Community Standard so that it is <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/news/1214820616135890-oversight-board-overturns-meta-s-original-decisions-in-the-gender-identity-and-nudity-cases/">governed by clear criteria</a> that respect international human rights standards.</p>
<p>Some campaigners hailed the news as a breakthrough. But there are no guarantees about what <a href="https://www.essex.ac.uk/blog/posts/2021/11/08/metaverse-how-facebook-rebrand-reflects-a-dangerous-trend-in-growing-power-of-tech-monopolies">action</a> these companies will take. It will come down to whatever best protects their interests and possibly finances, which could mean less change than people are hoping for. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close up of young mother breastfeeding her baby" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C40%2C6689%2C4426&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506362/original/file-20230125-16-z14m07.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cultural taboos can make it difficult for mothers to feed their baby in public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-young-black-mother-attaching-baby-1440379628">SeventyFour/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meta’s announcement was triggered by the case of a trans non-binary US couple posing topless, (with their nipples covered), to increase awareness of trans health care issues and to raise money for “top” surgery. Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm categorised the post as “<a href="https://thred.com/style/is-meta-poised-to-free-the-nipple/">sexual solicitation</a>” and removed it (although their post was reinstated after they appealed). </p>
<p>This couple’s case may have forced Meta into acting but it’s also an example of why it’s still too early to celebrate. Millions of images are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-350-million-photos-each-day-2013-9?r=US&IR=T">uploaded onto Facebook</a> and Instagram each day. Moderating the content to prevent their platforms from being used to distribute porn, indecent images of children and violence is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/27/content-moderation-on-social-media.html">difficult and expensive</a>. Algorithms are a cheaper but less discerning solution than solely using people to evaluate content. </p>
<h2>A long road to here</h2>
<p>These platforms have therefore long resisted change in spite of movements such as <a href="https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/national/19551397.protesters-march-facebooks-london-office-nipple-images/">Free the Nipple</a> campaigning for women’s freedom of bodily expression and <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-terror-of-war-vietnam-napalm-girl-image-censored">professionals protesting</a> their right to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/why-are-women-s-nipples-still-regarded-as-obscene-20190207-p50w75.html">upload artistic photographs of topless indigenous women or culturally important images</a>. </p>
<p>Social media platforms have <a href="https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/thought-leadership-list/looking-good-feeling-not-so-good-the-impact-of-advertising-and-social-media-on-body-image">incredible influence</a> over people’s attitudes and behaviour. They enable the glorification of ageless and <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/344950329.pdf">unrealistic female beauty</a> which <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/33354996.pdf">contributes to body dysmorphia</a>, <a href="https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/q937y/the-roles-of-social-media-clean-eating-and-self-esteem-in-the-risk-of-disordered-eating-a-pilot-study-of-self-reported-healthy-eaters">disordered eating practices and increased uptake of cosmetic procedures</a>. Notably, these sites have also <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/216977259.pdf">struggled to prevent</a> the <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2017/05/23/children-and-young-peoples-online-experiences/">spread of violent videos</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman in white plastic shirt holds up plastic nipples" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506553/original/file-20230126-22972-ace5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social media users have got creative to get around bans on photos of nipples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-white-crew-neck-shirt-6777797/">cottonbro studio/Pexels</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People have taken to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/women-fight-nipple-censorship-with-photoshop_n_7735738">superimposing stickers of male nipples over female nipples</a> to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/6/13852900/genderless-nipples-instagram-censorship-policy">get around social media censors</a>. The sticker overlays circumvent the rules but do not change the mindset that perceives <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol17/iss1/10/">female nipples as sexualised body parts</a>, appropriated by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-013-0316-x">the male gaze</a>. If Facebook and Instagram only revise their policies to allow photos of exposed nipples if they belong to trans and non-binary people, this would still encourage the continued sexual objectification of cisgender women’s breasts and nipples.</p>
<h2>The history of nipple censorship</h2>
<p>Across many western cultures, exposed female nipples are seen as taboo, indecent and sometimes even illegal. In contrast, men with muscular chests and six-packs and <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/19136351.pdf">taut ornamental nipples</a> adorn fashion magazines, advertise products and are emblazoned across billboards. These practices are not always viewed as sexualised despite the fact <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1016575909173">many adverts are produced with this aim</a>.</p>
<p>This also brings us back to the question as to whether female nipples are inevitably erotic. Some commentators claim men are <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol17/iss1/10/">hardwired to concentrate</a> their erotic gaze on <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/23/brizendine.male.brain/index.html#">specific female body parts</a> such as breasts. However, <a href="https://love-diversity.org/what-is-attractive-in-the-human-body-across-cultures/%20https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3474915/">people’s beliefs</a> about what constitutes an erotic body part has changed <a href="https://www.athenaartfoundation.org/nipple-art-history">across history and cultures</a>. </p>
<p>Both religion and cultural standards play a pivotal role in what is acceptable. Bare chests for both sexes <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/43gy7n/the-history-of-toplessness">were the norm in warm climates</a> until the 12th century when Islam became more influential. Aboriginal topless culture was also commonplace in Australia until 2004 when police officers told a group of topless Aboriginal women <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3493408.stm">performing a traditional dance</a> that they had to cover up. </p>
<p>In previous time periods in England, the leg and the calves were regarded as more risqué than the nipples. In contrast in China the traditional practice of binding women’s feet to make them smaller, and thereby crippling them, was entwined with <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230244689_10">misogynistic eroticism</a>. </p>
<p>On the other hand, European paintings from the Middle Ages to about the 1700s regularly featured women <a href="https://medium.com/illumination/the-history-of-the-nipple-revealing-paintings-from-the-17th-and-18th-centuries-360a36c609db">exposing one breast and nipple</a>. In fact women often adorned their nipples with reddish-orange makeup from their dressing tables during this era. During this time “nipslips”, whether accidental or not, didn’t create outrage or taboo or <a href="https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/05/17/free-the-nipple-says-history/">signal the sexual availability</a> of the woman involved. Compare this to Daily Mail article about a “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10115615/Naomi-Campbell-51-suffers-nip-slip-going-braless-plunging-denim-ord.html">photo exclusive</a>” of supermodel Naomi Campbell accidentally exposing a nipple, which the newspaper ironically then censored in their article. </p>
<p>Up until 1936 in the US, men were also prohibited from exposing their nipples. Nudity for either sex was regarded as obscene until a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/05/men-were-once-arrested-baring-their-chests-beach/">mass male protest</a> overturned this rule. </p>
<p>The debate around the exposure of female nipples in public or on social media suggests their sexualisation is a <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1532&context=jiws">cultural phenomenon</a> through which men control women’s bodies and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2016.1142496">feel entitled to make degrading comments</a> about them.</p>
<p>British actress, Florence Pugh, arrived at a fashion show in 2022 wearing a sheer fuchsia dress which exposed her nipples. She <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/florence-pugh-pink-dress-free-the-nipple-valentino-b1011617.html">wrote on Instagram</a> of the experience:<br>
“What’s been interesting to … witness is just how easy it is for men to totally destroy a woman’s body, publicly, proudly, for everyone to see … So many of you wanted to aggressively let me know how disappointed you were by my ‘tiny tits’, or how I should be embarrassed by being so flat chested.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorraine Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Facebook and Instagram were recently told by their parent company, Meta, to overhaul their policy on nipple exposure. But the change may not be as radical as people hope. Here’s why.
Lorraine Green, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences, Edge Hill University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171236
2021-12-02T11:24:47Z
2021-12-02T11:24:47Z
Pubic hair, nudism and the censor: the story of the photographic battle to depict the naked body
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434824/original/file-20211130-23570-1svylh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C4%2C799%2C576&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© David Hurn/Magnum Photo, Courtesy of Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021).</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I look at nude bodies all the time in my work. Art history is full of them – painted, sculpted and photographed – and they fill the walls of galleries and museums. I stand before them, projected on screens, as I lecture on the subject. Earlier in my career, I posed on the other side of the artist’s easel, as a life model, where I looked at artists looking at me. This dual perspective has given me a privileged position, as both subject and surveyor of the nude. </p>
<p><a href="https://gagosian.com/artists/jenny-saville/">Contemporary artists</a> might critique the nude’s traditions and ideals, but the naked body is still the ground on which debates play out. Nudes in art can now take a range of forms and styles but one key aspect prevails in art galleries: they are most likely to be of women and created by men. </p>
<p>Feminist activists <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-do-women-have-to-be-naked-to-get-into-the-met-museum-p78793">the Guerilla Girls</a>, who style themselves as the conscience of the art world, have kept a running count of exhibited works by female artists (around 4%) compared to the number of nudes that are female (around 76%) in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art for more than 30 years. The disparities remain stark.</p>
<p>The naked body and its visual depiction has always attracted attention and generated heated debate. What and who should be seen and shown, by whom and where, form the basis of the social and moral codes that shape behaviour and belief.</p>
<p>Today, the display of nudity remains contentious, particularly in the context of social media. This is both in relation to photographs of “real nude adults”, as <a href="https://transparency.fb.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/adult-nudity-sexual-activity/?from=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fcommunitystandards%2Fadult_nudity_sexual_activity">Facebook describes them</a>, and in relation to “artistic or creative” depictions of nudity, which are wholly banned by Instagram and its parent company.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UZq3cVgU5AI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Flanders Tourist Board posted a satirical video on YouTube showing tourists at the Rubens House, in Antwerp, being ushered away from paintings featuring nudity.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Facebook officially states that it permits nudity in images of paintings and sculptures, there have been famous recent cases where photographs of celebrated artworks, including the 25,000-year-old figurine, the <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2018/02/27/facebook-censors-30000-year-old-venus-of-willendorf-as-pornographic">Venus of Willendorf</a>, and 17th century paintings by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44936601">Peter Paul Rubens</a> have been taken down and described as “pornographic”. To circumnavigate the censor, some museums have even recently opened <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/oct/16/vienna-museums-open-adult-only-onlyfans-account-to-display-nudes">accounts on OnlyFans</a>, a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57269939">controversial social media platform</a> most often associated with the promotion and sale of material intended to sexually arouse, rather than the viewing of fine art. </p>
<p>How did we get here? In my new book, <a href="http://atelier-editions.com/store/nudism-in-a-cold-climate-by-annebella-pollen">Nudism in a Cold Climate</a>, I’ve been examining earlier attitudes to nude bodies, and their photographic depiction, especially in relation to legal restrictions around the representation of nudists (also known as <a href="https://www.bn.org.uk/">naturists</a>), and the depiction of nudes in photographs produced as art in mid 20th-century Britain. The historic parallels are striking. </p>
<p>Facebook, for example, currently does not permit the depiction of “visible genitalia”, with limited exceptions around birth and health contexts, and even in these cases, it requires photoshopping for nude close-ups. A century ago, photographic “retouching”, as it was called, was also required for male and female genitals to meet the requirements of obscenity law.</p>
<p>What this meant, in practice, was that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/naked-utopia-how-englands-first-nudists-imagined-the-future-94454">emerging nudist movement in Britain</a>, formally founded in the 1920s but achieving popularity from the 1930s, could only depict nude bodies in their publications by photographing members and models in strategic poses that concealed sex organs and pubic hair. Where this was not possible, they needed to manipulate photographic negatives to blur genitals out, visually smooth them over, or even paint on underpants. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Nude woman heavily retouched (blurred) from the waist down on a beach" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431944/original/file-20211115-23-12xrohj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A heavily retouched photograph by Roye [Horace Narbeth]. ‘Beauty on the Beach’, Health and Efficiency, September 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Vanessa Gibson of the Colin Narbeth Collection, and Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021).</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For a movement founded on liberation from convention and bodily visibility, this was a core contradiction, and the resulting photographs created a sense of forbidden fruit. This was exactly the message that nudists wished to avoid.</p>
<h2>Nude for health</h2>
<p>Early nudists insisted that going nude, outdoors, in groups, was good for physical and mental health. They also wanted a clear moral distinction to be made between nude bodies and sexual desire. They argued, in the 1930s, in the pages of their magazine, Sun Bathing Review, that “honest photography would induce mental honesty, and help sweep away the rude idea of sex-secrecy”. </p>
<p>Retouched photographs, on the other hand, were “more likely to create squeamishness, hypocrisy, and misunderstanding, and thus retard the progress we are trying to make towards freedom and sanity”. Retouched bodies were described as “mutilated”, yet nudists acknowledged that the alternative, “a pictorial world where everyone turns his or her back to the spectator”, risked monotony.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men and women sit at tables, naked apart from their shoes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431943/original/file-20211115-21-gsid3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Uncredited photographer, ‘A Corner of the Restaurant’, Spielplatz Nudist Camp, 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Spielplatz Estate Archive, Courtesy of Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021).</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early nudist magazines in Britain met constraints about what they could picture even when they didn’t agree with the law’s assessment of what was obscene. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Obscene-Publications-Act">The 1857 Obscene Publications Act</a> had been established to prosecute pornographic works – but as both obscenity and pornography depended on the eye of the beholder, for over a century fresh debate was required in each case. </p>
<p>Lord Chief Justice Cockburn’s 1868 definition of obscenity endured for much of the 20th century: that which could “deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall”.</p>
<p>Given its vague premise, obscenity prosecution rested on a range of factors including “circumstances of publication”. <a href="https://london.ac.uk/senate-house-library/our-collections/special-collections/printed-special-collections/craig-collection">Alec Craig</a>, an ardent nudist and vociferous anti-censorship campaigner, advised in the 1930s that “snaps taken in a nudist camp cannot be considered ‘obscene’”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
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<p>But he warned: “What may be perfectly innocuous in one set of circumstances may be ‘obscene’ in another. To take an extreme example,” he noted, “nude photographs, quite unobjectionable in normal circumstances, might be held to be ‘obscene’ if circulated in a convent school.” Likewise, outside of the careful framing of the nudist magazine, a nude photograph carried a range of meanings that could prove hard to pin down in a court of law.</p>
<p>Nudist magazines published photographs to show the movement’s ideals but many members did not wish to be depicted for reasons of respectability. Few practitioners were professional photographers. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Park">Those who were</a> preferred to use models as subjects. </p>
<p>The emerging imagery of nudism was a mixture of candid photographs of camp life, painterly depictions of young slim bodies in pastoral settings, and action photographs showing athletic bodies exercising. As men’s bodies needed to be doctored with a heavier hand to pass the censor, and as nudism was dominated at the outset by men (as members, photographers, writers, editors and readers), nude women were its central photographic focus.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="On the left a photograph shows a naked woman leap-frogging another; on the right, a man in briefs holding a rock aloft." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431946/original/file-20211115-23-k2h1oj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photographs of outdoor nude and nearly nude bodies appeared in nudist magazines and art publications alike. Colin C Clark, 1952, (L) John Everard, 1955 (R).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(L): Colin R. Clark, 'Gymnasts', July 1952, © Colin R. Clark Estate; (R):John Everard, untitled [man and rock], 1955. Courtesy of the John Everard Estate and Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021).</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>By the 1930s, female photographic nudes could be found on the walls of photography exhibitions as well as in the pages of art, anatomy and anthropology books, men’s magazines, daily newspapers, photojournalist weeklies and naturist monthlies. In some cases, with adjusted context, the same images could appear in all these locations, challenging nudism’s claims that its publications and its photographs were morally and aesthetically distinct. </p>
<h2>The nude photograph on trial</h2>
<p>This was the case with photographs by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jun/21/guardianobituaries.arts">Horace Narbeth</a>, professionally known as “Roye”, whose prolific and commercially adaptable imagery was repurposed for a wide range of audiences and arguments. Roye’s photographs, always of young women, often posed in outdoor settings, simultaneously articulated abstract notions of “beauty” and “womanhood” in art books, and ideas about “freedom” and “nature” in nudist publications. They illustrated technical guidance in photography magazines and offered titillation in pin-up pamphlets.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A naked woman on a tiger-skin rug with her breasts and genitals concealed by blue pencils" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434429/original/file-20211129-13-wp5l7c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Roye [Horace Narbeth], Phyllis in Censorland (London: Camera Studies Club, c. 1942, reprinted 1965).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Colin Narbeth Collection and Nudism in a Cold Climate.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Roye had long been frustrated with British obscenity regulations and made play with what he perceived to be their hypocrisies in his 1942 publication, Phyllis in Censorland. The cover design showed burlesque dancer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFRP5GGO4XE">Phyllis Dixey</a>, the so-called British queen of striptease, naked on a tiger skin rug, but with her breasts and genitals concealed by the blue pencils of the censor. Its contents comprised nude and near-nude photographs, accompanied by mocking verses. Each poem pilloried those who sought to protect public morals while enjoying privileged pleasures of surveillance.</p>
<p>Roye reissued his book during the mid-1950s when the seizure of printed material on obscenity grounds was at a new high. The 1951 Conservative government oversaw escalating destruction orders and extended punishments in a period when cheap magazines were booming. The desire to contain them led to a protracted legal power struggle. </p>
<p>In 1954, for example, around 167,000 books and magazines were seized, and imprisonments ranged from three to 18 months. In their enthusiasm to uphold public morals, magistrates ordered the destruction of eminent artistic and literary works including Boccaccio’s 14th century <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Decameron">the Decameron</a>.</p>
<p>In 1958, Roye went one step further and launched a private subscription series of un-retouched nudes under the title Unique Editions. Repurposing earlier negatives, including those previously included as retouched illustrations in nudist magazines, the buff-covered volumes each comprised photographs of nude female models with visible pubic hair, carefully interleaved between tissue pages that conferred both art value and a sense of revelation. </p>
<p>While the content included naturist-style nudes in rural environments, which could offer some legal protection, the photographs attracted police attention. A thousand copies were seized from Roye’s studio. He was called to court.</p>
<p>Before the jury, Roye positioned himself in the aesthetic avant-garde. Retouching, he argued, was a sacrifice of “artistic integrity”. His defence lawyer argued that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Standards had changed since 1868, when pictures of Venus, in the Dulwich Gallery, had shocked Londoners; and it would be unrealistic to say that, in 1958, a photograph of a woman without clothing was an obscene thing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Roye built a case that drew on both his gentlemanly standing and his professional photographer status. He compiled letters of support arguing for the public benefit of viewing nude photographs. His supporters shared arguments with nudists who believed that sex crimes would be eliminated and Victorian prudishness overturned. </p>
<p>In Roye’s case, however, the public need for openness and bodily display seemed only to apply to the viewing of young female models’ flesh. Nonetheless, he was acquitted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A slim nude woman reclines on a rock against the sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431948/original/file-20211115-13-1lmmxbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roye, ‘Contemplation’, c.1944.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Vanessa Gibson of the Colin Narbeth Collection, and Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021).</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Roye’s prosecution coincided with proposals to revise the <a href="http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2019-0103/LLN-2019-0103.pdf">Obscene Publications Act</a>. Following public derision when acclaimed cultural works had been seized, 1959 amendments exempted from prosecution material with literary or artistic merit.</p>
<p>The nude was singled out for mention in <a href="https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1958-12-16a.992.0&s=speaker%3A19722+speaker%3A19722">parliamentary discussions</a> about the problem of definition. The home secretary, Rab Butler, noted that nudes could be used for art historical lectures “to provide inspiration for the painter or photographer or, on the other hand, be degraded for the purposes of the pornographer’s wares”. Although MPs argued that it was “easy to tell the difference between the Song of Solomon and a collection of salacious photographs”, the problem was the evaluation of material in between.</p>
<h2>Freedom of vision</h2>
<p>Not all nude photographers had such success in court. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175145208X373789">Ethelred Jean Straker</a> was a Bohemian Soho photographer who ran a busy studio throughout the 1950s and 1960s providing classes for amateurs – mostly male – in the production of “artistic figure studies”, or nude photographs of models – always women. Straker tested the revised obscenity laws, but unlike Roye, he received guilty verdicts.</p>
<p>In 1958, he produced a book of nude photographs featuring pastiches of classical paintings alongside experimental lighting treatments in eclectic settings. It depicted female models amid looming shadows, dustbin lids, cellophane and vegetables. </p>
<p>Published in three languages, Straker’s book secured positive reviews from artistic luminaries but showed only a small, sanitised selection of his nude output, which extended to some 10,000 examples and included close-ups of women’s breasts, buttocks and genitalia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle-aged man with a camera peers between the bodies of two young nude women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431949/original/file-20211115-13-1r5x138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Hurn, ‘Jean Straker, owner of the Visual Arts Club Soho, c.1960’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© David Hurn/Magnum Photo, Courtesy of Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021).</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The full range of Straker’s work could be viewed and ordered for purchase via his Femina gallery, above his Soho studio. In his advertisements for his services, Straker described the female nude rapturously as “a microcosm of the forces which play upon the mind and emotions of the creative person”. He claimed his studies offered “not only a sense of affective perception but also a source of unimpaired anatomical evidence”. </p>
<p>Despite Straker’s artistic, psychological and clinical framing, his nudes repeatedly drew the attention of the police. In 1961 police raided his premises, and seized nearly 2,000 display cards and negatives, of which the majority were deemed obscene. </p>
<p>In 1962, in the High Court, Straker was a thorn in the side of the prosecution. Highly informed about the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, Straker reminded the court of their obligation to “uphold and license the freedoms of expression of the artist”. </p>
<p>Using his trial as a soapbox, he declared that it was “no longer in the power of any magistrate to use a relegated heritage of authoritarian orthodoxy to lay down rules as to how a photographic artist should portray female anatomy or arrange a woman’s limbs”. Despite pleas for the value of his work to art and science, Straker lost the case and was fined £150 (about £5,000 at today’s value). </p>
<p>Undeterred, he continued to sell “unretouched” nudes by mail order until he was prosecuted again in 1965. By this time, Straker was aware of wider shifts in public attitudes to nude bodies, especially among the new generation, and he became a vocal anti-censorship campaigner, calling for “freedom of vision” alongside freedom of speech. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A nude woman in a studio applies sun cream under the shadow of a tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434430/original/file-20211129-59485-1fv2o1b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jean Straker, ‘Sun Worship’, c.1958.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jean Straker/Science Museum Group. Courtesy of the Jean Straker Photographic Collection and Nudism in a Cold Climate (Atelier Editions, 2021)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1967, he made headlines as Oxford University’s student magazine, Oxymoron, published one of his un-retouched female nudes. Entitled “Sun Worship”, the subject was a stylised studio portrait of a sun bather applying sun lotion under the shadow of a tree. The print had been among material previously seized in a police raid but a decade later it was published with university authorisation and escaped prosecution, illustrating the changing times.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1960s, the battle to show more flesh was complete. Largely fought by male photographers over the bodies of women, the so-called “pink wars” had been won. Un-retouched photographic nudes were openly published in pornographic magazines, naturist periodicals and art books alike. </p>
<h2>New nude censorship debates</h2>
<p>Whether this led to greater bodily liberation, especially for the young women who are most likely to be depicted, was a question raised by feminists at the time, and it remains open for debate. Even after permissive barriers were broken and greater bodily visibility was enabled, the trajectory of nude depiction has not been straightforward. Campaigns for visibility continue to arise in the present day with new agendas in nude representation. </p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_the_nipple">Free the Nipple</a>, for example, stakes similar claims in its calls for freedom from censorship on social media. Like earlier protests against the photographic retouching of genitals, its campaigners see the characterisation of women’s bodies as sexual and offensive – when male toplessness is considered neutral – as illogical. </p>
<p>But unlike earlier campaigners against retouching, it is now mostly young women leading the charge, creating the philosophies, taking the photographs and controlling consent.</p>
<p>Why has the showing of nudity remained so fraught? The issue remains one of context and intention. Naturists have argued hard that social nudity can be non-sexual, and naturism has fiercely protected legal status. </p>
<p>Photographs of nude bodies, however, naturist or otherwise, can serve a range of purposes and, like all photographs, they are open to a wide range of readings and meanings, reinterpretations and reuse. Photographers and publishers may argue for the value of full-frontal nudes to communicate health, artistry and freedom, but even photographs produced for non-sexual communication can serve sexual ends. </p>
<p>On social media, where photographic quantities are vast and mostly surveyed by machine, it is easier for Facebook to apply blanket bans than engage with individual nude images’ complexities. While it states that <a href="https://transparency.fb.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/adult-nudity-sexual-activity/?from=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fcommunitystandards%2Fadult_nudity_sexual_activity">its policies have become more nuanced over time</a>, they are still unable to cope with the sometimes subtle borderlines between categories. Facebook recognises that nudes can be used “as a form of protest, to raise awareness about a cause or for educational or medical reasons”, and says they make allowances “where such intent is clear”. </p>
<p>However, many forms of bodily display, including in artistic practice, do not fit Facebook’s frames, and intention is notoriously hard to gauge in a photograph. These were the technical and semantic distinctions on which nude photographers’ court cases were won and lost historically, and issues of intent and use remain today.</p>
<p>At the end of the second world war, nudist Michael Rutherford addressed “historians of the future” in his field guide, entitled British Naturism. He predicted that scholars would consider the practice “among the significant and important happenings of this, the 20th century”. He wrote: “If our grandchildren can say of us, as they grow up to a sane acceptance of their own bodies: ‘What was all that fuss about …?’ we shall have done our part.” </p>
<p>But a century after the founding of nudism as a social movement, and 50 years since non-manipulated nude photographs could be printed without fear of prosecution, the current censorship of nudes on social media seems regressive. </p>
<p>We are Rutherford’s grandchildren, but we certainly do not have the “sane” attitudes to nudity that he predicted. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article was amended on December 4. Peter Paul Rubens had been erroneously described as a 15th rather than 17th century artist.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/witchtok-the-rise-of-the-occult-on-social-media-has-eerie-parallels-with-the-16th-century-168322?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">WitchTok: the rise of the occult on social media has eerie parallels with the 16th century</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-prestige-the-real-life-warring-victorian-magicians-who-inspired-the-film-165707?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The Prestige: the real-life warring Victorian magicians who inspired the film</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-have-nothing-left-the-catastrophic-consequences-of-criminalising-livelihoods-in-west-africa-157454?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">‘We have nothing left’ – the catastrophic consequences of criminalising livelihoods in west Africa</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annebella Pollen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A century ago, early British nudists had to fight for the right to publish naked photos – the similarities with social media today are striking.
Annebella Pollen, Reader in the History of Art and Design, University of Brighton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108169
2018-12-06T18:58:26Z
2018-12-06T18:58:26Z
Sexual subcultures are collateral damage in Tumblr’s ban on adult content
<p>The social networking and microblogging site Tumblr <a href="https://staff.tumblr.com/post/180758987165/a-better-more-positive-tumblr">announced</a> on Monday that from December 17 it will no longer host adult content on its platform. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/04/tumblrs-nudity-crackdown-means-pornography-will-be-harder-find-its-platform-than-nazi-propaganda/">reported</a> that the policy “removes one of the last major refuges for pornography on social media”. </p>
<p>But the move will affect more than just porn. </p>
<p>Over time, Tumblr has become a haven for fanfiction writers, artists, sex workers, kinksters and independent porn producers who have built subcultural community networks by sharing and discussing their user-generated content.</p>
<p>Tumblr’s definition of what constitutes permissible adult content fails to recognise the value of this kind of work. It separates sex from politics, preserves a class-based distinction between art and pornography, and limits representations of female nudity to reproduction and health. </p>
<p>The result is the loss of a dynamic cultural archive and the unnecessary sanitisation of public space.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-latest-data-reveals-about-our-passion-for-pornography-and-its-legality-87817">What the latest data reveals about our passion for pornography – and its legality</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Policing women’s bodies</h2>
<p>In updates to Tumblr’s <a href="https://support.tumblr.com/post/180758979032/updates-to-tumblrs-community-guidelines">Community Guidelines</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Adult content primarily includes photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Aside from the obvious regulatory dilemma of ascertaining which nipples appear to be “female-presenting”, this kind of targeting of women’s bodies has met with public criticism. For example, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_the_Nipple_(campaign)">Free the Nipple</a> campaign has protested the criminalisation, censorship and fetishisation of women’s breasts. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BjAqCX9gKNY","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Tumblr’s new policy still permits:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding, birth or after-birth moments. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These policies are presumably a response to campaigns to normalise breastfeeding. Nipples are also permitted in:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These policies restrict representations of women’s bodies to their reproductive functions and repeat the tired framing of women’s bodies through medical lenses, at the expense of pleasure. </p>
<h2>Distinguishing art and pornography</h2>
<p>Tumblr will continue to allow written erotica and artistic nudity, which is defined as “nudity found in art, such as sculptures and illustrations”. But this policy reinforces a tenuous conceptual distinction between art and pornography. </p>
<p>The demarcation of art as something distinct from pornography was influenced by the increasing availability of photography in the 19th century, which threatened the very existence of art. While traditional paintings sought to imitate the real, photography was considered <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/artporn-9781847880673/">“too real” and “too close”</a>. It prompted fears about proximity (its corporeal effect on the viewer), danger (its seductive power) and contagion (its potential to harm or infect). </p>
<p>Pornographic photography became a scapegoat. It was used to distinguish lowbrow forms of cultural consumption for the masses from highbrow forms of art for the elite. Pornography became a pejorative term that served to preserve and maintain the status of art.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249199/original/file-20181206-128208-1y0of5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/phanatic/8355221636/in/photolist-4eHWMX-5i9hM5-dJjGis-anFRZh">Phanatic/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-could-transform-pornography-but-there-are-dangers-78061">Virtual reality could transform pornography – but there are dangers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Purging sex workers</h2>
<p>Although Tumblr maintains its policy change was unrelated to its failure to effectively filter child pornography, the decision comes against the backdrop of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1865">FOSTA</a>), which was passed in the United States in April. </p>
<p>FOSTA prompted platforms such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook to amend their terms of service to preclude nudity, sexual content and sexual services in order to avoid charges of <a href="http://swopbehindbars.org/2018/02/26/understanding-fosta-sesta/">promoting or facilitating sex work</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249201/original/file-20181206-128205-1fea2jh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migrant sex workers respond to anti-trafficking campaigns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scarlet Alliance and the Cross Border Collective</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately this legislation has <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpqvz/fosta-sesta-sex-work-and-trafficking">not improved grievance avenues</a> for those experiencing exploitation. Instead, this blunt law has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/29/sexual-freedom-fosta-sosta">shut down sites</a> that law enforcement could use to trace criminal activity, platforms where <a href="https://theappeal.org/anti-online-trafficking-bills-advance-in-congress-despite-opposition-from-survivors-themselves-e741ea300307/">survivors could seek assistance</a>, and forums where sex workers could screen safety information. </p>
<p>Sex workers were <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvazy7/sex-workers-pioneered-the-early-internet">pioneers</a> of the web. They designed, coded, built and used websites and cryptocurrencies to advertise and transact in the context of criminalisation. </p>
<p>They helped sites like Tumbr to flourish by populating the platforms with content, increasing their size and commercial viability. Indeed, adult content was reportedly responsible for <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/28/tumblr-just-added-a-switch-in-the-ios-settings-that-lets-you-turn-back-on-the-porn/">20% of traffic</a> to Tumblr. </p>
<p>Now sex workers are now being effectively erased from social media. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/collateral-damage-impact-anti-trafficking-measures-human-rights-around-world">evidence</a> about the <a href="http://www.nswp.org/resource/behind-the-rescue-how-anti-trafficking-investigations-and-policies-harm-migrant-sex-workers">human rights impact</a> of anti-trafficking campaigns, which can victimise those they are intended to protect. </p>
<p>But the pressure to be seen as proactive partners in response to trafficking and child abuse is so significant that tech companies are willing to erase sex completely from their platforms and accept sex as a necessary casualty.</p>
<h2>Containing the democratisation of culture</h2>
<p>The sequestering of sex is not an inevitable response. It has not always been the case that adult content has been treated as something external to art, culture or society. </p>
<p>Depictions of sexual practices can be traced back to ancient civilisations. The sexually explicit frescoes of ancient Greece and Rome were displayed publicly and integrated into daily life rather than being, as <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520207295/the-secret-museum">Walter Kendrick describes</a>, “locked away in secret chambers safe from virginal minds”. </p>
<p>It was the process of archaeological extraction in the 18th century that commenced a process of identifying and labelling ancient artefacts as “pornographic”, and removing them from public view. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249253/original/file-20181206-128208-10fsm8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A two thousand years old roman antique erotic fresco in Pompeii, Italy.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historians have found that the modern regulatory category of “pornography” was invented at the same time, alongside the emergence of technologies (such as the printing press) that allowed for mass-distribution. As Lynn Hunt <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/invention-pornography-1500-1800">argues</a>, it was created: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>in response to the perceived menace of the democratization of culture. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the evolution of the internet promises increased access to technologies and rapid circulation of cultural materials, regulatory attempts to restrict them are being met with <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/djglp/vol21/iss1/2/">contest, protest and resistance</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/porn-viewers-prefer-womens-pleasure-over-violence-97288">Porn viewers prefer women's pleasure over violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sanitising public space</h2>
<p>Private corporations have now become the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-70660-3_9">arbiters of community standards</a>, making decisions about what content is permissible to circulate. Corporate monopolies now have a greater impact than national classifiers on what material the public can access. </p>
<p>Apple, which dropped Tumblr from its App Store on 20 November, has had a “<a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mjxg/apple-tumblr-porn-nsfw-adult-content-banned">homogenizing and sanitizing effect on the internet</a>”. It refuses any apps that contain “pornographic” or “offensive” content, including hook up <a href="https://www.wired.com/2010/02/iphone-porn/">apps with “overtly sexual content”</a>. </p>
<p>Steve Jobs himself has <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/steve-jobs-reiterates-fol_n_544045">stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Designating representations of sex to the private, personal realm, outside of the public or political sphere, obscures the fact that heterosexual intimacies <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/448884">saturate public culture</a>. Tumblr has been a site for LGBTQ, kinky and geeky individuals to build spaces, networks and cultures, and for sex workers to share skills and referrals for safety. </p>
<p>From December 17 (coincidentally, International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers), Tumblr will only permit nudity “related to political or newsworthy speech”. This positioning reflects the historical development of obscenity law that has viewed representations of sex as devoid of merit unless they are redeemed by “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/obscenity">serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value</a>”. </p>
<p>In removing sex and nudity entirely from the platform, Tumblr’s new policy misses the fact that sexual subcultures are a crucial part of public life and contribute to critical social conversations and meaningful political alliances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust is a researcher on the Sex Work Stigma Indicators project conducted by the Centre for Social Research in Health in partnership with Scarlet Alliance, and an individual member of Scarlet Alliance. Her PhD research was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award.</span></em></p>
Sexual subcultures create space for critical social conversations and the formation of meaningful political alliances.
Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust, PhD Candidate, Arts/Media & Law, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53449
2016-01-31T19:04:39Z
2016-01-31T19:04:39Z
No, you’re not ‘hardwired’ to stare at women’s breasts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109572/original/image-20160129-27133-aazzf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Topless women gather near Iceland's parliament in 2015 for the Free the Nipple campaign.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/NEWZULU/Halldor Sigurdsson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ll likely know by now about the Free the Nipple Picnic event held in Brisbane on January 17, <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-free-the-nipple-picnic-sparks-wider-debate-about-equality-20160116-gm7amm.html">described by</a> one of its organisers as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>just a way for us to sit around in an open public area and feel that we can have our nipples free and have great discussions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/freethenipple?lang=en">Free the Nipple</a> campaign – named after <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2298394/">Lina Esco’s 2014 film</a> – is a global push to desexualise women’s breasts and allow women the freedom to be topless in the same places in which it is acceptable for men and boys to do so. But are such campaigns ridiculous in a hypersexualised porn culture? Isn’t the sexual appeal of breasts for men, and many women, “hardwired” and unable to be changed?</p>
<p>The Brisbane picnic drew the attention of <a href="http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/why-are-men-so-afraid-of-womenonly-events-20160118-gm8c3i.html">hundreds of men online</a> who were troubled that men were excluded from attending, even though the event was intended to provide a safe space for women to gather, free from “sexualisation”.</p>
<p>Contemporary Western culture codes breasts as erotic objects, as the <a href="http://www.plasticsurgerypractice.com/2015/02/asps-2014-stats-breast-augmentation-rules-roost/">increasing practice</a> of breast enlargement through implants illustrates.</p>
<p>Much of the discomfort and shaming surrounding <a href="https://theconversation.com/feeding-frenzy-public-breastfeeding-is-good-for-us-all-11707">public breastfeeding</a> stems from the overwhelming understanding of breasts as sexually arousing to the viewer. </p>
<p>There have been repeated instances in which Facebook, for example, has <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951615/Photographer-s-outrage-Facebook-bans-photo-group-mother-s-breastfeeding.html">deleted photographs</a> of mothers breastfeeding. </p>
<p>The site’s most recent <a href="https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards">nudity policy</a> restricts “some images of female breasts if they include the nipple” but now allows “photos of women actively engaged in breastfeeding”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109574/original/image-20160129-27136-1p58z9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Alban Hansen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is often overlooked in discussions about the sexual appeal of breasts is the fact that they have not always been regarded as irresistibly attractive in all points in history and across all cultures.</p>
<p>Other parts of women’s bodies have been viewed as more enticing than breasts, including buttocks, legs, ankles, hair, and feet. Bound feet (or the “golden lotus”) in ancient China had <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Chinese_footbinding.html?id=KPYTAAAAYAAJ">strong erotic connections</a> and acts that could be performed with them were <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=j3P-CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=qing+dynasty+sex+manuals+bound+feet&source=bl&ots=geNKnthTym&sig=zn6VCCsOaO1BZB-4XmIuUwv4pRs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjy-_Dl783KAhXD3aYKHdJYARI4ChDoAQg9MAY#v=onepage&q=qing%20dynasty%20sex%20manuals%20bound%20feet&f=false">detailed in illustrated sex manuals</a>. </p>
<p>Some of these body parts have no connection to a woman’s capacity to reproduce or nurture her offspring, as is often suggested to explain the modern fixation on large breasts. (Greater breast size, or more fatty tissue, does not mean that a woman can produce more milk than a smaller breasted woman.)</p>
<p>Buttocks are actually a greater marker of a woman’s fertility than breasts. Buttocks show whether women have sufficient stores of fat to sustain a pregnancy, signal pelvic size and are prominent when young, becoming less pronounced with age.</p>
<p>The appeal of larger buttocks is evident in historical fashion trends such as the <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/corsets-and-bustles-1880-1890-from-over-structured-opulence-to-the-healthy-corset/">bustle</a> in the 19th century, but also among certain racial groups in modern culture. African-American and Hispanic communities are the most likely to seek out buttock augmentation (implants), and hip hop music has given us <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reTx5sqvVJ4">dozens of odes</a> to large “booties”.</p>
<p>The body parts that different cultures fetishise are often those that must be covered by clothing. In the words of author Elizabeth Wilson, in her <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Je49xdoIajwC">1985 book</a>
Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even in societies whose members ordinarily wear few clothes, it is said to be customary to dress up for dancing ceremonies and other occasions on which sexual interest is likely to be aroused. It is often said that dress enhances sexual attraction because it both reveals and conceals the body.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109576/original/image-20160129-27152-1rx1ro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Rally, an 1885 painting by Sir John Lavery, Irish artist (1885).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Breasts are an example of concealment feeding into sexual attraction today, but there are other instances that reveal how this process is not the result of an innate, “hardwired” desire. </p>
<p>Buttocks and breasts might be sexualised, in part, because of their proximity to genitalia and status as secondary sexual characteristics, but how can the eroticisation of women’s ankles be explained?</p>
<p>In Victorian Britain, respectable women wore long skirts and dresses that covered the entirety of their legs. As the author Jane Nicholas put it in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=dsBtBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=glimpse+of+ankle+victorian+period&source=bl&ots=PxuE2XSpeN&sig=ahIXBzdFMO9oOd8Xkpk9tCSBaJs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYs47xy8vKAhXjg4MKHYTjAgEQ6AEINjAG#v=onepage&q=glimpse%20of%20ankle%20vic">The Modern Girl</a> (2015), the fact that these areas were always concealed meant that “a glimpse of an ankle or calf could be erotic” for men. </p>
<p>Like ankles, head hair has no inherent sexual function, but it has also been eroticised within numerous religious traditions that have, in turn, required women to keep their hair veiled. Many Muslim girls and women cover their hair outside the home, and in some Jewish communities married women wear hats, scarves or wigs to hide their own hair from view. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109575/original/image-20160129-27159-18cddqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adrian Snood</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These taboos on the exposure of women’s ankles and hair in public illustrate that the parts of women’s bodies that are considered sexually arousing are changeable in different times and places and that concealing them only adds to their forbidden allure.</p>
<p>When thinking about the Free the Nipple movement, there is also the obvious point that many traditional cultures around the world did not require women to cover their breasts until the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=qrCCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA238&dq=christian+missionaries+bare+breasts&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHievy08vKAhVhnqYKHaGiB-EQ6AEISzAH#v=onepage&q&f=false">intervention</a> of Christian missionaries or introduction of Islam. In locations where women are routinely topless, attitudes towards breasts are, unsurprisingly, different to places in which there are prohibitions on their exposure.</p>
<p>None of this is to deny that many people derive pleasure from looking at breasts or that women themselves often derive sensual pleasure from their breasts. But when it comes to the debate about whether women should be able to appear in public topless, we can challenge the idea that an unstoppable desire to gaze on women’s breasts in a sexual way is an inherent part of male biological makeup that will never alter.</p>
<p>Just as we might not understand why a Victorian woman could not stride down the street with her calves exposed, so too might we look back in future with some mystification at the idea that a few topless women having a picnic could provoke heated debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Smith has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
What is often overlooked in discussions about the sexual appeal of breasts is that they have not always been regarded as irresistibly attractive in all points in history and across all cultures.
Michelle Smith, Research fellow in English Literature, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.