What The Nipple?!

Today I was having a conversation with a lady about social media. She told me how she is starting an online campaign against a major social media site to reinstate a page in support of a breast cancer beauty reclamation project. In the project a group of breast cancer survivors painted their nude bodies in the hopes of redefining the female body after breast cancer as beautiful. They put all the pictures on a major social media site to show the world their project. When this social media site got word of these pictures they decided to take them down, deeming the images of pornographic. This same social media site refuses to take down other actual pornographic material which depicts women being assaulted and abused but yet they take down pictures of women trying to reclaim their bodies.

            According to the lady I was talking too, the comments on the pictures expressed disgust because nipples where shown within the images. Nipples. They had no problem with the breast, but it was the nipple that was causing people the most issues. It was the presence of the nipple that made the images pornographic. Under the logic that nipples are pornographic, wouldn’t that mean that everyman that walks around with his shirt off giving a live peep show?

I really don’t understand this, can someone please give me some insight why the “female” breasts and nipples are much more sexualized then men’s. I am well aware the role breasts play in pregnancy and motherhood, but why is it that because our breasts have a function that we are told to hide them, be shameful of them. However men, whose breasts do not have a direct function allowed to publically display them?

The women participating in the body painting have the right idea. Whether they have or have not battled cancer, breasts are beautiful; furthermore women’s bodies are beautiful and should be celebrated as such. As for social media, we need to as a society reconsider what is acceptable and what isn’t. If they allow images of abuse and men wearing shirts, should these painted women be allowed to share their artwork with their friends and family? It only makes sense to me.