Thursday, November 08, 2007

Nipplegate, UK Style


In an incident that looks to be the British equivalent of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl nipple incident, two ITV television personalities bared their breasts and encouraged other women to do the same on a series called "Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation". Since the program was aired at 8 PM when children are watching TV, the backlash has been harsh, with viewers and family groups calling the nudity "gratuitous and inappropriate".
One viewer described the programme as "nasty, leaving a bad taste in the mouth" while another said: "This is primetime family viewing. I switched on with young children present and was deeply disturbed by the level of nudity at that time. "It made for extremely uncomfortable and gratuitous television, particularly when I had to explain it to my children." Another wrote: "They belittle and embarrass their victims."
Hardly. It's about time someone had the courage to approach the issue of female breasts in a frank and honest manner. This particular episode concerned the problems women have in getting bras to fit, and one of the hosts, Trinny Woodall, donned prosthetic breasts so she could experience the physical and social effects of living with a large bust size.

Women's breasts have become sexual icons in the media. Men consider them sex objects, and women obsess over their own size and shape, to the point where thousands undergo plastic surgery in order to achieve more confidence in their own bodies. The fascination with female breasts has reached a breaking point. Women need to take back their own bodies, to de-objectify and de-mystify their breasts.

And people need to stop making the argument that the sight of female breasts is harmful to children. Breasts are designed for children! Any other purpose is an invention of an oversexed society that just needs to back off and get back to some more rational attitudes about the human body.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail swapped the above photo for one showing the same women wearing a bra...apparently the British nipplegate has now spread to the print and Internet media.

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