Yesterday I wanted to upload a post about one of my real favourite series, titled "Hail Mary". Alas, before posting it I got rather confused and decided to hold it for now. Why? Because it showed the female-nipples of my model in some of the images.
Those photos are not pornographic in any way.
They are art.
And the concept behind the series was actually to raise questions about religion.
But Facebook taught us so well! : male-nipples - good, female-nipples - bad.
Here, free of the Facebook tyranny, should I also be worried about posting female-nipples? Are they such a scary sight for people?
Are we here on Steemit, still the same hypocrites that we were over there? Should I worry that I'll get flagged over it?
I started searching for answers and I must say- they all disappointed me.
There are of course, no written rules about it like in Facebook, however if a biggot whale would not like it- I could be crushed here very easily. And that is something I would like to avoid if possible :P
Going through the NSFW tag, there is way too much porn than I would like to see there, but in between you could find artistic images that I honestly don't think belong amongst all of the gunk action.
I found 
Even the famous painter 
And then, just as I was wondering, I stumbled upon this video from the BBC, saying that this beautiful Victorian painting showed here above, Hylas and the Nymphs by JW Waterhouse, was temporarily taken down from the Manchester Art Gallery, in order to create a discussion.
Influenced by #metoo and other feminist issues, their gole was to discuss the way women were objectified in the Victorian art.
Sorry, but to me it feels more like censsorship covered in a lame excuse for feminism.
Of course we should make sure that the muses (male or female) for the artists working today, are not being forced to do anything they don't wish for, that they should be in the age of consent, that they are being treated fairly etc.. we also know very well that in the past it was not like that.
Many muses used in the biggest art classics we admire, both male & female, were often under aged, extremely poor and badly treated. They did what they could to survive and used the beauty that the artists found in them, as a ticket out of starvation.
So taking down this one painting of what looks like under-aged bare-chested girls for 1 week, does not make it a valid consent-related discussion. After all, nobody will take down the works of Michelangelo due to his love for teenage boys, right? Shouldn't that have the same discussion value?
It feels like cheap propoganda and if that is what Feminism means today, it kinda shoots in it's own damn leg. Hiding it's own nipples instead of setting them free.
It was, after all, just a publicity stunt- no real substance, but everybody's talking about their gallery now! Even I do, right here and now.. So let's move on from them.
Back to Facebook- it's fight against the female-nipple is already very long. It started off by trying to destroy the bodypainting comunity (yes, female-nipples covered in paint are also bad and should be censsored. The guy standing next to the female model can be totally topless though, no problem there!) and continued by removing anything containing female-nipples; classical paintings, sculptures, breastfeeding moms- you name it! And it's not only nipples that bother them- Facebook also censsors anything related to HIV or Transgenders, for instance. Yes, we all here on Steemit know that Facebook is evil.
So why should we keep it's twisted morals here? And why should artists tag their artwork as if it was porn?
The NSFW tag doesn't only keep your content hidden from most users, it also brings in unwanted users- those the purposely search the NSFW tag for pornographic content.
I do not think that my artwork is pornographic and I do not wish for it to be seen as such.
So I'm still wondering what to do and how to go about it & would love to hear your thoughts of the matter and your ideas to deal with it, how do you think should art including female-nipples be posted here on Steemit?
Thank you for reading!
For more read about the painting's temporary removal:
- The BBC 1 2
- The Manchester Art Gallery website