The project is about women’s nipples not being free and it’s about saying No to telling people what to wear, what not to wear, and to telling people how to behave. It’s also a celebration of amazing people and our wonderful bodies and also about making a starry sky of nipples – lots of the participants have been delighted with their nipples stars. And its been about noticing – I’ve felt delighted, satisfied, proud of this work. I’ve also been called a pervert and had my personal motivation challenged in ways I really, naively didn’t expect.
A friend, and the person next to them, had the words “Free the Nipple – Smash the Patriarchy” written in large letters on their backs. They are entwined issues – nipples are not taboo body parts because of simple shyness or prudishness.
I’ve taken part in a couple of the Free the Nipple marches in Brighton and part of my inspiration comes from those experiences. Alongside the Brighton Free the Nipple campaign another inspiration in Brighton has been the Party In Your Pants nights.
Party in Your Pants – Robert & Kimberley –
Photos by David Smith
Free the Nipple – Artwork by Jessica Sharville
Nipples, nipples, nipples – all of the people in the project have two nipples – some people have one, some have more than two, some have no nipples. Most of us have nipples that look similar to each other – look closer and every nipple is different.
Nipples do things – they are sensitive and sensual when stroked, rubbed, sucked and pulled. And they are the area from which milk is produced to feed babies. They perk up when cold or stimulated. Mostly they are just part of us – skin and glands. I’d say they are quite unremarkable areas of skin, but they are incredibly complex structures.
Women’s nipples are desired – and are continually present in art and also with babies sucking from them. There are porn images of nipples by the million. We all know what they look like, nipples are not surprising or at all uncommon.
Women’s nipples are banned from most popular social media if they are visibly attached to a woman’s body if they aren’t presented for reasons that satisfy Facebook or Instagram.
Facebook and Instagram will also ban you for posting images that appear to be against its rules even if they are not – it blocked me 4 times simply for posting links to this website for an image that it added with the link. Being blocked, if the appeal isn’t successful means being locked out of contact with friends, with employment opportunities, with local community information and so on. There is no way to say on what grounds one is making an appeal nor easy way to contact either organisation.
Breastfeeding – There is now a great deal of public support, in theory, for breastfeeding in public. However, what happens in public is quite different. The majority of women who feed in public, many of whom are very determined to do so, say that they feel awkward, stared at, judged and that they have to deal with unwelcome comments. Some of it is well-meaning, some of it critical – all of it contributes to the feeling that something so profoundly natural, wonderful, is not normal.
Some of the participant and their friends let me have their thoughts about breastfeeing in public – here is a link.
There should be no reason why in certain circumstances, its acceptable for women to be topless when the same requirements don’t apply to men. Thereshould be no need for acceptable exceptions.
Men’s nipples – are not usually noticed. Men’s naked chests are commented on occasionally – we may be 6-pack-hunks or scrawny or we may be mocked for our “moobs”. Men are only expected to be topless in certain situations like at the beach. We are less welcome topless in the supermarket but not because of our nipples.
This project grew from noticing that unless women censor their nipples they are likely to be suspended or banned from social media. Many women censored their nipples with star shaped stickers. The sticker can be directly applied with tape, often as a cross, or by editing images to add “stickers”.
There is a deep absurdity in how nipples are treated. They are banned when shown on a woman’s breast but not a man’s chest. When breast tissue is removed during gender reassignment surgery (or during mastectomies), nipples that were considered unsuitable on a breast are considered fine to be shown once the breast is removed. Women who have almost no breast tissue may not show their “flat” chests while men, with lots of breast tissue, can show theirs without comment – at least not about their nipples.
As long as a woman’s nipple is covered the issue seems to disappear. It’s therefore not that there is a concern either with breasts or women’s nipples per se. Both can be shown – nipples with no breasts and breasts with no nipples. It’s only when a woman shows a photograph (only a photograph or a video) of her breasts with her own nipples showing that there is an issue.
Pretty much anything can be used to cover nipples – in this project most of the participants are shown covering their nipples with plaster casts of their own nipples and, bizarrely, that is considered to be fine.
Community standards – Facebook say that they “restrict the display of nudity or sexual activity because some people in our community may be sensitive to this type of content”. However, it has exceptions that override their concern about nudity, but not their concern about sexual activity. It says while “we restrict some images of female breasts that include the nipple, we allow other images, including those depicting acts of protest, women actively engaged in breastfeeding and photos of post-mastectomy scarring. We also allow photographs of paintings, sculptures and other art that depicts nude figures.”
It’s justification doesn’t go beyond saying that some people may be sensitive, it doesn’t say what Facebook, as a body, thinks itself. It is prepared to allow that potential sensitivity to be aggravated when certain activities are being shown – protest, breastfeeding and medical. Other “normal” activities such as just being without a top on a beach are unacceptable – no more acceptable than sexual activities. Is this “may be sensitive to” another way of saying that, other then when feeding babies and so on, Facebook considers the presence of breasts with nipples in images to amount to sexual activity?
Strangely that sensitivity doesn’t apply to men – we have no restriction on when our nipples are shown and about the only thing they are actually useful for is getting us a bit turned on.
Facebook and Instagram’s are just doing what we all do to a greater or lesser extent – its the patriarchy stupid. We (all) tell women what to wear, what not to wear – we tell women when their bodies are doing the “right” and “wrong” things. And we define what the “wrong” thing is and then hide it in some situations and make it highly visible in others like porn. We define the nature of women’s bodies, set behavioural rules and we do that far more than we do with men.
That control over women’s bodies, exemplified by the rule-bound, conditional nipple, is clear as the object of that control moves from a woman to a man such as when that person’s physical gender changes. And that control is stuck when it doesn’t know what to do with itself, when no gender is defined, or the nipple in question could be that of a man or a woman or of someone who does not define their gender in those ways.
People – A few of the people who took part in the project had no issue with showing their nipples. Many of those less fussed people are men, one of them has had their breast tissue removed as they are now male and is wonderfully proud of their new appearance. The men were generally not bothered – it wasn’t easy to get many men to take part. As a couple of men have said in this project, nipples are not really an issue. I was surprised by how many women asked to be involved, many of whom I’d not met before.
A much smaller group of the women were unconcerned about being topless to be cast and photographed. Most expressed some level of concern or slight embarrassment, at least initially. Lots of the women expressed the view that having restrictions imposed on how they behave linked to some warped idea of what is and is not “sexual” is wrong and needs to be challenged.
Being topless to be cast and having their photos on the internet clearly concerned some of the participants – taking part has not just been a statement, it has been a challenge for some people. A couple didn’t want their images used, one spelling out that if they were seen it would adversely affect their employment.
For the men, having our nipples shown on the internet is barely worthy of discussion – unlike the women participants we won’t have anyone warning us to behave more carefully or to think about how the images might be seen in the future. That seems to be little more than saying to women that they need to dress in a certain way to avoid being abused – its control with threat of abuse.
Freeing the nipple is far more about challenging how we try to control women and their bodies than it is about actually being able to see nipples.
Thank yous – Alex, Sarah, Myra, Titch, Nu, Katie, Eko, Isla, Dolly, Verity, Maddie, Izzy C, Freddie, Sakura, Jack, Kev, Kara, Suzie, Shaira, Ben, Lisa Jayne, Tiffany Anne, Rhi, Laurie, Briony, Maya, Gem, Izzy R, Carey, Juliette, Megan, Carl, Abby, Deb, Lex and Sarah L. Big love from me, Phil.
The end –
Phil Pool - Art and Protest 