Absenteeism, pixels and nipples

I've been absent.

For those of you who've stopped by and seen the same boot camp post for the last month, I apologise. It's not that I haven't thought of posting, just that I didn't. No excuses. No rationale. I just didn't. Unfortunately, I'll be away (or scarce) in the next month as well.

But before I go, some thoughts that rumbled through my brain this week:

What's with the pixelated nipples?
I was channel-surfing one night and came across a new reality slash documentary show about a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon on an American TV network station. He seems to specialize in breast augmentation. Fine.

The part I saw showed a woman who wanted breasts as large as her friend (who'd already had breast augmentation). To demonstrate the type of breasts she wanted, they got the friend to take off her shirt and show her boobs. Fine. So they show her in all her topless glory of 40++ DDDDs (not really sure about the size, but they were huge!).

Then, the powers that be pixelate out her nipples. What the …..!!?

It's okay to show huge breasts as long as you don't show the nipples? Shades of the Super Bowl and Janet Jackson. Here's a show that glorifies the objectification of women as mere breasts, but you can't show their nipples. There's something wrong with this picture. Maybe showing nipples would imply what breasts are actually meant for – breastfeeding! So instead of showing breasts in their natural state, network TV would rather objectify them by blurring the nipples out of existence. Hmmmm.

And in an odd serendipitous coincidence, I channel-surfed onto a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting) documentary about nude peace demonstrations:

The first part showed a protest in Vancouver, BC. It was a large group of protestors – some walking, some on bikes. They were accompanied by police to clear the way as they made their way through city streets. It was a festival-like atmosphere. Various protestors were interviewed on-camera in full frontal nudity. Voyeurs with cameras were politely asked to move on.

Cut to a similar protest in the US. The protestors were followed by police who ordered people to put pants on. The small group of protestors were yelled at and told they were disgusting and perverted.

Maybe this helps explain the pixelated nipples on American TV.