9 ms·

It’s a shame they don’t allow female nipples but allow male nipples. Clear cut sexism, and is there no way to sue them?

kingnothing 7y ago
You can sue anyone for any reason.
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
I would guess that the key factor is whether or not a body part is significantly erogenous. AFAIK, many more women than men find their nipples to be a source of sexual arousal. EDIT: I hope people reading my post understand the difference between explaining vs. endorsing another party's reasoning.
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
  The key factor is the arbitrary sexual moral of the country where FB is headquartered.
  - rlt 7y ago
    I think it's more about the sexual morals of the countries where the majority of users are located. That said, I think it's silly. They're a technology company that should be able to come up with a technical solution. Twitter handles nudity just fine.
- journalctl 7y ago
  I like having my neck and ears touched. Should we ban those too?
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  More like the strange puritanism America can show when it comes to sex and relationships, nudity and minor curse words. Shows up in TV, eBay, Facebook and a selection of other ways. Violence on the other hand is usually permissible in near limitless quantity.
ryanmercer 7y ago
They do allow female nipples, if breastfeeding. I've seen numerous breastfeeding videos/photos get shared with nipple exposed or one of the two breasts completely exposed and report them just to see what will happen, they are always allowed to remain stating it does not violate the community standards. Similarly they seem to allow people to post comments like "why don't you use your guns to kill yourself" and "I hope you f*cking die" which are actual comments I've had when commenting on posts where the second amendment is being attacked, report them, and get facebook telling me an hour or days later that they did not violate community standards. I even had some in my messenger inbox before and got the blah blah blah it's ok, you can block them if you want message.
- journalctl 7y ago
  This seems to suggest that the content moderation policy is rather arbitrary, which makes sense if you recall that Facebook uses underpaid contractors in struggling countries to do a lot of this work.
- mattmillr 7y ago
  > report them just to see what will happen You realize that if the post is removed, that "seeing what will happen" has a real consequence for the poster, right? If feel like that's even worse than reporting it because you actually believe it's objectionable.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    You realize when I'm casually scrolling my facebook feed in public (like the break room at work, at a Church event, etc) and bare breasts pop up because someone felt the need to show strangers on the internet they breast feed it can have very real consequences including me losing my job, right? One I reported was a woman doing duck lips, in a few second video lip, with one breast completely bare and the other mostly exposed with her child appearing to be wholly disinterested in feeding while she actively squeezed her breasts together with her inner upper arms and rotated back and forth to showcase them. Reported it, thousands of likes and even more comments, did not violate community standards and allowed to remain. Literally came up, shared by someone, while I was sitting at church waiting for a meeting to start. It was blatantly obvious she was just finding a way to show her breasts off, I feel no remorse for reporting her post, especially when her blatantly showing her breasts off ended up being 'fine' to Facebook.
notacoward 7y ago
It's even worse when you consider how it's based in binary gender thinking. Are a transgender person's nipples allowed, or not? It ends up being such a mess. A gender-neutral standard would be better.
- nickthegreek 7y ago
  I have a friend who is transitioning f2m and recently had top surgery. They were extremely excited that being topless was no longer a crime. It helped put some things into perspective for me.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Not a crime in NY.
    - brirec 7y ago
      Nope, but it'll get you a lot of unwanted attention to the point where it might as well be.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > It's even worse when you consider how it's based in binary gender thinking. More like even better. Glad to see a website exercising critical thinking. > Are a transgender person's nipples allowed, or not? Is it sexually suggestive? Then no. > A gender-neutral standard would be better. Well that's a policy ignorant of reality.
  - amanaplanacanal 7y ago
    What reality is that I wonder?
    - marton78 7y ago
      The only one there is. The one we're living in.
coldtea 7y ago
It's puritanism (they should allow both), but it's not sexism. Just because one of the sexes is treated differently in some way doesn't make something necessarily sexism. It's just that female nipples are considered sensual while men nipples aren't. That's because female nipples are indeed sensual (and play a special role in reproduction and human sexual selection) whereas male nipples not so much. (Sure, some men like to have their nipples rubbed, kissed, etc, and some women enjoy them. But you can find some percentage of people who enjoy anything, including sexually aroused by armpits, so that's not really an argument. Statistically, males enjoy female breasts/nipples sexually far more than women enjoy male breasts/nipples, hence they were considered more sexually explicit). In the end, though, is it arbitrary? Yes, but so is considering dicks and testicles and pussies "bad" and sensual, and I don't see many people complaining they can't show their dick/pussy on Facebook (whereas, they should probably complain about that too). Rationally speaking, without the baggage of culture, there's nothing special about dicks and pussies other hands and faces and toes. Within the baggage of culture, however, they're in a different class, a class that female nipples happen to be also considered to belong to but male nipples not. But it's not like both men and women don't have several body parts considered censor-worthy. Woman having one more is not based on sexism (if that was the case, only women would have "shameful" body parts to hide and men would be able to display their dicks and balls and asses around), it's based on what culture considers sensual.
- Braggadocious 7y ago
  It's not puritanism. They're trying to get younger and younger audiences hooked on facebook and instagram without their parents worrying too much about unknown forces corrupting their kids.
  - cam_l 7y ago
    >parents worrying too much about unknown forces corrupting their kids. That is a pretty good definition of puritanism..
    - Braggadocious 7y ago
ahbyb 7y ago
Female breasts are a sex organ, male breasts are not.
buboard 7y ago
you can't sue a society out of its puritanism

You can sue anyone for any reason.

I would guess that the key factor is whether or not a body part is significantly erogenous. AFAIK, many more women than men find their nipples to be a source of sexual arousal. EDIT: I hope people reading my post understand the difference between explaining vs. endorsing another party's reasoning.

kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
The key factor is the arbitrary sexual moral of the country where FB is headquartered.
- rlt 7y ago
  I think it's more about the sexual morals of the countries where the majority of users are located. That said, I think it's silly. They're a technology company that should be able to come up with a technical solution. Twitter handles nudity just fine.
journalctl 7y ago
I like having my neck and ears touched. Should we ban those too?
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
More like the strange puritanism America can show when it comes to sex and relationships, nudity and minor curse words. Shows up in TV, eBay, Facebook and a selection of other ways. Violence on the other hand is usually permissible in near limitless quantity.

ryanmercer 7y ago

They do allow female nipples, if breastfeeding. I've seen numerous breastfeeding videos/photos get shared with nipple exposed or one of the two breasts completely exposed and report them just to see what will happen, they are always allowed to remain stating it does not violate the community standards. Similarly they seem to allow people to post comments like "why don't you use your guns to kill yourself" and "I hope you f*cking die" which are actual comments I've had when commenting on posts where the second amendment is being attacked, report them, and get facebook telling me an hour or days later that they did not violate community standards. I even had some in my messenger inbox before and got the blah blah blah it's ok, you can block them if you want message.

journalctl 7y ago
This seems to suggest that the content moderation policy is rather arbitrary, which makes sense if you recall that Facebook uses underpaid contractors in struggling countries to do a lot of this work.
mattmillr 7y ago
> report them just to see what will happen You realize that if the post is removed, that "seeing what will happen" has a real consequence for the poster, right? If feel like that's even worse than reporting it because you actually believe it's objectionable.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  You realize when I'm casually scrolling my facebook feed in public (like the break room at work, at a Church event, etc) and bare breasts pop up because someone felt the need to show strangers on the internet they breast feed it can have very real consequences including me losing my job, right? One I reported was a woman doing duck lips, in a few second video lip, with one breast completely bare and the other mostly exposed with her child appearing to be wholly disinterested in feeding while she actively squeezed her breasts together with her inner upper arms and rotated back and forth to showcase them. Reported it, thousands of likes and even more comments, did not violate community standards and allowed to remain. Literally came up, shared by someone, while I was sitting at church waiting for a meeting to start. It was blatantly obvious she was just finding a way to show her breasts off, I feel no remorse for reporting her post, especially when her blatantly showing her breasts off ended up being 'fine' to Facebook.

notacoward 7y ago

It's even worse when you consider how it's based in binary gender thinking. Are a transgender person's nipples allowed, or not? It ends up being such a mess. A gender-neutral standard would be better.

nickthegreek 7y ago
I have a friend who is transitioning f2m and recently had top surgery. They were extremely excited that being topless was no longer a crime. It helped put some things into perspective for me.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Not a crime in NY.
  - brirec 7y ago
    Nope, but it'll get you a lot of unwanted attention to the point where it might as well be.
mieseratte 7y ago
> It's even worse when you consider how it's based in binary gender thinking. More like even better. Glad to see a website exercising critical thinking. > Are a transgender person's nipples allowed, or not? Is it sexually suggestive? Then no. > A gender-neutral standard would be better. Well that's a policy ignorant of reality.
- amanaplanacanal 7y ago
  What reality is that I wonder?
  - marton78 7y ago
    The only one there is. The one we're living in.

coldtea 7y ago

It's puritanism (they should allow both), but it's not sexism. Just because one of the sexes is treated differently in some way doesn't make something necessarily sexism. It's just that female nipples are considered sensual while men nipples aren't. That's because female nipples are indeed sensual (and play a special role in reproduction and human sexual selection) whereas male nipples not so much. (Sure, some men like to have their nipples rubbed, kissed, etc, and some women enjoy them. But you can find some percentage of people who enjoy anything, including sexually aroused by armpits, so that's not really an argument. Statistically, males enjoy female breasts/nipples sexually far more than women enjoy male breasts/nipples, hence they were considered more sexually explicit). In the end, though, is it arbitrary? Yes, but so is considering dicks and testicles and pussies "bad" and sensual, and I don't see many people complaining they can't show their dick/pussy on Facebook (whereas, they should probably complain about that too). Rationally speaking, without the baggage of culture, there's nothing special about dicks and pussies other hands and faces and toes. Within the baggage of culture, however, they're in a different class, a class that female nipples happen to be also considered to belong to but male nipples not. But it's not like both men and women don't have several body parts considered censor-worthy. Woman having one more is not based on sexism (if that was the case, only women would have "shameful" body parts to hide and men would be able to display their dicks and balls and asses around), it's based on what culture considers sensual.

Braggadocious 7y ago
It's not puritanism. They're trying to get younger and younger audiences hooked on facebook and instagram without their parents worrying too much about unknown forces corrupting their kids.
- cam_l 7y ago
  >parents worrying too much about unknown forces corrupting their kids. That is a pretty good definition of puritanism..
  - Braggadocious 7y ago

ahbyb 7y ago

Female breasts are a sex organ, male breasts are not.

buboard 7y ago

you can't sue a society out of its puritanism