A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

The Nipple As a Site of Protest

Trista di Genova | 22.11.2001 01:30

Tube stations banned a seventeenth century portrait for having a bared breast.

The Nipple As a Site of Protest

Posters with the seventeenth century portrait of the Countess of Oxford were banned from being posted in the London Underground for being too risque. This could become one of the most hotly contested, political nipples in herstory. Feminist herstorians might question whether this custom might actually be something the Countess was celebrating at the time, say, demonstrating a sign of fertily, or commemorating the birth of a healthy new child/heir? Maybe not. Olga Alexopoulou, Oxford MFA, claims that portraits like these were put behind curtains, and used as a form of earlier pornography. Maybe they could put a man of the period, showing his nipples beside her, just to be fair to the modern viewer.

Trista di Genova
e-mail: trista.digenova@seh.ox.ac.uk
Homepage: www.tristagenova.com

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

strange attitudes

22.11.2001 07:11

wow is that odd or what. why I wonder is the english world so concerned about such things.
Everyone has breasts after all. A simplistic argument I know. Well it is hoped that tube stations
can get back to doing other things besides banning such innocuous images.

atimm

example false morals

22.11.2001 11:43

just another example of the moral bullshit that society is based on, while they can ram the telly full of porn violence and general shite, and that's early evening kids video games are 100% violence with possible sinister hidden meanings, the gutter press slaps tits and bums all over the shop, if your sitting opposite a Sun reader on the tube you get a face full, all in the worst possible taste. so obviously the pricks that run the underground will bar the painting, errr it's art could corrupt people ....keep off the high morale ground !!

Luther Blissett

ano0ther london art gallery has been raided

22.11.2001 16:04

proud gallery in pimlico has been raided for showing nudity. this is at least the second occurrence this year, afetr the saatchi incident in the spring

antoine roquentin

This country sucks!

22.11.2001 22:18

This country sucks period! If you show so much as a nipple on adverts people go crazy for nothing! I have been to other countries and when they show nudity on posters they don't give a shit because they are more liberal than boring rip off old Britain!
Let's face it people not only Britain has awful weather,let alone authoritarian government, we always make a fuss on nudity. We are born naked after all people including dumb ass feminists!
Plus in Italy( No surprises there!) they even have weather reports presented by topless women which they copied from Russia and knowing Italy they don't give a shit either. The Italians don't mess around with things like that! Imagine on British TV doing something like that? There will be an uproar by the feminist brigade if something like that happened no shit really!
I say Britain has too much censorship and needs to become more liberal but then that is wishful thinking of course!
I'm speaking the truth here people its a fact!

Pegasus

Pig-asus?

28.11.2001 15:09

Now hang on. Censorship is a bad thing but feminists ain't to blame for it. It's the state that censors, usually (always?) under pressure from conservatives.

I know some liberal feminists (specifically NOW) in the US mistakenly welcomed some censorship measures pushed through by the Christian Right; I can assure you most of em now see what a big error that was!

And I'm hopeful that most IMC subscribers wouldn't see topless newsreaders as a progressive step.. Hey, is it too far-fetched to suspect a Berlusconi tactic to divert attention from the actual content of the news?

internationalist

UK Indymedia