Facebook Nipple Gate and Happy New Year MySpace Comments

Happy New Year MySpace comments are available for download all over the Internet. The Cool MySpace Comments site alone feature some New Year MySpace comments that sparkle and gush, and could cause a serious case of vertigo to anyone looking at it unprepared. The same could be said for Glitter Graphics Now. What both "Happy New Year" MySpace comment sites have in common are rather scantily clad depictions of the female anatomy - even as they lack the display of nipples that is causing uproar on Facebook.

All the flashing, glittering, and throbbing Happy New Year MySpace graphics stand in stark contract to the Nipple Gate Facebook is dealing with. Just like MySpace, Facebook is a social networking site that prides itself on letting folks meet up and let it all hang out - or almost all. Time reports - in an article entitled "Facebook's War on Nipples" no less - that in an effort to remove posted photos it deems obscene, it has run afoul the breastfeeding advocacy groups.

As happy New Year MySpace comments depicting partially disrobed women are posted on one site, Facebook is waging war on users posting photos which are "showing the nipple or areola." Women -- who post photos of themselves nursing babies -- are coming out in protest, and there is already a Facebook group aptly named "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!"

At issue, so the group asserts, are "gender equality and freedom." This Facebook group is fighting for the right to expose their nipples online in an effort to show that breastfeeding is not obscene, and since 12-27, they already boast 76,000 members. Today it appears the group has about 98,550 members.

If it is the freedom to breastfeed that the Facebook group is fighting for, they will be pleased to know that - according to the National Conference of State Legislatures - breastfeeding in public is already legal in each and every state. If it is gender equality, it would appear that with the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act - as well as the constitutionally guaranteed right to vote - these issues are already covered as well.

So what is behind door number three? If it is not about breastfeeding, gender equality, and freedom, what is the real issue behind the Facebook Nipple Gate that is getting so many breastfeeding advocates up in arms, causing the Sydney Morning Herald to dub them the people with "lactivist wrath?"

There is the chance that perhaps Facebook would have been wiser to not lump photos of breastfeeding moms into the same group as photos of bared breasts that border on the obscene. Maybe Facebook is a bit arbitrary in its removal of exposed breasts. Then again, maybe women feel that if men are allowed to post bare-chested photos, by golly, so should they.

Here is my solution: if you breastfeed and get a kick out of having someone take your picture and then show it off to each and everyone on the Internet, get your own website. There is your freedom. With regards to Facebook, why not make it so that women who are breastfeeding can post their photos as soon as guys breastfeeding a baby post theirs. There is your gender equality. Moreover, let's just have Facebook apologize for lumping in breastfeeding pictures with gratuitous nude photos under the definition of obscene, and move on.

Sources: http://www.coolmyspacecomments.com/happy-new-year.html; http://www.glittergraphicsnow.com/happy-new-year.html; http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1869128,00.html; http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2517126532; http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/breast50.htm; http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/epa.html; http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/cor/coord/titleixstat.php; http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/facebook-mothers-outraged-at-breastfeeding-ban/2007/09/07/1188783470779.html