Tit for Tat

Something I never understood: nipples. And not just nipples in general- I have them, you have them, I learned early on what they do and why they do it- but nipples in movies and television. You can see them in movies, more often than not it’s the only “private part” you will see in an R-rated film, they’re blurred on television, and when I went on IMDB last night to look up a movie, nipples was the first topic on the board.

So this all leads me to wonder why female nipple is the obscenity and indecency standard for television and movies. I’ve always thought this was silly and incredibly sexist. Is it because showing the nipple and nothing more brings the viewer to the titillating (pun intended) edge without allowing them to fall over? This assumes, of course, that the viewer in question is one who is attracted to women. Still, if the nipple is the most one can show on a woman in a non-pornographic film and must be hidden in television, what is the male equivalent? More importantly, why isn’t there one?

I guess we are to assume that women (or gay men), in general, don’t want to see naked men the way men (or gay women) want to see naked females. This is bullshit; absolutely bogus. If I want to watch a porno, I’ll watch a porno, but I get so sick of seeing so many nipples (and nothing more; I wouldn’t complain as much if I weren’t stuck on second base) in movies that I need another “private part” to dull the pain. As is such, I wonder what exactly makes the nipple a sacred place? And, in the same vein, what makes it less holy than the scrotum or penis? And why can’t I see it?

This nipplehemia can be traced back to Janet Jackson’s infamous Superbowl performance in 2004 where a pierced nipple escaped from its hiding place to exclaim to the world “I exist!” (Four years later, “Wardrobe Malfunction” is the second Google suggestion when you type her name in a search.) I remember an almost immediate crackdown in swear words, nudity, and other sexual content on television and radio, as well as the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005. And I wonder: was the public so completely enchanted with this one left nipple that it became so obsessed and made it an industry-wide standard?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want boobies plastered all over Nickelodeon and Saturday morning cartoons- although it seems to work in England- I’m all for having a boob barrier until a respectable age. But if this barrier exists, there needs to be a standard for showing the male half. Yes. Penises galore. For every pair of nipples, there should be a pair of balls. For every flash of female public hair, there should be a man’s bush. Everything in the name of equality, and a feast of flesh I can enjoy too.

Still, some confusion exists. I have seen Nips on television. I have seen a flash of male genetalia in a movie, though it’s never as focused as that of females. Adam Sandler’s 2000 movie, Little Nicky, features a dream-like sequence where Sandler and his love interest, Patricia Arquette, fly over a field of animated boobs; nipples and everything. And when on television, the nipples are still there in all their glory. The Sex and the City movie shows a few seconds of a penis, a first for the creators, which was hyped and inevitably disappointing. But I need to give credit to them for breaking the rules, even a little bit (and it was little) in some form of backwards female empowerment.

And now the question remains: if Adam Sandler and Kim Cattrall can see these things, why can’t everyone see them? I mean, why aren’t they getting in trouble by the Powers That Be for showing everything you’re not supposed to show. And the answer is, at least I think it is, because they can’t get in trouble. As saddening as it sounds, movie makers, television folk, producers and writers all subscribe to these notions of decency. Whether because of their personal beliefs or because they are being put upon, we are all suffering.

The solution? Take out the tits and pull out the penis! Well, maybe not quite. Until more movies like Zach and Miri Make a Porno come out, we’re just going to have to keep writing letters to Comedy Central asking them to air Little Nicky. After all, how often are you going to see that many boobs at once?