After META’s Oversight Board recently recommended that the company remove their nipple censorship policy due to discrimination based on sex and gender, the Free the Nipple movement is back in the public eye. As the conversation around the online policing of bodies and self-presentation picks up again, will we get any closer to truly letting the nipple free?

Last summer, celebrated actress Florence Pugh made headlines after donning a sheer hot pink Valentino dress on the red carpet that exposed her breasts in their entirety. Accompanying the outfit was a lengthy Instagram post calling out the ridiculous state of nipple censorship in the 21st century. “Listen, I knew when I wore that incredible Valentino dress that there was no way there wouldn’t be a commentary on it” she wrote, continuing by saying “Grow up. Respect people. Respect bodies. Respect all women. Respect humans. Life will get a whole lot easier, I promise. And all because of two cute little nipples….” Pugh concluded the post with the concise hashtag of “#fuckingfreethefuckingnipple”. Message heard loud and clear.

Following a recent article I wrote on the prevalence of shadow-banning of sex workers and industry adjacent artists on Instagram, I’ve fallen further down the rabbit hole of our current culture’s attitude towards sexuality and nudity - specifically the nipple. We all know one when we see it but how do we define the nipple? According to Wikipedia, the nipple is “a raised region of tissue on the surface of the breast” surrounded by the areola, which is the “pigmented area”. I got ‘em, you got ‘em, most people got ‘em, and if you were active on Tumblr or Twitter during the mid-2010s you probably argued over how of ‘em Harry Styles had. So where the hell are half the world’s nips when we scroll through our feeds?

META’s stance on adult nudity and sexual activity has always been in flux.

As it stands META’s adult content policy rationale states that they “understand that nudity can be shared for a variety of reasons, including as a form of protest, to raise awareness about a cause, or for educational or medical reasons. Where such intent is clear, we make allowances for the content. For example, while we restrict some images of female breasts that include the nipple, we allow other images, including those depicting acts of protest, women actively engaged in breast-feeding and photos of post-mastectomy scarring”. Female nipples, and for that matter, the nipples of anyone who isn’t a cis man (looking at you, every man ever on Love Island) have been specifically targeted by META’s content rules. The Oversight Board’s new recommendations arrive after “two Instagram posts depicting transgender and non-binary people with bare chests” were taken down - a clear demonstration of META’s traditional gender binary proclivities. If the current regulations aren’t able to distinguish between sex and gender, and therefore perpetuate a conservative and harmful understanding of what is “female”, our freedom surrounding body celebration and gender expression is being suppressed and limited.

In addition, META’s stance on “female” nipples necessitating coverage except in exempted tasteful circumstances underlines the company’s patriarchal beliefs that breasts are inherently sexual and conditions us to self-police and self-censor online. How many times have you or your friends doodled or strategically placed an emoji over a stray nipple in order to escape the wrath of the META gods? How many times have you consciously adjusted or layered clothing in order to not be “too much nip”? From Janet Jackson’s infamous “nip slip” at the 2004 Super Bowl (which made her the recipient of intense vitriol and greatly impacted her career) to Lily-Rose Depp’s latest insta posts this week - who gets to bare their nipples and why is it such a big deal? The current rules are a slippery slope so why not just scrap ‘em and let us bare all?

META has less than a month left to respond to the Oversight Board’s statement…will the nipple’s freedom finally be democratized for all?

Will the nipple ever be free?