Today we witness a new kind of totalitarianism. This time implemented by men unknown in the corporate offices of the American corporations Google and Apple. Behind closed doors executives of these two corporations have decided that American moral standards must be imposed all over the globe. Rarely, if ever, have we witnessed more self-righteous and cultural imperialist corporate decisions than these.

Apple has decided to block what it considers “objectionable content” from being shown on iPhone. And “objectionable content” here refers to nudity. Completely ignoring the fact that moral standards differ considerably from country to country in the world, it is, of course, American moral standards that are the ones being implemented – standards which most Europeans consider completely silly. No nude legs, breasts, bodies, or – heaven forbid – female nipples can be shown on an iPhone. Despite the fact that European newspapers and magazines – Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, French, and so on and so forth – bring such photos all the time and nobody raises even an eyebrow.

And Google has actually done the same thing for a long time without being explicit about it. If you look at some of the posts in this blog that contains beautiful pictures of women – perhaps even showing their nipples – you will notice that the content of the Google ads disappear (as a matter of fact, all images shown on this site have also been published in European newspapers and magazines). It is the same on millions of websites all over the world. And what defines what is appropriate and what is not? The views predominant in the country where the website is located? The views common in the country of the person looking at the blog or magazine article? No! You guessed it! The American puritan moral standards!

I don’t know why corporations feel they ought to use technology this way. And I certainly don’t know how to stop it. I do know that I am appalled by it. And I hope the EU or some international organization will put an end to corporate censorship and cultural imperialism. We don’t need it. We don’t want it.

PS: See also:

• The excellent article about this in New York Times: In Germany, a Nude IS No Big Deal, Except on an iPhone, in today’s paper, page B4.
• Gizmodo.com: It is time to declare war against Apple’s censorship
• Apple discussion forum about “Is censorship really needed” – which has strangely been closed for comments
• Cult of Mac: Apple censorship reaches new levels of stupidity
• Seth Finkelstein: Google Censorship – how it works
• See the censored version of “Nudity in Art” at YouTube

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

The two curling players below certainly are beautiful. They are from a calendar full of similar curling players. Female, that is. And good looking!

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The 23-year-old world class skater is extremely professional, and kept smiling, but with the next move, which required her partner to hold her hand above her head, the inevitable happened. And here is the result:

PS: You can see more beautiful pictures of world class athletes in this article from Bild!

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I think the pictures are stunning. Very beautiful, and with some very intriguing designs also!

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The movie may be interesting because of the nudity – it has both nude males and nude women. It may also be interesting because of lots of pubic hair – a new trend? In Iceland?

However, the most interesting aspect of this is the marketing aspect. We have seen Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, and others using sex videos and nudity to become world famous. Is this possible for a band with a music video too? If it has lots of nudity?

Also, the media world is changing, and this video may well illustrate how relatively unimportant traditional media channels are becoming – even YouTube, when it chooses to censor. My bet is that this video will go viral, and that it will be one of the most viewed music videos this year.

It is still art? Who knows? However, the new album, which this song is from, is called “Nude”, so at least it reflects the title of the album.

What remains to be seen is whether sex sells, and whether the group will be able to reach their intended audience with this content or not?

We will see!

PS: Oh, and the video? You can find it on the homepage of Sigur Rós:  Here.

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

Now he has appointed the very beautiful, conservative and talented Mara Carfagna (32) as his minister for equality. But not only that – at a dinner party he also said that if he had been single, he would have like to marry her. That’s a slightly unusual way for a prime minister to speak of his ministers, I would say. And, clearly also a statement his wife was not to pleased with, and made quite a lot of noise about.

Beautiful Mara Carfagna has a future, like most people. She has been a TV-hostess and a top-less model. And now she is, I would think, the most beautiful minister in any government in OECD. That really has to count for something in Italy?!?

And there is no rule anywhere stating that ministers of equality must be ugly, is there?

Mara Carfagna……Italy’s next Minister for something or other.

Rightwingers and ex-model in Italian cabinet

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The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet has an interview with one of the participants, feminist Nour El-Refai says that “I think people should let women’s breasts in peace. We women should be allowed to de-sexualize our breasts if we want to. We are not to blame for the sexualization of breasts. A de-sexualization of breasts would increase my freedom as a woman.”

Nour firmly believes that the bath house protests of the bare breast movement in Sweden represent a good approach for the movement, as they are visible manifestations that attract attention.

She says de-sexualization of breasts is important in order for the sexes to be able to act natural: “I do not get wet by watching the naked breasts of a man, so why should it be that way for men?”

The feminist movement in Scandinavia has been very successful in a large number of areas. Now a growing number of feminists, especially in Sweden and Denmark, want to fight for the right to behave as men do with respect to their bodies. They essentially want to be able to be topless wherever and whenever men are allowed to be topless. In public bath houses, at the beach, and similar places. They also want to be able to take off their shirts on the soccer field after a match, like the men do. And so on.

A short statement of their goals in English can be found on one of their blogs. Also, Washington Post has had an article about this movement. And here is a Wikipedia article (unfortunately in Swedish).

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Now a group of women are fighting for the right to bath and swim topless in public swimming facilities. The city of Sundsvall in Northern Sweden granted women this right after a bare-breasted protest a while ago. And now Copenhagen has permitted topless swimming as well.

Another victory for Scandinavian women.

Actually, for the men as well, I guess?

The Sun (UK) wrote about this today (03/29):

Campaign leader Astrid Vang, 20, who took her top off with others to protest at a leisure centre at Christmas, said: “We women would like to decide by ourselves when our breasts should be sexual and when not.”In swimming pools they should not and that is why the breasts should not be covered – We will bathe topless just like men.”

The Danish campaign was inspired by a Swedish group called Just Breasts, which was formed after two women were asked to cover up their breasts by a lifeguard at a public pool near Stockholm.

Swedish protesters carried out several full-frontal marches in their country but their tireless topless fight will not stop at swimming pools — the perky sufferagettes want to show tops the red card at football matches next.

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.