Today I stumbled across a campaign on an NZ website which is causing a bit of controversy.
To raise money and awareness for breast cancer, the team there are encouraging readers to upload photos of their breasts, to get their “tits out for the girls”. For every 50 photos uploaded, the online magazine will donate $1,000 to breast cancer research.
Some are finding the stunt explicit and inappropriate, going as far as labelling it pornographic. While others are in full support.
I’ve always had a fascination with how people perceive the human body. When was it, in the history of the world, did we started viewing our naked (or even semi-naked) selves as wrong?
We had a short discussion about it in the office, and some made biblical reference to treating the “body as a temple”. One staffer believes that even looking at the website (where the breasts are on full display – some bare, some covered) would be wrong because it goes against their personal religious morals, and looking would only encourage this inappropriate behaviour.
I on the other hand, don’t see anything wrong with it. When did our bodies go from being physical representations of our existence to only being labelled as ‘sexual’ things?
I appreciate the beauty of the female form and the important roles our bodies play throughout our lives. They are the beginning of all life, the whare tangata, a nurturing structure that creates all human existence. Breasts feed life to our babies giving vital nourishment.
The female body is strong and carries with it a sense of mana. It is not something to be ashamed of, to be hidden away, or to be boxed where it is only seen as sexual. Unfortunately this same body also plays victim to the dreadful hand of cancer. Be it breast, cervical or otherwise.
One blogger on the website asked how the stunt of uploading images of breasts was empowering for women. I ask, how can it not be empowering?
I have known too many women who have had to suffer with the deadly disease that is breast cancer. Its raw, it’s ugly, and it strips you down in ways that many will never imagine.
Choosing (and I emphasise that these women who have submitted photos have chosen to do so) to express support for such a worthy cause by showing images of their breasts is empowering. They are taking control, they are celebrating the female form, they are emphasising the realities of this horrid disease, they are initiating discussion, and in doing so, raising good money for research.
Of the breast cancer sufferers I personally know, some are still fighting, others are in remission, and some, sadly, lost the battle. But I know for a fact, all of them would be proud of each woman who has taken the step to bare all for charity. To raise money and awareness in an in-your-face campaign that will get people talking (like it already has done here) is brave, and these women should be commended for it, not belittled to a point where they are degraded beyond reason.
Ultimately, it is about women seeing their/our bodies in a different light. Stripping away that label society has put on us that our bodies are only sexual and need to be covered up for fear of causing offense.
Our bodies are magnificent creations that need to be celebrated, in all forms. And, that sometimes means using them in ‘raw’ campaigns to raise awareness about the diseases that try to ruin them.
BL-10
Do you think nudity, or even semi-nakedness (eg, being covered by a top or bra) is inappropriate when done to raise awareness and money for a good cause?
Has society gone too far by instilling views that this type of behaviour is wrong?
