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Double standard of nudity in American movies, television, and video games

This has been a topic of debate among many for generations and even to this day, there is still no fair balance or equality when it comes to nudity in media.

Why all the female nudity?

In most of our visual media, there is no doubt that female nudity is much more prevalent than male nudity. There is no doubt that women are more sexualized than men in almost every aspect of our society. This is one of the focal points of feminists and movie critics. The main reason for this is usually overlooked and what most people do not seem to realize is that it is the simple fact that men do not have breasts. Almost all nudity in movies and television consists of breasts which are nothing more than mammary glands. However when it comes to displaying genitalia the penis holds sway (no pun intended).

Sex

Double standard of nudity in American movies, television, and video games.

Nudity is usually attributed to sex which Hollywood still seems to view as inappropriate, disgusting, and taboo for some reason. Unlike breasts, genitalia have direct involvement in sexual intercourse so simply displaying them is usually regarded as explicitly sexual and inappropriate. However there are certain boundaries that have been established to draw the line between sexual and nonsexual nudity.

Males

Double standard of nudity in American movies, television, and video games

Male frontal nudity is displayed at significantly higher proportions than female and has become increasingly more prevelant from the 2000s onward. Nude males are often displayed for their shock factor or for humor. There is always that movie where the hairy male ends up naked in the streets or the main male cartoon character of a children's television show decides to go nudist for a day.

Usually male nudity is only viewed as sexual if it involves or displays clear signs of arousal. Testicals, penises, and semen can be flaunted in movies unrestricted in virtually any movie or video game. In fact, even the penises of infants are shown in movies constantly. Despite these, there are still many articles of media that clearly break these rules without any contoversy:

  • Scary Movie 1 displays a close up and erect penis.
  • Scary Movie 2 contains a prolonged display of a penis in a scene where a man is relentlessly RAPED under a bed.
  • Let's Be Cops displays a close up, High-Definition shot from a back angle of a man's fully shaved testicals, perineum, and anus. (Video below, watch at your own risk!!)
  • Freddy Got Fingered has an incredibley disturbing scene at the end where Tom Green jacks off an elephant and shoots it's semen all over his dad's body.

Females

Double standard of nudity in American movies, television, and video games

The only female genitalia that will ever been seen in regular American media will consist of the thick and exaggeratedly opaque triangle of pubic hair concealing any and everything that may slightly resemble female genitals. If shown from any angle other than the front, it will be naturally censored with videographic tricks to lighting and shadows or props. Never will there be a clear shot of labia or anything other than pubic hair displayed in any media. You will also never see a female cartoon character "go nudist" in children's cartoons or a naked female infant. If you did, it would probably be deemed inappropriate and removed promptly. There is not a single movie, game, or television show that displays a naked female who's genitals can be clearly identified. This is probably the most clear view that you will ever see displalyed in American media. (Video below, watch at your own risk!!)

Possible Reasons

I've had many discussions about this before and I have been given many reasons for it but none have really made much sense:

As long as the penis is flacid then it is appropriate.

Well as specified before, I have two movies in my examples above that broke that rule. I also see little sense in this rule considering that even a dry and unaroused vulva is deemed inappropriate.

Women's hair covers their genitals so it would be inappropirate if they were shaved.

In 21st century America, most women DO shave their genitals and even if they didn't, it is still not impossible to see vulva through hair (which is exaggerated in movies)

It would be impossible to get an angle of a vagina without a woman spreading her legs.

No it wouldn't... a simple shot of a woman standing straight up from the front has a clearly visible cleft in between her legs in which outter labia (and inner for some women) can be seen at this angle. Not to mention in the "Let's Be Cops" scene shown before, that angle would reveal a full, clear, and close-up shot of a vagina and clitoris if it were a woman.

Conclusion

In the end, I think it is nothing more than a double standard that is deeply ingrained in our history and culture thanks to social norms and religion. The simple display of a vulva is deemed too sexually explicit but breasts, testicles, erect penises, and semen are displayed as humorous and entertaining. At the end of the day, they are nothing more than natural body parts and should be treated as such. Our society as a whole has a very mentality when it comes to nudity. Seeing a vagina will not put an eye out and will have no impact on our society as a whole regardless of age unless we MAKE it a big deal. There are entire cultures such as the Zo'e who live their entire lives naked with fully shaved genitals regardless of age or gender. The human race has come so far in so many ways yet for some reason, the simple sight of genitalia appears to be an impassable barrier to the most advanced civilizations on Earth.

Zo'e Tribe

Double standard of nudity in American movies, television, and video games
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Most Helpful Guy

  • What you and other people who keep complaining about "double standards" fail to understand that for a double standard to exist you need the to subjects to be on the same track first.

    You need male and female to be equal at least in the context you are talking about. In this case, equality in regards to sexual behaviour.

    Are we equal in this matter? Absolutely not. Guys have 20 times girl's level of testosterone and get sexually aroused way more easily than them. We also get aroused by different things, and for guys, they're mostly visual, unlike females.

    So without equality, there is logically no double standards because you don't compare apples and oranges... you compare apples with apples.

    It's tiring to hear people who constantly observe society and feel like there is inequality here and there, when they ignore the basics... Genetic.
    They think maybe social conditioning rules everything. Fools.

    • Then please explain to me why women can and do anything men can do (like joining the military) in our society yet we can't even see equality in seeing one another's bodies. There

    • First of all, your reasoning is fallacious thus invalid. I said you need to compare the subjects in the appropriate context. Here you're talking about sexual behaviour. But now you want to jump to another topic and talk about women joining the military... What does that have to do with anything sexual? Nothing. Second, the way you validate your ideas is laughable --> "oh women are the same, look they also join the army and can do anything a man can". Says who? That's not at all what scientists agree with. And they have more credibility than you. We have known about our genetic differences for decades. Women have usually more difficulties in anything involving pure logic. They also have difficulties with 3 dimensional visualisation. However they have, for example superior communication skills because they brain is wired differently. But even without these facts, there are still no female Marines, Navy Seals, etc. So even then, your argument doesn't work.

Most Helpful Girl

  • I've thought about this a lot, and had discussions about it with my boyfriend. I think you hit the double standard right on the nose, well done! I concur.

    • Thank you for the kind words. I'm surprised that I'm getting so many rude/trollish responeses to this. I'm glad to see that there are other like-minded individuals.

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What Girls & Guys Said

6 27

  • Not saying you're wrong, but there is something else to bear in mind.

    If a guy walks around nude, unless he goes to lengths to hide them, you can see his bits, whereas if a woman walks around nude, you see some pubic hair, but that's about it, in order to get a good look at her vagina she has to open her legs and deliberately show it off, so maybe it's a difference between 'casual nudity' (a flaccid cock flapping about) and a deliberate display (a woman spreading her legs)

    Think about this, every guy hits adulthood being very (perhaps overly) familiar with how his todger looks, where as many women reach adulthood not knowing what their vag looks like, simply because they've never gone to the trouble of putting a mirror down there...

    • I covered exactly what you said in the myTake. You said that you couldn't see anything without her spreading her legs. If you search the "Reasons" section, the third category in bold labled "It would be impossible to get an angle of a vagina without a woman spreading her legs." covers that. Also you said that pubes would cover it. Again in my "Reasons" section, the second category labeled "Women's hair covers their genitals so it would be inappropirate if they were shaved." covers that part. Lastly you said there are movies that show erect penises and there are movies that show mail genitals from angles that would reveal a vagina clearly like the video in the "Male" section of the myTake. I think that maybe you simply did not read or review the myTake well enough before posting.

  • I agree with you, the problem is to many people are accepting of this part of our culture. If we want to see a true change we need to convince many men and the women that think that this double standard is fine , that is not fine at all, unfortunately this is not an easy feat or someone would have done that already.

  • I think some movie directors are diluted porn producers. They want the same shit, they just film it in a classier way and slap the label "art" on it.

    • If that were the case then why the double standard? In the porn industry things are a lot different.

    • In a way, it's actually more like this is what they have always WANTED to show, but can't due to ratings and censorship. GoT, for instance, is not exaggerating its nudity to grab viewers. It's simply getting these details from the book. That's the best part about that show. It doesn't allude to you a vague idea of what went down, it shows it to you exactly as-is.

  • Yeah damn it! How are we going to make it more equal considering there's been elephant fapping... I've got it. Alright, people let's get the close-up shot of those female blue whale genitals as the stunt coordinator readies the jump.

  • Nothing but spot-on about double-standards. Get job man.

    • Great*

    • I love how a simply typo completely changes the meaning. lol!

  • women are way over sexualized, i never want it to be worse than it already is.

    • Men are over sexualised too though!

    • A vagina doesn't have to always be sexual, that's my point. They'll show a man's dick as something funny but they automatically associate a vagina with sexuality and don't permit it in movies.

    • I do not want to see, vaginas or penises in movies, i want to watch the movie, like someone said before, if you want nudity go watch a porn.

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  • Am I the only person who saw a bald headed mans head between that womans legs at first glance? Talk about an optical illusion, geez.

  • Yeah I don't know why they always show nude men bending over and you can see their fucking balls and asshole, but they never show that shot with women.

  • I've always had mixed feelings about weather nudism should be allowed or not well firstly I hate the fact that we have laws in general. To the main point about nudism well I think in general it would be inappropriate to be naked all the time and also I feel and think that clothing is what makes us humans feel good and secure about ourselves and what helps us humans have value and worth to ourselves like for example if I like a certain dress code or way of how I like girls/women to dress than wearing clothes is a great thing plus I love my girls/women in a certain dress code I love when my girls/women wear nice cool hot fashionable neat stylish T-shirts tucked in and also us humans need clothes for cold weather and I love the cold weather but hate the hot weather.

  • They had very on display, shaved pussies in Weeds

    • hmm... never seen it. So you can actually see the vulva in it without any tricks on shadows or angles etc?

    • You see like full on pussy. Like not obscured at all. You can even see their piercings lol. Weedsis mainstream too

    • Interesting... well there's ONE lol.

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  • If i want to see pussy on screen i look at porn. Its distasteful in movies.

    • What makes it distasteful in a movie? What makes a penis more appealing in movies than vaginas?

    • Like i said we have porn. In 1994 it was cool, but now i want my movies to tell a story.

    • Why do people think they are so cool and original to tell me to "Go watch porn" Do you think I don't know that I can find vaginas in porn? You also failed to answer my question. Why show penises in movies but not vaginas? Game of Thrones is GREAT show and a GREAT series but it shows penises. It shows naked women too but of course, they have the diagnostic black patch of pubes obscurring all of their genitals. Genitalia don't "Ruin" films. I don't think it would have been any distasteful if they simply removed the pubes. The story of GoT is just as amazing and interseting with or without the pubes. I just think it's an unessecary double standard. I don't understand how some movies show erect penises but can't even display a simple frontal slit between a woman's legs.

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  • I've seen many movies with nudity in them. One nude scene in "Titanic" that I don't understand is when Jack draws Rose with the necklace on. That doesn't have any connection to the story! It was stupid! My mother always fast-forwards that scene when my sister and I are watching it with her. Both of them always have questions.

    Nudity is flat out inappropriate in movies. In real life, it depends. Husbands and wives are allowed to see each other nude. Girls with other girls is fine and guys with other guys. Mixed sexes are not allowed unless they are married and only see their spouse.

    • What's so wrong about it? Is it just simple lack of maturity? Does it really bother you that much to see part of someone's body?

    • No, it doesn't bother me. I see that all the time in some movies.

    • Well you said outright that it's inappropriate. Have you ever actually sat down and asked yourself what's wrong with nudity? Because I'm sure that list will be pretty empty. It's only wrong because we say its wrong.

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  • There was a rape scene in scary movie 2 o. o?

    Did the feminists protest in outrage?

    • ray rapes the evil clown

  • American, the only place that's ok to look at people fuck in our tv, computers etc. yet they are afraid of real naked people

  • I saw a documentary on that tribe. Even *they* have standards. A man will never be seen without his penis sheath unless he is going to the bathroom, and a woman will always use one foot to cover her vulva when she sits down.

    watch this video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4HGfagANiQ

  • I'm sorry ladies but I'm not doing full frontal...

  • Honestly, I couldn't agree with you more, nor could I have said it any better myself. Well done!

  • It's because women are innately sex objects, the media and films follow biology not the other way around. Since a women can only be pregnant once in 9 months and carries that risk of pregnancy, women generally won't be sexually attracted to an image of a strange naked man even if he is good looking, while men who can impregnate multiple women a day and carry less risk from reproduction will be easily sexually attracted to any nude female body as long as she is somewhat good looking.

    • So it isn't a double standard, because it isn't the same thing

  • This is a double standard that i dont really care about. But thanks for the take :)

    • If you don't care about any of this then why read or comment at all? Just curious.

    • I just wanted to read about it but i dont particularly care that this double standard exists

    • It gets under my skin when you see a patch of opaque black hair and people call it nudity. No it's not nudity, it's hair.

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  • Most movies, comics, books, videogames and TV shows are made by men, for men, even though half the world population is female.
    That probably explains a lot of stuff.

    • Sources? Statistics? Where did you find this information.

    • time.com/.../
      There you go. That's just one of many.

    • Dude that's only 63%. You're saying it as if it's an overwhelming majority. Indian movie industry and Nigerian movies make up the majority of the world's movies yet the United States and Europe still dominate in sales. I think this is a more accurate representation of the problem in the industry:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB6TiRJNI-Q

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