Taking the “artistic” out of “artistic nudity”

The LA Times Culture Monster blog recently posted an article on YouTube’s censorship of videos containing nudity. At issue here is a 1973 video called Dressing Up by Susan Mogul. The video shows Susan putting on underwear and clothing in a casual fashion and discussing each piece as she puts it on, sort of a strip tease turned around.

Tom Jancar, owner of the Jancar Gallery in LA, posted the video in 2009 and it had received “hundreds of hits” during the time it was up, and also notes Susan is “doing everything posible not to be sexy.”

While I understand Google (who now own YouTube) not wanting the site to become a haven for pornographic short films, there is a difference between obvious pornography and artistic nudity. I saw the clip of Dressing Up on Susan’s website and while Susan is definitely fully naked in the beginning of the clip, I would call this artistic nudity. (It’s still almost certainly NSFW though.) Hopefully, some other site can host this video since apparently it’s too hot for YouTube.

Seriously, how can Google allow this Australian news clip with a straight face at the same time they mercilessly take down Dressing Up?

2 thoughts on “Taking the “artistic” out of “artistic nudity””

  1. The answer is very simple. Google and Youtube are driven by profit first, whatever they think is popular prejudice second, and facts and evidence a very distant last. It is not coincidence that this censorship comes from the country with by far the worst teenage pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted infection rates in the Western World. Treat the body like dirt and the consequences for both individuals and society are horrendous.

    1. I agree that Google, like many other companies, is motivated by profit first, often to the detriment of its customers (including users of free services like YouTube). However, I disagree with the implication that teenage pregnancy, abortion, or STDs are somehow to blame for this. I don't think any of these things are relevant to what is clearly a censorship/artistic expression issue.

      Just curious, since apparently you have something against the US: what country are you in?

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