Every Friday I like to tackle questions and tough topics that're given to me. We often do this using essays or Q/A sessions where I answer Frequently Asked Questions, and this is one of them.
One question I often receive is, "ArcRoyale, if you're all for equality in nudity, why do you still feel the need to censor female nipples?" Well, the picture above showcases an example of why I censor, albeit with something more commonly censored that I feel shouldn't be.
When it comes to adults, a butt is often thought of as being acceptable for PG-13 level content regardless of gender. Men and women can show those just fine, and boys in all animated series and girls in a few shows from foreign countries can also show theirs without raising a stink.
The nipple, however, doesn't have that luxury. If a female nipple is found in any work, if it's on an adult the work will no doubt be considered an R-rated work unsuitable for children and teenagers. Not even the most daring Fox show showed any such thing even with the rest of the nudity they did allow.
Worse, children are already a touchy subject. As I've said enough times so to make it my catchphrase, no one wants to sexualize children. And the taboo regarding the nipple as sexual has been in place for over 1000 years, maybe longer. So if I showed a little girl nipple, regardless of how low-detail it was, even if it were just a black dot, it'd still raise a massive stink and might cause people to think I'm in it for pornographic reasons. I already have enough people thinking I'm a pedophile, I don't want any more.
There's also the case of Japanese series. See, the Japanese feel it's okay in some series meant for adults to use children for sexual purposes, though it really isn't. That means in fanservice anime, there are two kinds of nipples: male and female. Male nipples, if not absent, are usually just dots or circles that may or may not have a darker color. Female nipples, however, are always pink and always done with large amounts of detail, so to fetishize them. And when nipples are shown on young girls in these series, they tend to be drawn like their adult counterparts if they're even shown. That tells me I should probably censor them.
So this censorship thing, while something I recognize as unequal, is something where I'm fighting years of societal standards. I can't win in those cases, so I gotta censor. Sorry!