Nipples. We Google to check if ours are normal, we blanche if we see some feed babies, we censor them from our social media and we don't bat an eyelid at others.
Social media has forced us all to realise something that has been true for a long time - society says female nipples are for male consumption, and male consumption alone.
Looking deeper at the quandary of female anatomy, Nowness has released a short film, titled Nipples, which delves into the hypocrisy and absurdity of online censorship.
The film is directed by Matt Lambert and shows lots of nipples, on people of different genders, in different shapes, sizes and colours and even with different adornments. And no, it's unfortunately not safe for work (depending on where you work we guess).
As part of the new Define Beauty series, Adwoa Aboah narrates in her husky voice: 'Harry Styles has four - A poem about nipples' by Alex Holder.
Holder is ELLE's own ex-Acting Content Director and spoke to us about her motivation to write the moving, raucous and funny poem.
Holder explained that she found it unsurprising that Google's most asked question about nipples was 'Are my nipples normal?',
'In the media we see lots of variation on the same kind of photo-ready nipples. Often small brown nipples on flat chested white fashion models.
'We don't see the vast array of shapes, sizes and colours that nipples come in, we don't see how they look after breast feeding, for instance, or how nipples change during puberty. No wonder people are left wondering if their nipples are normal.'
The poem charts the biological importance of nipples, as well as the cultural issues that mean we just can't get past them, 'We hashtag free the nipple / And shout no more page three / Which despite appearances is not contradictory / They ask for different things, but they're on the same side / they're saying a woman's body is not to be objectified.'
She also writes about the undeniably sexual nature of the nipple, how they are an erogenous zone that might enjoy, 'Pulling, licking, twisting, biting, sucking'.
'We wanted this to be a film about and for both genders and to discuss both their function as mammary glands and in the context of sexual play,' explains Holder, touching on (what shouldn't be) contentious topics of 'free the nipple' and breastfeeding in public spaces.
'Just because female breasts are one thing, it doesn't mean they can't be another, we're all multi faceted beings and a woman's breast can be sexual and it can be functional.'
Obviously Aboah was the ideal candidate to voice the poem, partly due to her gravely tones, but also due to her activist work with Gurls Talk.
Both Aboah and Holder had to put up censored version of their own film about female censorship, and the irony is not lost on them.
Holder told us: 'I hope that this film shows the ridiculousness that our social media feeds are governed by American social media platforms which still try to box people into old deals.
'I understand they want to protect the feed from becoming sexually explicit, but to break that down to mean that a woman's nipple, no matter the context, is sexually explicit material is ridiculous.'
Hear, hear.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
