female nipples are, visually, pretty much the same as male nipples- other than they may be bigger because they have been stretched by the fatty tissue of the breast and will have distinctly less hair. so why are female’s nipples censored, not only on social media but more curiously, in real life? by censoring female nip naps, what are we saying to women? -that they are offensive? indecent? or is it because men would feel awkward? because female chests are seen as sexy? as children, there is no bias between girls and boys when it comes to exposure until puberty. then, as girls’ breasts develop they are hidden under bras and bikini tops- but why? i suppose that as a nervous 13 year old i didn’t want my pre-pubescent almost-but-not-quite-boobs on show for everyone to see, but then maybe that’s because i was taught that they shouldn’t be seen. why should boys and men get the right to sunbathe without obscene tan lines?? why are they taught that their nipples are okay and ours aren’t? if it’s about the size of the breast, some mens’ boobs are bigger than some womens’ so why aren’t they in bikini tops?? freeing the nipple, as the activists want, would detach the association of female nipples with sexualisation and show them as just another part of the body, like mens nipples, therefore reducing the sexualisation of the naked woman to the level of sexualisation of the naked man. not all women want to bare their boobies, but surely they should have the right to, in the same way that not all men want to bare theirs but can if they choose. it has not always been the case that men were allowed this level of exposure in a public place but laws soon changed after men argued against them and women should have this opportunity too. why is female nudity different from male nudity? the feeling of ‘peeking’ has a sexual attraction and so changing the idea of the female nipple as ‘something that shouldn’t be seen’ could reduce the breast as such a sexual body part and provide more equality between the sexes. however, there is the argument that female chests are different and maybe we should embrace that. why should we change the symbol of femininity that is the breast to a gender-neutral body part in order to reduce the sexualisation of women? maybe then, it is the act that should be censored and not the nipple itself. there is a stark difference between a page 3 girl, purposely posing as a sexual image, and an image of a mother breast-feeding her child, or even a woman doing her groceries topless in New York. boobs are sexual and there’s no denying it, so it would seem to me that we need to equal out the exposure of each type of act to show the female breast for all it is and in turn we may then see the female in her entirety too (metaphorically of course, i’m not a naturist) maybe freeing the nipple enables everyone to see that women can be mothers, sexual beings AND casual shoppers ALL AT ONCE- but we most certainly DO NOT have to choose. maybe showing our breasts whilst carrying out day to day tasks, as men can choose to do, will show the world the woman as a whole, as a person and as an equal to males. seeing a boob in a non-sexual situation could disassociate female nipples and bodies from solely sexual situations, boobs will no longer instantly symbolise ‘SEX’ and ‘NAUGHTINESS’ to the majority and might symbolise femininity as a whole or if we want male and female breasts to be exactly the same, then they won’t symbolise anything at all.  it’s a difficult debate to conclude, but one thing’s for sure; us girls would be a hell of a lot richer if we didn’t have to buy bras (out of the pay that is already lower than mens’- but that’s a debate for another day)