The Breast Police

by Terence Leung

During halftime at last the last Superbowl on CBS, Justin Timberlake, during a performance reached over and ripped off a piece of Janet Jackson’s clothing, revealing her right breast and a diamond shaped accessory to cover her nipple.

Out of the 90 million viewers who watched the debauchery fiesta, over 200,000 complaints were logged, prompting Federal Communication and Commission chairman, Michael Powell to call the act a, “classless, crass and deplorable stunt.”

In addition, Jackson mysteriously pulled out of her performance at the Grammy Awards promptly after the Superbowl and Timberlake apologized for the stunt during his acceptance speech for his Grammy.

The Grammy’s were aired with a delay in case of another stunt by other performers. ABC’s Academy Awards will also be aired with a delay, and the NBA is mulling a delay for its annual all-star game.

All of this because of one boobie.

This is a nation that already has legitimate fears on their hands and now the American government, who has already declared the stunt “a new low for prime-time television,” are afraid that a solitary boobie will grow snarly fangs and suck the fresh blood out of every parents’ first born?

Sure, the knee-jerk reaction would be to think of the poor, poor children. But since most male kids find out about boobs from their older brother or walking home from school and finding some porno rag lying in the corner of some back alley, the knee-jerk reaction is an ignorant one.

It’s no wonder about the North American fascination of boobs. Ever since a male child’s first encounter with pornography, be it on television, Internet, or in a back alley, the naked female figure has been annexed as something that should be looked at and admired.

Censorship views female boobs as things that shouldn’t be seen as evidenced by NBC’s snipping of a scene in E.R. where an elderly woman’s breast is briefly exposed in a hospital.

In fact, calling them boobs is immature and offensive. They should be called breasts. Cleavage is evil and makes you look like a corner store hooker with an overly hospitable party zone.

Censorship has gone from well-intentioned editing of offensive material to a Draconian level of blindfolding society’s clarity and vision.

Next week, JLo will be asked to wear an oversized muumuu to cover her glutinous bum. Next month, Donald Trump will be forced to wear a toque to make viewers actually watch The Apprentice and not play wig detective.

The fact of the matter is, outside of the 200,000 complaints, if you put your ear to the ground, you can actually hear the all too familiar sound of no one caring.

The furor, it seems, was created by a few excessively power-hungry conservatives looking to increase their own stature by pointing a crooked finger at the evil of an exposed breast.

All of this, however, only serves to further society’s fascination of the naked female form.

And somewhere in the land of celebrity, some female pseudo-celebrity or has-been is just waiting for the perfect moment to take it to the next level and flash their coochie. Or should it be called a vagina?

Terence Leung