{"id":2991,"date":"2016-02-27T10:21:37","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T09:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=2991"},"modified":"2016-02-27T10:21:37","modified_gmt":"2016-02-27T09:21:37","slug":"mature-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2016\/02\/27\/mature-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Mature Content?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an aisle at the supermarket that has a sign above it that reads “ADULT CEREALS”. \u00a0Every time I see it, I snigger inwardly at the thought of sexually explicit\u00a0cornflakes. \u00a0(Pornflakes. \u00a0You’re welcome.) \u00a0It’s not big, and it’s not clever: I know that. \u00a0But all these years living in south Manchester have taught me to grab whatever slivers of humour one can from life.<\/p>\n

Anyway… \u00a0A friend’s FB feed this morning pointed me in the direction of this<\/a><\/span>: a page on Boredpanda showing some of the best entries to the 2016 Birth Photography competition. \u00a0(Yeah: I know. \u00a0I had no idea, either.)<\/p>\n

I guess that birth photography is a bit of a niche field. \u00a0The one that won “Best in Category: Labour” is, for my money, a brilliant picture. \u00a0Some of the compositions are astonishingly\u00a0good – but then, come to think of it, childbirth isn’t exactly a surprise, so I suppose that if you’re going to invite someone to photograph it, they’re going to have plenty of time to make sure that the lighting is right.<\/p>\n

A second thought that the pictures raise is this: no matter how much people bang on about the miracle of birth… well, nope. \u00a0Look at the labour picture again. \u00a0I can’t begin to express how glad I am that that’s never going to happen to me; and I’m even more convinced than I was that I don’t want to play any part in inflicting that on another person.<\/p>\n

But my overriding response is something in the realm of astonishment that some of the pictures are blanked out as having “mature content”.<\/p>\n

I mean… really<\/em>?<\/p>\n

For sure, I guess that one would want people to approach parenthood with a sense of maturity; and one’d perhaps want people to view these pictures sensibly. \u00a0But\u00a0what makes these pictures apparently worthy of a warning is that they all show some nipple or vague-genital-area\u00a0(except the final image, which is… simply\u00a0weird<\/em>). \u00a0Now, there’re contexts in which it might make sense to give people notice that you’re going to be showing normally-taboo parts of the body. \u00a0But when the whole point of an article is to do with childbirth, to hide the bits of a human body that are most directly related to the actual delivery\u00a0and nutrition of another human strikes me as being odd. \u00a0There’s obviously nothing obscene or titillating about any of the images; they do, of course, have to do with sex, but they’re not sexual or sexualised. \u00a0There’s something rather hyperbolically prudish about the decision; I can’t see any particularly good rationale for it. \u00a0If you happen to prefer not to see pictures of the childbirth process, don’t click on a link to an article about childbirth photography. \u00a0(I suppose that there might be some people who hide a link, treating it as a kind of natal rickroll… but even then, being unexpectedly exposed to an image of how almost everyone on the planet came to be on the planet seems hardly to be the worst thing in the world. \u00a0And if your friends think that sending you to the Boredpanda page counts as a prank in any meaningful sense… well, they’re even more easily amused than I am in a cereal aisle. \u00a0Pity them.)<\/p>\n

I can’t help thinking back to the cover of Chumbawamba’s\u00a0Anarchy<\/em><\/a><\/span>. \u00a0Finding that in the racks of my favourite record shop back in 1994 made me do a bit of a double-take. \u00a0(Apparently, iTunes still won’t show the original design.) \u00a0Undoubtedly, the whole point was to generate precisely that reaction. \u00a0Even there, though, there’s no cause for too tight a clutching of the pearls. \u00a0The shock comes from the unexpectedness of the image, rather than from anything objectionable about the image itself.<\/p>\n

The Boredpanda article doesn’t even intend to shock. \u00a0Noone should be so upset by images of childbirth as to require a content warning.<\/p>\n

Oh – and notwithstanding the headline, the pictures don’t show “what it’s like to be a mom”, unless you think that motherhood is reducible to labour. \u00a0But exactly what constitutes a mother, or indeed a parent, is for another post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an aisle at the supermarket that has a sign above it that reads “ADULT CEREALS”. \u00a0Every time I see it, I snigger inwardly at the thought of sexually explicit\u00a0cornflakes. \u00a0(Pornflakes. \u00a0You’re welcome.) \u00a0It’s not big, and it’s not clever: I know that. \u00a0But all these years living in south Manchester have taught me to […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[963,591,2022,577,576,472],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curios","category-life-and-death","category-reproduction","category-resource","category-the-art-of-medicine","category-thinking-aloud"],"yoast_head":"\nMature Content? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2016\/02\/27\/mature-content\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mature Content? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s an aisle at the supermarket that has a sign above it that reads “ADULT CEREALS”. \u00a0Every time I see it, I snigger inwardly at the thought of sexually explicit\u00a0cornflakes. \u00a0(Pornflakes. \u00a0You’re welcome.) \u00a0It’s not big, and it’s not clever: I know that. \u00a0But all these years living in south Manchester have taught me to [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2016\/02\/27\/mature-content\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-27T09:21:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/27\\\/mature-content\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/27\\\/mature-content\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Mature Content?\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-27T09:21:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/27\\\/mature-content\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":717,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Curios\",\"Life and Death\",\"Reproduction\",\"Resource\",\"The Art of Medicine\",\"Thinking Aloud\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/27\\\/mature-content\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/27\\\/mature-content\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2016\\\/02\\\/27\\\/mature-content\\\/\",\"name\":\"Mature Content? 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