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Banned Boobies: Womyns'Ware "Barenaked" Lady Logo deemed Obscene

When I first moved here from Toronto, I was amazed at BC's open attitude about prostitution. Not so much that prostitution is legal and openly practised here, but that brothels and rub n'tug parlours are so widely advertised. One look at the (then) Yellow Pages and one could see how progressive and permissive were our attitudes. "Sorority Girls", "Stags, duos, domination", and "XXX Adult Encounters" were all available at my fingertips, under "Escorts" right there between "Erosion Control" and "Estate Planning".

Fast forward ten years: Those ads are all still there, and I work for Womyns'Ware. Womyns'Ware is expanding our advertisement in the "Adult Entertainment" section of the Yellow Pages (now known as the SuperPages). We have redesigned our ad to best portray the qualities that distinguish our business: Where "novelty" retailers are euphemistic, we are direct. Our lady logo and motto "The Celebration and Empowerment of Women's Sexuality TM" say it best. For nine years our customers have adored our dancing Lady logo, with her flying hair and her hirsute armpits and her big butt and her happy face. She is the picture of unselfconscious, joyous abandon. She is also obscene, according to the executives in charge of advertising submissions at SuperPages. Well, if not obscene, then at least objectionable. Why? Because of her breasts. They are showing. At SuperPages' head office, boobies = unacceptable, in any context. Well, maybe not the boobies, per se, but the nipples. Nipples are obscene. Well, ok, unacceptable.

This comes as a surprise to us, as we recently completed the process of acquiring the Trade-mark rights on our favourite barenaked Lady. No icon deemed obscene can be legally Trade-marked. If the Canadian Office of Intellectual Property, and by proxy that of the UK and the US, have decided that the Lady isn't a tramp, then what's up with SuperPages? If, as they claim, it is their aim "to publish directory content that is acceptable to people of all ages within all communities across Canada", then they should be turning their censorious red pens onto the Pizza section next. Maybe, with all that graphically oozing cheese, I find the pizza section unacceptable. I'm lactose intolerant. What about MY needs?

All facetiousness aside, I am both angry and sad that women's sexuality is still the subject of this kind of faceless and unaccountable corporate censorship. Like all "morality" laws, the regulations outlined by SuperPages and others are sporadically applied, according to some executive's personal judgement call. In this case, it seems that our Lady has touched a nerve. I am reminded of the controversy around poet Sarah Jones, whose song "Your Revolution" repudiates misogynist notions that are so prevalent as to have become cliche in hip hop. In 2000, the FCC proposed a $7,000 fine against non-commercial kboo-fm in Portland, OR for broadcasting the song, which the commission says contains "unmistakable patently offensive sexual references." Where was the FCC when Eminem was making his last million? On Feb. 20, 2003 the FCC rescinded its decision, and dropped the proposed fine. Still, the point was made.

We tolerate the disparity of sexual messages, images, and iconography because we don't have any other model. If we disallow the healthy representation of human sexuality, especially women's sexuality, the executives at SuperPages and the FCC and many, many other conservative organizations will finally be right: All forms of sexual representation WILL be offensive. Talk about cheese. This article is giving me gas.


From the Organ Grinder series, by Cass King (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)