You have to admit, this is funny.

Facebook and Instagram have gotten themselves tied up in a knot over what forms of nudity are or are not appropriate for display on their platforms.

Both platforms–owned by the same company, Meta–have banned the display of female nipples as doing so stimulates prurient interest. Or to put it in layman’s terms, boys like to look at boobies because, well, you know….

It’s not an unreasonable position. Both platforms are supposed to be safe for children and don’t want to become purveyors of porn. There are plenty of such places on the internet, and there is a sort of Gresham’s law involved: bad content drives out good. If Facebook and Instagram become places where exposed female breasts abound, suddenly there will be nothing but those photos.

Facebook, Instagram will lift ban on bare breasts — but only for trans, non-binary https://t.co/qPwUl0G9f8 pic.twitter.com/Wi212NY5vk

— New York Post (@nypost) January 18, 2023

But the platforms ran into a problem: what about people “assigned female at birth” with all the appropriate anatomy who identify as something other than female? You know, trans-men and non-binary people? Isn’t it bigoted to prevent them from sharing photos the same way that “people assigned male at birth?”

Why yes, yes it is bigoted! That’s what the Facebook oversight board just decided.

Facebook and Instagram will allow transgender and non-binary users to flash their bare breasts — but women who were born female and who are eager to “free the nipple” are out of luck, according to Meta’s advisory board.

Meta’s Oversight Board — an independent body of experts which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called the company’s “Supreme Court” for content moderation and censorship policies — ordered Facebook and Instagram to lift a ban on images of topless women for anyone who identifies as transgender or non-binary, meaning they view themselves as neither male or female.

“The same image of female-presenting nipples would be prohibited if posted by a cisgender woman but permitted if posted by an individual self-identifying as non-binary,” the board noted in its decision.

Oh, man, you have to love this. I read the decision (linked within the quote) and it reminded me of the Supreme Court obscenity cases because at the end of the day, the line between obscene and acceptable is blurry in many cases. That’s why there is so much controversy and references to “community standards.”

As you may recall, in the obscenity case Jacobellis v. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Potter Stuart wrote about determining whether something fit the term “pornography” with the infamous quote: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.”

The problem with making decisions like this in the age of gender fluidity is of course nobody does know it when they see it. Is that a female breast? Is that a Playboy model, or just a man on the beach? Who knows without asking?

We live in an age where nothing can be defined, so standards are completely fluid. There were never bright lines about what is and is not acceptable to show because the world is complicated, but at least we had referents. We generally know what a female is. Except we don’t.

So we get this: “The same image of female-presenting nipples would be prohibited if posted by a cisgender woman but permitted if posted by an individual self-identifying as non-binary.”

How the heck are you supposed to work with that?

Everybody is getting tied up in knots over things that could be much easier than this. We are now, literally, expected to know what people are thinking at a particular moment to know what we can and cannot say, and can and cannot do. Is a man walking around naked in a women’s locker room a pervert who should be locked up or a woman just hanging out?

Paul Bixler, a transgender board member of Liberty Elementary School District in AZ, was seen going inside a women’s locker room in a gym.

This woman alleges that Paul, a biological male, came into the locker room while she was undressed and stared at her bare chest. pic.twitter.com/nCFhFtIb2l

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 16, 2023

Depends upon what he/she/it is thinking. That penis signifies nothing. He/she/it might think themselves a different gender in 5 minutes, so past behavior is no indication either.

All I have to say is that I hope tons of women start flashing their boobs and asking for ratings on Facebook. When their photos get banned they can argue they identified as men at that moment. Tie them up in knots coming up with an argument for how the moderators could possibly know their gender just by looking at them.

Maybe we can get Facebook to define “woman.” Matt Walsh would be pleased.