Wow. What a stupid ad. However, I am not really surprised considering it is from Bell.

It also kind of ironic. One of the major pragmatic objections to Internet censorship is that it will not distinguish between pornography and educational material on breast cancer, STDs, etc.

Is that an advertisement _for_ censorship? If I was sitting on the fence this would remind me that no filtering software can filter out just the "inappropriate" stuff, and will inevitably filter out a large amount of useful information (such as images of breasts, ovaries, etc.).

Is that not a stomach being censored in the lower left?

Wow, I knew that the idea of women eating and enjoying food and being anything more than a skeleton with a thin layer of skin and make-up was unpopular in some quarters, but how exactly is the digestive system offensive? And I speak as a woman who loves chick peas, ate a bunch, and is now jet-propelled around the house!

Why stop there? Why not cut out the brain?

This is crazy. How could you ever come up with this idea? Unbelievable.

What the HELLLLllllll.....

This does not surprise me in the least. I have a 6yr old who has anatomy books, AND I took her to the Bodies exhibit. A lot of people questioned both these moves. Even my husband is slightly uncomfortable with her knowing about her reproductive anatomy.

And the digestive system is off-limits because you eventually have to tell the kids how the food gets out.

I find it interesting that the ad kind of implies that this is what parents are, or should be, doing to "protect" their kids. I see a certain element of fear-mongering in it - "INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT IS EVERYWHERE! WATCH OUT!! YOU NEED OUR HELP!!!!!"

Did anyone else notice the uncensored anatomy in the top left on the opposite page of that book?

Leaving a completely exposed side view in plain sight next to the censored front view- how unprofessional! Bell, you just aren't stringent enough to protect my children from these dirty, dirty images. I can see butt curves.

I think this is very telling about "morality" in American culture. my parents totally sold into this--I didn't even have a talk about sex with my mom. I found out from my bff in fifth grade.

I got a bit of a "haha, you parents are so pathological about your children!" vibe from this, which seems like kind of a *bad* marketing strategy imho... who would want to be marketed to specifically as a person with no clue about what's "inappropriate?" But maybe I'm underestimating the ignorant-at-all-costs demographic's buying power. :p

@ Anomie
I find it really interesting that your husband is uncomfortable with your daughter knowing about her "reproductive anatomy". Surely he was aware of his penis at a very young age. Have you pointed out this double standard to him?

this is really old, actually...I remember the controversy over this ad from several years ago. Bell trotted out the predictable non-apology stating that what they were really doing was *satirizing* the over-protective parents who would censor their kids' anatomy illustrations. I think that's a weasely batch of bullshit, but there you are.

I also love how this ad is unintentionally truthful: filters routinely deny access to websites about sex education as well as porn. (or is it intentional? hmm...)

It's GOT to be old if it's bragging that it is "4x faster than dial-up"! That's like saying "4x faster than a slug!"

Is this Bell, the Canadian communications company? Or a different one I've just never heard of?

@ altairian: yes, that would be them.

I'm surprised they didn't censor the "brain" graphic!

OH my god, not the OVARIES!!! In a children's book? Such deviance! This is worse than "piss christ"!

Ha! I remember noticing this flyer on the floor of someone else apt years back and nearly having my brain explode with the wrongness of it.

:( bad, wrong, stupid in SO many ways

Not only is it conveying the message "female body=innappropriate", but there is a slasher/hacker feel to this... notice that it is a woman's body that is hacked up.

Not Good.

But why are they admitting that there is more than one gender? How can they let the children, or unmarried adults for that matter, know that there is even something to be hidden? Children will know there is something to go find out, and they will start by looking at their own bodies, then checking out the bodies of others.

This lack of complete censorship is going to make sex addicts of our most precious resources -- our children. Even out of adults who are not married. Nobody is supposed to let them know about the gender thing either. After all, nobody gets their dirty gender things until after the wedding ceremony, when the pastor takes the innocent couple into the back, blindfolds the newly married, and affixes the dirty parts to the appropriate dirty places. /sarcasm

The great paradox and the hardest paradigms of humanity are quite the seems as before; puritanism and a non- ortodoux aproach of the sexualuality -and some other phenomena as well- had stressed all time sociatyies. Does our sexualty become a burden that could be culturally get resolved , or is just the dark side of the human mind that never is ougth to be enligth? For one thing psicology is one the lattest fields of cience ever developed, -even than aeronautics-. An agresive opening in mass media as well in the educational system and political stance it is needed to get our sociaty articulate in a new relationship that heals - or changes- family, religión belifs, values, self respect, social espectatives etc.
I am an artist holding independent exhibitions in the old city portales, but atually- after been reyected by the technocratic main stream- my proposal it is only conceptualistic and consist out of three elements; a monument portrait of ex-president Luis Echevería -who had direct implications in 1968 students masacre and was recently exhonerated-, a guy smoking cannabis- but our senators just passed a bill liberating little portions of all sore of drugs industrial and organic- and also a girl complety nude in the scene. I hope I will be holding a more formal muestra very soon, altough there is an anti-porfirian era proclamation- same as was used by pre revolutionary liberal party one hundred years ago- written on the walls. Praise women, men and the universal conciusness.

How is this even real?

Ridiculous.

Wow. How stupid. If the man is not censored why is the female? And agreed, is that a STOMACH censored out?? What the heck. Great job Bell. Thanks for ruining society

OK that is just downright wrong they should show the female ovaries boobs and vagina if that is the way they think then fuck them

hjkm

What is this they COULD blur it but like WHY DID THEY EVEN RIP THE STOMACH and like ripping book= killing knowledge. And THIS IS SOOOO SEXIST FEMINIST ETC. Kill them already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

C

Until when will we girls live freedomly