Instagram users could see a lot of posts from women's account about their pictures photoshopped with male nipples over their own breasts. This specific post in IG is a way of protest against Instagram censorship.
Mashable reports that this photoshopped male nipples has been created as template because Micol Hebron intended it as a way of his mocking response to photo-sharing platforms who unreasonably sexualized women's nipples. He made the template to cover topless pictures of women which have been labeled as nude and inappropriate. As explained by several photo-sharing platforms, "not all nipples are created equal or considered nudity."
As observed, the Instagram has been flooded by this #FreeTheNipple campaign aside from a sizeable amount of backlash to refute the policy of Instagram on female's nude photos. It is stated in the community guidelines that female nipples are not allowed with the exception of breastfeeding photos, post-mastectomy scarring.
Despite the said community guideline, Micol Hebron has been taking a different route to fight back the Instagram policy. Complex recalled that back in August 2014, Micol posted on Facebook a huge male nipple covering her own together with another topless woman. The picture has been captioned: "Dear Instagram, Here, I fixed it."
Just this week, her template has gone viral again. Her photo in Facebook has been set as an example. Many women have posted on Instagram their topless photos and have their nipples covered with photoshopped male nipples.
Helena Horton of Dazed D Digital has asked this question in her article: why are female nipples so much more taboo than male ones? She said that if you put together two cut-out nipples- one from a man and the other one from a woman, you are not going to bet your life on which is which. Consequently, if the nipples of men are not offensive then by proxy women's are likewise not offensive.
