Voters to decide between "heroic nudity" and "space aliens"
Should computer images of the body be displayed complete with genitalia? That is the question a United Kingdom health website is putting out to the general public.
NHS Choices, which is owned by the British Department of Health, will be publishing new body maps in January. The site, which seeks to educate users on health issues, allows people to peel away layers of the body to learn about how it works as well as diseases and treatments. NHS Choices is asking whether the new maps should be anatomically correct or the genitals should be masked.
The website states the traditional approach, since the time of the Greeks, was to depict the body in a state of "heroic nudity." However, the site states that thinking has changed over time and many body maps on health websites today are masked or pixilated.
"I think it's an American modesty that has set the tone for this sort of thing on the net, and for some it's now become a worry to let it all hang out," Paul Nuki, editor of the NHS Choices site, told the BBC in an interview quoted in a Dec. 20 story in The Register. "On the other hand, we've got some very strong internal advocates for the full monty. In the end we thought it best that our users have a proper say."
One of those advocates is Sr. Muir Gray, NHS' chief knowledge officer.
"It's completely bonkers: the edited versions resemble space aliens," he was quoted as saying in a Dec. 19 article on the BBC News website. "People have to accept this is the 21st century."
While Gray acknowledges some parents might not want their children to see the true images, he noted evidence suggests the more "straightforward approach" is effective with young people. Gray, according to the BBC, has suggested making optional "drag and drop" fig leafs so that users can cover the virtual Adam and Eve if they would like.
