NHS frets over Brits' genitalia UK health portal NHS Choices has got itself into a bit of a tiz over whether or not to show unexpurgated genitalia in a forthcoming update of its interactive Body Map - an issue apparently so sensitive it has decided to put the matter to a public vote. The blurb explains: NHS Choices will soon be updating its body map with …
...they don't have to look at a potentially offensive website for free healthcare advice.
If the NHS hopes to reduce under age pregnancy rates, maybe they should look across the Channel rather than across the Atlantic. Attitudes to nudity on the Continent are quite relaxed compared to the UK and yet they have lower teenage pregancy rates.
This actually has to go to a vote? FFS. I want, nae, I demand to see cock and gash on a medically inclined website. I would like to see far more of the latter on a lot of websites, and indeed, the EeePC "chick on beach" pic that El Reg print at ever available opportunity would be far more engaging with a bit of well-kempt beaver.
Ah, nothing new here then.
NHS spending dosh on a consultation that is just a load of bollocks.
I'd prefer the question to be extended --
cut or uncut?
shaved or hairy?
average sized knob or proportioned to make men feel better or worse.
left handed or right handed?
The fate of the NHS website is in our hands!
I look forward to trainee doctors seeing the opposite sex's genitalia for the first time and running screaming from the wards and being unable to treat patients with genitalia and perhaps suing them for obscenity.
Ignore the US - they have trouble with reality full stop, trying not to offend them is a sisyphean task.
Someone at the NHS should be shot for even allowing this to go to become a serious issue, never mind putting it to a reality TV style 'public vote'.
You can't teach anatomy or sexual health without showing pictures of todgers and the like.
If there really are people who would be offended by this, then tough shit, they deserve to be offended. In fact they deserve to be pilloried and ridiculed, pointed and laughed at in the street, and followed around by naked dwarf smurf impersonators until they are cured of their hallucinations of a Victorian morality that never existed in the first place.
Idiots.
(Paris, because she knows the score on this issue)
It's almost beyond belief that the NHS should even contemplate censoring educational material, but I've just voted anyway. I included the comments :
I support a fully detailed body map
It's an educational resource. By censoring the images you are implying that there is something wrong or shameful about genitals, which clearly isn't true. You will loose credibility as an impartial reliable source of accurate information, people will wonder what else isn't accurate on the website.
Gosh, people really do need to get a grip (so to speak) - it's a human body, and in this context it most certainly isn't pornographic, so what's the problem?? And don't get me started on those bloody US neo-conservative prudes that believe the world is only 6000 years old...
The spineless management are asking the public for advice.....
On whether on not to make "anatomically correct" a rendered polygon mesh, idealised representation of a human?
Surely warning signs need adding too; "Do not touch the exhibits."
Have you noticed how provocative the Queen's head is on a 5p piece ? Truly shocking !
That one word sums it up.
Its a health site, of course the models should be intact with all their bits. I have kids and can fully imagine that the actual lack of a willy would be more puzzling and create more questions than if it was just there in the first place!
Crivens, if they remove them off one section of the site, surely any further educational material featuring dangly bits and the like will have to be removed, give the righteous an inch and they take a mile :[
For those who don't know, the voting is done by email (a mailto: link in the page). Here's what happened next:-
-----------------------------------------
This is the Postfix program at host <my-mail-host>.
I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.
For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>
If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.
The Postfix program
<full-body-map@nhschoices.nhs.uk>: connect to mail.nhs.uk[212.137.44.179]:
Connection timed out
They have computers a thousand times more powerful than those that calculated the orbit of the Apollo XI spacecraft to get it safely to and from the moon. I'd have thought they should be able to do *BOTH* with and without genitalia versions without too much trouble; and make it a user preference choice when being viewed.
Let's face it if they can do this stuff in games, GTA (hot coffee anyone?), then the NHS should be able to also. Child's play in fact.
it is a health site. They have a duty to use anatomically correct models.
What if a boy wants to know more about how the penis and testicles work? What will he be shown when he zooms in to see a labelled diagram? Same goes for girls.
Imagine the boy...
clicks on the website
has a closer look
checks inside his trousers
screams because he's got all these weird lumpy bits which the computer says he shouldn't have...
Seriously, with all the smut already available it seems stupid to censor a scientific, medical info site. Keep it clinical, and you'll be fine.
Things seem to have been heading this way ever since the politicos realised they could save some money by handing control of the NHS from those highly educated medical types to a polit bureau of ignorant twats (if you'll forgive the irony). Still, looks like they'll soon have us all as ignorant as themselves, so we won't know the difference.
"Just for fun they should include full footage of surgical procedures as well."
You mean surgical procedures to the "controversial" areas?
Because if you just mean general ones, then all you need to do is watch the Discovery Health Channel here in the US. Unbelievable the stuff they show...
... we can't talk about it. NHS Choices is about giving the public as much information as possible so they can manage their healthcare. The bits that people know least about / are most worried about are the 'embarrassing' bit ... get those genitals on show and start talking about it
surely in this day of racial equality they should also be offering models from different races? or has the uk suddenly become 100% white overnight?
also whats wrong with a simple start page option to show either the natural or mutilated version?
and finally, as breast feeding is still viewed as a sick shocking display of public vulgarity on some parts of the country shouldn't the female model be subject to a double mastectomy in the name of decency?
...that the NHS is employing people that would even need to debate this and moreover some that think a anatomically inaccurate representation is the way to go. Clearly anyone offended by that never washes either because they might scare themselves when they look between their legs.
The models depicted have no body hair, or even head hair, at all!
What is this supposed to mean?
Head hair (length, style, etc.) is a cultural matter.
Facial hair (beard, moustache, etc.) is cultural, but also genetic (e.g., native Americans and South American tribes do not grow facial hair). Chest hair and some other bits of hair vary between races.
I *think* we (common humanity) all have armpit hair and pubic hair (apart from young ladies currently living in London, who have neither, apart from, possibly, a "Brazilian landing strip").
If the NHS is so tortured about showing a realistic depiction of the human genitalia in what is supposed to be an anatomically correct diagram, why don't they just cover everyone's embarrassment with a merkin*?
This is utterly pathetic and contemptible. If they really want a good representative example of the English male genitalia, contact my manager.
(* Look it up on Google, you lazy sods! :-)
This will have nothing to do with what the NHS thinks and a lot to do with whoever the contractors are (perhaps Americans?).
I have worked in several NHS organisations and if somebody mentioned blurring out 'offensive' bits of the human body they would be laughed out of the job. The NHS employs large numbers of people to deal with sexual health issues most of whom carry around a variety of life sized penis dummies (in a variety of skin colours) and litter the place with condoms like confetti at a wedding so I can't see anybody worrying about a few wobbly bits in a cartoon mockup of the body.
This post has been deleted by its author
Why not have both? Have the "full monty" link and the "other" link both. So, if people are like in some classroom where they are supposed to be learning about heart & lungs, they won't get all distracted and be all like "woohoo, look at that wang!" whereas people who want the full version can still get it.
I live in the US, and am bothered by the prudishness of people here -- I'd say for certain the full version should be on there.. it's an anatomy site after all. So if it really is only one or the other, I'd say the full version.
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