Breast Cancer Campaign Quickly Becomes Porn

A New Zealand site aimed at young women has asked users to send in photos of their breasts to help raise money for cancer research. And predictably, some of the photos have ended up on a porn site.

Says the site nzgirl,

Boobs matter to everyone – they feed our confidence and femininity, they feed our sexuality and desire and they literally feed our children. Breast health is important too – we all know someone affected by breast cancer – and yet despite all of this breasts are still TABOO!

Which is why we want to celebrate them on nzgirl – with our “I’ve got a lovely pair” campaign. We want to celebrate all of the “lovely pairs” of New Zealand and create “OUR FAVOURITE: BREASTS”, a montage of nzgirls’ breasts. For every 50 sets of boobs uploaded, we’ll donate $1000* to breast cancer research.

The “montage” (NSFW) is currently up, and because of the site’s social networking features, you can tweet each pair of boobs or like it on Facebook with the click of a button. You can also mark a photo as your “fave” or leave a comment — and though the site is for women, many of the comments come from male usernames. Says “Phil” of one rack, “A Fine example of why its worth checking for lumps etc on a regular basis. These are assets well worth the trouble…..”

It should be no surprise to nzgirl that an enterprising visitor has posted some of their boob photos to (NSFW) porn site XTube, including one that clearly depicts a woman’s face. However, some of the site’s young users may not have thought that risk through — and while the campaign’s “terms and conditions” page is currently turning up a “404 not found” error, I’m betting that it doesn’t spell out the possibility that your boobs could end up on XTube.

Not only is creating a giant boob montage for breast cancer kind of a dumb idea (yet another step in the misguided process of making breast cancer “sexy”), it could also be illegal. Nzgirl says its target audience is “20 and 30 something females,” but if it’s anything like Cosmo, some of its readers may be younger. And there doesn’t seem to be any way for the site to screen out under-18 boobs, which under New Zealand law could constitute child pornography.

Unsurprisingly, some users are mad. Says one, quoted on 3News, “Why not stop pretending this is anything other than a cheap opportunity to raise your profile by exploiting both a worthy cause and women’s bodies.” Was the whole “lovely pair” campaign a cynical attempt to drive traffic to nzgirl? Who knows, but the site probably didn’t intend to become a porn clearinghouse for the entire internet. And it owes its readers — especially those whose “pairs” are now on XTube — an apology.