Warning: uncensored image of the cover at the end of the article
Australian student magazine Honi Soit was censored by Sydney University after publishing a cover that featured 18 vulvas on it.
4000 copies of the issue were confiscated by the Student Representative Council after the magazine was distributed featuring the images on the front cover.
The 18 photographs featured women from the university.
“The idea that the vagina, a body part that half the population, can still be considered offensive or indecent is the very idea our paper was challenging,” said the issue’s editor-in-chief, Hannah Ryan.
“The cover was meant to be an empowering message to women that they don’t need to be ashamed of their bodies. This response, and the fact that it is possibly criminal, is therefore incredibly disappointing.”
“Are vulvas so obscene that we have to censor them?” the magazine team ask in The Guardian.
“I’m proud to be a part of the project because I’ve already had women come up to me and thank me for helping them in the process of coming to terms with their own bodies, and how in some ways they don’t fit the porn-standardised lie, but are still normal and still beautiful,” said Lily Patchett who was one of the women who featured on the cover.
“I wanted to do it from the beginning,” she said. “Despite all the odds, I’m pretty comfortable in my own body, and was eager to help other women feel comfortable in theirs.
Below, the censored and uncensored covers:
