LONDON, ENGLAND — When God – or evolution – created the human body, it included many different bits and pieces. Arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers, toes, muscles, bones, and all manner of icky, sloppy, furniture-staining liquids. As far back as science has been able to track, it also included genitals. If the sexually squeamish get their way, Britain’s NHS tax-payer funded government website won’t include any naughty bits. At issue are new body maps to be introduced to the NHS website this month. The state-of-the-art maps will allow visitors to peel back the skin of the human figures and learn more about health and treatment with the assistance of the visual aid.
Some believe that the bodies don’t need genitals. After all, children might stumble across them and be shocked and traumatized for life.
According to the BBC, some think it’s the fault of Americans and their infamous puritanical history. Paul Nuki, editor of the NHS Choices website opines that “It 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.”
Nuki refers to the now-common tendency for health websites to blur or pixielate genitals on body maps.
The BBC quotes professor Sir Muir Gray, the chief knowledge officer for the NHS as being “all for the genitalia. Anything else would just be an overly prudish Victorian approach.”
This is likely to be reassuring to those potential site visitors who have found that their body sports genitals, along with all its other bits and pieces.
“It’s completely bonkers,” Gray continues. “The edited versions resemble space aliens. People have to accept this is the 21st century.”
Fears about children seeing anatomically correct bodies before their parents wanted them to do so, Muir proposes that being honest and open might be better for the youth than withholding information. He has suggested the possibility of allowing visitors to employ a drag-and-drop fig leaf.
In order to resolve the matter, the NHS has turned it over to the people funding the nation’s healthcare system: the citizenry. On site voting will determine whether or not the human body is shown in its scientifically accurate birthday suit – or strangely afflicted by scrambled bikini areas.
