In the lemmyverse?

Why are women's nipples considered unacceptable anyway? It seems really sexist in my opinion to say that male nipples are acceptable but female ones aren't

It's just because of sexualixation and prude people pressuring the fuck out of those platforms. Although a bit unnecessary imho I don't mind seeing a tiddy on insta, they'll have to add a nsfw tag tho. Insta is prob going to decline into even more onlyfans advertisements
- So you want NSFW tags for all nipples?
You answered your own question there - sexism and patriarchy, which need women as objects and property, not individuals worthy of individual freedoms.
It wasn't actually the nipple, it was the breast.

But as it's a gradual transition and cleavage, side-boob, underboob, straps and pasties have become normalized, the nipple is the only part left to define as the subject of the "issue", as it's the most distinguishable, visually separate and definable part.

The conservative prudes would prefer a more comprehensive ban, but struggle immensely in legally defining the line of "okay/not okay" in a court of law. They find it much easier to enforce certain clothes as legally obligatory for women, but there's very little support for that kind of oppression in most parts of the world.
In a decent number of countries, they are pretty relaxed. You go there, you see nipple (or dick) for 5 seconds, it's notable, then it fades into the background. People are just anal-retentive about it because of religion and family culture.
- And if you think about it, family culture comes from religion
- Some people enjoy being anal-retention to dicks, I am unsure about the logistics of doing that with a nipple
Because muricans.
Because most women choose to keep tops on and most cultures find them sexual. You can go topless in 95% of places in the West that allow shirts off. Women choose to keep the tops on.
- In most of those places, there are laws against feminine presenting people from being topless. They don't "just choose" to have a top on.

and when someone transitions... it's ... the /same/ nipple, but it used to be illegal and unseemly - but now is perfectly legal to show everywhere ,,, strange.....

I've seen a surgery documentary on TV about transitioning. They showed the surgeon doing the breast surgery. It was all uncensored, nipples and all, until the very second the doc put the silicone bag under the skin. Then they pixelated the nipple. The same nipple they were showing all along.
- Makes you wonder at what size of breasts does it become NSFW and should men with boobs be censored? 🤔
- I once saw a Japanese arse eating video like that, no pixelation until the tongue touched the rim, then pixelated as if we didn't know what was happening.
- Came here to tell the same story. They used to play some crazy shit on TLC before the reality show takeover.
There was an Instagram account run by a trans woman called something like "Do I have boobs yet?". She posted on a regular basis after starting hormones to see when the censors would kick in
- Did she get censored?
idea: cover post-transition nipple with pre-transition nipple
- Or visa versa.
My nipples certainly aren't the same, they're far larger and the shape has changed, it's pretty insane actually. Our bodies are way more plastic than we think.
- No kidding, mine are legitimately 3x larger? I spent my whole life already insecure about how large they were 😅
- They're also so much more sensitive....
Assuming ftm
- For the other way round it would be vice versa, which is even more funny IMO - all of a sudden showing your previously legal nipples in public is now illegal

Yeah, and all nipples are not equal.

She fat
I'd love to know how you think this is relevant to op?
- Because we are talking about unacceptable female nipple, isn't it?
  
  Or maybe the problem isn't the nipple itself, but the context in which it's shown.
  
  And, after all, your are still free to put OP's male nipple on these pictures :)
- thinking for half a second ought to catch you up bud

You can't tell me what to do!

uses them for eyeballs instead

Not only are female breasts legal where I live IRL, many Lemmy communities consider them SFW under non-sexual conditions. Godspeed everybody, free the nipple!

Instagram Might Finally Be About to Free the Nipple. What Took So Long? (Jan 2023)

Thanks for the article OP, but it's got a clickbatey headline, it doesn't actually answer what took so long (or investigate why they made the change in the first place.)
- I think it was a rhetorical question.
  
  I posted it because they point out the problems with this unequal body censorship and show that things are hopefully changing.
  
  With the shift to Lemmy, instances and communities could stand with the 'free the nipple' movement. Let's be the change.

We had a high school assistant principal who made the men's swim team cover their nipples in yearbook photographs.

So they put on bikini tops for the photos?
- No, they just tastefully covered their nipples with the tips of their index fingers
- They put their hands over their nipples but I like your idea better.