It's all about the boobs
In which I rant about cultural values and censorship
I guess it was inevitable that I would have to censor my own artwork. If you’ve seen the earlier versions of this book cover (above), you’ll know that the priestess figure originally had bared breasts, exactly the way women are depicted in Minoan art:
But it turns out, despite the fine print about tasteful artwork in non-erotica context being acceptable, Amazon’s automated system automatically flags bared breasts, in any context, as pornography. Which means that suddenly, Last Priestess stopped appearing in Amazon search results. They didn’t notify me in any way, just flagged the book and hid it from searches.
Yes, Amazon is problematic in all sorts of ways besides this. But about 90% of my book sales continue to come via Amazon, despite my efforts to point people to other sources, so I can’t ignore this issue.
When I realized what was happening, I checked my other books, and The Minoan Coloring Book had also been flagged, apparently because I had line drawings of bare-breasted women from Minoan art on the cover. So I removed the nipples from the cover image, and the Amazon system appears to be OK with it now:
Of course, bare-chested men are never censored, regardless of the imagery. The double standard is mind-boggling. Frustrating. Infuriating. As if there aren’t already enough gender-based double standards in our culture, usually with women and nonbinary people on the receiving end of the ridiculous crap.
I have a new book coming out soon. You may have seen my cover reveal of it a couple of weeks ago:
Moon Books is a fabulous publisher, and one of the perks of being a Moon Books author is that you get to choose the art for your book cover. Which, of course, presented a dilemma for me: how to come up with Minoan art that wouldn’t trip the purity algorithms in Amazon and social media.
I ended up choosing the Dolphin fresco from Knossos, which I think does a good job of representing the beauty and joy of Minoan culture without using human figures. But the fact that I felt I had to choose artwork without human figures really irks me.
I’ve written before, here and here, about the neutrality of the human body and the ubiquity of partial or total nudity in the ancient Mediterranean, where the Minoans did their thing during the Bronze Age. I do find it interesting that ancient Egyptian art, which also depicts women with bare breasts, doesn’t tend to get censored the way Minoan art does. I have to wonder if that has anything to do with Minoan culture’s appeal to the feminist and QUILTBAG2S** communities, or with the fact that Minoan art tends to be a bit more realistic than the faintly cartoonish Egyptian art.
This algorithm stuff is not usually labeled censorship, but if we’re honest, that’s what it really is. And while the glorification of violence and gore is splashed all over our media day and night, especially here in the US, the human body (even in the form of ancient art) is apparently not acceptable.
And yet we’re obsessed with sex and the bare human form. It’s no surprise that my all-time most visited Minoan Path blog post, in a decade of writing, is the one about topless Minoan women. It’s like the Victorians, who covered everyone (ankle to neck) and everything (no furniture legs showing!!) but who were prurient to an astounding degree. It’s a form of hypocrisy, maybe, to pretend to some arbitrary kind of purity in public while secretly slavering over every bare nipple.
I’ve just finished the cover art for the book of modern Minoan myths that I’ve written (I’ll share a cover reveal soon). It features the Minoan Snake Goddess, and yes, I’ve covered her up, because I don’t want this book to be dropped from Amazon’s search results like Last Priestess and The Minoan Coloring Book were.
We’ve come so far in some ways, yet I feel like we’re backsliding in others. Hopefully it will all balance out in the end. But I’m not holding my breath.
** This is my preferred acronym because it’s easier to remember and spell than any of the ones that begin with LGBT. I’ve explained it in depth here. And yes, I’m a member of the community.
My Substack is free, but if you’d like to support my work (please and thank you!), you can find my books here and my art here and here.
About Laura Perry
I'm an author, artist, and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. I'm also the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, a worldwide inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. My spiritual practice includes spirit work and herbalism through the lens of lifelong animism. I write Pagan / polytheist non-fiction and fiction across several different subjects and genres. I'm currently working on an illustrated book of modern Minoan myths and a Minoan entry in the Moon Books Pantheons series (release date 26 August 2025). I’m also an avid gardener and living history demonstrator.
The tyranny of algorithms!