Once a month, I spend KD1.250 (USD4.36) at any bookstand in any supermarket in Kuwait to buy my favourite magazine, so that I can entertain myself – removing the black tape that Kuwait uses to censor various female body parts! In a fashion magazine.
I kid you not.
People, I am talking about the Arabian edition here – not the UK edition, not the US edition. Harper’s Bazaar Arabia. This is the same magazine that is sold in Dubai, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar. It is not available in Saudi Arabia, for obvious reasons. Ergo one would assume that the photographs and articles would have been sufficiently screened so that they’re “Arabia-appropriate”, so to speak, given the conservatism associated with this region.
No, its not good enough for Kuwait. Every magazine is individually “censored” for décolletage especially, and whatever else whoever with the black tape deems inappropriate – for its women readers!
Can you believe these pictures?
No décolletage here…just a bit of leg…oh, and not even any hint of bare skin showing through a lacy bodysuit.
It looks like someone already tried to have a go removing the tape here BEFORE I even bought it!
It makes us laugh so hard when we imagine a bunch of people sitting in a room somewhere in Kuwait armed with black tape or stickers viciously obliterating every copy of these magazines. I can’t help wondering – do they use men to do this? Or do they use women? Do they have specific guidelines or do they just slap the tape wherever they like?
I repeat – this is a fashion magazine for women!
I wonder if they slap on the tape because some women who buy the magazine might actually find it offensive. Or is it to discourage men from buying the magazine? Would men really buy a fashion magazine to ogle at female body parts?
Anyway..let me just be grateful that I can still remove the tapes and enjoy my favourite fashion magazine. Previously they used black markers and I didn’t bother buying them. I’d just get them from a news stand at some airport outside Kuwait.
Anyway, here’s the result of my “entertainment”….
You can see that I didn’t do so well on some of the pages this time.
Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying, can you?
