The cabinet is taking action against the many female nudes in our visual culture. The many images of male beauty are apparently no problem. The history of the nude in art shows the same phenomenon.
You may have to look a little further, but there are plenty of examples of male sex objects in commercials. Hordes of women storm aftershave users. Muscular guys look defiantly into the camera to promote jeans and underwear. Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent have their male models pose naked.
Portraying men nude or semi-naked is part of a long tradition. Even before our era, Greek and Roman artists depicted male bodies as beautifully as possible. Michelangelo's David shows the perfect body of an attractive youngster. Also later, during the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy, for example, all kinds of naked men were depicted in paintings. They glorified the power of the regimes and the ideal of the bermensch.
But it was the female nude that shocked. It was especially disgraceful in the Victorian era, the nineteenth century. Courbet's painting "The Origin of the World" caused a huge riot in 1866. It was not until 1988 (122 years later) that this painting of a vagina was shown in public for the first time.
Now the discussion about female nudes flares up again, and once again the many male nudes in our visual culture remain unspoken. Also the boys who are clearly portrayed as sex objects. Is that because women are still seen as the weaker sex? And so should be protected? And what standard then applies to men?