Instagram and women’s nipples have a long and complicated history. For a long time, the app didn’t allow women, or those the app perceived to be women, to post images in which their nipples were visible, forcing people to get creative in order to beat Meta’s censorship, and leading to campaigns like #FreeTheNipple.


More recently, Meta was told by its own advisory board to change this policy, arguing that it prevents women and non-binary people from fully expressing themselves. At present, female-presenting nipples are allowed only in certain circumstances, including but not limited to images or videos of breastfeeding, health-related situations and acts of protest.


These restrictions make it difficult for women who use Instagram to direct potential customers toward more adult material off-site, but in recent months, some female creators have found a particularly creative solution to the issue: breastfeeding lifelike baby dolls.




Complaints and concerns about the videos that have been making their way onto explore pages have cropped up across social media recently, although it’s worth noting that Instagram tends to show us content it thinks we’ll like.


A user who has been verified as an OnlyFans creator took to the r/onlyfansadvice subreddit a couple of weeks ago to express their concerns about the trend, writing, “I am beside myself with certain creators using the guise of ‘Educational Breastfeeding Content’ to play with their boobs on Instagram while holding a very realistic looking baby on camera. Am I the only one bothered by this? Is this common? Is this where our industry is headed?”


Commenters agreed that this kind of content was appalling, with several encouraging anyone who encounters it to call the creators out, arguing that children, or dolls that look like children, shouldn’t be anywhere near the production of sexually explicit material.


@mom.uncharted Replying to @Miss Calcium Cannons Your comment section(s) prove you are fully aware people are s3xualizing videos that feature your son. It’s not okay. #socialmedia #breastfeeding #normalizebreastfeeding #parents #motherhood #parenthood #reply #myopinion #parentsoftiktok #keepkidssafe #protectthechildren ? original sound - mom.uncharted


TikTok users encountered a similar problem last year when an OnlyFans creator who posted multiple videos of her breastfeeding her real baby went viral on the app; despite the creator feigning ignorance when talking to prominent online child safety advocate Mom Uncharted, many people pointed out that someone going by the name “Calcium Cannons” knows what they’re doing and who they’re targeting with their content.

It’s an incredibly unfortunate situation, made worse by the fact that it would be difficult for Meta to automate any processes to identify and remove this content because it really does look like breastfeeding content — until you watch it for longer than three seconds and realize the baby isn’t moving. More human moderators might be the answer, but that, of course, comes with its own issues.