On the mermaid and the idiots who feared her
Denmark removes a mermaid statue for being “pornographic.” Lai Yin exposes how critics and priests project shame onto women’s bodies while the statue stands still.
In today’s Guardian, Denmark prepares to remove a mermaid statue because an art critic called it pornographic and a priest called it a man’s hot dream of a woman’s body.
Miranda Bryant
Let’s be clear: the statue did nothing.
It stood in stone.
Silent.
Heavy.
Present.
The projections came from the critic and the priest.
The critic saw pornography where there was only sculpture.
That tells you what his eyes chase, not what the stone is.
The priest declared it was a man’s hot dream.
That tells you her imagination, not the artist’s chisel.
When you call stone porn, you tell the world your nervous system cannot hold a body without shame.
When you call breasts a man’s dream, you confess you still measure women against men’s approval.
This is not about heritage.
This is not about proportion.
This is about fear.
Fear of women’s bodies when they are not begging, apologising, or shrinking.
Fear that presence alone, even in granite, is enough to expose your own projections.
Look around:
- Climate collapse.
- Wars.
- Hunger.
- Famine.
- Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
And yet the Danish state found time to police the size of a mermaid’s breasts.
Is it pornography?
Pornography is not in marble.
Pornography is not in breast size.
Pornography is in the eyes of the critic who cannot see a breast without reducing it to sex.
The stone is not pornographic.
The gaze is.
Is it the size?
Do naked female breasts now require academic approval?
Do they need to shrink to be acceptable?
Do they need to belong to men to be permitted?
Breasts come in all shapes and sizes.
You can read about my breasts here: [I didn’t get a boob job. I got my body back.]
Is it heritage?
They say the statue “does not align with cultural heritage.”
But what is heritage?
Heritage is governance of meaning.
Heritage says what fits and what must be removed.
This is not about stone.
This is about power deciding which female body may be seen.
Is it art?
It is not art they are policing.
It is women.
It is the female form in scale too large to be ignored.
Too unapologetic to be erased by small talk.
Is it the truth?
They call it pornographic when a breast does not shrink.
They call it vulgar when a woman takes space.
They call it ugly when she is not theirs to place.
This is not about a mermaid.
This is about governance.
Who owns the body.
Who sets the frame.
So what is it?
This is idiocy!
This is irresponsibility.
This is the petty obsession that keeps women’s bodies under debate while the planet burns.
The truth is simple:
Stone does not seduce.
Breasts do not corrupt.
Projection reveals the projector.
The critic exposed himself.
The priest exposed herself.
The statue stood still.
You do not apologise for a body.
You place it.
