“Sultry personal postage stamp images have been returned-to-sender by Canada Post, leaving a Calgary photographer claiming his work is being censored. Photographer Frederick Potter said he was excited to learn Canada Post offers a service that allows people to customize and order stamps by using their own photographs. But when some artistic shots of his Ukrainian-born wife Oleanna Potter — topless and in one with Maple Leaf flags covering her breasts — were rejected as inappropriate, Frederick said he was baffled. ‘It’s arbitrary censorship,’ he said. ‘Would a picture of a baby on a bearskin rug be considered child pornography? … Where does it end? Having Oleanna on a postage stamp is kind of a celebration of her becoming a Canadian.’” — Winnipeg Sun (Canada)

Here’s one of the pictures that Canada Post rejected. It’s very tame. Most men and probably some women would be glad to see it adorn their envelopes. It’s a stamp you might actually fantasize about licking.

It’s hard to think of Canada as prudish. Prostitution is quasi-legal there, and places like Montreal and Niagara Falls have a million more strip bars than New York City, even though they’re much smaller cities than the Big Apple. Meanwhile Vancouver has become a mecca for “alternative lifestyles,” sort of like a Canuck San Francisco. There are certain more conservatively countries on the map — like, say, Iran.

That being said, it’s hard to consider this censorship. It’s not as though the Canadian government is refusing to let Mr. Potter exhibit his pictures. It is just refusing to let him make official stamps out of them. That’s the government’s call. If you go to the state for something, you have to play by its rules. It’s like when artists whine about not getting grant money to fund some lewd performance. Why should the government — or anyone, for that matter — fund it? You’re free to perform it but that doesn’t mean anyone else is obliged to foot the bill for you.

Let’s keep the terms clear. When jackbooted thugs show up at your house and beat the shit out of you and your family for making “decadent” art, that’s censorship. When the government refuses to make a postage stamp out of your wife, that’s just bureaucracy.

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