Navel in popular culture

This article deals with the concepts, customs, fashions and taboos relating to the navel (mainly female) over time and at present. Various cultures view the sexual and cultural significance of the navel differently, and these views have changed over time, which has shaped social mores relating to the navel in design of clothing and social traditions and practices.

The public exposure of the male and female midriff and bare navel has been taboo at times in Western cultures, being considered immodest or indecent. It was banned in some jurisdictions, with some arguing that it simulated an "erogenic orifice". Eventually, only female navel exposure was banned and not male because, it was argued, the simulation or upward displacement from vagina to navel was commonplace and obvious in women.

Community perceptions have changed and exposure of female midriff and navel is more accepted today and in some societies or contexts it is both fashionable and common, though not without its critics. The exposure of the male navel has not been as controversial nor as common, and is usually in the context of barechestedness. Exposure of the navel by females is commonly associated with the popularization of the bikini, of the crop top and low-rise clothing.

In the United States, the Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code, enforced after 1934, banned the exposure of female navel in Hollywood films. The National Legion of Decency, a Roman Catholic body guarding over American media content, also pressured Hollywood to keep clothing that exposed certain parts of the female body, such as bikinis and low-cut dresses, from being featured in Hollywood movies.

During the 1950s, Joan Collins was prohibited by the censors from exposing her navel in Land of the Pharaohs (1955). To get around the censors' guidelines, she wore a jewel, a ruby, in her navel. This technique of baring the midriff but gluing a jewel on the navel was used in many other Hollywood films featuring belly dance sequences.Kim Novak wore a ruby in her navel for the film Jeanne Eagels (1957); saying in an interview, "they had to glue it in every time. I got a terrible infection from it."Marilyn Monroe, for a scene from Some Like It Hot (1959), wore a dress that revealed skin everywhere but had a tiny piece of fabric to hide her navel. (The film was condemned by the National Legion of Decency, but for other reasons.)

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