Perfume Genius promo video banned from Google/YouTube

To promote Put Your Back N 2 It, the forthcoming record from Perfume Genius, Matador Records put together a short advertisement comprised of footage from the recent video for album track ‘Hood’. The 16 second clip features a topless Michael Hadreas embracing porn star Arpad Miklos and has been rejected for “promoting mature sexual themes” and being “not family safe”.

According to Matador, the message from Google and YouTube regarding their policy on “Adult Image/Video Content” read:

“Any ads that contain non family safe material are disapproved. I noted to the team that the people in the video are not entirely unclothed, but the overall feeling of the video is one of a more adult nature, including promoting mature sexual themes and what appears to be nude content. As such, the video is non family safe. In order to have this video ad approved, you will need to bring it into compliance with our policy.”

Matador also notes that the song in the advertisement, “All Waters”, deals with “internalized homophobia” and being “self-conscious about gay .”

Google/YouTube’s decision has been heavily criticised as homophobic.

Put Your Back N 2 It is due out on 20 February.