Above and below: the image and video in question

The video above was circulated via email today by Nils Bernstein, publicity director at the New York label Matador Records. It's a short advertisement for the new Perfume Genius album "Put Your Back N 2 It," which we care about because the music is good and Mr. Genius (Mike Hadreas) is from Seattle. It comes out in February and Perfume Genius plays the Crocodile in April. Check my profile on him from a few years ago here.

Bernstein says the ad was rejected by YouTube/Google on decency grounds that he thought were homophobic. He quoted YouTube's reasoning, which I tried to confirm at press@youtube.com but heard no reply (bolds mine):

"The ad has been disapproved because it violates our Adult Image/Video Content policy. Per this policy, video content, audio, static imagery, and site content must be family safe. 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."

The same-sex embrace in the ad is excerpted from PG's "Hood" music video, which is milder by far than several popular videos I can think of on YouTube. But "Hood" is on YouTube, too. Policies on the site are apparently different for music videos and ads. Check out YouTube's ad policies here.

I'll update this post if I hear back from YouTube/Google. Without a statement from them, it's hard to know what's going on.