I did a search and didn't find anything.

What is the reason for the bars and blurring and pixelation on and across genitals and such on anime and hentai and similar artwork images?

What good is a small bar across a large genital area? Or now I'm starting to see small blurred bars. And the worst is a full or large section blur or pixelation. The "best" ones are the negative image bars because they can be easily inverted using a graphics program.

Does bar color mean anything?

Does that make the image "legal"? "Legal-ish"?

"Not pornographic"?

What???

It really ruins some nice images. (and is strange)