fig leaf 
noun
1A leaf of a fig tree, often used for concealing the genitals in paintings and sculpture.The young woman, whose speech and behavior reek of defiance bordering on dementia, disapproves of the puritanism that placed a plaster fig leaf over the genitals of a statue of God....
- More sympathetic observers like Peter Kolb suggested that as a natural fig leaf it modestly concealed the female genitals.
- This was not the mythical Pan, half-man and half-goat, but a mature human male whose nudity was compromised only by the prominent fig leaf covering his genitals.
1.1A thing intended to conceal a difficulty or embarrassment: the amendment was just a fig leaf intended to cover the cracks in the party...
- They are a political fig leaf to cover the government's embarrassment over that.
- This is merely a fig leaf to cover up its ruthless attempts to preserve the ability to extract huge profits from those artists.
- Authoritarianism, barely concealed under the fig leaf of ‘democracy’, became its watchword.
Origin
Early 16th century: with reference to the story of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:7).