Something has been irritating me lately. I don't know why, it's just been weighing on my mind, constantly dancing around in my head. Maybe it's just because I live in the South, my A/C's been broken, and it's the hottest time of the year...
But I think it's because I have a legitimate complaint.
Why can men walk around topless and women can't?
“Simple,” I told myself, as the sweat rolled down my cleavage and soaked into my bra, “It's a matter of public decency.”
But that's bullshit.
Who decided that breasts' primary function is a sexual one?
Who?
Breasts are for nursing babies, and if you find that sexual, I recommend you seek help.
Maybe this seems trivial, but the more I thought about it, the more outraged I got. If we let people decide that a part of our body with a non-sexual primary purpose is sexual, then aren't we giving them room to dictate what else our bodies are for?
Can't they then decide that our bodies are for making babies and that alone? Or for using for their satisfaction whether or not we give consent? Can't they decide that our bodies are too weak for sports, or the Olympics, and it's better that we stay inside where it's safe?
Can't they?
I know, of course, that they already do think all these things, but it just started to seem like the equal right to toplessness could be a step toward equality in other areas. By deciding as women that our bodies are up to us to define, we claim autonomy and equality. By desexualizing breasts, we make clear that we are not sex objects or fetus incubators or weak fragile beings.
Maybe it's not as big deal as I made it out to be in my head, and maybe it's impossible, but the equal right to toplessness seems to me like it could be groundbreaking.
Breasts not bombs.
I'm putting this in the body image section because it's up to women to decide what women's bodies are for, regardless of what image the government has!
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Oh wow. In my googling to find some details for a response I found this feministing article: http://community.feministing.com/2008/09/topless-in-toronto-how-my-brea.html
In Ontario it is legal for women to go topless. I haven't seen anyone do so since the law passed however, and the above article is exactly what I'd've predicted, alas.
This wiki article may also be helpful to you. Among other things it has a list of locations where going shirtless is legal for women.
Uh... Here's the link I forgot to add last time...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topfreedom
I have never seen anyone take advantage of the topless law either, however I remember when the law first came into being that the media covered it in a horrible way - particularly the Toronto Sun (which isn't exactly known for being a great paper). I remember the Sun publishing an article making fun of the law and how all the topless women would create car accidents across the city. I also remember that some strip clubs would station strippers outside their clubs pretending to be sun bathing in an attempt to bring customers in. When it first became law, it seemed that little or no ephasis was paid to it being a step forward for women. All of the attention was directed towards the sexual aspect of it. It felt like a no-win situation, and I think that's why the law is rarely taken advantage of.
I would've only been around 12 at that time, and I don't recall any positive coverage of it. Though I did see a few women who had come across the bridge from the states to celebrate (good timing! I think that shaped at least some of my worldview). It seemed like I was the only person I knew thinking, "Woo! Equality!" and saw it as something to be proud of.
This is definitely something that pisses me off, and I don't think it's trivial at all. It's truly a matter of men ruling that a part of the female anatomy exists for them, women agreeing, and people freaking out about how children's innocence will be ruined if they see what they ate from 3 or so years ago. I mean, men have breasts. They just lack the amount of fat that women's breasts do, along with the milk sacs. This makes women's breasts a sexual organ...how?
Something else that pisses me off about this is when people get all "oh, poor Muslim women, the men make them cover their bodies. It's so sexist!" I just want to scream, "Americans do that to women, too, just not to that extent!" Talk about ethnocentrism.
I wish that someone with time, money, a litigious spirit and a lawyer friend would just start going topless until they get arrested. A nice lawsuit would make a great legal precedent for women to go topless anywhere men can.
In my hometown, Rochester NY, a small group of women did challenge the law and won. Though I do not recall seeing any topless women at the park or beaches.
Something I would be willing to support 100%. The problem, we in Germany already have that and I doubt there will be much more women running arround naked here than in the USA. Well except on beaches maybe.
switch naked with topfree...
The whole scheme that women's breasts are routinely sexualized in society while men's are seen as pretty much just a part of a man's body--nearly routine as seeing someone's face or hands--pisses me off.
I also think we do a disservice to ourselves if we fall so quickly back on the old biological argument (declarative: breasts are for nursing).
It gives me a bit too much of a biology as destiny vibe.
And stating "breasts are for ____" (whether that blank is breastfeeding or sex) seems almost to separate breasts from women's bodies. Setting them up as their own little entity, with their role fulfilled only when ____ happens.
Granted, I realize this whole "primary function of breasts" argument is a response to both the constant sexualizing/objectifying of women's breasts as well as the backlash (particularly in the US) against breastfeeding (particularly in public).
But it still grates.
As to the legal aspects of women being able to walk around topless...
We could win as many legal battles for the right to be topless--whether on the beach, at the local pool, in our front yards, whatever--but until our culture gets away from the idea of female breasts = sex, I doubt many women will be comfortable enough to take advantage of the ability (outside of say, things like a topless beach...which leads me to wonder, how many women are perfectly at ease going topless in those situations and why or why not?).
And I'm rambling at this point, so...
Regardless, they're still a secondary sex characteristic.
The reason men can do it is our chests serve no primary or secondary purpose. They aren't a sex characteristic at all.
Many men have hair on their chests. This is also a secondary sex characteristic, though it serves no immediate purpose. Not all secondary sex characteristics have immediate purposes.
There have been studies that show a broad chest on a man is a more effective attractor than many other physical attributes. It's much less obvious as a secondary sex characteristic, but still has that effect to some extent.
Rather than view it as "men's torsos have no effect on anything sexually and women's do", it's more like we're so accustomed to that aspect of men that it's not a big deal, and the next step is to accept the same thing in women.
And yet, my partners nipples still harden when I play with them...
Men's nipples can harden too
In my state, NY, it is legal for women to go topless, but I have never actually seen any woman do it (sometimes I see women who have untied their bikini strings and are lying facedown in the sun, but never on their backs). I have never done it because as much as I believe I should be able to, I'm realistic, and know that I will attract unwanted attention from some jerk. I have every intention of breastfeeding in public, though - I'll be damned if someone is going to stop my (hypothetical) baby from eating.
I think we need to change the way our society views breasts for so many reasons - not just the heat!
I doubt that in places where women regularly topless (eg. just thinking back to old National Geographic profiles on certain tribes located wherever and Christianity has not made the realize women realize their 'shame' yet) that the men and women really see it as an issue (so, breasts aren't just "naturally" sexual).
Whereas here breasts are so sexualized you can't show them, since it will "turn men into animals". sigh...
Thinking of Victorian times, ankles and legs used to be very sexualized too - women weren't supposed to show those off in public either. I'm sure there were many harassed women when they fought against this. So, there's hope.
PS. I remember when the law was passed in Toronto. Two of my friends, who were 17 at the time, walked down the street and talked about going topless. Their discussion was overheard by an older man who preceded to stalk them for the next few hours. Very disturbing...
I’ve seen this issue before on Feministing. Wasn’t there a particular state in the US that fought for women being able to go topless and won? From the comments here, and just guessing, it seems that even if that case did indeed win women the right to go topless, I’m guessing there were few women who actually decided to take advantage of their new right to go topless?
So I’m not seeing how fighting for the freedom to go topless is going to help at all if no one actually went topless? What’s the point? Perhaps it is as one of the above posters have mentioned, you must first challenge the current societal image of breasts as sexual, and once that’s gone, then only would women actually go topless?
By the way, I’m not sure how it is like in the US, but isn’t the beach or in the privacy of home , or maybe at those sporting events in stadiums (topless men painting colours on their bodies) one of the few places men can
Actually go topless? In Australia you might see the occasional man going topless on the streets, but he’d be refused to most places – restaurants, shopping malls, cinema, library, etc….Tradies are another class of men who I
Can think of who are “allowed” to go topless, especially during summer, because doing manual labour like construction can be a hot during summer. But yeah, I think in most other instances, besides the one I’ve mentioned,
Women actually win out…in summer, I still have to wear a long dress shirt to the office, along with long pants and closed shoes, and if meeting a client, a tie and jacket, whereas the women are allowed to wear no-sleeve
tops and skirts, which I can imagine are more cooling.
Your office probably has AC. That alone means the women don't win, and if they're wearing heels, they definitely lose. Heels and childbirth are the two main reasons I'm glad I'm a guy.
If women want to go around topless, that should be fine. Obviously there are a lot of places that allow it and the sky hasn't fallen there.
But I don't know that the concept of top-free life having the effect of completely desexualizing breasts is correct. Regardless of whether the sexual role of breasts is primary or secondary, that role exists. Part of the sexualizing effect is that they're covered up, of course, and that would obviously diminish. But a large part- we can debate the percent- is the fact that breasts do play a specific role in sexual enjoyment for a lot of women, which does make them a sexual part of the body to some degree. This is not news, but it seems like it's being ignored. For guys, this is not really true. (Exceptions on both sides, of course, exist.)
So, if that's the case, why is it not a big deal in the countries where toplessness is accepted? Because it's not the desexualization of women's breasts that allows for acceptance, it's the lack of overall shame regarding sexuality. Western society worked so hard to desexualize everyone, and especially women, that it made people get twitchy about anything that plays any factor in sexual arousal. A lot of places are starting to realize how fucked up that is; America, sadly, is in large part not one of them. But it's not that people in Germany or Denmark or Spain or wherever don't ever view or appreciate women's breasts in a sexual way, it's that they're comfortable enough with sex and the idea of sex to not flip out over the sight of them. That's what makes it ok there, and that should be the real goal here.
I'm a woman who's typically attracted to men, and I do find male chests arousing. With those men that were comfortable enough, they (told me that they) experienced sexual enjoyment from their chests and nipples as well. This is NOT just a female thing. And I think the fact that the association is so strong causes a lot of men to really lose out.
Regarding the desexualization issue, I don't think the point is to completely desexualize female breasts, but to get to the point where they're sexualized in appropriate contexts and not by default. Mouths can be sexual, but I'm not turned on by every face to face conversation I have with any given person.
One thing I was going to put in my post, but which I felt made it too long, was that while this is not a subject which often comes up with other guys, it's rare to even hear this kind of thing from female friends about guys they know. Occasionally I do, but even then it tends to be a pain thing more than a sensitive-body-area thing.
I don't doubt what you're saying- I've always assumed there were some guys like that around, and I'm not fooling myself into thinking I hear all about everything from the people I know. And the only people I can really know about for sure are myself and the women I've been with (I get nothing out of it; they varied, but they all got something). It simply seems that, on the average, the comparative sensitivity is not really that close. That- assuming I'm correct, and I would really like to know if I'm not- necessarily changes the equation on how men's and women's breasts will be viewed.
But how they're viewed and accepting someone's ability to display them are two different things. I'm just hitting on a different way to view the actual problem behind why our society can't deal with that acceptance.
A woman who posed for my figure drawing class told us that she was walking down the sidewalk topless. This was in NY where it is legal to do so. A police officer arrested her for indecent exposure; he, an officer of the law, didn't know the law. She took it to court and won.
The only time I've ever seen women walk around topless was at Comfest, a very hippy-esque community festival) in Columbus, OH. Even then the breasts were painted. I'm not sure what the women's intentions were, but it seemed to me they were using the thin layer of paint as one last barrier to being completely topless- equating unpainted as exposed 'naked' breasts as opposed to comfortably 'nude' breasts.
There are a few areas of my body that sometimes make me feel good in a sexual way when touched (scalp, feet...) but I only have to cover breasts. I keep telling myself that one day I will go topless at the beach at least. People are almost topless with bikinis anyway. But it hasn't happened yet. I get this feeling that women don't want to see other women's breasts. I'm not sure why exactly. I think some people are very uncomfortable with nudity and have it ingrained in their minds that toplessness is half nudity.
I get this feeling that women don't want to see other women's breasts. I'm not sure why exactly.
And why exactly would I want to see another woman's breasts? Breasts are a private body part. I don't want to see the private body parts of people who I am not intimate with.
But why are they a private body part? That is the issue. Who set that rule?
And not caring about seeing someone's breasts is different from actively not wanting to see someone's breasts, which I think is what lyndorr was getting at. What is so offensive about bare breasts?
That's exactly it. Who decides what's private? Context is relevant. Or I think it should be. In North America society breasts are almost always private (I think) because they're almost always seen as sexual. In some countries, it is totally normal to show your body in the sauna with other women. It's not that they want or don't want to see your breasts. They're just another body part in that setting. So it's not that we need to see breasts as nonsexual completely but it'd be nice if we could see them as just another body part in more circumstances (e.g. the beach, the backyard). Right now, I wonder how many women don't feel comfortable going topless in their own home because the breast is so sexualized.
Right now, I wonder how many women don't feel comfortable going topless in their own home because the breast is so sexualized.
I think it's more of a case of I get yelled by my mom and aunt at for "tempting" my fiance or neighbours. I'm often forced to wear longer pants and no tank tops (even when the temperature reaches over 100F) because it's unlady like.
Some women might be afraid of going not because they are sexualized but if she gets touched or raped society says "She was asking for it!" or "She shouldn't have tempted me!". Other thing is being stared at. Almost no one likes to be stared at like a piece of meat. It's not about being sexualized, it's about you, as a woman, not owning your own body.
Don't I know it!!! Getting my American friends to come with me to the Onsen (hot springs)while I was stationed in Japan was like pulling teeth-just because you had to be naked (although the vast majority are sex-segregated). My own sister won't even SLEEP without a bra!!! How freakin bonkers is that?!
That's one reason I loved Japan - the awesome hot springs and baths and just being naked and comfortable with other women. I do remember the first night, right after I had met some people I would be traveling with, it was a bit awkward because we didn't even know each other well yet. Now I wish we were cool enough to have them in the U.S.
"I don't want to see the private body parts of people who I am not intimate with."
A couple of questions, then:
a) Who is making you look?
b) Why are mens' chests not "private" but womens' are?
We'd all be a lot cooler if we walked around in thongs, too. Buttcheeks are not a sexual body part. Why should we have to cover them? These breast conversations always seem a little ridiculous to me.
The conversation is different because men don't walk around pantsless either. There are different rules for different genders and that is what is ridiculous.
Funny you should mention different rules about covering your butt. These days, men in Speedos are almost universally derided as offensive, even though they often are wearing more fabric than many womens' bikini bottoms. (Unless you live in France, where baggy trunks are considered "unhygienic.")
Before anyone goes off about "here we go again, another 'what about Teh Menz?' post" I was just bringing it up as another example of how the rules are largely arbitrary, and neither consistent nor sensible.
I don't think speedos are seen as offensive per se, so I'm not seeing the comparison. I think speedos are more of a fashion choice, which is a whole other conversation. I mean, are we all offended by Michael Phelps??
I was traveling in Spain once and on a beach off of Malaga, men wore speedos and women wore bottoms (and sometimes) bikini tops and I remember thinking "Okay...this makes sense."
It's probably more an American thing, but it is definitely out there. People going on about being offended by the potential outline of some guy's junk through his Speedo (clearly somebody is spending far too long studying certain anatomical regions, but never mind... :) )
Recently someone made a remark over mine. And it wasn't even the regular Speedo brief, it was the longer "shorts-cut" suit. Plus I was wearing a supporter, which I admit is TMI, but the point is the wisecrack in question was almost certainly a knee-jerk reaction.
Personally I don't give a crap whether they are offended or not. I've lived far too long to be cowed by some snarky bastard stranger's fashion sense. There are 360 degrees of view in any given scene, and my swimsuit typically occupies maybe 3 degrees of that. Go look somewhere else.
"Look somewhere else" being the operative principle for toplessness, too, to bring this digression back on topic. :)
In Europe it's OK to go topless. And children are allowed to be naked in public. Adults, however are only allowed to be topless. Which makes sense. there is nothing sexual about small children (or at least there shouldn't be) and there's nothing sexual about breasts, male or female. However the topless trend seems to becoming less popular in Europe (or at least Germany)
I don't really buy this idea that they aren't sexual.
If they aren't sexual - does that mean you let you friends and coworkers touch them??? If a friend touches your arm or back or almost anywhere on your body you wouldn't think anything of it, but I doubt you'd react the same here.
Similarly, why do we consider it sexual assault if a woman is touched there? You wouldn't consider it assault if a man touched your arm on the subway, but you sure would with this.
So unless you want to change all of that, and open up free touching and everything else, I don't see how we can say they aren't sexual. And as far as I can tell, women are the ones putting these restrictions out there. I can't see men complaining if women suddenly said it's ok to touch womens chests since they aren't sexual, but almost every woman I know would sure have a problem with that. Maybe it's socialization but it's still there.
It is socialization. They are considered sexual because we made them that way. Not all cultures view breasts in a sexualized, western manner.
As for physical contact, I think that is all a matter of what is going on behind that interaction. I don't allow men to touch my breasts because I know that, living in the US, there is an almost certainty that they view a woman's breasts as a primarily sexual feature. But I also wouldn't let a man touch my arm if I knew he had a thing for elbows and gets off on it.
Free touching? How about personal space. I don't get offended when a stranger has to smush up next to me on the subway and his back or arm or torso is touching my breasts, but I would absolutely get weirded out if the same stranger randomly grabbed my arm. Why do you think the non-sexualized parts of women's bodies are open to being touched freely by anyone that wants to? My body belongs to me.
As for physical contact, I think that is all a matter of what is going on behind that interaction. I
It's also just an outright matter of personal autonomy.
My shoulders aren't particularly sexual, but I still don't want someone touching me there (or anywhere else) unless I expressly give my permission.