Got plans today? Kathryn gave me a heads up (or something) that today is Go Topless’s protest day around the US, where women will gather without shirts to protest the ridiculous standards which make it socially acceptable for men to go topless, but not women. The New York City gathering place is the Merchant’s Gate of Central Park, aka the Columbus Circle entrance across from the Time Warner center. Other cities hosting topless rallies include Bloomington, Chicago, Miami and Omaha. The Denver rally will be on the 26th to coincide with the start of the DNC (Welcome to Denver! Here are our boobs!)
I think this is just awesome, but I have one word of caution: women, please, trust me on this. Wear sunscreen. Especially on your nipples. I recommend SPF 45+ lip balm as a sunscreen for your nipples. It tends to stay on longer.
Happy topless day! Hope someone breastfeeds while this is going on because that would just underscore the awesome.
I never did understand what part of the health code being shirtless or shoeless in a restaurant was breaking. It’s not like something is going to fly off a person’s chest that couldn’t be on their shirt or that the bottom of their feet is any dirtier than the bottom of their shoes would be.
Also, I have been to nude beaches and clothing optional concerts and frankly, it doesn’t take all that long for the unusualness to wear off.
my bod has been stretched and filled beyond all sexual proportion by four children and a lifelong love of Mr. Oreo—if there’s anything sexual behind the accidental flash of my rack as I’m making like Bessie the cow, I think that’s the fault of the pervert watching me.
LOVE this!!!!! I do think that women should be able to feed their children on demand, wherever they are. I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to BF due to meds; it seems like a wonderful experience.
The talk about the nude beaches reminded me of when Dh and I were at a conference in South Beach. There were women there whom you could tell were sunbathing topless, but they were discreet about it, and it just didn’t seem that big of a deal. However, there were two young women who were just strutting down the beach, no tops, very flirty, who I swear looked like the women in comic books. That was when DH gave me a lesson on how to tell fake from real. It seemed rude to me, not that they were nude, exactly, but that they thought it was all right to display themselves to other people’s boyfriends and husbands. Definitely “bad naked.”
Oh, my good hoppin’ booby how I disagree with many of y’all.
My Position on Boobs: any time. Any where. If men are sunbathing topless, women should be able to do so as well. Any guy who thinks that’s an invitation has something wrong with HIS mind. If men are walking around topless, women should be able to do so as well. But Lord have mercy. I’m with Ms. Tigress: shirts on please on the subway, restaurants, and bars. Crowded 6 trains + Backhair = Not Good. Standard nude-iquette.
Anyone who has been to a nude beach can tell you: all of us are funny looking. This standard of beauty that’s reinforced by the images of nudity airbrushed from reality into some fuzzy realm of perfection just drives me bananas. I’ve had two kids in three years. I have saggy bazooms and stretchmarks, and I’m not toned and not perfect. I’d still like to take my top off in the sun, and have it be a complete non-issue.
Breastfeeding, that’s another issue, but my response is the same.
Breastfeeding: Any time. Any where. If you don’t want to see it, look elsewhere. I couldn’t breastfeed. If I had been able to, I’d have done it wherever, whenever, and not even once in a public bathroom. And I defend any woman who wants to breastfeed her child in public.
One of the things that presses my buttons is the absolute worship of the pregnant woman, and the marginalization and compartmentalization of the new mother. Pregnant women are adored and adorable. But once you’ve had the baby, there’s a hideous reversal. No one wants to see you breast feed. No one wants to see your stretchmarks. No one wants to see your saggy breasts, your leaking shirt, your imperfect, deflated self – until you’ve lost that baby weight. American media culture worships celebrities who take off their baby weight in mere weeks and return to glamourized perfection in less than 3 months. It makes me insane, this dismissal of what is a normal length of healing time. Pregnancy is beautiful. Motherhood is messy. Constantly being told to go hide that Mess is demeaning and I wish it wasn’t the immediate response to women who breastfeed, who sag, who have imperfect bodies: you’re a mess and should go hide. Oh, hell no, I say. Take your top off!
Taking my top off now.
[/end rant]
As a mother who’s breastfed in public, I must say that it’s not always possible to keep your boobies under wraps the entire time. Babies don’t like having their faces covered. They grab any cloth within reach. They WILL expose you.
Breastfeeding in public always embarassed me, not because I was ashamed, but because other people are weird. I’ve been given my share of odd looks. It’s too bad that the sight of a woman feeding her baby makes so many people (guys, mostly) do a double-take.
I don’t think I’d go topless in public, even on a beach, for the same reason. I support the cause, but I don’t like the idea of being on display for some creep.
Here, here to SB Sarah’s comment. How “attractive” your body is should have nothing to do with your legal rights. Boobs are only a big deal because we make them a big deal and the average boob is not more or less weird looking than the average thigh and i don’t hear anyone demanding long pants or skirts.
And also, right on about the new mother’s thing. I’ve never had a kid but I’ve read some theoretical stuff about pregnant women’s bodies as public property (strangers touching you, asking intimate questions, etc) and i think that the rejection of new mothers is an extension of this already wack set up where women’s bodies can be made acceptable and unacceptable by the whims of society. it’s just was messed up to shame new mothers as it is to get all up in a pregnant woman’s business when you don’t know her like that.
I breastfed my first child in a lot of places; I was a single mom, college student. I took a week off from classes when she was born, and then I went back to school, baby and all. I nursed her in lecture classes, in activity labs, in the library, you name it. All of my professors and almost all of my fellow students were wonderful and supportive about the feeding, the diapers, all of it. The few who weren’t never got to me; the message they got was clearly that it was their problem if they couldn’t handle it. But I know I was a lucky girl, and that’s not at all a typical reaction in our culture, more’s the pity. I totally agree with SB Sara about the way new mothers are usually treated, and it burns me up.
Any woman who is comfortable with her shirt off sunbathing, jogging (not me, just cause they bounce), working in her yard or whatever should be able to go for it. Just like a guy. Don’t like it? Don’t look. When the guy across the street mows his lawn shirtless, I don’t really care. If he were hot, maybe I would, ‘cuz yeah, I’m human. Shouldn’t that be the same, regardless of gender? We’re not there yet, but we’re not going to get there without a transition period of some women baring it and braving the reactions.
The body parts we cover up take on mystique and become sexual (see the female ankle in most historical romance novels). While some of us might prefer a little MORE mystery, I for one would rather have the standards equal, whatever they are.
Oh, and I also agree that if we saw more variety of bare body parts, we’d be more accepting of the reality of what’s out there. Seeing only the lovely bodies displayed, while perhaps aesthetically pleasing, does create an impossible standard that can lead to all kinds of issues. I know my mother got a lot more comfortable about her body (gave birth to seven kids, what can you expect?) after spending a lot of time in Australia where the nearest beach was topless.
I don’t think aesthetics should be the issue here at all: this is a wholly inappropriate value-judgement. Either bare chests are okay or they are not, and in my view, the important factors are neither sex nor beauty, but context. I have never had children, but I am closer to 70 years old than 60, and my body is not nearly as pretty now as it was 50 years ago. That is utterly irrelevant; one day the 20-year-olds will be 70, and they will understand the truth of that. If I were on a nude beach, where people of both sexes and all ages were swimming naked in the sea, no problem (and swimming naked is a wonderful experience, quite different from swimming in a swimsuit).
But in a crowded urban context, it is simply good manners to keep a low profile, not to call attention to oneself for whatever reason, to respect other people’s personal boundaries as far as possible. Very scanty clothing is, rightly or wrongly, an attention-getter, and therefore discourteous.
As I said, I think nursing a baby is a TOTALLY different issue – really it is. If a mother has a young infant with her (and who are we to judge whether she could have stayed at home, or had to come out and bring the baby with her?), and the baby needs to be fed, she has, in my view, an absolute right to go ahead and meet her offspring’s needs, and anyone who doesn’t like it should just look away.
Sarah said: If men are sunbathing topless, women should be able to do so as well.
Men can pee standing up, too. Damn, but life’s just not fair!
“Men can pee standing up, too. Damn, but life’s just not fair!”
But we all pee, no? Just because my breasts are bigger, I have to keep them covered?
*joins Sarah in taking off shirt*
You absolutely don’t have to cover up anything you don’t want to cover up KTG—and you shouldn’t be arrested for baring your boobs, either.
But I gotta tell ya, woman to woman, I’d rather look at Daniel Craig’s chest than yours. No offense! LOL
“But I gotta tell ya, woman to woman, I’d rather look at Daniel Craig’s chest than yours. No offense! LOL”
None taken. Yeah, his chest is nice.
I prefer Hugh Jackman. He got all buff for the latest Wolverine movie…
Make mine Robert Downey Jr. Did you see those arms and chest in Iron Man?? Whew. Although my daughter would have no problems seeing Angelina Jolie in the buff, she’s not my cup of tea. LOL
Gotta say, that while I completely support a woman’s right to nurse in public, (I did it with all three of mine) I can also say from experience, nursing topless, as in no nursing bra and no pads…gets very, very messy. Uber messy. I’m selfishly big on personally comfort so I loved my bra during those times.
My views on public breastfeeding are absolute: women should be able to and should be accepted anywhere in public they want to breastfeed. Are there some places the mother might feel less comfortable doing so? Are there some places the mother might deem less desirable to breastfeed? Yes to both. But the ridiculous taboo against public breastfeeding makes me nuts. For women who want some coverage, there are these fabulous hooter hiders. But women IMO should never be made to feel uncomfortable of self-conscious in their choice to breastfeed publicly.
As for general toplessness, I’m with the crowd that advocates equal standards. That is, where it’s okay for me, it should be okay for women. I don’t have a problem with businesses that restrict various forms of public nudity (shoes, shirts, service kinds of places), but IMO it should be gender neutral.
I have to wonder, though, whether the fetishization of the female breast has more to do with its sexualization or the food source issue. Surely it can’t be that women’s breasts are any more a sexual organ than a man’s (men have similar nipple sensations to women, albeit the different plumbing blueprint creates some logistical differences). Although women’s breasts have been fetishized as *sexual objects*—that also function as a practical food source and delivery system. And only one of these things is made meaningful via the male gaze. IMO as long as women support this objectification and find it meaningful to their sense of self and self-esteem, the concept of mammary modesty will persist. Also, as long as women continue to police the appropriateness of public breastfeeding (because really, do you see men debating this issue?), mammary modesty will persist.
At this point I think women have responded to the objectification of breasts in a very mixed way, and I think it will ultimately be up to us to change the terms of our own bodies’ significance, both in terms of our sexual objectification and the cultural signification of motherhood.
It has jack all to do with “what I want to see.” Nor with what I plan to do with my boobs (which is absolutely NOT whipping them out, incedentally). It’s about “what people should be arrested for.” And no, I am not okay with the double standard.
Sexualization of breasts is not inherent, it is imposed. The only thing they are inherently for is food.
I have been to a toples beach, actually, and while I see no need to join in (as a dark skinned person I have no interest in tanning, and the primary point of toplessness that *I* saw was avoiding tan lines), it is quite amazing how seeing a variety of body types can make you extremely comfortable with your own. From teen hotties to 85-year-old grandmothers.
I’ve never posted but this is a fun topic and just have to pipe it about the breastfeeding in public.
Someone noted that you can keep your baby at home for the first several months, thereby removing the issue of breastfeeding in public. And it sure is true that most babies want to nurse ALL the time in those first few months. But in my experience you cannot stay home all day if you have other kids (the older children will go insane—and bite the baby and hate it ;-).
Moreover, even for the first child, while staying in the house might be possible/desirable for some women, for others it is suffocating. I agree that the post-partum recovery should not be rushed, but people heal physically and mentally in different ways. Fresh air at park in good weather and coffee shops in bad kept me sane.
There is nothing more natural than breast feeding.
We should all celebrate who we are.
Happy Topless Day!
I feel my public service – to the world no less – is that I personally not go topless in front of anyone except my husband (and the toddler girl, who calls them my “belly”).
Hmmm, was that parenthesized part TMI?
I do support women who want to have the same rights as men. Really though, the juvenile and hypocritical views surrounding breasts would be reflected for years in all sorts of mishaps; traffic jams, other public disturbances, etc., simply because there are boobs in plain view. Oh my gawd! BOOBS! Let the staring, whooping, whistling and jeering commence. If that was ever a non-issue, THAT I would celebrate.
I have to agree with this. Like I said, I would support others wanting to do so, but I personally would not.. Me getting into my bathing suit on a cruise in the next few months will be self-esteem deflating enough.
Are those babies in cahoots with those men I described above? Heehee, just kidding. Good to note, thanks. I will remember this if we ever have another baby.
Not true in my case and I’m sure in others. For one, my daughter was premature, so was unable to breastfeed with her tiny mouth. She hated me for trying too lol. Poor thing. But even if I had been able to do so with her, I wouldn’t have been able to because of work. I had right at two weeks at home with her before I had to return to work. I was bitter about that for an entire year. Very. Bitter.
But as far as others breastfeeding, I agree it’s done very modestly when I happen to see it and it’ s such a beautiful sight. What’s better than a happily contented baby?
LMAO that the work filter allowed topless.org.
I’m a moron and posted this under the wrong post-but it shoulda gone here….
Probably TMI here, but restaurants and stores get a lot of…well, foot traffic, so to speak, and not necessarily a lot of sun. Which means the floors are going to be a breeding ground for germs and fungi-people don’t like going barefoot in a gym because of athlete’s foot and there are other fungal infections that can be picked up with the feet.
Not entirely sure about the bare chest thing, but bare feet in busy places are one way to catch some yucky fungal infections.
I think it’s kind of horrific to suggest that a woman, and a baby, not go outside for whatever amount of time because of some idea that it’s “lewd.” Especially when people can in fact control their own actions to make the world acceptable and stress-free for themselves, aka, don’t look. In this case, I don’t think that it’s other people’s job to “protect” me. It’s not like a nursing mother is whipping them out, waving her hands going “whoo whoo!” and bouncing around. (Unlike a topless fellow smushed against me in a crowded subway, or sweating into my food, or a perv flashing his junk for the sole purpose of power tripping and making women uncomfortable. That’s invasive.)
There are things than need to be controlled, but I can’t agree that this is one of them.
(Plus, you’re supposed to breast feed for a year to get full benefits, especially if your family is prone to asthma or allergies. And y’know, at some point during that year, yer gonna need to go shopping. If you don’t have servants.)
There are a lot of things about U.S. culture (the only one I can speak to, as it is mine) I feel are unfairly denigrated. But this aspect of our culture really bugs me. It’s a baby, eating the way God intended, not some exploitative sex display. We’re supposed to be all about the upcoming generation and doing the best for them we can manage.
(That’s not a slam on bottle feeding. I was bottle-fed and I am cool with that. But we do have research suggesting that mom’s milk provides concrete benefits for some kids otherwise prone to illness and such.)
I support equal treatment under the law, but I also support “there’s a time and a place” for both genders.
However, breastfeeding, I am absolutely anytime, anyplace. A hungry baby takes precedence over anyone’s prudery. Yeah, with my first, I managed to schedule around feedings and naps as possible, and I knew where the good dressing rooms were in every mall. I’d rather have a quiet place free of distraction myself. But when the second one came three and a half years later, her big sister already had an active social life that had to be managed as well. And sorry, I’m not going to hermit myself for other people’s prudery. Plus, neither of my babies ever took a bottle, no matter how much I pumped and froze and tried get a break for more than two hours at a time. So, for anyone who saw me latch the younger one on in the middle of Chili’s five years ago and had a problem with it, I would ask them if they’d rather have heard her screaming (in a pitch that made dogs bark, mind you) until I could get boxes for the food, pay, and gather the vast array of stuff one shleps while dining with an infant and preschooler?
I live in Denver, and I’ve a four month old… Where should I serve lunch for the most impact?
Oh- and yes and those cover-up nursing contraptions do cover up, but you ever try eating with a blanket over your head in 90 degree Denver heat? Sweaty babies are gross!
I say it’s a body part – we’ve all seen them someway or another, what’s the big deal?