Despite the unfortunate trainwreck of this thread I thought the OP had a germ of an interesting topic on the subject of whether public toplessness for women is and/or should be acceptable in contexts where toplessness for men is already acceptable.
The OP posted this interested titbit (pun intended) in the other OP:
I hadn’t heard that there were topless women roaming NYC (the odd “slutwalk” and similar aside) but if so it strikes me as a surprisingly progressive move for the generally prudish USA.
Oh, and while I realize this is wishful thinking, could we at least try to avoid peppering this thread with requests for female members to post pictures?
It’s my experience that in places where such is legal, whether New York City or Quebec, very few women choose to do it. Even in France, I’m told, it tends to be more the exception than the rule at public beaches and swimming pools.
(I also think it would take an extreme frame of reference to classify the USA as “prudish”.)
I’m perfectly fine with allowing and/or restricting both sexes to identical “exposure” laws. Frankly, there’s plenty of places where I’ve seen shirtless men where I don’t really feel like it’s appropriate, but not to the point it should be illegal, but I don’t really see why at a beach or whatever, why a woman’s nipple is somehow more offensive than a man’s. I’d rather let property owners and culture keep that stuff in check.
I think we’d still rarely see it, outside of swimming areas and some festivals or whatever, because I also imagine that a lot of cases where it’s reasonable for men to go shirtless where it’s impractical for women. For instance, it’s not uncommon for men to go jogging or do yard work shirtless, but that could be problematic or painful for a lot of women, so I think we’d be unlikely to see it.
I got no problem with women having the legal right to the same level of denuding as a man. I also expect that, as the covering up thread demonstrated, very few women would have any interest in taking advantage of such a right.
Considering the other thread where men said they couldn’t possibly not stare at a woman’s chest, that they have no self-control, even with a little bit of cleavage showing, I don’t know that I’d want to go completely topless anywhere.
I feel that, if you’re going to live in San Francisco, you ought to have a certain minimum comfort level with naked dudes. Otherwise, you might as well live in San Jose.
I’ve no objection to seeing breasts, or with nudity in general, but I think it’s a little naive to try to pretend that a topless female is exactly equivalent in every way to a topless male.
It seems reasonable. It would protect nursing mothers, women who inadvertently momentarily expose their breasts (as when changing clothes at the beach), and people engaged in public art. It may even save the police from wasting resources on the occasional call from busybodies who are scared of low-cut tops.
Unlike total nudity, there’s no public health problem. A bit of back sweat on a park bench is no big deal; ass sweat would be a whole 'nother story.
