A female friend of mine raised an interesting point to me once.
She complained to me that it wasn’t fair that guys can go around shirtless, yet women could not. She used a rather muscular male friend as an example. She pointed out that muscles could be just as sexual as breasts, particularly because he was in better physical shape than she was. I tend to agree with her. The most obvious argument with her logic is that all women have breasts to some extent, while not all men are particularly muscular. But there are people of BOTH sexes I’d rather not see topless, in approximately equal numbers. So it’s all the same to me.
In my case, I try to keep my shirt on, mostly because of my pale skin. That’s as much for my protection as anyone else’s. I don’t want to burn, even though I’m not all that scary without shirt. Not particularly attractive (I’m pretty skinny) but I’m not saggy or anything. I don’t really like going shirtless much, though, except in my own house.
During the “Should it be legal for women to go topless” debate in Toronto there was a great cartoon of a lardy old man without his top on, with big nasty man-breasts, scolding his wife to put her shirt back on because she looked disgusting. Very good.
Myself, I think topless is okay if necessary - ie during or immediately following athletic activities, swimming, physical labour etc. (For many women being topless during an athletic activity is a less-than-optimal choice, so I wear a sports bra.) The t-shirt goes on when someone who was not part of the activity is present.
I went over to my inlaws’ house earlier in the week for my father-in-law’s 70-somethingth birthday. We arrive and find my FIL without his shirt on. It’s in the 90s and they don’t have the AC running, just a fan here and there. Sorry, but not only do I not even want to look at his sweaty and naked upper body, I sure as hell do not want to hug him hello. :eek: (My husband insisted on putting their AC unit in the window.)
The most disturbing and yet somehow alluring, ah, female enhancement product I’ve yet seen… I love how the spikes are referred to as “soft little silicone kisses” when clearly, they’re the worn studs from an old pair of rugby boots…
Krisfer - real men keep their toolkits below the belt
My views: Certain men without shirts make me incredibly aware of the irony in the fact that what I have to cover up is MUCH smaller than what they get to let flap in the breeze!
Hijack:
Why is it that the word “topless” makes me think only of women, whereas “shirtless” makes me think of men?
I have seen my dad shirtless maybe twice in my life (once on a 100±degree day while mowing the lawn, and once when I busted him and my mom doin’ it…garhgalhhrhgr), and that’s just fine by me. As a result, it kinda grosses me out to see men in the public way (other than the beach) without a shirt. However, I can recognize and understand the desire to go shirtless while running or playing another sport in hot weather.
A whole 'nother ball of wax is shirtlessness in the bleachers at a ballgame. It seems to me that the likelihood of a guy taking off his shirt at a game is inversely proportional to the attractiveness of said guy’s body. I think it’s rude to subject your neighbors at a ballgame to your armpit hair.
I think it is because women are generally assumed to be wearing a bra underneath their shirt, but men aren’t. ‘Topless’ implies someone is wearing nothing from the waist up. Since most guys (ahem) don’t wear bras, its redundant to say a shirtless man is ‘topless’ IMO.
Its funny that advocates of letting women go topless actually use the word topfree to describe their activity.
As far as my views on toplessness, I see it as a matter of comfort. If it is hot out, fine. I don’t think other people’s attitudes should get in the way of being comfortable. During the summer, I am shirtless 90% of the time. In fact, I am also pantsless 90% of the time- you know what? I would say that during a quarter of the year, I probably just spend about 90% of my time in my underwear.
The much-vaunted privilege that men have of going shirtless is really quite restricted in practice. I certainly wouldn’t go into a restaurant, bank, or grocery store without wearing a shirt. In fact, I really can’t think of any place aside from the beach, a pool, or a nudist resort where men can doff their shirts.
What’s really not fair is the fact that current mainstream fashion requires men to cover up so much more than women in virtually every setting. The much-vaunted privilege that men have of going shirtless is really quite restricted in practice. I certainly wouldn’t go into a restaurant, bank, or grocery store without wearing a shirt. Sure, women have to cover their breasts, and their sex organs, and (most of) their butts…and apart from those stipulations, anything goes for them.
But with men it’s different, and far more restricted. We have warm summers where I live, and I’d love to be able to wear shorts that were worthy of the name, without observers thinking at best how clueless my fashion sense is, and at worst making inaccurate conclusions about my sexual preferences. And of course I’m not talking about Daisy Dukes or anything similarlty outrageous, but just anything shorter than what they think’s cool down at the local skate park. You younger Dopers might not realize it, but it wasn’t so long ago that such shorter shorts were entirely en vogue for men. Now they’re definitely not, and it’s just so…stifling.
