GoTopless

Yesterday was National Go Topless Day in the US, a day encouraging women to be the "skins" in a skins and shirts world. Here is what the organization has to say about the movement:

We are a U.S.-based organization founded in 2007 by spiritual leader Rael and we claim that women have the same constitutional right that men have to go bare-chested in public. As long as men are allowed to be topless in public, women should have the same constitutional right. Or else, men should have to wear something to hide their chests. Rael, founder of GoTopless.org and spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org)

NOTE: As a side note, the organization I support, SlutWalk, did not participate simply because this movement is a spiritual/religious based movement and SlutWalk does not wish to promote one spiritual set of beliefs over another. 

Anyway, today on Google+ several people posted about this event including +Jeff Jarvis, whose post encouraged over 169 replies in a matter of hours.  Reading the original responses, I was dismayed at the reality that most people responding were men.  The tone was set with this first response:

Back to the trade off between rights and responsibilities I think. A right probably, sensible, probably not.

And things started to deteriorate from there with the following generalized proclimations: 

Women's breasts function in a sexual manner, and are pubescent developments.

But got interesting again with this line of thought:

Not mincing words, but keep the discussion in context. I don't believe the issue is with walking around the streets of New York topless. The real discussion is breast feeding and the rights of a citizen.

how so? the civilised thing. somehow the thread hadn't updated in my stream, I was asking about your previous post

I disagree, it's what the article says it is: the right to go topless in public. breast feeding is something completely separate from this.

One of the most vocal and intelligent women in this conversation was +Samantha Adams who rebutted many a lame observation this afternoon:

Two people are sitting topless on a beach. One is arrested because she is a woman. The other is not arrested, because he is a man. Fair? Forget for a moment what "society" thinks, because society is fickle, and public opinion changes often. Look simply at equality. Is there any argument out there whatsoever that can justify why it is legal to arrest the woman and not the man for doing the same thing?

I came to the conversation late, oddly enough after doing research on the lame rhetoric used to describe women in menopause, and I wrote the following:

The problem is simple, women's breasts are sexualize, which is why women are often uncomfortable in their own skin. We augment them, smooch them down, hid them, fly them, and make laws regarding them for the sake of maintaining a desire status quo. It is obnoxious and, I must say, frustrating for the woman who does not have the perfect set to breasts. Consider this - how many nicknames exist for the boob - and tell me breasts are not fetishized and objectified:

"Boobies, Winnebagos (when they go cross country), ta-ta’s, melons (all kinds depending upon size, from large to small, we have…: watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew [do you honey do, do you?], grapefruit, oranges, grapes… ), hooters (also a restaurant serving wings), feeders, ho-hos (a Hostess favorite) , bazoongas, bodacious tatas, the girls, milkers, bettyboops, fried eggs, lulus, ant bites, mole hills, alps, apples, Babylons (babylons?), bazookas (also a type of gum or gun), bread-winners, mammaries (clinical), cans, rack, knockers (on my front door?), jugs, bee stings, mosquito bites, Abbott and Costello, Ben and Jerry, Bert and Ernie (why are these all male names?), airbags, blinkers, bombs (not the explosive kind), balloons, boulders (for the over the shoulder holders), cha-chas, chesticles (is there a resemblance?), cupcakes, Danny DeVitos (Really? After drinking his Lemoncello!), lemons, David and Goliath (Biblical), Devil’s Dumplings (Biblical?), Eisenhowers (political), funbags, Gobstoppers (the everlasting kind), headlamps, high beams, Holmes and Watson (should you get lost), honkers, hood ornaments, hubcaps (to round out the car metaphors), John and Paul (Ringo and George on Tuesdays and Thursdays), Mounds (of ice-cream? You scream, we all scream for . . .), muffins, Tweedledee and Tweedledum (ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum), Volvos (because Honda will not do), ying-yangs (because balance is everything) and Yahoos (also an internet search engine). Mother dear, may I have a drink?" (from: Writing the Diaphragm Blues) 

I have written about the boobie issue before, indeed several times in this blog. I support movements that allow and make way for women to have a healthier view of their sexuality and being.  I would love to see women be happy and proud of their breasts simply because they are part of "her."  I would also love to see a society that does not promote the augmentation of boobs, boobie implants and the like - all moves designed to further objectify a women via her breasts.

R