While it is fashionable and culturally acceptable for Western women to display cleavage, particularly when wearing swimsuits or dressing for social occasions, concealment of the lower portion of the breasts, including the nipples and areolae, is a sociocultural and/or religious norm of postpubescent female modesty in much of the rest of the world. Although prohibitions on breast exposure are often relaxed in appropriate gender segregated areas such as women's locker rooms, changing rooms, or communal showers, or in specific zones such as a topless beach or sauna (see below), most women will conceal their breasts at other times. As such, public toplessness in the Western world is mostly confined to sunbathing and occasional acts of exhibitionism.
In the interest of public morality, many Western juristictions have legal statutes that define the act of publicly displaying the female breast as indecent exposure. The topfree equality movement opposes such legislation, arguing that since men may expose their anatomically analogous chests and nipples with impunity, prohibiting female toplessness constitutes a form of sexual discrimination. Heated debates have taken place on this issue, particularly when nursing mothers have been arrested and prosecuted for breastfeeding their babies in public. In response to campaigns promoting the health benefits of breast milk, many jurisdictions now permit public breastfeeding while retaining indecent exposure laws, essentially differentiating the lactational from the sexual functions of the female breast....
Topfreedom is a social movement to accord women and girls the right to be topfree in public where men and boys have that right. Examples of public spaces at which topfreedom might be exercised include beaches, swimming pools and parks. The reasons include keeping nursing mothers from having to hide for breastfeeding, sun tanning, comfort, and sex equality.
In North America, where resistance to toplessness of women is greater than in mainland Europe or Australia, a small topfree equality movement has grown. In February 2005 in California, attorney Liana Johnsson contended that under Megan's Law, women convicted of indecent exposure (for breastfeeding or sunbathing) could find themselves listed as sex offenders alongside rapists and child molesters. The term "topfree" is used as an alternative to "topless", which may carry negative connotations. Some women prefer the term "shirtfree rights". In 1991 in Canada, the arrest and trial of activist Gwen Jacobs for walking down a street in Guelph, Ontario, while topless eventually led to a change in Ontario laws so that they agree (at least in principle) with topfree equality.
Cultural arguments
Western culture generally tends to oppose public female toplessness because of the idea that females breasts are sexual organs, and thus indecent. In contrast, the male chest is not commonly considered to be sexual.
Biologically there is no particular connection between mammary glands and copulation, but some cultures have regarded the exhibition of breasts as sexually arousing (others have also so regarded the exhibition of the chests of men). Some zoologists (notably Desmond Morris) believe that through human evolution, female breasts have acquired secondary sexual characteristics as a counterpart of the buttocks in other primates.[1] For more information, see breast.
Some courts in North America have ruled that mammary glands are nurturing organs, not sexual organs, a relevant distinction in light of laws in certain jurisdictions that specifically restrict the public display of sexual organs....
Support Topless WomenPhotographer Jordan Matter defends womens’ rights to take the streets half-naked. For the past two years, he has been shooting 100 portraits of topless women in New York City's streets, restaurants and parks. Matter is also part of a project called "Topfree Equal Rights Association." TERA works to encourage women to walk around topless. In his own words:
"Challenging this inequity between the sexes is the purpose of my work. There has been a recent shift in America towards a socially conservative philosophy, so right after Janet Jackson's breast was exposed at the Super Bowl, I started asking women to appear topless in New York City. [Uncovered: Busting Out in the Big Apple] is a collection of photographs featuring bare-breasted women in public around NYC, often presented with interviews exploring the issues of body image and sexuality in America today. The informal and humorous nature of these images celebrates women without sexualizing or objectifying them, while creating the illusion of a tolerant world in which shirtless women go casually about their lives. Uncovered represents just one aspect of what America could look like if we were free of shame and liberated from moral judgment." ...
Swedish feminists win partial approval for topless swimming
Stockholm - Swedish feminists have secured the right to drop their tops at an indoor swimming pool in northern Sweden, a newspaper report said Wednesday. "We are used to naked people. The only condition is that other guests are not offended, in that case we will have to ask the women to leave," Per-Erik Ulander, head of the municipal swimming pool in Sundsvall, north of Stockholm told the Dagbladet newspaper.
Activists have since September challenged the ban against swimming topless and formed a network that has staged several protests.
The actions started after two young women were ordered to leave the public swimming hall in the city of Uppsala when swimming topless.
The Equal Opportunities Ombudsman, the watchdog in charge of ensuring equal opportunity between men and women, has said it would not review a complaint filed over alleged discrimination.
On their website the network - called Bara Brost, which translates as "bare breasts" or "just breasts" - said their aim was to liberate women from being treated as "sexual objects" and that women should be able to decide when it is suitable to drop their tops - or not....
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