US women protest for the right to bare American women are preparing for protests this weekend against laws which allow men to remove their shirts in public, but treat women who do the same as guilty of misdemeanour. The action will take place on Sunday 23 August when, according to the gotopless website (PNSFW), "topless women will rally in great numbers across the …
>Interesting assertion here. Surely if breasts were important in attracting mates then there would be a dominant breast size, which one would assume to be large but not too stupidly large?
Ahhh... you miss the point, you're assuming that genetic preference can only run away until other limiting factors (the peacock conjecture), there is a huge disparity in breast sizes, although statistically breasts are getting larger, the size isn't my point, it's the fact that they are enlarged in the absense of lactation is, there's actually no (non sexual) for breasts to be evident, the question isn't why are they different sizes, it's what are they there at all? which other animal has breasts while not lactating? it's a sexual device to attract a mate (breasts also swell during peak fertility to increase sexual attraction).
Women do not have the right to go topless under the mistaken belief that breasts are not sexual, anymore that men have a right to show their penises in public because of it's dual purpose (and I pee more times per day than have sex, so therefore it's not a sex organ?)
And where did America's religious zealots come from? Right, Europe. If you put all people of personality X in one isolated place and 400 years later their descendents act the same way, don't be filled with outrage or shock.
Sincerely,
A descendent of people who didn't want the Puritans landing in Jamestown
religious conservitive zealots caused this to happen in first place. the more you forbid it the more they want it.
there is nothing wrong with going topless either as male or female
i remeber back in 92 0r 93 there was a big fight over that issue in NYC becuse a woman decided to go topless. i as i recall she had won and was able to go topless in public.
this whole thing i s just a step up fight for equality. besides hopefully i get to have a nice show out of it and bit of enjoyment.
And you could make an argument that their secondary function is suckling. Other female ape species’ breasts consist mainly of large nipples pointed outward, making it easy for the infants to feed. Human females offer no visual clues for estrous and mating success such as other apes do (mating success being defined as procreation) and often don't know when they are in estrous themselves. Human female breasts are designed (by nature) to attract the attention of males so that they (the females) can have sex constantly thus increasing the odds of procreation.
I really don't mind if women go around topless (all the time if they want.) BUT, they can't go around like that and then complain I'm looking at their boobs! (This is not a double standard, I don't expect men to complain if women.. or I guess gay men... are staring at their 6-packs when they go around shirtless either.)
That is all.
<QUOTE>I'm also a big fan of women not bearing their breasts all the time, this is purely because I like womens breasts and think that they are special, if they were to be about all the time then they would cease to be special (and let's face it, gravity is not a breasts best friend), the desexualisation of breasts would probably brings us closer to an asexual society but is that actually a good thing?</QUOTE>
There are many cultures/societies on earth where women go around as a matter of course with their breasts bare (despite missionaries best efforts to modestify them.) Their societies do not appear to suffer in any way and have quite as many children as they need or want. You are just thinking in the way your own society has trained you to think and that isnt necessarily a bad thing. Desexualise one thing and you just sexualise something else.
On a slightly different point; in these same societies where wome bare, the people still often adorn themselves with items of clothing and makeup to make themselves look better or more attractive, just like we do. So, if attractiveness is the aim, more really is more; unadorned really is less. The nature or extent of the adornment doesn't matter.
Nothing that human beings do as a society really does any harm to the species as a whole. Bare or not, we all go on regardless. Have fun!
Actually it's a social vehicle. The same way ankles were two hundred years ago. In the time of King James toplessness was a symbol of virginity. What these women are really trying to do, most of them anyway, is to get rid of current society's notion that breasts are dirty, sexual, immoral, whatever. And they're right, mantits are far grosser.
Testicles are located outside the body so that they remain cool enough to produce viable sperm. So that's no argument against intelligent design.
The argument against intelligent design is that God had to wait for us to come along and invent portable air conditioners that would have enabled us to keep our nuts squirrelled safely away.
Another argument against the fact that God even exists at all, let alone bothered its arse to design anything is that prawns and avocadoes don't grow iin the same place, and again, we had to come along and invent modern refrigerated transport to bring them together.
Topless? Bah, we should all go naked temperature permitting (think how much global warming we'd save on washing) and women should be allowed to wear as little or as much as they want. Okay, so I'm a naturist - I was born naked.
That said, if the asshole men out there could quietly go away and kill themselves on a battlefield somewhre so that we don't have repeats of the film, The Accused, then women would feel a lot more comfortable. And if by some miracle, the marketing morons found it in themselves to reflect the real world and not some homosexual perception of women, then women would actually celebrate their individuality instead of covering it up.
Still, topless is a good start and a woman's right to be topless should be in the human rights act. Oh, no but that'll break the mould, with the politico shysters actually doing something that we want wouldn't it?
Why are we still paying them wages?
How adroit that, while picking my way through this thread (especially the US/UK comparative debate at play), I chanced to look at the Antony Gormley website ( www.oneandother.co.uk ) to see nothing less than a young lady sitting on a plinth in the middle of Trafalgar Square - starkers. A colleague told me she is not the first (though possibly the first female) to have done so over the course of the "installation". She wasn't doing anything at all, just sitting motionless on a draped dining-chair for an hour. (Artist's model, perhaps?)
I think that seems to address London's tolerance to female public top(and bottom)lessness quite eloquently. You can't get much more public than that! Er, I should add that I'm writing from the midst of the Edinburgh Festival which is literally swamped in nudity of the on-stage variety (and has been for many years).
"quote"The USA is fundamentalist puritanical state mostly populated by ultra-conservative religious zealots. Remember, this is the same country that has to actually debate whether or not to teach evolution!"/quote"
That is far from true. It's just that only the anal ones are the only ones that didn't have any fun in their life that are eligible for government work. It's also the idiots that watch FOX news and believe the crap they shovel them they call news.
I'm finding the church in my country is more like a swiss bank than a house of worship since they actually hand out reciepts for donations for tax purposes, but also churches actually have high interest bank accounts so the worshipers are actually more like investors. It's one big tax evasion scam and the church splits the interest as a fee for helping all these so called chosen people steal from their country "cough"Bush"/cough".
So as you can see I like a lot of others in the US think the far right are full of crap and when they talk they're just basically just passing gas.
Debatable. The testes could have been exposed to hotter temperatures outside the body where humans evolved, but hydrostatic shock from an active lifestyle (swinging through trees/hunting) could have damaged them internally. Someone correlated testes location with lifestyle in different species... where did I read that, one of Richard Dawkins books, probably.
On topic... Breastfeeding is perfectly natural, and I'm all for women deciding about attire for themselves. Of course breasts are dual use, infant feeding and sexual display, but anyone who thinks clothes prevent the sexual display aspect haven't seen tight sweaters.
icon? insert innuendo here.
Yet another example of the rights of the individual triumphing over common-sense. Because men can remove their tops in public, why should women be denied this right? After all, breasts are perfectly natural as is breast-feeding in public. While we're at it, can I whip my old fella out for a quick 5-knuckle shuffle in public as well because that too is perfectly natural and has proven medical benefits. Sheesh!
Paris for obvious reasons
<QUOTE>
mantits are far grosser
</QUOTE>
Grossness, as with beauty, is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and changes from season to season. Cuddly and hairy bears are in big demand in some quarters. For everyone on earth there is someone to love you, somewhere, and the internet makes finding that someone a bit easier. Some of you commenters need a bit of work though.
But I think you will need to see radical changes in the societies' attitudes towards clothing and sexuality before you see meaningful rights to forgo the former, to whatever degree. Either men and woman are truly equals, making an individual's sex an adjunct to, rather than a defining element of their identity, or they are quasi-voluntarily non-equal, with identities built on the differences between the sexes rather than similarities.
In a world where the measure of an individual has little or nothing to do with sex, today's highly sexually divided clothing and often rigid socio-economic gender roles would have no place and the exposing of a female body would be no more or less shocking than the exposing of a male body. Sadly, we don't live in such enlightened times as a cursory glance over the covers of the fashion magazines offered up for sale at grocery store checkouts lanes or a stroll through any department store will quickly demonstrate.
In other words, one cannot both posses one's foodstuff and ingest it as well.
"The USA is fundamentalist puritanical state...ultra-conservative religious zealots... gun-nuts... THOU ART THE MINION OF SATAN! religion, ... this great evil is on the rise again; intolerance and hate...
...the cancer that is religion, ... illogical religious doctrine...inability to critically think...stupid hate ...religious fools."
Yes - intolerance is indeed a terrible thing.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/feature-stories/malaysian-woman-caning-shariah-20090821.
Reading the Amnesty website I see this is a sharia court verdict - if our govt allows sharia here, this could be our country in a few years. Should be good for S&M addicts everywhere
".....but Europe, while historically more tolerant and broadminded, is also now displaying worrying tendencies to that end."
Whilst the UK is part of Europe, it does not represent attitudes in the rest of europe when it comes to issues like nudity, sex, prostitution, etc. Britain is much closer to the US in this respect, with some of the most draconian pornography laws outside of the middle east. Countries in continental Europe are typically far more relaxed about nudity than either the UK or the US.
I wouldn't want to live in a country where people think that a photograph of a woman breastfeeding her baby is pornography but consider it acceptable that guns are sold in supermarkets and that schools need metal detetctors. Each to their own, I suppose.
"Firstly, womens breasts are sexual objects, pretty much most of their time..."
You do talk a lot of ugly bollocks. We (humans) have got culture now, and have done for, 40,000-odd years. So evolutionary origins, whatever they may be, are far from the be all and end all. Then there's your fixation with breasts. What about shiny hair? Good legs? Would you like to keep them special (i.e. covered up) as well? Or perhaps you're not a leg man (most adolescents aren't). And to give it due focus, what is with your premise that people should be modest? I really think you'd be happer as an aphid. So much more to that piece but you couldn't see beyond the norks.
Though I tread on extremely thin ice here, that the Moderatrix hasn't dignified your tripe with a correction is, I believe, a reflection of how beneath contempt it was.
I wanted to get on with the real work of considering how ID could survive the prawn/avocado conundrum but sadly no.
'I'm also a big fan of women not bearing their breasts all the time.' Bearing breasts is not an option for most women as the alternative is a mastectomy. Whether they are bared is a different matter.
I recall there was an Italian seaside town where the issue of nudity on the beach was discussed, and the mayor decided that only aesthetically pleasing bods could be so displayed - with a prior display to a committee which decided if the body in question was up to the required standard..
If you`ll bomb Afghanistan into the stone age so that women there don`t have to wear burkhas, then what the fuck are you doing forcing them to wear shirts at home.
Just like you`ll slaughter however many people it takes in central and south America / south east Asia so that they can step up from the horrible world of one party communist cooperation to your fantastic two party capitalist competition.
The best country in the world, 1 step up from the worst countries in the world! What does that tell you about the world?
Don't know what's the matter with most of you lot, makes me wonder where the Y chromosome has gone. Translation of most of your comments :-
"Women's tits have no effect on me, women are really just the same as men, what's the problem? Anyone who objects to seeing women's tits in the street is religious/puritan/anti-women".
And John Ozimek's article says "Evidence of this blind sexualisation ... of breasts in any context is widespread."
Jeez, I feel sorry for poor John if he doesn't see women's tits as sexual. Hey John, you're missing a lot. And most of the rest of you sound like earnest theorists in mom's basements and have never seen a woman's tit in your lives - except hers thirty years ago.
I have seen a lot of women's tits, and they never cease to turn me on. I have taken quite a few photos of them too, some of which are here on the internet. But there is a right time and place to look at - and touch - women's tits, and that should be of my chosing. That makes me a puritan? And I don't want getting erections in public either thanks, it''s uncomfortable with trousers on and it makes you look like you are not getting it, even if you are. WTF is that got to do with religion? It's a practical consideration. Or don't you guys ever get erections?
You don't seem to get it that women like Gloria Stovell are basically taking to take the piss out of nerds like you - she's saying "Look! but you can't touch, Ha Ha!".
F#@k off, Gloria.
Anyone else predict a massive upswing in attendance at girls volleyball games? A serious question is, what happens when you 16 or 14 year old daughter decides to go topless. Any guy over 17 who sees her has pretty much commited a crime with the way the law is currently written. Not to mention, do you honestly want your teen daughter walking around in public topless?
I for one agree women should have equal rights to go bare-chested in public IF men are allowed to, but on public property I feel neither should be allowed to, and on private property it should be up to the owner to make the call to the extent those not complying with owner's demands to vacate the premises without pause, should be subject to a fine.
What's the real issue here? No it's not religion, it's that men are horn-dogs. Half nude women are fairly seen as disruptive and men the far more aggressive pursuers. Law is not only meant to be "fair" in principle it is also meant to maintain order.
Have you seen the breasts on the women in typical 3rd world countries where they're typically topless? No wonder that breasts aren't seen as sexual, the state of health and physical beauty in most such places pales to the evoluntionary wonders that we have in the 1st and 2nd world. Part of that is also thanks to that old evil the bra. Let gravity have it's way with a pair of breasts and it'll cause sagging also associated with aging, making those women less sexually desirable in a primitive sense that through evidence of online pron, seems to be transcendent into an intellectual one as well.
I can't compel a woman to wear a bra nor would I want to, but I sure would like it if we kept a few boundaries for societal sexual conduct so there's none of that silliness with interpreting flirting, normal social interactions, and harassment.
Is it harassment to merely glance at a clothed woman a bit longer than usual, whether you find her attractive or not? How about if she is nude but for a bikini bottom? How much freedom of speech do you have when you feel like speaking about something innocent enough like the woman having a body akin to a work of art, expecting nothing to come of it? How will she know you really expect nothing to come of it?
In more primative societies there are also more primitive and severe punishments to keep people within social boundaries, these help foster an environment where being topless isn't so much of a problem. As for the rest of the world I see no clear answer except the easy and obvious one, topless only in designated areas or private property, though no inherent need to seclude that property from other public or private property, just a geographical rather than visual boundary.
However in the end I have to suspect these women *fighting* for the right to be topless don't care nearly as much about social injustice as would make you believe, they're just another group of people in the modern world with nothing better to do with their time so they picked up a cross and carry it where they can on their crusade... unfortunately a bit like the greeenie environmentalists so far as finding something to occupy otherwise boring lives.
Now to open another can of worms why is the issue toplessness? Must men and women wear pants of some sort? Is it really the genitals that provoke sexual behavior? I say no and can't remember walking up to a woman I had no interest in but after asking to see the genitals suddenly became enamored.
Sexuality can't be hidden away with a shirt or pants so let's try to move onward to other good reasons to be wearing a shirt. Anyone ever had a sunburn on their nipples? OUCH!
I'm pretty much in favour of nudity. We are born naked and clothes were initially for keeping warm until religion twisted it into a fetish.
Only 1 thing keeps me from becoming an outspoken proponent of nudity - the though of seeing my 10-ton mother-in-law naked. I'm sure i would never recover from the psychological damage.
Its probably why (predominatly) male judges oppose nudity laws. At one end, they probably would love to see more naked women... on the other hand there is probably a little voice on a loop saying "mother-in-law.... mother-in-law".....
>>Have you ever thought that women might (quite rightly) not give a a flying fuck about what you think they should or should not do with their tits? Jesus.
Many, many, many women do care about what I think about their tits, this includes women I know and women I don't, the social and biological aspects of their breasts either displayed or covered are very important to them and my (as a member of society in general) opinion is very important to them, to think that the average Joe in the street is indifferent to womens breasts is astoundingly naive.
Some people indicate that countries where breasts are exposed have de-sexualised breasts therefore my argument about breasts being inherrently sexual is not valid, but this is a trap, does this mean that countries where penises are exposed the penis is not a sexual organ? Mycho indicates that covering breasts indicates that "breasts are dirty, sexual, immoral", OK I personally don't have that take on it, and I suspect that's not most peoples take on it either, to me modesty on breasts, showing a soft curve, a shape, perhaps a hint of nipple is sexual and sensual and all the more sexy when a woman invites me to touch (also, one would assume, and in my experience, more sensual for the woman, to be touched in an area less exposed).
Desexualising breasts will mean they are less special for men and women, and as long as lactating women are given respect during the few breastfeeding months of their lives there's no dichotomy.
I can't take credit for staying out of it, MnM, as through some great fortune I haven't been moderating this thread. Now that I am moderating it, I can assure you that I'm going to stay out of it and will be taking my usual tack for this sort of thing - letting some of the crap through so you can see what's out there, and nixing the very worst, which I'll let you imagine.
Alright, I'm going to have to respond to this just for clarity's sake. This line
"Evidence of this blind sexualisation ... of breasts in any context is widespread"
was added in the editing process. By a person with tits, as it happens. Not that that makes any difference. The crucial point is 'in any context'. Perhaps I should have put 'in all contexts'. Of course they're sexual in some contexts. Just not all of them.
I understand it's a complicated issue, I'm not quite sure where I stand on it as it may not actually be very good for women (yes, yes, or men) at all. However, this
>>You don't seem to get it that women like Gloria Stovell are basically taking to take the piss out of nerds like you - she's saying "Look! but you can't touch, Ha Ha!".
is a little worrying. Is this really how you think women's minds work? It's not all about you, you know - some women want to go topless for comfort, not as some grand plan to cocktease the entire male populace.
Hey ho.
>> While the focus of the gotopless campaign is legal discrimination against women, in the smut-averse US even male nipples can occasionally come in for censure, as one Cincinnatti man discovered to his cost a few years back, when he was charged with indecency for displaying his breasts in public. (from the article)
To be fair the man in question, Jerome Mason, was probably black (can't find any pictures, so guessing by the name). He can, therefore, be arrested and charged (and convicted) of anything in the US regardless of trivial things like evidence.
You sir are a very VERY sad man if you have so little controle over yourself that just the sight of a pair of female breasts give you an erection.
Or to take it down to your level of conversation and class:
LOL maybe you should get some more pussy so your dick dosent flap around everytime you see tits.
Rounded breasts are unique to homo sapiens. Gorillas, chimps, etc., don't have them, but still manage to breast feed their young. According to Desmond (Naked Ape) Morris, and also (if I recall correctly) Richard Dawkins, the reason for the evolution of breasts in the human female is self-mimicry: breasts evolved to resemble female buttocks, probably around the same time that bipedalism became the norm, and face-to-face (rather than "doggy fashion") became the preferred position for sexual intercourse. According to this theory, therefore, the primary function of breasts in the evolutionary sense IS to act as a sexual stimulus to males.
Paris (even though she's a bit on the skinny side for my tastes).
<<And where did America's religious zealots come from? Right, Europe. If you put all people of personality X in one isolated place and 400 years later their descendents act the same way, don't be filled with outrage or shock.>>
Yep, it's called inbreeding. Bit like the Monarchy in Blighty. Bloody surprised they're not all sitting on river bridges, playing banjo's the the tune of that favourite Southern Song, "You'm gonna squeal like a piggie"
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