DECENT:
OBSCENE:
I’ve always thought the “man tits are fine, women’s are naughty” rule is one of the most blatantly gynophobic of all double standards. It sends a very clear message:
Ladies, your boobs exist solely for men’s sexual enjoyment and thus must be controlled, like everything else uniquely female and “sexual.” If you resist said control, it is obscene and you will be punished (though not before the guys at the station have had a good look).
If you want to support a woman’s right to free-bag but don’t want to get arrested alone, go to LA, NYC, Miami, Chicago, Honolulu, Austin, Berkeley, Santa Fe, Omaha or Bloomington, IN, where GoTopless.org has organized protests taking place today.
Sisters, set the girls free – but please, wear sunscreen.
[tags]GoToppless.org, sexual double standards[/tags]
Oy, I have to disagree with you on this post. I don’t think either the man or the woman should go topless in public. It’s a matter of taste and common sense, in my opinion–on BOTH their parts.
Double standards? Maybe, but I don’t see it that way in this instance. I don’t live in a society that condones females going around topless in public, nor was I brought up in a society where the women go topless outside of men’s clubs or nudist’s colonies.
In my mind, it has nothing to do with freedom denied a woman or granted to a man. It’s a matter of good common sense.
I must agree that the issue of taste IS relevant here, and it is egalitarian… There are just as many women who should not go topless for aesthetic reasons as there are men.
But why is it in poor taste to go topless? Only because we live in a society that has sexualized certain parts of women’s bodies to the point of inability to see them any other way.
As you point out, you were not brought up in a society in which females go around topless. But that is nurture, not nature, and that’s precisely what I am saying. Many cultures do not over-sexualize the female breast (hence the secret stash of National Geographics among young boys in the olden days, before boobs were so easily viewable on TV). The double standard is simply what we are taught, not what is innately sensible.