All Topless, All the Time
I have breasts. You have breasts (well, you do if you’re a woman, or Meatloaf in Fight Club). Women have breasts. What we do with them on the other hand, is our decision. Personally, I prefer to keep mine under wraps. There are, however, women who’ve fought for the legal right to be topless in public. Their argument is that if it’s legal for men to show their nipples, then it should be legal for them, too.
Really?
Now, I’m all for celebrating the human body and not being ashamed of our sexuality...but honestly, I don’t know if women prancing around with their boobs bouncing in the breeze is exactly in everyone’s best interest. To me, being inundated with too much bare boob is akin to watching a Vin Diesel marathon on TV—twice. Things blow up. Cars go fast. Something else blows up. It’s the same thing over and over. Eventually, the violence desensitizes to the point of banality. Here a tit, there a tit, everywhere a tit, tit…
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want humdrum boobies.
Call me old fashioned, but I was brought up to have a modicum of modesty—and there’s a good reason for that. It’s called “the tease.” All this in-your-face stuff numbs the senses and creates a callus on the libido you couldn’t get through with an army of Ped Eggs—and trust me, you don’t want one of them anywhere near your libido. A little mystery, anticipation—that’s the stuff mind-blowing sex is made of. If we go all topless, all the time, serious shit is going to go down, possibly resulting in the end of civilization (and healthy sex) as we know it. Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic
But it would be big—bigger than Sheyla Hershey’s.
See what I mean? This is a matter of public safety here.
Daring to Bare is a Privilege, Not a Right
Believe me, I get it. Equality is a good thing: Equal pay for equal work; equal treatment under the law. But sometimes in the name of equality, we miss the point. We give up the home court advantage.
We take the tit out of titillation.
And let’s face it. As a society, we’re just not all that evolved. Boobs are considered sexual in nature, and in this culture, public displays of sex are generally frowned upon. If a man started a campaign for the right to “Free Willy!” and go bottomless, he’d be locked up…and with good reason.
Here’s the deal: Naked female breasts are not the same as a naked male chest. Women don’t get off to images of a man’s hairy pecs (well, not typically). But I challenge you to find a man who couldn’t successfully box the bald-headed clown to a pair of naked boobs. I’m not even talking a whole woman—just an anonymous pair of floating hooters. Yeah, they’re that powerful.
To me, the biggest irony about this issue is that the women who are fighting for the right to walk around topless are doing it just so they can, when in many places, breastfeeding in public is still considered an indecent act. Indecent? The main purpose of breasts—sorry, guys—is to feed a baby. It’s a natural. It’s normal. That they are super-enticing jerk-fodder is just icing on the cake. As a mom, I would much rather have the right to discreetly suckle my baby at a Starbucks than to just be able to show my nipples because guys can.
Even if this “equality” truly were something worth fighting for, it would take years of seeing women topless on the street before it became alike seeing a shirtless man. And until then, it would create chaos, confusion, excessive drooling and enough whiplash lawsuits to keep court calendars jammed until the next century. Oh yeah, and did I mention the amount of web sites devoted to “Breasts About Town” or the fact that YouTube would be inundated with videos of topless coeds walking around on college campuses all over the country?
For the sake of argument, let’s say for a moment that these women have their way, and suddenly, it’s boobs as far as the eye can see. It might be a pretty picture as far as guys are concerned, but what would the reality be? Guys everywhere snapping shots with their iPhones of bare-breasted babes to put up on Facebook, as well as tagging for derision the saggy-boobed and muffin-topped unlucky enough to unsuspectingly stumble across the paths of their viewfinders. And yes, one of those muffin-topped mommas would be me. After having a child and breastfeeding, my husband is the only one who is privileged enough to see my—still sexy, but not quite as perky—funbags. And that’s I think how it should stay.
Okay...here’s where I get all progressive, what my husband calls wishy-washy. Although I’m not a fan of women walking the boulevards sans chemise—and I certainly wouldn’t flash my ta-tas even if it were legal. I believe that we should all be able to do what we want, as long as we don’t harm others. But I don’t have to like it, I don’t have to partake in it, and I do reserve the right to say, “I told you so,” when all hell breaks loose and there’s a multiple-car fender-bender stretching from San Diego to Vancouver on the six o’clock news caused by boober-necking truck drivers practically every night.
So now I’m going to say something that a lot of feminists and forward-thinking women may not like.
I think we should let the guys have this one.
I don’t want a level playing field.
I want an advantage.
I want the power of the boob to remain intact. This is a double standard that should remain in place—along with our tops.
What do you moms think?