Sunday, August 23, 2009 is "National Go Topless Protest Day." According to GoTopless.org, "topless women will rally in great numbers across the USA to protest this gross inequality in the law and will demand that they be granted the fundamental right to be topless where men already enjoy that right..."
On August 26, 1920, the U.S. Constitution was amended to grant women the right to vote. By choosing a date in August for the national protest, organizers of the Topless Day hope to highlight what they see as a connection between women's rights and the right to go topless. They also want to simply make the point that women's breast are not shameful or lewd. They say:
GoTopless is committed to helping women perceive their breasts as noble, natural parts of their anatomy (whether they are nursing or not). Breasts shouldn’t have to be “modestly” or shamefully hidden from public view any more than arms, legs or feet.
Cities known to be participating this year include New York City, Venice Beach, Chicago, Miami Beach, Portland, Maui, and Columbus – yes, that's Columbus, Ohio!
Columbus, Ohio, was the location of an interesting topfree story in the news a few years ago. In 1995 five women who went topless in the Columbus Gay Pride parade were arrested and later released. The charges were later dropped. According to Ohio Law, breasts are not considered "private parts", so in Ohio if a woman is topless in public, it is not considered indecent exposure. In fact, three of the women who had been arrested in the Columbus Pride parade, later sued the city of Columbus for false arrest and won their case. They were paid $15,000 in total for damages. Since then, the Columbus police force has been educated not to arrest top free women. Unfortunately, not all cities in Ohio seem to honor this statute, so the police in some cities might ask topless women to cover up – supposedly on the grounds that they are "causing a public disturbance." So long as women comply with any such police request, they supposedly should not be in danger of any legal action.
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Comments
I am not comfortable with the idea of going nude at a beach in front of a lot of other people, or the thought of being caught having sex in the woods before I found www.naturistspace.org,now! I can tell everyone that I AM A naturist! Why not? What is there to be ashamed of? Being nude is great!!!!
I thought I would leave a comment in support not only of the right to be naked but top free protest. Most naturist nudists support top free mainly because we see success by this movement as an important step to achieving the larger goal, the right to be naked in public, stopping the pointless harassment by police and law makers for no other reason than a large part of America wants to live without clothes!
Gentlemen surely you have better and more constructive things to do than throwing ordinary law abiding folks in jail for being nude and natural!
Ladies more power to the top free movement and know there are thousands of people who support you! Its time the lawmakers finally got that the breasts are not a sexual organ but a nurturing one. It is descrimination and an unfair yardstick that allows men a freedom that it denies women! As Bob Dylan wrote in song long ago, "Get out of the new road if you cna't lend your hand O the times they are achangin!"
what a strange article people in third world countries want clothes to cover up and americans are fighting to go nude or topless whatever. personally i dont know how i will react with b00bs right in my face. if holding hands and holding breasts are held on par than i have no problems women flaunting their breasts.
People in third world countries want clothes for protection from the weather, etc., but that is true for people in all parts of the world. In many cases, if you told poor people that they MUST wear clothes, even at times when clothes are unnecessary, they might react the same as people in richer countries. As for "holding hands and holding breasts"...well, throughout almost all of human history and prehistory human cultures functioned perfectly well without requiring women to cover their breasts. I am confident that no serious harm would be done by allowing toplessness in modern American society. I have participated in two Spencer Tunick photo shoots (Cleveland and Buffalo) in which thousands of men and women gathered together naked without any problems. Within a minute or two of dropping their clothes, virtually everyone discovers that being naked in a crowd of other naked people feels natural - it's almost as if you are psychologically transported back to the days "before Adam and Eve" discovered shame. If you've never had this experience, I know it seems impossible to imagine, but once you've done it, the natural comfortableness seems intuitively obvious.
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