Chest and Breast Equal in Los Angeles
Tomorrow in Venice Beach, California, there will be a protest march consisting of a group of women wearing no shirts. The initial reaction many people, especially teenage boys, may be nothing beyond the level of a hubba hubba, but there’s a lot more at stake in this demonstration than the groin may indicate.
Americans have no trouble understanding the burkha as a tool of repression against women in fundamentalist Muslim societies. For men to be able to show their faces, when women are not, limits the social humanity of the women who are enclosed by their clothes.
You may say that a woman’s shirt is not the same, because breasts are sexual objects that ought not to be displayed in public, where strange men can ogle them. However, fundamentalist Muslims make the same arguments about women’s hair, or their faces.
It’s true, of course, that hair can be sexy. A face can be very sexy. However, we American men are able to go through our lives with women’s hair and faces exposed without being distracted by them.
The same can be true of breasts. When I was a teenager, I couldn’t even think of a woman’s breast without becoming excited. Now, I realize that the excitement came not from the breast itself, but from the transgression of a limitation in order to create a sexual display.
A breast exposed for sexual purposes is exciting. A breast that just so happens to be exposed is not exciting. American men can learn to understand that.
Let’s not burkha the torsos of American women. Let us make chest and breast equal.
Go to Go Topless to find out more about the protest.
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