The Great Toplessness Debate
Image: Shutterstock
Last week, Adidas highlighted its new collection of sports bras by tweeting a photo grid of 25 different pairs of naked boobs, earning both praise and pushback across the internet. In response to criticism, the company defended the post by arguing, “It’s important to normalize the human body.”
Based on the variety of opinions we stumbled across, the topic we’re tackling today is toplessness – should it be allowed across the board? Only men? Not at all?
⏮ The backstory… In most parts of the US, it’s illegal for adult women to go topless in public due to local laws and regulations, even if it's technically allowed on a state level. Breastfeeding in public is legal and protected by federal and state law in all 50 states.
Only a handful of cities, including Philadelphia and NYC, currently allow women to bare their breasts in public. No such restrictions exist for male toplessness – though it wasn’t always that way.
- Up until the 1930s, both women and men were banned from taking their tops off in public. Then men campaigned for – and eventually won – the right to sunbathe naked from the waist up.
- But that movement also had its haters. A group of New York women told the Associated Press in June of 1936 that they had “no desire to gaze upon hairy chested men.”
🔥 Then, in the 1960s… The “Bra Burning” movement began to gain traction as women advocated for more equal rights across the board. More recently, the phrase “Free the Nipple” has been used to voice support for the women’s topless movement (fun fact: the hashtag is unsearchable on Instagram).
📝 To (over)simplify the arguments: Advocates of “Free the Nipple” point to the oversexualization of women’s bodies, arguing society should work towards removing those stigmas by allowing women to bare their breasts in public without consequence.
- On the other side, some critics contend that allowing bare nipples won’t result in them being de-sexualized, while others argue the entire movement only serves as a distraction from more pressing women’s issues.
What do you think?
Share this!
Recent Discussion stories
Discussion
| February 11, 2022Does Facial Recognition Have a Place in Society?
Facial recognition technology is increasingly common throughout society. We can unlock our phones with our faces, smart doorbells let us know who is outside our home, and services like Clear let you attend events or fly on airplanes using your face as an ID.
But everyone isn’t on board with this new trend – just ask the IRS, which came to that conclusion this week after announcing a program that would have required taxpayers to verify their identity using facial recognition software from ID.me.
Discussion
| February 9, 2022How Should Online Content Moderation Be Handled?
There’s been a lot of discussion about censorship and free expression on the internet in the wake of the Joe Rogan-Spotify situation. We’ve previously covered the laws governing how internet companies treat user-generated content, but decided to revisit the topic in light of recent events.
Discussion
| February 7, 2022When Will the Pandemic Be Over?
A handful of countries, including Denmark and Sweden, have lifted all Covid restrictions in recent weeks and are shifting to an ‘endemic’ response to the virus.
We’ve previously covered what it might take for the pandemic to be considered endemic in the US, but in light of recent news (and a new Covid variant) we’ve decided to revisit the topic.
You've made it this far...
Let's make our relationship official, no 💍 or elaborate proposal required. Learn and stay entertained, for free.👇
All of our news is 100% free and you can unsubscribe anytime; the quiz takes ~10 seconds to complete