Should women be forced to cover up their breasts?
When it comes to breasts — of the human woman variety — I’m of two minds. Sometimes, I’m all like “za-zaza-wowie,” while other times it’s more of a “va-va-va-voom” thing” The differences are subtle.
I bring this up because of a woman named Phoenix Feeley, who, at the time of this writing, is sitting in Monmouth County jail because she went topless in Spring Lake in 2008. (Spring Lake does not tolerate nudity. Did you hear about the guy who almost got arrested because he was rinsing the sand off his 2 and 4 year old? Crazy. Anyway …)
Anyway, Feeley is a topless activist. She believes it’s a woman’s right — just like a man’s right — to be able to walk around without covering up the nippular region. And she decided to exercise her right in Spring Lake. Police ended up arresting her. She decided to fight this out in court. She lost. A state appeals court heard her case in 2011, and ruled (according to an Asbury Park Press article) “restrictions on the exposure of the female breast are supported by the important governmental interest in safeguarding the public’s moral sensibilities.” (More on that in a minute.)
She’s since taken her case to the United States Supreme Court, where she (presumably) hopes Clarence Thomas speaks up and demands this case be heard.
But in the meantime, she’s gone to jail, and, for good measure, is on a hunger strike. The judge sentenced her to 16 days Friday morning. She could pay a fine and be done with it, but again: topless activist.
This isn’t Feeley’s first brush with the law; she was arrested in New York some time ago for the same issue, but won a case against the police because, as it turns out, women can go topless in the city.
So there you have it. Some places in this great big world of ours (New York, some beaches, indigenous tribes featured in National Geographic) it’s OK for women to go topless. But in most places — New Jersey being one of them — it’s not OK.
As for me? Well — for real this time — I’m of two minds.
See, I’m all for equal rights as a general principle, and so on that point alone, I do think women should be able to go topless if they so choose.
But on the “moral sensibility” front … well … za-za-za-wowie. I mean, they’re breasts. They trigger a sexual response, you dig? No one really knows why this is, though a recent Psychology Today story theorizes about something called the “genital echo theory,” which, clearly, is the best-named theory in human history.
The theory is relatively straightforward, and I’ll just lift it here from the article: “Females developed pendulous breasts around the time hominids began walking upright in order to provoke the excitation males formerly felt when gazing at the fatty deposits on the buttocks.” In short: Butts are hot also. And more precisely, breasts became a sexual signaling device. And that hasn’t changed today, as men the world over love breasts. Big, small and every variation thereof. I realize this is not exactly breaking news, but it’s worth noting here.
Which is why I kind of agree with the state appeals court while at the same time kind of agreeing with Feeley. There is a moral sensibility issue here, and it runs smack dab into the gender rights issue.
There’s really no good answer, though I will say this: Boobs.
I will also say this: While the sight of naked breasts in the right setting is all kinds of sexy, the sight of naked breasts (and their owner) walking down 33rd and 3rd is … well, you ask me, it takes the za-za-za out of the wowie, the va-va-va out of the voom.