Should Women be Permitted to Appear Topless in Public?

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071122/ap_ ... crs5Gek3QF

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A group of Swedish women is making waves by taking their tops off at public swimming pools in a protest against what they call gender-biased rules on swim wear.

About 40 women have joined the network and staged topless protests in at least three cities, said Sanna Ferm, 22, one of the founders of the group called Bara Brost, or Bare Breasts.

"The purpose of the campaign is to start a debate about why women's bodies are sexualized," Ferm said Wednesday.

She said the fact that men can be bare-chested in public swimming pools but not women is "a concrete example of how women have fewer rights than men."

Reactions from other swimmers have ranged from support and encouragement to anger and even indifference, she said.

The network was formed after two women who were swimming topless in a public swimming pool in Uppsala, north of Stockholm, were asked to cover up or leave.

Women can sunbathe topless in the summertime at beaches around Sweden, which is known for its relaxed attitude toward nudity, but they are required to wear tops at public swimming pools.

Inger Groteblad, a manager at the swimming facility in Uppsala, said it was a matter of security.

"We want to make sure that girls don't get subjected to sexual harassment," she was quoted as saying by tabloid Aftonbladet.

The women have filed a complaint against the facility to Sweden's Equal Opportunities Ombudsman.

Morals are like birds, they fly away from strange people.

Birds also fly away from people who are not strange.

As a kid I used to get i trouble for taking my top off in school. I don't like wearing tops when it is hot and humid. I feel why should I have to wear a top just because I am a woman. It is just more comfortable not to have one on when it is hot.
I know NT's have these silly ideas about culture and morals, but where did they get them from? They got them from other people.

They fly to me and talk to me. Mainly asking for food but staying for company.

Shouldn't be allowed in public swimming pools.

I think that the argument that this is incredibly biased is silly. Pregnancy is also gender biased but we should not alleviate that. Now, if we argue for this then why not allow total nudity? I don't see a logical distinction from one sexual part of the body to the other. I think that Ferm's own point is ridiculous, the female body is sexualized because the male instinct is sexual. There is no why necessary about it, people are what they are, men are horny and boobs are sexy. Nothing more needs to be said and no debate can really get anywhere.


Well, actually this idea isn't so crazy. Breasts are a very sexual part of the human body. That is why men love to ogle them. In fact, some evolutionary biologists think that women evolved breasts to compensate for us being upright beings as monkeys tend to look at the butt for sexual stimulus, so the breasts are like the butt of the upper body.


As a thought this does make sense because for the pool to be public it means that this is the property of the public for which they can make whatever rule they like in some ways.

Both asses and breasts are very nice to look at.

I think that it has nothing to do with the rights of women, but potentially inciting sexual undertones, even provoking a horny guy to rape/harass a female who over exposes. Breasts are sexual alright, and it's for the best interests of society that they are subject to exposure laws. You expose your genitals in public, you can offend all sorts of people instantly.

100 years ago in the USA, it was considered indecent for a woman to expose her ankles. It still is in many countries. In many countries, women are required to dress like this:




the theory being that men are horndogs, and women absolutely need to be guarded and protected from them.

I enjoy looking at a good pair of boobies. I don't have a problem with it.

I think that the anti-boob laws are primarily for the benefit of women. Not to protect women from horny men. Just to protect women from excessive scrutiny. A lot of women go to a lot of effort to make their boobies appear larger and more prominent than they otherwise would be, with specialized underwear. Going topless would expose the mystery. Many women have imperfect boobies that they would be ashamed to show. So, to protect some women from having people think that their boobies are imperfect, custom dictates that ALL women's boobies must be covered.

Personally, I have no problem with public nudity. IMO, it is neither good nor bad to be naked in front of others.

I do have a problem with the philosophy of nudism. Arguing that it is "good" or "healthy" to be nude in public borders on idolatry.

Have nudist colonies for people with such urges. Nudism in the general public is just wrong.

We're not talking about complete nudism -- just boobies.

And, by the way, why is complete nudism wrong?

How do we define right and wrong as existing in the first place? The best thing I can see doing without referring back to some metaphysical realm is by saying that some people don't want complete nudism and that nudity is thus a negative externality.

>>>>>I think that it has nothing to do with the rights of women, but potentially inciting sexual undertones, even provoking a horny guy to rape/harass a female who over exposes. Breasts are sexual alright, and it's for the best interests of society that they are subject to exposure laws. You expose your genitals in public, you can offend all sorts of people instantly.

Actually, the opposite is true, the more men look at topless girls, the less turned on by them they would become. In cultures where the woman walk around topless all the time, the men are not erect all the time. It has to go down sometime. You see, sex and sexual attraction isn't just about the body part it is about novelty. By looking at something new, a person gets aroused by that. That is why new porn is always being made, instead of getting off to the same picture all the time.

In fact the cultures that have the worst treatment of woman, and the most rape, some of the Muslim cultures, actually it is because the woman cover up.

One of the things I like to do in the summer when it is hot and humid is sit around my home naked. It means less laundry for me to do and saves on air conditioner bills. My husband thought he would be horny all the time too, but after a few days he just got over it and his sex drive went back to normal.

How we interpret the connotations of bare breasts has everything to do with cultural context. For instance, it would be much more scandalous for a woman to go bare breasted on the beach in the USA than in Sweden. There is nothing inherently morally wrong about going topless.