Should Women be Permitted to Appear Topless in Public?

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Maybe that's why Americans don't vacation much in Sweden -- they're afraid of the naked boobies, and the, er, negative externalities.

I'm apparently not allowed to link to Zombietime, but that site has numerous examples of why public toplessness is a BAD THING.

Not all female breasts look like Trish Stratus'.

It would be hot

Seriously, I think having some sort of stigma about what women can show from their bodies and what it is considered indecency, has to do somehow with unfair view and treatment of women in history, some religious cultures for example have been and some (extremists) are still like this, it seems, when women were not allowed to show even legs and arms, and even face, except eyes in some cases, it was because to avoid "temptation of the flesh" so that in my opinion, not only puts women in an unfair level, but it also objectified them somehow.

Well, a negative externality depends on the context. A nudey bar's positive externality could be a church's negative.

It has a lot to do with cultural context and these laws have a lot to do with how much cultural ideas should be a part of legality. The fact of the matter is that we still have a group of people who will either have to suffer from the actions of these women or will have to compromise their values to live with the other and essentially speaking we end up with a variant of coercion in a free society due to the flawed nature of public property and of the public in general. I dunno, I guess my stance is that privacy = freedom.

I don't know whether nudism is wrong. From my standpoint, all moralities are socially constructed. However, it does conform to my definition of idolatry, as do racism, ethnicism, sexism, nationalism, ageism, ableism (including neurelitism and audism), adultism, and colorism.

It is a little known fact that these clothes are actually protection against "Aliens" that try using "Anal Probes". True fact.

I do not feel that morality = legality nor do I think they should be equivalent. I haven't yet said anything about my position on the legality of women going topless in Sweden at private pools. Honestly, I don't feel that I know Swedish culture well enough to have an opinion about that. I do know that my eventual opinion would depend heavily on cultural context. That is really all I feel comfortable saying.

I think that legality is INHERENTLY derived from morality and that escaping that would be like escaping from the notion that mass attracts mass. Laws come from values and values come from a moral code of some form. I assume you mean public pools, correct? I mean, who can stop a person from being nude in all private pools? Cultural context is a question and it isn't(sort of an odd phrasing) and I really don't see culture as that important in the view that you see it. I see an individual as having a culture, but that the group's culture is simply an aggregation; there is more to it than that, but the individual is the most significant unit for analysis and I think that on some level you fall back to that if only in your faith as I don't think you are a dominionist, correct?

Yes, I did mean to say public, oops.

I agree that legality is inherently derived from morality, and I have not said anything to the contrary. All I said was that morality is not equivalent to legality. Here are some examples for why I say that. I think that lying is immoral but do not think that it should therefore be illegal. Likewise, if I lived in a society where slavery was legal, I would still find it to be immoral. I find slavery and lying to be immoral because of my religious values, but I know other people also find these things to be immoral regardless of those values.

I also think that morals are not equivalent to mores. For instance, it is not immoral for me to face the back of the elevator when everyone else is facing the front, but I would be breaking a social more. However, I think there are circumstance where mores and morals do overlap. Perhaps this bare breast thing in Sweden is one of these instances; I don't know. It is not immoral inherently to go bear breasted, otherwise why do we all seem fine with cultures where all women are topless like some in tropical areas where it is just too damn hot to cover up.



I do not agree.

Culture cannot exist in an individual outside of society. Take one of the most basic elements of culture for example, language. Why would an individual start talking at all without someone to talk to. What would be the point? A person who does not exist in a culture ends up becoming feral. The only way we can become individuals in the first place is through our culture. Therefore, I find culture to be more basic than the individual and a more significant unit for analysis.

Ah, I can see that point. It still does not entangle the complex relationship between morality and legality though, as you take a semi-liberal position, as you do not make clear the distinction between the moral and legal and immoral and illegal, only give examples of 2 combinations without a general rule. I can be very liberal with this connection, but I have also been toying with the idea of an individualistic form of anarchism.

That also has some truth to it, however, given that this is something that is stirring up controversy apparently and that is against the law then I would argue that by your morality it would likely be immoral given biblical commands to obey the law and to not act in manners that could cause others to fall. Certainly in some cases if the mores do not support an act then it would be immoral.


I talk to myself all of the time. I do not claim that we exist in a complete void of humanity but rather that all ideas come from individuals and all actions are made by individuals and thus even this idea of culture is merely a creation of the actions and interactions of many other individuals all working based upon their own ideas, which are modified by others that they grew up with. Ultimately though, their ideas and how they live belongs to them, it may have some commonality with others but people are different and this differentness is important and distinctive as nothing places a collective as morally higher than an individual. There is also the entire issue of the many many subcultures within any society, even one with a dominant culture, because people can be a part of multiple subcultures within this culture or even outside of the dominant culture, ultimately it takes methodological individualism to untangle them all and objectively examine them.

I really don't know what kind of developmental effect that would have on kids, that tends to be the most primary concern most people have about anything - ie. seeing something weird in your formative years like 4 - 8 or 9 can have some real strange and unexpected effects that lead to fetishes, philias, and things of that nature.

Other than that of course there's the overall truth of what kinds of people would really want to get naked in public - supposedly its legal in Canada (and at least some parts) and from what I've heard from at least a few guys up there really confirmed what I thought, ie. most of the women who would want to walk around topless in most cases would probably be 50 and over (though the way a lot of guys are, yeah, I can understand why it would work out that way).

In my field, sociology, culture is shorthand for "way of life" or "total way of life." As a category, it would include norms (rules of conduct, including mores and folkways), values (concepts of what is important), language, etc.

I cannot give you a general rule because not everyone agrees what is and what is not moral. I don't see why knowing the distinction I make between what is moral and what is legal is relevant to my main point. Take the example of abortion, some would say that abortion is immoral and should be illegal, some might say that abortion is immoral but should not be illegal, and others might say that abortion is both moral and should be legal. Regardless of the distinction I make about this issue, which I am leaving out purposefully to make my point, (so don't assume anything about my views before you know them), you can still see that morality and legality are not equivalent.



That would definitely be something I would consider. However, if I am to follow Jesus example, I would also have to consider the many times he broke the law, eating grain on the sabbath, not washing his hands before eating, etc., What kind of law breaking would going topless at a public pool in Sweden be? I don't know enough about Swedish culture to answer that.



Me too.

However, I learned to talk from other people. I did not start talking directly out of the womb.

Also, I don't know if our views about the individual vs. culture are really diametrically opposed or whether the distinction is really that important. I definitely see your point, but I'm beginning to feel like this part of our debate is digressing into something akin to which came first the chicken or the egg.

It does relate to our personal positions on this matter. I can understand the distinction, but the reason still ultimately comes down to conflicts between various drives. Usually this is between liberalism and another value and the question then falls down to why liberality here and not there. I know where it comes in, but I have difficulty seeing where people draw these lines.


It is chicken-egg-ish. The distinction is very important for describing methodology which might come to play in social science. I dunno, all I know is that Austrian economic thought tends to stress methodological individualism VERY highly and many of their conclusions are derived from this strong emphasis on individualism. I am somewhat influenced by their ideas I guess.

But, they do draw the lines, right? What does it matter how they draw them. It may be of interest to you, but it has no bearing on my point. That the lines are there at all is my only point. If there were no difference in our minds between morality and legality there would be no line drawing.

Last edited by spdjeanne on 23 Nov 2007, 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.