Padaviya

While the right to show bare breasts is, *ahem*, supported by law, there remains a social discomfort with the act.

I was a teenager when Ontario passed a law allowing women to doff their tops in public the way men do. My male classmates in high school were glued to the news story.

I remember walking into a math class the morning after the provincial court of Ontario announced the decision. One boy was loudly recounting his morning dogwalk. “This woman was walking her dog too, and she was topless. But she was, like, fifty!” The class started snickering. “I mean, come on! Ew! That’s not what this law is about!”

While you can’t really fault a teenage boy for looking at this law from a T&A point of view, attitudes like these are likely preventing women from acting on their rights. Legally, women have been allowed “topfreedom” in Ontario for the past fifteen years, and can remove their tops publically the same way men do. (At the park? Yes. At Red Lobster? No) In practice, though? I’m an Ontarian, and have seen a woman go topfree once, at a very secluded beach.

Why the reservations? It doesn’t help that women’s breasts are still seen as sexual parts, first and foremost. Recall the Facebook issue of censored breastfeeding photos. Read the lecherous comments in any online article about Femen, the Ukrainian women’s rights group who frequently get media attention for their topless protests. While Ontario’s topfree law is about gender rights, the social and media reactions often paint bare-chested women as exhibitionists or radical activists.

At last year’s Topfree Day of Pride march in Guelph, Ontario, the parade viewers were mostly camera-wielding males. I think it’s hard for women to feel they’re acting on a human rights issue when the crowd is there to gawk. In our cameraphone culture, it’s hard to exercise a countercultural right when there’s a chance that you and your breasts will end up on a Girls with Low Self Esteem website.

I dig this quotation from the Topfree Equal Rights Association, who say: “It’s up to women to decide when and where [breasts] are or aren’t sexual.” Though social attitudes won’t change overnight, I think there’s hope. It wasn’t so long ago that we were scandalized by a glimpse of a woman’s bare shoulder, right?

I was very young as well when the law changed on toplessness in Ontario, and I’ve only ever taken advantage once, also on a secluded beach, and with my male partner (I would have felt too unsafe to do it on my own).  And even then I kept a towel near me in case I needed to cover up fast. 

I was frustrated this past weekend when my partner and I were swimming in Georgian Bay, having fun in the waves, and I wanted to take off the top half of my rather conservative, grannyish swim suit, but there were just too many people on the beach, and it was such a small town that I would have immediately become THAT TOPLESS GIRL WHOSE BOOBS I SAW every time I go back there. 

My partner is from Europe and thinks it’s all funny, and calls me “so North American”. 

Modern women have been told so frequently that their breasts are man-magnets that many find it impossible to believe they have any other biological function. The truth is that there’s almost nothing creepier than a culture in which breasts are reduced to “fun-bags”.

On Monday, May 24th, at approximately 10:30am, I was nursing my 3 month old son on a bench in the Francis Scott Key mall. While I was nursing a woman who worked at the mall customer service desk that was nearby came up to me and asked me if I knew that there was a nursing room in the mall. I told her that I was not aware of the nursing room and I continued to nurse. She then asked me if I’d go to the nursing room to nurse. I told her I would not, that I was okay nursing on the bench. She then asked me again to either go to the nursing room or to cover up with a blanket because she was uncomfortable “and there are kids around.”

If this catches on, half of Hollywood’s females will fall into poverty. Casting for their fourth Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney specifies that fake breasts are not permitted, and actresses will be subjected to pre-shoot jiggle tests to check.

This, from the New York Post, sounds like the beginning of a porno:

The filmmakers sent out a casting call last week seeking “beautiful female fit models. Must be 5ft7in-5ft8in, size 4 or 6, no bigger or smaller. Age 18-25. Must have a lean dancer body. Must have real breasts. Do not submit if you have implants.”

And they warn that there’ll be a “show and tell” day.

To make sure LA talent scouts don’t get caught in a “booby trap,” potential lassies will have to undergo a Hollywood-style jiggle-your-jugs test and jog for judges. If there’s nothing moving from the waist up, they’re saying, it’s a dead giveaway that you’re not all flesh and bones—and you’re out.

How is that not sexual harassment? On the other hand: Is there any way to prove veracity of breasts without sexually harassing? In case Disney meets any ambiguous jiggle tests, here are a few other ways I have thought of to test for veracity of breasts:

• Force actresses to answer, “Have you ever met Hugh Hefner?”
• Compare and contrast lie detector result for “Are your breasts real?” with “Are you a natural blonde?”
• Introduce the actresses to Donald Trump. Anyone he is attracted to can be eliminated prima facie.
• You’ll have to sign an NDA once you read this, but: Dr. 90210: Silicone Victims Unit

All of this raises a rather perplexing question. Because America loves fake boobs. Entire careers have revolved around fake boobs. So why would Disney ban them from Pirates? First, there’s this:

“In the last movie, there were enhanced breasts to give that 18th-century whorish look, and men were pretty well padded too, and no one worried,” a former casting agent said. “But times are changing, and the audience can spot false breasts.”

Also, there is going to be lots of swimming and diving in this movie, and remember the Road Rules lady who bellyflopped and popped her implant? Do not try Baywatch at home, ladies. [NYPost]