I mean specifically the nipples, not the entire boob. It isn’t considered nudity (at least in the places I’ve been) for a woman to expose any part of their breast except the nipple itself. That (plus men’s nipples being so boring nobody even thinks to mention them) is what I find weird.
That does raise one obvious question: is the cultural difference (1) a real difference of sexualisation of body parts, or (2) does the average [†] hetero women look at topless men the same way that the average [†] hereto man looks at topless women, but society as a whole hasn’t noticed because it is male-dominated and not enough men in power ask women?
{As an aside: In the context lindybeige would be an example of argument from authority fallacy; expecting him to be right about comparative global sexuality is like expecting sexplanations to be right about comparing the relative merits of ancient Athenian and Persian armour.
That doesn’t mean he must be wrong (if I said that I world be making the fallacy fallacy), but surely there is a better example to use than him?}
[†] to emphasise: average as in “no I can’t just ask my exes that would be anecdotes”
> I mean specifically the nipples, not the entire boob. It isn’t considered nudity (at least in the places I’ve been) for a woman to expose any part of their breast except the nipple itself. That (plus men’s nipples being so boring nobody even thinks to mention them) is what I find weird.
there are a lot of situations where it would be considered inappropriate for a woman to expose most of a breast (though perhaps not nudity, per se). the degree of coverage socially required for a man or a woman varies a lot. like if I wore cargo shorts to work, it would merely be against the dress code. if I wore only a speedo (or a woman wore a bikini), it would be inappropriate.
once you've decided you have to make and enforce rules about nudity, you need to make them unambiguous. "cannot show nipple" is a lot less ambiguous than "most cover most of breast". "must cover entire breast" is also fraught; how do you decide exactly where it begins? if you agree that female breasts are sexual features, it doesn't seem that weird that nipples would be where the line is finally drawn.
just for the record, I don't think the world would end if women could expose their breasts without repercussions.
That does raise one obvious question: is the cultural difference (1) a real difference of sexualisation of body parts, or (2) does the average [†] hetero women look at topless men the same way that the average [†] hereto man looks at topless women, but society as a whole hasn’t noticed because it is male-dominated and not enough men in power ask women?
{As an aside: In the context lindybeige would be an example of argument from authority fallacy; expecting him to be right about comparative global sexuality is like expecting sexplanations to be right about comparing the relative merits of ancient Athenian and Persian armour.
That doesn’t mean he must be wrong (if I said that I world be making the fallacy fallacy), but surely there is a better example to use than him?}
[†] to emphasise: average as in “no I can’t just ask my exes that would be anecdotes”