Female nipples will be un-banned in the United States in our lifetime. It's quite possibly the most indefensible of all of the indefensible standards we cling to on sex and nudity. The fact that so many people still can't see the writing on the wall truly baffles me.
One of the most insane aspects of American culture to me as a foreigner is how okay violence is culturally, and how taboo even nudity (not even sex) is.
One of them celebrates death and destruction, the other one is about life and creation. Seems to me like the priorities are the wrong way round.
That's insane to me as an American as well! I have 4 kids, and I've been absolutely appalled at how much violence there is in stuff that's directed at kids compared to how much people try to shield them from nudity. Everyone just takes it for granted that the average children's story is going to have someone fighting someone.
I've had that exact conversation with someone.
"I don't mind if they see nudity."
"Aren't you worried about how it will affect them?"
"I dunno, how many people died in the last Marvel movie? We're not worried about them becoming mass murderers. And besides, if the consequence of them seeing nudity is ... sex? That's a thing they'll be able to do when they're old enough, as opposed to murder, which will never be right in any circumstance..."
I agree with you, also as an american. I want to blame 'our' fear of nudity and sex on the Puritans and our puritanical (ha) national religious views. Love of violence or acceptance of violence feels like the reciprocal impact of fear of sex.
The idea I have is our fear of sex lead to US film makers searching for something that would get people's attention, and violence turned out to be it. One could also make a vague claim about guns being a more natural part of our independent fantastical claims of living on the frontier (needed to kill the previous inhabitants during our genocidal takeovers). But I think it was the infamous Hayes Code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code) in the 1930s, where we moved from a time without as much cinematic censorship (that allowed both violence and sex & nudity at times) into a time that was much more anti-sex in the media. The anti-sex was already there, but the Hayes code gave anti-sex conservatives much more power to control mass media for a while.
I think both the American cultural fear/disgust of sex and acceptance/romanticizing of violence both come from the same Judeo-Christian roots. The Bible often describes violence as part of God's justice, and this idea of just violence is expressed everywhere from chivalric codes and ideals of masculine/gentlemanly behavior to the very concept of states as monopolies on violence and policing.
Even setting that aside, you have the influence on Western culture of Greek and Roman myths, where heroes were defined not by recognizably Christian moral virtues but by their superhuman capacity to commit violence. The ancients weren't particularly afraid of sex either (nor did they have the same ideas about sexuality that would develop into the heterosexual/homosexual dynamic in Christendom) but it's easy to see how the aspects synchronous to the Judeo-Christian ideal would persist in the culture while the other stuff went by the wayside.
US popular culture is pretty milquetoast when it comes to celebrating violence and death and destruction. I mean, yeah, American Sniper glorified a guy who shot 255 people to death from a distance where they couldn't even see him, many of them women and children. But they're afraid to even show death, and constantly seek to airbrush out the cruelty and filth of war, with the objective of making it palatable to the public. The military (which negotiates extensive veto powers over Hollywood films that use US military locations and equipment) has learned only too well from Vietnam that civilians do not approve of the reality of war, and in the US the civilians are still in charge to a significant degree, for now.
Even movies like Hannibal, Psycho, and Schindler's List usually turn the camera the other way before blood starts splashing around, the stinking, grossly distorted, dismembered things that just stopped being human never even appear in the background. In fact, I bet American culture abhors violence so much that I'll get downvoted for telling the truth about violent death in my previous sentence instead of euphemizing it.
— ⁂ —
Contrast Iliad 6.37–71, in Murray's meticulous but annoyingly archaized 01924 translation:
But Adrastus did Menelaus, good at the warcry, take alive; for his two horses, coursing in terror over the plain, became entangled in a tamarisk bough, and breaking the curved car at the end of the pole, themselves went on toward the city whither the rest were fleeing in rout; but their master rolled from out the car beside the wheel headlong in the dust upon his face. And to his side came Menelaus, son of Atreus, bearing his far-shadowing spear.
Then Adrastus clasped him by the knees and besought him: “Take me alive, thou son of Atreus, and accept a worthy ransom; treasures full many lie stored in the palace of my wealthy father, bronze and gold and iron wrought with toil; thereof would my father grant thee ransom past counting, should he hear that I am alive at the ships of the Achaeans.”
So spake he, and sought to persuade the other's heart in his breast, and lo, Menelaus was about to give him to his squire to lead to the swift ships of the Achaeans, but Agamemnon came running to meet him, and spake a word of reproof, saying: “Soft-hearted Menelaus, why carest thou thus for the men? Hath then so great kindness been done thee in thy house by Trojans? Of them let not one escape sheer destruction and the might of our hands, nay, not the man-child whom his mother bears in her womb; let not even him escape, but let all perish together out of Ilios, unmourned and unmarked.”
So spake the warrior, and turned his brother's mind, for he counselled aright; so Menelaus with his hand thrust from him the warrior Adrastus, and lord Agamemnon smote him on the flank, and he fell backward; and the son of Atreus planted his heel on his chest, and drew forth the ashen spear. Then Nestor shouted aloud, and called to the Argives: “My friends, Danaan warriors, squires of Ares, let no man now abide behind in eager desire for spoil, that he may come to the ships bearing the greatest store; nay, let us slay the men; thereafter in peace shall ye strip the armour from the corpses that lie dead over the plain.”
In Pope's more poetic but considerably less literal rendering:
Unbless’d Adrastus next at mercy lies
Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize.
Scared with the din and tumult of the fight,
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight,
Rush’d on a tamarisk’s strong trunk, and broke
The shatter’d chariot from the crooked yoke;
Wide o’er the field, resistless as the wind,
For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind.
Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel:
Atrides o’er him shakes his vengeful steel;
The fallen chief in suppliant posture press’d
The victor’s knees, and thus his prayer address’d:
“O spare my youth, and for the life I owe
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow.
When fame shall tell, that, not in battle slain,
Thy hollow ships his captive son detain:
Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told,
And steel well-temper’d, and persuasive gold.”
He said: compassion touch’d the hero’s heart
He stood, suspended with the lifted dart:
As pity pleaded for his vanquish’d prize,
Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies,
And, furious, thus: “Oh impotent of mind!
Shall these, shall these Atrides’ mercy find?
Well hast thou known proud Troy’s perfidious land,
And well her natives merit at thy hand!
Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age,
Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage:
Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all;
Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall;
A dreadful lesson of exampled fate,
To warn the nations, and to curb the great!”
The monarch spoke; the words, with warmth address’d,
To rigid justice steel’d his brother’s breast.
Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust;
The monarch’s javelin stretch’d him in the dust,
Then pressing with his foot his panting heart,
Forth from the slain he tugg’d the reeking dart.
Old Nestor saw, and roused the warrior’s rage;
“Thus, heroes! thus the vigorous combat wage;
No son of Mars descend, for servile gains,
To touch the booty, while a foe remains.
Behold yon glittering host, your future spoil!
First gain the conquest, then reward the toil.”
Even Pope in 01899, anxious to flatter Victorian prejudices, is euphemizing and softpedaling this shit pretty hard here. "γαστέρι μήτηρ κοῦρον" means "boy in mother's belly" ("γαστέρι", like "gastroenterologist"), not "Her babes, her infants at the breast." "ἀλλ᾽ ἄνδρας κτείνωμεν" means "kill the other men", not "Behold yon glittering host". "ἕκηλοι νεκροὺς ἂμ πεδίον συλήσετε τεθνηῶτας" means "at ease among the corpses strip the dying", not "first gain the conquest, then reward the toil". Like, literally Nestor doesn't mention conquests, toil, or rewards here at all. (And obviously he doesn't mention Mars, who Pope has substituted for Ares.) "Ἀγαμέμνων οὖτα κατὰ λαπάρην" means "Agamemnon struck soft flesh", not "The monarch’s javelin stretch’d him in the dust", though Pope adds "Forth from the slain he tugg’d the reeking dart," while the Greek original doesn't say Adrestos was slain or anything about the smell of the spear of Agamemnon Atreides, just "λὰξ ἐν στήθεσι βὰς ἐξέσπασε μείλινον ἔγχος," which means "stepping on chest pulled the [ash-wood?] spear back out".
Ad buyers and credit card processors are the main regulators of the Web. It's not the government saying TikTok and others can't host artistic nudes, AFAIK.
But I think it's reasonable to assume that bi-gender toplessness will become acceptable even to those entities in the next thirty years or so. I certainly hope that'll be the case since it'll result in a lot less grief for society at large.
As far as being in public is concerned, it's actually legal in a majority of states (with some curious outliers where it's illegal: Florida, Nevada, Massachusetts...).
I happened to be present on June 21, 1986, in Cobb's Hill Park, when the Topless Seven took off their shirts, and in doing so made topless legal in NYC.
Yea there is an annual march around the country (in legal states) with it as well. I think there is an organization out there that actually tries to help defend anyone who is actually cited too.
In my previous home of Vermont it's long been the case that nudity is not at all illegal - it's illegal to act lewdy in public and removing your clothing is considered a lewd action. As such walking into public naked is generally naked, but only generally, in a lot of cases folks can still make a case for your arrest if you're not really careful about the company you keep.
It's a little absurd to claim that nudity isn't illegal, but taking your clothes off is (illegally) lewd. Vermont has effectively kept nudity illegal without having it explicitly on the books.
Oh - the loophole is that you can walk out your front door naked. And taking your clothes off isn't illegal in any stated law, it's just been generally found to be a lewd action when challenged, while merely existing naked hasn't been.
It's similar in the UK, in that it's deeply contextual. Walking around naked somewhere where people are likely to take offence is dicey, but the more expected it is to encounter someone naked somewhere, the safer you are.
The specific things that makes it a crime would be intent to "cause distress, alarm or outrage", or if you are "outraging public decency".
And so e.g. a nudist beach generally does not need any particular permissions on the basis that merely signing it properly, or the place being generally known to be somewhere where people are naked makes it hard to argue it causes distress, alarm or outrage to come across someone naked there.
Of course where exactly the line goes on that is constantly changing and tricky to judge.
E.g. someone stood naked on a plint in Trafalgar Square in the middle of London and police refused to order him to cover up [1] but another naked man on the plint was told to cover up another time.
I actually expect that the opposite might happen and that men going topless in public will be as women are now. Maybe not illegal, but less socially acceptable.
The reason I say that is I've noticed a lot of men (not boys) swimming in shirts, and I've also witnessed people telling men to put on a shirt (or otherwise complaining about how gross it is) at outdoor gatherings, whereas, this used to be extremely common. Maybe it is different in California or Florida.
Anecdotally, I live in a neighborhood of Manhattan know for starting national and global fashion trends, and the trend has absolutely been towards far more skin for all genders and body types. In fact, heavier people showing more skin has been one of the most obvious trends. That and the shrinking number of women who wear bras.
Obviously this is highly culturally variable - in the UK I wouldn't say it has much of a 'socially acceptable' starting point, it's certainly a marker of social class.
Of course, it might help that we don't have that many days a year when anyone would want to.
(Beach or swimming pool is another matter - I can't echo your experience there, but it is quite a while since I've been to either, so can't really comment I suppose. Above I mean 'in public' in general, shopping or walking down the street etc.)
The challenge is social acceptability rather than legality. Being topless in public is already legal in most of the US. It's our culture which hasn't budged since the 60s (and in fact has regressed in a lot of ways).
I'd argue it has more than budged, it's moved dramatically. I know several people who make amateur porn. These are professionals in tech! I know an ever-growing number of people who are in non-monogamous relationships, who defy traditional gender roles, who embrace alternative/kinky sexuality and who in some cases are raising their children in homes accepting of all of these things.
Cultural norms were vastly more oppressive and restrictive in the 1960's. And in the 1990's.
My questions: What about the children? Are we ready as a society for it to be legal for someone to possess an image of a topless 14-year-old girl on their computer?
Should the law view child toplessness differently than adult toplessness? And if so, then how would we be making be a step towards the desexualization of the nipple?
Sort of a social standards issue though, isn't it? Here a topless teenager is scandalous but in other places that standard includes teens without hijabs or teens in tight-fitting clothes or even teens not in long dresses. I suspect this is only a thorny issue because it requires a transition period. Once people get used to it it will stop being so over-sexualized.
Would a sexual pose of a 14 year old girl with her nipples covered by some glitter be more acceptable in some way or less sexual? Would an identical pose of a 14 year old boy be less exploitative?
In fact, in the UK and some other places what is illegal is "indecent" images of someone under 18, not nudity or sexual content in and of itself. So the sexual pose would likely be a problem whether or not the nipples are exposed. In the UK for the lowest severity images the context the pictures are found in also matters - even a picture that is ok in a family album (e.g. an innocent picture of a child in the bath) would not be ok if found in a collection of pictures clearly intended for sexual gratification.
Or perhaps view 'image possession' differently? If they're not a relation, not a photo from some sort of gathering where the possessor was present and the photo consensually taken, then.. the intent in possessing the photo is 'obviously' not good?
Really I'm just thinking about your comment in isolation though - as a whole I don't think this is a good idea, it perhaps doesn't have to be illegal but I don't personally see a need for social standards to 'slip'. (But they're not made by one person, nor one parliament, and that's fine, maybe I am in the minority.)
This is pretty much how it works in the UK. What is illegal is "indecent images" of someone under 18, and the intent of the person collecting them can come into play. A picture of a child in the bath placed in a family album is unlikely to be seen as indecent, but the same picture in a collection of naked children you have no reasonable excuse for having likely would be considered indecent.
Genuinely difficult and important questions. I would say the bigger issue is that we can never, ever properly address these issues until we are ready to have discuss them in a logical and factual way. Based on how society currently deals with sex and nudity, I think we are still a long way from being able to have those discussions. But removing the most obvious and absurd restrictions (like banning only one tiny portion of adult female chests) can get us closer to being able to grapple with the more nuanced issues.
Many people in the 1890s US thought the same thing.
This might seem like a linear form of progressiveness, based on the last half century, but it isn't. Just ebbs and flows.
Typically what's occurred is a period of uncertainty allows for strict and religious sects to be emboldened and revive compliance with their ideals as they offer an ephemeral form of certainty, dominant Abrahamic religions include very gendered roles and control. (Other belief system's populations die out due to lack of breeders, so it is just survivorship bias.)
I think a lot of it boils down to poverty and literacy. Religious fundamentalism is largely a pastime of the poor, and as the US has become more affluent religious fervor has faded.
> Other belief system's populations die out due to lack of breeders, so it is just survivorship bias.
Breeding isn't a sure-fire way to produce more believers, either, and I say this a a non-religious person who was raised in a very religious family, married to another non-religious person who was raised in a very religious family.
There are many correlations for the last half century to try to latch onto, but there is a historical reality that continues to this day: they will outbreed you.
What happened in the 1890s was not unlike today's era - Corporations just got "personhood". Railroad tycoons entrench hold on US commerce. Southern states push for undoing reconstruction-era reforms. Chinese exclusion act is enacted to drive Chinese laborers (who were instrumental to the national railroad buildout) out of the US.
I'm sure there are tons of parallels. The national party constituencies were reversed (Southern whites favored Democrats vs. Northern elites favoring Republicans).
The populist party almost won! I wonder if its loss made everyone disillusioned about breaking the two-party system, and the individual person's re-affiliating with one of the other parties are what "switched" what the Democrat and Republican parties represented.
Sex and gender issues in the modern era move only in one direction when looked at over longer periods of time. Progress isn't strictly linear, but that doesn't mean we should assume it swings wildly back and forth. It doesn't.
Have you seen the way the wind is blowing in the US? We are closer to The Handmaid’s Tale than anything like what you’re describing. Progress is never inevitable.
I don't expect the conservative hinterland to suddenly start guiding American cultural evolution, no matter how big of an asshole they barely elected one time. Progress will continue to come from the cities, where the wind continues to blow in a favorable direction.
Years and years ago I remember seeing a program that was broadcast on some dry, educational TV channel that was showing someone undergoing transitional surgery, and you could just imagine the censors sweating profusely as they decided the arbitrary point at which the nipple blur kicked in.
There's great images I see on Instagram where someone will photoshop a male nipple on top of a female breast to show the absurdity of the whole thing. Someone who is transitioning is another great example, as is the occasional voluptuous man boob.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but is that really the answer? Should we not also ask the question of why exposed male nipples are acceptable?
If male nipples are not considered sexual but female nipples are, and we permit exposed female nipples in public, then does it also follow that the male penis be allowed to be exposed in public? Do "free the nipple" folks feel the same way about that, and why?
I'm sorry, but linking this to genitalia doesn't make any sense.
Society prohibits the exposure of genitalia for both men and women. Although it's certainly up for debate whether that's reasonable or not, the treatment is equal. And at least genitalia perform a sexual function, so if the principle is that we shouldn't show organs with a primarily sexual function, for whatever reason, at least there's some sort of principle at work.
The issue of the nipple is completely separate and indefensible. The nipple has very similar appearance for both sexes; it performs no sexual function, and the one function it does have for women is something that has no obvious moral basis to prohibit. To wit: adults eating in public is fine, children eating in public is fine, but, for some reason, a baby eating in its natural form in public is not fine.
I agree with OP. It's nuts and we will likely see this view relaxed over time, though I have no idea how long of a time horizon.
What you are saying demonstrates exactly why I posed the questions.
1. It's usually stated as a matter of fact that primary sex organs possess inherent qualities that make them reasonably objectionable in a way that is not attributable to secondary sex characteristics, but few are actually articulating why that is, which is important for an argument differentiating the two.
2. Genitalia are considered acceptable in an artistic form, as is likely seen in the art this museum posts on social media. This appears rather contrary to the idea that genitalia should be hidden, thus art may not be a good argument for allowing exposed female secondary sex characteristics (as art is treated as a special case).
Now people seem to be getting me wrong... I'm NOT in favor of criminalizing the female nipple in any way.
> The issue of the nipple is completely separate and indefensible. The nipple has very similar appearance for both sexes; it performs no sexual function, and the one function it does have for women is something that has no obvious moral basis to prohibit. To wit: adults eating in public is fine, children eating in public is fine, but, for some reason, a baby eating in its natural form in public is not fine.
No, they are not completely separate. They are all based on a root assumption that is not being adequately challenged.
The assumption is that, to take your argument, there is something inherently acceptable about eating, because everyone eats and has mouths, and that there is something inherently objectionable about characteristics primarily related to sex even when the act of intercourse is not taking place.
Unless that question is broached, then your point about eating could also be applied to sexual organs. The only difference being that sexual organs have different appearances between males and females, but placing value on whether they differentiate in appearance is also arbitrary.
Yes. All of it should be okay. Relax, it's just human bodies.
What's so terrible about it? We see all sorts of animals naked all the time, what's so special about homo sapiens? Should we make dogs and cats wear clothes too?
Nudism is a relatively big thing in German culture [1], there's a park in munich for example that's clothing-optional. The world hasn't ended yet and Germany seems to be doing just fine, so why get all worked up about it?
Plenty of FKK swimming in the eastern states as well. A day at the beach is a lot better when you can hop in and out of the water without worrying about a wet swimsuit, and warm your whole body in the sun.
I think this is a "one step at a time" situation. Nipples are obvious. No cogent argument can be made in favor of banning only female chests. Genitalia are different because they can be sexualized. I'd argue that a flaccid penis is not a sexualized thing and should not be censored. But what about an erect penis? And what precisely constitutes an erection? Point being, there's a lot of gray area and genuinely tough questions that will need to be answered when it comes to genitalia. But the nipple issue is about as black and white as any issue can get.
I really appreciate your non-judgmental response. :)
> No cogent argument can be made in favor of banning only female chests.
I'm unsure if that's really true.
As I've already mentioned elsewhere here, these arguments are all based on assumptions that are being made as a matter of fact. For instance:
> Genitalia are different because they can be sexualized.
Is that necessarily true? Breasts are frequently sexualized, which makes me question whether that sexualization is entirely cultural or not. On the other hand, male chests are rarely sexualized in nearly the same way outside of relatively minority communities. Yet they can be as well.
I wonder these things because the further down the chain of logic, the more it just seems arbitrary, in which case why are we rationalizing and intellectualizing this issue in order to explain it away? In such a case, it really isn't possible to make a cogent argument in favor of allowing exposed female breasts, because it would come down to what society is irrationally comfortable or uncomfortable with.
That begs a question, though. What makes a primary sexual characteristic objectionable over a secondary one? I don't think anyone gets aroused (or disgusted) by either genitalia or breasts because there's a conscious awareness that they have something to do with biological reproduction.
