Toplessness

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“Topless” redirects here. For the Miles Tredinnick play, see Topless (stage play).

A woman wearing traditional clothing in Southern Ethiopia - many traditional cultures do not stigmatise toplessness among women

Being topless or bare chested means not wearing any clothing above the waist, exposing the entire torso. The term "topless" is in general only applied to women, though it can be applied to men.

1 Traditional cultures
2 Western cultures
3 Legality
4 See also

Traditional cultures

For many traditional cultures, including southern Africa and South America (for example the Namibian Himba people and Ancient Minoans on the island of Crete) toplessness was the norm for both men and women.

In parts of Africa, such as Nigeria, women have staged topless nonviolent protests as a way of shaming authorities.[1]

Western cultures

In Western culture it is much more common for men to be bare chested than women. "Bare chested" itself and the euphemisms "stripped to the waist", and shirtless are commonly used for men. The principal difference between toplessness and barechestedness is that the female breast is widely considered as a sexual organ, or at least having strong overtones of sexuality, so local decency laws often discriminate specifically between women and men not putting clothes on their upper bodies. For the debate on this issue and the position that the breast is not primarily a sexual organ, see breastfeeding.

A topless bar is a bar where, as an attraction, waitresses are topless.

Image:Girls by the pool.jpg

Topless Dutch girls by a pool.

Most western cultures disapprove of or punish women who reveal their breasts in public. A movement, topfree equality, opposes this view.

In Europe and North America, there remains some objection to bare-chested men, with many shops refusing to serve bare chested people, often with the idiomatic policy of "no shirt, no shoes, no service".

In the US, a brief moment of partial female toplessness during family entertainment television (Janet Jackson's breast being exposed during the Super Bowl) generated considerable outcry. (See Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy).

Legality

Image:Breasts-not-bombs.jpg

Scene from an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. September 24, 2005, a topless political protest. See Breasts Not Bombs.

Topfree equality is a North American social movement that seeks to legalize toplessness for women where it is legal for men. It has been successful in several locations, most notably in Ontario, Canada (since 1996). While there are a few cases of women asserting a right to be topless in Ontario, mostly in swimming pools and beaches, the effect on the level of toplessness has been small. During the Northeast Blackout of 2003 many women could be seen in public topless due to a lack of air conditioning.^{[citation needed]}

Toplessness is also legal in parts of Europe and Australia, though generally constrained through convention rather than law within designated areas or situations, e.g. beaches in France, Spain, and Scandinavia, the latter also allowing toplessness in saunas. Toplessness among young women at beaches is accepted as routine at most continental European beaches.

Toplessness

Contents

Traditional cultures

Western cultures

Legality

See also