New York officials have bigger concerns than topless women

I have consistently struggled to understand the public’s gripe with nudity, and each time I am left with the realization that the situation is outright hypocritical, unnecessary and a means to uphold out-dated and unrealistic systems of control.

The reaction of society to public displays of nudity — most notably in the case of female “perpetrators”— has for years been one of immense condemnation and vile disgust. Every now and then, a new controversy concerning nudity arises and the matter appears again in public discourse. This year we’ve had a couple of situations — from the case of the three Kitchener sisters who were stopped by police for cycling topless (which was really indicative of the extent of knowledge of the law the authorities themselves possess) to the most recent incident involving the presence of painted near-naked “desnudas” in Times Square.

The outcry over the presence of these women is completely sexist. Women are only walking around without shirts — they’re not murdering anyone or stealing from anyone. In fact, according to New York state law, they’re just exercising their legal right to be topless. In the context of equality, if a man can decide to be topless on any given day in public and not be hounded, it makes logical sense even to the dumbest of people that women too should be afforded that privilege. The presence of The Naked Cowboy on the same Times Square for the past seven years — a street performer, whose attire includes just his underwear and a guitar — did not elicit any known outrage or widespread complaints from government officials or tourists, but the presence of women exercising their legal right to be topless suddenly became highly offensive.

I would also like to provide the tourists who are supposedly offended and/or who cite their kids as reasons for their disapproval with an important piece of information: Times Square is not Disneyland. If you feel that it’s not appropriate for your kids to view the human body in its natural, innocent state, then maybe you should plan your trip better. You can’t expect the atmosphere of a city like New York to be similar to the atmosphere prevalent in wherever location you are coming from. As the saying goes: “You don’t come into someone’s household and repaint the walls.” Study the culture of your intended destination and if you don’t agree with it, the world is a large place.

There are numerous important, pressing issues that government officials and members of the public should be tackling, but the presence of topless, painted women on the streets of Times Square is definitely not one of them.