We’ve been a bit lax in the Facebook poll business lately. But when the 8th circuit ruled that States have an interest in not allowing women to expose their breasts in public, we figured we had to ask our Facebook Fans what they thought?
The consensus among commenters was “why is the government wasting its time on this?”
How about because communities enact ordinances and people challenge them? Typically, they are hoping a judge will do the work they seem confident they cannot. Rather than petition a change, inform voters and challenge the odds at the ballot box they use the courts to carpet bomb the ordinance out of existence.
Perhaps they have tried to do it the hard way and failed. Convincing a judge they’ve been wronged in their only recourse.
Given the topic, the assumption is that topless women are no big deal. If that were true, everywhere we look we’d have topless women. We don’t. The bulk of thinking on this is consistent with what I outlined here.
As with the New Hampshire decision, exposing human anatomy associated with the intimacy in public presents problems for both peace and shared morality. Refusing to accept this does not make it go away.
Men’s and women’s bodies are different. Society at large accepts this. The intersection of physical differences and intimacy are well understood and long-standing as such the state has an interest in defining and regulating nudity in public based on these understandings.
We don’t have to agree.
Most Muslim societies require women to be covered. Sometimes this includes their entire bodies, hair, or even face. The rest of America allows women to walk around in public, covering their ‘breasts’ with a few strings and two-postage sized pieces of cloth. It’s not a look everyone could pull off or should. But we might rightly ask, what’s the problem with losing a few swatches of material?
It’s a fair question. But let’s not pretend we’re all a bunch of prudes if the majority of Americans think it’s not a good idea. And let us also not ignore the likelihood that a super-majority of men’s wives and girlfriends would not appreciate their husbands or boyfriends wandering eyes.
If that doesn’t put the discussion to an end, I’m not sure what will.
