Gentlemen of New York: If you happen upon a group of a dozen topless women sunning and reading and quietly enjoying themselves in Central Park, here is what you do. You walk on by. Maybe you take an appreciative glance as you pass, if you’re so inclined. Maybe you sit down in your own quiet spot and enjoy your own book and bit of sunshine. Maybe you send a thumbs-up or a wave or a smile from a comfortable distance. To the many, many men who did just that, we give our thanks. You are mature adults.
Here’s what you don’t do: Skulk slowly up to the group and stare hungrily as you pass, well within the personal-space boundary. Stand behind a nearby tree or rock and peep out as if we can’t see you. (We can.) Gather one by one around us like you’re reenacting a scene from “The Birds” or perhaps “The Walking Dead.” To the handful of men who did that, we say WTF? You don’t have the Internet at home? Or any self-respect? Normally we attract zero or maybe one like you during any given outing, but for some reason today we hit the motherlode and got ourselves a good half dozen.
It was a lovely afternoon in spite of this. Friends were made, stories told, cupcakes eaten, tanlines erased, books read. But gentlemen, please: if you like the existence of a group like ours (and presumably you do), don’t act in such a way as to make it go away. Common sense, gents.
Tans are developing nicely!
There’s one additional piece of advise I’d to give to the males short on observational and social skills: act as if this gathering of topless co-eds reading for their own enjoyment is an ***everyday*** AND ***ordinary*** part of the cityscape.
(It should be).
Congratulations to all women who have personality and courage for this beautiful initiative, would be great if this idea was practiced worldwide, especially in Brazil.
Reblogged this on home clothes free and commented:
Wise words
Sorry to hear you all had to deal with some jerks and weirdos, but it looks like everyone still had a good time!
We’re New Yorkers. Takes more than some jerks and weirdos to knock us off our game.
Sorry but that seems a little hypocritical.
Hypocritcal? How so? We’re not saying that we want to be free to go topless in public but that men should not – that would be hypocritcal. Nor are we saying that we should be free to go topless in public but that no one should look at us. If we’re in public, everyone’s free to look at us, and that’s fine. For heaven’s sake, we post photographs of ourselves on this site, and more than a million people have visited and seen them. And hundreds of people have seen us in person, and that’s fine, too. All we ask for is common courtesy. Don’t hover and stare in ways that would make anyone who experienced it uncomfortable. Just as we don’t strip off our shirts and then walk up to random strangers and stand uncomfortably close and stare at them silently and unblinkingly. Hypocrisy is condemning in others what you tolerate in yourself, and the behavior we’re complaining about is behavior we’d never engage in.
I’m happy for you all and proud of you for asserting your rights and having pride in your bodies.
I used to live on the Upper West Side. I did a lot of bicycling in the Park, and what a pleasant sight it would have been to see a group of lovely nude women beautifying an already magnificent location.
To the lurkers and skulkers and whack-off zombies, can you please just back off? These girls are right. Smile, wave – say “you’ve made my day, girls” and keep going – or engage them in conversation if they’re willing, but don’t pester them. You make the rest of us look bad.
Writing of this quality is almost as important to the idea as any action.
Hiding behind rocks or trees is strange. Looking hungrily is also off-putting, unless they were looking at your cupcakes, in which case it is understandable. I have occasionally overtly ogled pizza and donut boxes being carried by strangers, rationalizing that by so doing I am enhancing the box carriers’ sense of possessing something special.
But as for the getting uncomfortably close, perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that at least some of them were merely getting closer than you thought appropriate because their eyesight was not very good, and they just wanted a clear image. You must have some compassion for those with low visual acuity, which is not to say that you must allow the blind to feel you up. Though that would be compassionate indeed.
Uh-huh. Somehow I think their eyesight was just fine. It’s their judgment and empathy that’s myopic.
The thing is, most men like to look at boobies. Lots of ladies like to look at boobies, too. You can’t pretend no one’s going to stare when you engage in exhibitionism. I mean, that’s why you’re doing it in the park, not on a rooftop–so people can see you. You want to be seen. That’s the whole point. I understand there’s a rude way to look and a not-rude way, but don’t pretend guys (and girls) aren’t going to take some mental photos for later wanking purposes.
Of course people will look! They look if our breasts are covered too. Looking is fine. But you gloss too quickly over the critical point: “there’s a rude way to look and a not-rude way.” We’re only complaining about people looking in the rude way. No problem with people looking in general.
I would not have called the men you were writing about ‘Gentlemen of New York’, that is far too polite.
That is a sarcastic way or a tongue-in-cheek method to describe those a-holes..