After our rooftop adventure (chronicled previously), we headed down with our new friend from the New York Times to the streets of Brooklyn and the grassy lawns of Prospect Park.
At first, no one seemed to take notice of us — so much so that our reporter friend commented on it, amazed that the presence of half a dozen women relaxing topless in a public space attracted not a single stare or rude comment. But like most things that seem too good to be true, it was: after perhaps half an hour, a police car cruised slowly to a stop alongside us and the officers inside sheepishly indicated they’d received several calls to 911 complaining of our presence. Because, you know. Breasts. Clearly they require armed men in uniform to subdue.
What were we doing to deserve the attention of the police? Sitting; reading; talking; eating chocolate. All while failing to conceal our nipples. While on the next lawn over, mind you, this was going on:
Yes, a bare chest! But a bare male chest. No one called 911 about him. But two or more people thought it was a good use of the city’s emergency system to report us. It’s heartbreaking, in a way. That in 2015…in Brooklyn, New York, of all places…anyone could be so afraid of women’s bodies that they’d think calling the police is the proper response.
Fortunately, these particular policemen were well trained, acknowledged that what we were doing was perfectly legal, and wearily rolled on. We bear them no ill will — they have to investigate complaints. But the people who called them…for them we have nothing but pity. Well, pity and scorn. But pity sounds so much more polite.
Ah, well. We didn’t let it ruin our afternoon. And perhaps it gave a keener edge to the interviews we gave the Times, which you should be able to see on their site in another week or two. It’s easy to forget sometimes that a lot of people not only don’t know that it’s legal for women to go topless in New York but don’t think it should be.
Unfortunately, this seems to include the mayor. And he really, really, really should know better.
But mayors come and go.
Breasts are forever.
Some will forever be narrow minded about breasts and the human body in general. Looks like a wonderful time was had despite the interruption.
Yeah, it’s weird about this mayor. I guess it points out that “liberal” and “progressive” don’t mean the same things to everyone all the time.
I’m not progressive, except in the ways that I am. You may count me among those on your side.
Great post ladies. Keep up the good work. You have plenty of support from here in the UK
Breasts are forever! The perfect riposte to the 911-calling anti-Libertarians.
That’s why there will always be closed minded people. Which is why I think some people are still stuck in the past.
I am glad the cops were wise and respectful. I once was walking through Time square when a group of people from SVA were doing body painting. A woman walked up the to the cop who was doing his job and exclaimed that he should do something about this offensive act. He responded “Well if you are offended by it. you can be offended on the other side of the street and not look at it. But the people you are pointing at, are in fact not being offensive. But rather they are being polite and civil. And are in fact enriching the City with their art.”
I was immediately amused and gleeful that this cop had eloquently told the woman she was wrong. I wish everyone could have such an outlook.
The mayor is a politician progressive liberal conservative or libertarian politicians and always trying to figure which way the wind is blowing and use it to their advantage.
*sarcasm* HOW DARE YOU SHOW YOUR BEAUTIFUL, NATURAL BODIES IN PUBLIC? I’M SURE THAT YOU’VE SCARRED PEOPLE FOR LIFE! 😘
Quite a few years ago, a number of us were sunbathing without any clothing on the top of a Brooklyn hotel. Guess what! Neither bare nipples nor erect penises cause the building to collapse!
Hello lady of outdoor co-ed small question being that you all read so much. Have any of you ever came across a place that collect comic book i have 138 book dating back to 78 to the present any help would be greatly appreciated. THANKS in advance to all you BEAUTIFUL LADY KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
Not really sure we understand the question. If you mean you want to find someone to take your 128 comics off your hands, you could bring them to a comic book store in your area or offer them to a dealer online. Just search for “comic book dealers” and you’ll probably find a thousand links. Or you could sell them one by one on eBay, maybe?
“Because, you know. Breasts. Clearly they require armed men in uniform to subdue.”
Of course they do. According to Mickey Spillane, after all, breasts are “laughing things” and “yearn to be free.” In “I, The Jury,” if I’m remembering correctly. (Or words to that effect.)
Lovely post. Looking forward to the NYT interviews.
You ladies have GUTS to do this, please keep it up.
Reblogged this on Naturalian's Blog and commented:
Isn’t it pathetic that some poor soul has to call police because a woman’s nipples are visible!
Lovely day for this!
It might take a generation to be more accepted, I don’t know. Maybe we need you in all 50 states. By the way, any of you get close to the pope?
The pope? In our dreams! 🙂
You look good as always despite policy(police)
I seem the girl on the last photo was dreaming to see the pope right at the moment. And she looks a little bit like a nun… with a bare chest.
By the way Dalai-lama almost promise the next Dalai-lama will be a woman. May be you want to nominate yourselves
Unintentionally, but You gave me a nice birthday gift girls 😀 thank you
Can you give an example of real horror from “Conspiracy against the human race” I’m interesting but dont know whether to buy. I’m not used to buy something if I dont know what is inside.
Look it up on Amazon. You’ll find examples there.
Sorry but there are no clues in the annotation as well as in the customer reviews what the book is about only common phrases there
Anyway I would like you to tell me. The main horror is that people dont want to talk to each other All horrors begin from misunderstanding.
If you want horrors you can take a school textbook on history what is special in this book?
Sorry, but we are not your personal service bureau. Nor are we trying to persuade you to read this book. Read it or don’t read it, that’s your business. All we did was show you that one of us was reading it. Any interaction you do or don’t have with the book is up to you. (And if you go back to Amazon, you will find comments in the customer reviews such as “Ontological paradoxes are examined, from old fashioned western Nihilism, to Buddhism and even U.G Krishnamurti (I confess, I couldn’t wait to get to the essay ‘Freaks of Salvation’).” So there are at least some clues to what the essays in the book are about. If you want more, you’ll have to read the book.)
The problem is that you women have succeeded in totally de-eroticizing the female body. I’m straight. I love women. Somehow, you babes who are technically “hot” don’t turn me on. Why? Probably because you don’t understand your own bodies in the wider context of human nature.
The good thing is that most of you will not reproduce and so not propagate that bad seed.
Hey, guess what? You win the prize for biggest asshole ever to post on our blog! Almost didn’t let the comment through, but then we thought, why not let the whole world see what an asshole this guy is? This is Tom Blair, ladies, of Pennsylvania. In case, you know, he tries to hit you up for a date or something. Because he might. He’s straight, and he loves women.
More info, for the curious at http://www.pages-to-pirouettes.com/Biographies/Biographies.html:
Tom Blair – actor, dancer, web designer: A former professional dancer with the Los Angeles Ballet, today Tom is an actor, dancer, choreographer, and web designer. He has choregraphed Kiss Me Kate, Bye Bye Birdie, The Music Man for King Of Prussia Players and Pippin for Playcrafters. His recent acting roles include The Major General in Pirates of Penzance, Jerry Evans in Dancing At Lughnasa at Stagecrafters, George Condomine in Blithe Spirit at King Of Prussia Players, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sir Andrew in Twelfth Night, and in ballet many wonderful character roles including Herr Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker, Coppelius in Coppelia, and Don Quixote in Don Quixote.
Tom is the owner of Robin Goodfellow Web Designs and designed and maintains this Pages To Pirouettes website.
Admittedly, the troll is trolling. That being said, are you sure doxing is the proper response? For that matter, how certain are you that the biography you posted is for the correct person? Is the troll really “Tom Blair”? the correct “Tom Blair”?
You’ve been holding the moral high ground. Is this troll worth giving that up?
You raise good points. We’re pretty sure this Tom Blair is the right Tom Blair — the IP address matches the bio, geographically, and the ID he used to post his odious comment contained links to his various personal and professional affiliations. We can’t be sure that this wasn’t the work of some random enemy of his, from the same region, spoofing his identity…but somehow we suspect it really was him, and he’s just an idiot. That said, we’ll mull it over and maybe delete the whole thread.
Whether or not that is *probably but not certainly* the right person is beside the point. The point is that your site is about free expression. If someone is a jerk, it is perfectly acceptable to ignore them, engage them civilly, call them an asshole, or ban them from comments. Doxing is a significant escalation. You are intentionally exposing this person to retaliation. This after you accepted his comment through moderation in the first place.
Doxing for an unpopular opinion should go against everything you stand for.
Lastly, I note the irony that the required email field states, “(Address never made public)”. Perhaps an asterisk and a disclaimer that the addresses of those you disagree with *will* be made public should be included?
Thanks for letting us know about that “Address never made public” statement — I don’t recall ever seeing that (we certainly didn’t write it ourselves, it must be part of the standard apparatus of a WordPress blog), but a commitment is a commitment, so we won’t show his email address.
But make no mistake: this is not about “an unpopular opinion” or “those you disagree with.” This is about an attack. This is about hate speech. And if Tom Blair is enough of an idiot to sign his name to his hate speech, he should be prepared for people in his life to learn that he’s the sort of person to engage in this sort of behavior. If they choose to retaliate because they find it as odious as we do, you won’t find us weeping for him. He brought it on himself.
British people like myself are used to a Mr Blair offending others. Though Mr Tony Blair, former prime minister, was not one for making comments about the human body.
Attack? Hate speech? It barely rises to the level of, “You’re ugly, and your mother dresses you funny.” There’s no threat, nor anything that could be considered libel or defamation*.
Not everyone is going to support everything another person does. That’s where the “ignore”, “engage civilly or otherwise”, or “ban” options come in. The moderator(s) was exposed to a troll, and made the conscious decision both to spread the troll’s message and to attack the troll as broadly as possible. Unlike what the troll wrote, doxing really is an attack. You get some credit for not swatting him, I suppose.
Supporting speech we agree with is easy. The tricky part is supporting speech we don’t agree with. It’s a bummer, but being for free expression means supporting both. Perhaps I have misconstrued the purpose of the site.
*IANAL, but feel free to ask one.
“The good thing is that most of you will not reproduce and so not propagate that bad seed” may not be the same as “I intend to kill you next Tuesday at 4pm,” but it’s pretty bad. We appreciate your point of view, which is why we’ve allowed your comments through, but this discussion feels like it’s gone on long enough. You didn’t like what we did, and made some good points about it; we moderated our response as a result; no need to discuss further.
Tom Blair is a raging asshole and we’re glad if people in his life learn what an asshole he is. If there are consequences for him as a result, good.
This group does not exist to champion free speech or free expression; as individuals we are in favor of both, but that isn’t the purpose of the group. The group exists to give women an opportunity to take advantage of the legal right to go bare-chested in public in New York and to encourage people elsewhere to permit equality when it comes to nudity-related laws. When someone says something profoundly offensive to us, we do not feel any obligation to turn the other cheek, nor to give them a platform from which to spew their hatred, nor to helpfully conceal their identity if they choose to spew hatred. Anyone who’s contemplating deliberately causing us pain needs to be prepared for us to respond in ways that will cause him pain. If he doesn’t like that, the solution is simple: he doesn’t have to take the hurtful action in the first place. But once he’s taken it, and signed his name to it, he has forfeited any claim to our sympathy.
This is the point where I respectfully advise: “Don’t feed the trolls.” A comment like Mr. Blair’s doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of a response.
Oh dear good grief!
Do people really think in this twisted way or are you just trawling/trolling for responses?
May I say, selfish though this sounds, that I am glad you are the US’ problem instead of yet another for us Brits-whose-PM-is-a-pig-porker to worry about?
And to the Outdoor Co-eds Pulp Fiction Topless Reading Group (I know I’ve got that wrong), more power to you!
What does “doxing” mean?
Revealing someone’s name, address, email address, phone number or other identifying information (or the sort that might be contained in personal documents or “docs” — hence “doxing”). It’s a nasty practice and one we would generally not endorse or engage in. But when someone specifically shares his personal information with us while making hateful statements to and about us…we don’t feel bad about sharing that information at the same time we share the hateful speech. If he didn’t want it released, he could have taken at least the simplest measures to keep the information out of our hands.
The notion that bare breasts require spending taxpayer money to police or in any way qualifies as an “emergency” is one of the many things I hate about our society. The absurdity defies comprehension.
Unfortunately this is only possible in the first world.
What, female toplessness? That’s not actually true. There are parts of the so-called developing world where female toplessness is not out of the ordinary at all.