To celebrate the 4th of July, we took a trip to Madison Square Park, named after one of the architects of American liberty, President James Madison. Give him partial credit for the Constitution and even more so the Bill of Rights — though the man also owned slaves, so there you go. Feet of clay. In any event, there we were, on the very spot where, in 1876, the right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty stood on display as money was raised to fund the rest of the statue’s construction. An early Kickstarter project, if you will. And it got us thinking about liberty and independence.
It’s easy to define “liberty” as freedom and leave it at that. But how often do one-word definitions suffice to illuminate complex and important concepts? Liberty is indeed freedom, but more specifically it’s the freedom to do as one pleases — to pursue happiness in one’s own way, without undue restriction. Now, reasonable people can disagree about what restrictions might be due or undue, but the general principle of liberty is to err on the side of presuming that restrictions are undue until proven otherwise.
Prove to me that the sight of my breasts is harmful when the sight of a man’s is not, and then you can restrict me from taking my shirt off. Otherwise — allow me my liberty, and my pursuit of happiness.
Now, independence. Clearly, the opposite of dependence — so not relying on someone else’s support, or requiring someone else’s permission, or subject to someone else’s control. An independent woman makes her own decisions based on her own best judgments. She won’t always be right — who is? — but she’s free to choose her own path. She doesn’t wait to be told what to do or refrain from doing as she wishes just because someone else might not look glowingly on her choices. She is not dependent on the opinion of others. She is independent, and at liberty.
We are independent and at liberty.
So when we sit down in the park, under the sun, and take our shirts off in accordance with the laws of New York but in violation of some folks’ sense of decorum or propriety, it is with an acute appreciation of our freedom. We know most women don’t have the same freedom we do. And even those that do — our fellow New Yorkers — are often unaware of it, or cowed into not exercising it.
Our job, as we see it, is to exercise our liberty without hesitation or pause, and to educate our fellow citizens about theirs.
No girl should grow up believing her body is anything to be ashamed of, or something that ought to be hidden when her male cousins and siblings and friends are free to bare theirs gleefully, innocently and without criticism.
Knowing it, believing it, and living it — that’s freedom. That’s liberty.
Happy Independence Day, everyone.
Bare breasts + a wolf graphic. Makes me think of Game of Thrones!
Interesting and thought-provoking. I love this paragraph:
“No girl should grow up believing her body is anything to be ashamed of, or something that ought to be hidden when her male cousins and siblings and friends are free to bare theirs gleefully, innocently and without criticism.”
As a long-time supporter of OCTPFAS I hesitate to raise this, but something that has niggled away at my mind for some time, and which comes to a head in this post, is that women have breasts and men do not, so there will always be a very obvious difference between the sexes in this respect. I wholeheartedly defend a woman’s right to go topless in public, but I also believe that, rightly or wrongly, people of both sexes have a natural and instinctive difference of reaction to the sight of a topless woman to their reaction to the sight of a topless man. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this; in the meantime, bravi to you for exercising your right.
Of course men have breasts! What in the world are you talking about? Men have breasts and men have nipples; men can even get breast cancer and lactate under certain circumstances. (Rare ones, it’s true. But the point is: men do have breasts!) Very often, when we’re sunbathing in the park and there are men around, some of the topless men around us have larger breasts than some of our female members. Hairier ones, too. It is absolutely incomprehensible to us that society deems those B- or even C- or D-cup male breasts acceptable for public viewing when our breasts are supposedly “for the bedroom only” (to quote one nincompoop who decided to give us a piece of her mind in Bryant Park the other day). And if men’s reactions are indeed different to seeing female breasts than to seeing male breasts, we disagree that the difference is “natural and instinctive” — we believe it’s entirely artificial and culturally determined, not natural at all.
It’s just a culture thing:
– until the 20th century Chinese women practiced the brutal torture of “foot binding” (google it!), because the female feet were considered immensely erotic.
– there were native tribes in the pacific, where topless women were commonplace, however they would never show their navel, because that would be considered taboo or immodest.
Would you say that female feet or the female navel are so different from the male’s, that people of both sexes should have a natural and instinctive difference of reaction to their sight?
So let’s change the culture!
I’m not sure you’re right that foot-binding in China was driven by eroticism (I’m no expert, but I think that’s incorrect), but your general point is clearly correct, that norms of beauty and expectations of modest can’t be “natural and instinctive” because they vary from society to society and from time to time.
There is only a difference because of the social stigma. There are many societies around the world where women and men both do not wear shirts. Breasts are sexualized for profit in America.
Happy Independence Day, OCTPFAS! Thanks for all your posts, your beautiful in spirit and in my eyes. Keep up the good fight, and best of luck 🙂
ps. Have any of you lot, as New Yorkers, ever been into the adventures of Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe?
J, UK xx
Yes! Several of us are Rex Stout fans. 🙂
Just love looking at your photos….so natural and happy. Keep on enjoying life,all of you
Can’t figure out how to submit a jpg so I’ll just reference it. Since you are not the Outdoor Co-ed Topless Comic Strip Society I will draw your attention to the July 5 Dennis the Menace who poses a useful question
Thanks!Got it, and will post it.
Can I venture a guess that the main author of this blog is the member with the butterfly tattoo on her stomach? I see her in just about every post. Congratulations on your good work, whether my guess is right or wrong.
Afraid not. The main author of the blog is also the main photographer, and so doesn’t show up in front of the lens too often! That said, the member with the moth tattoo is a fine author in her own right.
A mystery author for a blog devoted to detective stories. Much is exposed, but much remains hidden.