In our last post, we described a wonderful outdoor acroyoga class we held in Washington Square Park, where one of our members instructed us in balancing each other in midair on our feet.
It was a blast. But before we started flying, we had a more down-to-earth meet-up, and we wanted to share that with you too.
It always makes for great photos when we do something out of the ordinary — go rowing on Central Park lake…
…or snowball fighting in the middle of winter…
But our usual fare is more modest, even if not in the conventional sense of the word. We bring towels out to the park, like you do; we bring a few snacks and some bottles of water; we bring books to read and friends to talk with; and we take our shirts off to enjoy the feeling of the sun on our skin.
If a group of men did this, it would inspire exactly zero comment. Groups of men do it all the time, in fact, and zero comment is what it inspires. But get a group of women together to do the exact same thing, and… Well, on a good day, pretty much the same thing happens, at least in New York. But even here we get the odd comment. “There are children nearby,” one concerned and exasperated-sounding woman called to us. “Don’t you think you should put something on?”
No, we replied. We don’t think that, but thank you for asking? What we do think is that children will grow up healthier — both girls and boys — if they learn at an early age that there is nothing more shameful about a woman’s body than there is about a man’s; that those rounded shapes under a girl’s shirt aren’t some mysterious prize to be quested after or peeked at or groped, they’re just parts of the body like noses or biceps or knees; and that no woman has to apologize for or conceal the way nature has made her. We don’t always love our bodies, but they’re our bodies. And we’re all entitled to enjoy them equally.
The nice thing about Washington Square Park is that out of literally thousands of people enjoying the day together with us in peace and tolerance, only one felt the need to disturb the serenity with an outburst like this. But that’s Washington Square Park, and that’s New York City. We know that women elsewhere in this country and elsewhere in the world don’t have the same freedom we do. And that’s one of the reasons we created this blog, and why we keep posting to it year after year. People still need to discover that women’s bodies are something perfectly ordinary (half the people in the world have one!) and deserve to be treated as uncontroversial whether covered or uncovered.
If you feel the same way we do, we’d love to have you join us sometime. All body-positive women are welcome. Just email us at toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com and we’ll find an event that’s right for you.
Remember, it’s already August this week! The summer won’t last forever. If you’ve ever felt curious or tempted or eager to try it for yourself…carpe diem.
Thank you for this blog! Having spent a fair amount of time in Europe in a prior career, I always found it a little embarrassing to know that, coming home, I was expected to gasp in shock at any sort of clothes-free occurrence. And as an American, I’d need to remind my European colleagues of the different rules here if they came for a conference. One poor fellow was arrested in a coed health club sauna for going in nude, and was completely puzzled when the police showed up to handcuff him and take him away. A couple of women had difficulty at a beach on a weekend because they didn’t have tops. They, at least, were not arrested. Families who had brought children were puzzled when their preteen girls were required to wear bikinis with tops just like their middle aged mothers (who could not fathom why a nonsense law would be extended to girls who didnt even have breasts.) I applaud New York for it’s progressive laws. I applaud you for helping to show that, even in our rather puritanical, yet oddly sex-driven and therefore hypocritical country, there are bastions of sanity.