July 7, 2017 • 40 mins
Did you know it was once considered scandalous for men to go topless? But they fought for and won that right nearly a century ago, while women's nipples still create an uproar. Bridget and Emilie explore why.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. In today's episode
is around a topic that I think we all might
have a little experience with. Nipples, you know, things on
(00:28):
your chest, right, I mean, what's interesting is that we
all have them. It's this thing that we all have.
Yet you might be surprised to find that nipples are legislated,
Nipples are argued about, Nipples are banned from various social
media platforms. There have been people advocating to free the nipples,
you know, have your nipples be loud and crowd displayed.
(00:50):
And so today we're gonna be diving into the weeds
of these things on our chest, why they can cause
such an uproar, and what really about it? Yeah, they're titterling,
one might even say. So. I was actually quite surprised.
This is not an issue that I think about a lot.
I tend to keep my shirt on when I'm in
public for the most part, so it's not an issue
(01:11):
that I thought about until sort of thinking about how
strange it was that a friend of mine who posted
a picture on social media of her breastfeeding, that picture
was taken down and she put it back up on
social media, and then her Facebook page was banned. She
was temporarily banned from Facebook because of this image. It
was kind of a while ago. Facebook has sensed, i think,
(01:33):
shifted their um policies, their nipple policies a little bit.
But I found that to be so strange, and I
mostly just thought it was interesting how we have this
big up for over you know, these two little bits
of skin, right, And it's definitely got some cross sections
when it comes to gender. Obviously plays a huge role
(01:53):
in this, because we must be explicit in mentioning that
men's nipples don't get removed from Instagram or Facebook. Men
can walk around topless today, although we're gonna talk about
how that wasn't always the case without getting arrested, without
causing up. And yet there's also an element of motherhood
that's kind of interesting here, right. The functional use of
(02:14):
nipples is somehow more tolerable in the public space than
the none functional. Like we're fine if it's sexualized, if
it's a sexualized woman's body, we're less fine if it's
if it's like it's not, it's not the same thing.
We're not we're not thinking about it in the same way. Um,
I remember being maybe I was nine and I have
I have brothers and male cousins and all of that.
(02:36):
I remember we had gone to the park and we
were all my dad used to do this thing where
he would let us run through the sprinklers when he
was nice. And I remember on the way back, you know,
it's summertime, our shirts were all clammy and wet, and
my cousins and my brotherhood they'd all taken their shirts off,
and I remember thinking, oh, like, well I should take
And then you know, I was a kid. I was
very flat chested, so I must have been like nine, okay,
(02:58):
so like not much going on upstairs, and when I
took my shirt off, it was like so quickly apparent
that I had made a huge error in and you know,
we didn't we didn't look that different, like my cousin,
my brother like like shirt, let's be pretty much all
looked the same. Yet for me it was clearly I
had made a huge mistake. Like I think it was
(03:20):
okay until you. I think, as as women, perhaps we
hit an age where it becomes not interesting at six, eight,
nine year old girls or whatever it might be, and
maybe it's from birth. In some families, it is already
you are already aware in the back seat, when you're
wearing an uncomfortably clammy shirt, you're already being told that
(03:42):
it is not okay for your little child nipples to
be out next the little boy nipples. Isn't that fascinating
even though you, I mean, for a lot of women,
they don't look that much different, like if you had
a nine year old boy up against nine year old girl.
For at least for me, I mean today, that's true
for a lot of us. Lady, it's not even the
(04:03):
It's the perception, right, isn't it. It's the gender. It's
gender that differentiates whether or not that's okay completely. So
this issue is a complicated one because it deals with law,
and so many of these laws are different state by state.
And disclaimer, we're not attorney. I am not a lawyer.
This is not let's down, this is not legal advice.
So please don't be like, oh, well, I listened to
(04:23):
this podcast and they said it was illegal for me
to be topless. Don't use that as a court defense.
That will not hold up. Um. And so it's interesting
that a lot of states, they differ in the laws
of how this is treated, Like, for instance, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois,
New York, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Washington are the
only states in the United States whose laws expressly differentiate
(04:44):
breastfeeding from acts of public lewdness, right, And so those
are the only states where if you were feeding a
child in public and if you were you know, being
like lewed quote unquote in public, they would see those
differently legally. So this is an issue that you know,
if you craw supporder can be one way in one state,
can be another way in another state. UM. There are
(05:05):
actually communities of folks who have been advocating for public
toplessness like laws to be changed to kind of really
aggressively chart how it plays out in different states. So
if you want to know the legality of whether or
not you can go topless in your city or your state,
you can go to go topless dot org because they
are very meticulously charting the legality down to like different
(05:26):
subdivisions and things, um of where you can go topless
with a woman and where you can So not only
is this a modern day legal cluster something I can't
completely say on this podcast, but it's it's you know,
it's such a clear reflection of America's discomfort and difference
in opinions over nipples, whether they're on a man, man's
body or a woman's body. But then actually went through
(05:48):
the same fight back in the nineteen thirties, which you
can read more about Things to the marvelous former host
and founder starter of this incredible podcast, Kristin Conger, writing
for Stuff Mom Never Told You dot Com. You can
find it on the blog. She wowed a great article
about how American men won the right to go topless,
and in fact, in the nineteen thirties, there were lots
(06:08):
of laws saying that male you know, toplessness, male nudity
on the top was just as lewd as women. But
when we started hitting the beach a bit more and
bathing suits became a thing, there were there was a
brief fight to free the nipple for men. And that
(06:28):
brief fight was one swiftly in the in the courts, legally,
and in the nineteen thirties nip male nipples really had
their heyday on the silver screen. Kristen Wright, Olympian Johnny
Wisemoller wore nothing but a loincloth in Tarzan and the Apes.
Two years later, Clark Gable impressively sidestep the Haze Codes,
(06:51):
which were the laws outlawing male nipples in for public display,
with his famous undressing monologue to Claudette Colbert Colbert, and
it happened one night. So it's interesting how men's undershirts
even fell after the film's release. And these sort of
male swimmers uh and Coney Island sort of daringly flaunting
(07:13):
their nipples, bucking the laws, bucking the shirtlessness bands. Uh.
And finally, after a series of fines and some advocacy
on this issue, a judge overturned New York States male
shirtless band in seven So male nips won the right
to be on display in a short seven year legal
(07:33):
battle in a lot of ways, and male nipples were
here to stay. And I think it's interesting that, like
as it goes with many issues, women of course, are
kind of just catching up. You know, we're not even
held back, right, Like, I mean, it's not like we
we don't want that, right, I mean, it's it's just
like and also here's the thing people will say, and
I remember when I was first getting hip to this issue,
women's boobs are different boobs or sex objects. Boobs are
(07:56):
sexual in nature when they're on a woman, and reality
is is we've made them sexual, right, And again, I mean,
I just think it's very interesting and doing a little
bit of research for this this episode one when you
think about how many sexualized images we see all the time,
and that we've pack Hamburger commercials, commercials, and we've taken
(08:18):
like like that somehow is okay. But you know, when
you're like feeding a child or something in public like that,
it's not okay. Like I find that to be kind
of fascinating and also just nonsensical. It seems so arbitrary
how we've how we've gotten ourselves into kind of a
moral panic around something that should be so natural. And
you know, and every other part of your breast being
(08:38):
out is fine under boob side, boob top, boob cleavage.
We we love it all until you sho isn't it
Janelle Money who in her song Yoga says you cannot
police me, so get off my ariolas, Like just that
one part of your breast becomes not acceptable anymore. Then
you're like you can be arrested. Yeah, And and and
(09:00):
I think what's interesting again, is some of the legal
information out there around nipples um. The late Supreme Court
Justice Scalia in this landmark nine Supreme Court case Barnes
versus the Glenn Theater Uh. It concerned the First Amendment
and whether or not the government could outlaw certain forms
of expressive content if it involved public mudity. And so
(09:21):
in this ruling, which was like a landmark kind of case,
Scalia found that or he ruled that public mudity was
a just as a moral and lumped it alongside things
like drug use, cock fighting, beast reality. Would you think
of as when we say cock fighting, we're talking about
roosters to thank you for that, We're talking acts there
(09:42):
anything um? But yeah, And so he lumped public mudity
or along with those like things that you think of
as as um, you know, things you shouldn't be doing.
And another another judge he ruled that public mudity was
connected to arise in sexual assaults and things like other
kind of like you know, illegal behavior. And what's interesting
(10:03):
is that I couldn't find any research that showed those
two things were connected, that public mudity and arise in
sexual assaults? Were they very well? May they very well? Maybe?
But I couldn't find anything around that um And yeah,
I found that very interesting too, because when you look
at these individual cases where people are cited by police
for public nudity, they often times go back to this
idea of like, oh, well, we need to prevent traffic accidents,
(10:26):
so we can't have women out here topless. And in
one New Hampshire town they actually the reason why they
put a public nudity ban on the books in the
first place was because they were having a big motorcycle
um like motorcycle event where loss of motorcyclists were coming in. Yeah,
and they were like, oh, well, we can't have motorcyclists,
you know, we kind of women showing their boobs to
(10:47):
motorcycles and causing accidents. Just for the record, I've been
to an East Sturgist rally. It's a long story, is
too why that is a thing that has happened. But
I went to one in Virginia and guess what, all
the men were positioning themselves on the side of the
road and sort of fake not allowing people to pass
until the women did show them their boobs. So there
(11:08):
were some signs at those festivals saying show us your tits,
raise your tops and women everywhere we're doing it. Raise
your top I did not, you know why, because if
I'm gonna go topless, I'm gonna go topless for me,
not on command by a game of motorcyclist. Yeah. I
actually hid in the bed of a truck. Yeah, I mean,
I'll show them what I want to show them. I
mean it was pretty intense. So talk about hypocrisy. You know,
(11:30):
we're saying, oh, the paternalistic stage. And this is where
my anti anti federalist bones get aky. Like here as
as the government, we say you you must wear your seatbelt,
it's for your own protection. You must not drink and drive.
It's for the protection of everyone's for the good of all.
I know, by the way, you must not show your
nips if you're a woman, because it's for the good
of all. These distracted men. Mean, we're trying to take
(11:54):
care of you ladies. It's very Yeah, part of me
kind of gets it because I do. I do think
that if you were if you were a topless woman
walking down the street, I bet sun driver would would
cause an accident. But that's hit like, that's his fault,
and so a part of me gets where they're coming
from and that you know women were rocking on topless. Frankly,
(12:17):
I don't trust that men wouldn't be like running into
like poles of their car and causing a public safety
problem until it was normal, right until it was normal.
And we'll never we'll never get to normal if we
keep legislating. And so I want to hear from our
listeners from abroad, tell us what it's like to learn
in the society that's not so drenched in our puritanical
roots like it is here in the United Totally. I
I want to hear all about this um and so
(12:39):
one thing I do need to state is that this
issue people have been arrested to like in modern in
modern times for this. So in New Jersey, this woman
named Phoenix Phely she served time in the A County
Correctional Facility in Freehold Township, New Jersey, after she refused
to pay an eight hundred and sixteen dollar spine standing
from being arrested twice in the same day in two
(13:01):
thousand and eight while sunbathing in spring Lake, New Jersey.
And yeah, she basically was like, if you're fine, I'm
not paying this. I should be able to go topless,
um and She argued that going topless is not the
same thing as being nude, and that women, like men,
should be able to bear their chests in public. At
her sentencing, she you know, was great, Yeah, it's crazy,
(13:22):
So she quote, I refuse to pay a fine for
an act that is legal for a man but is
illegal for a woman. And I think that puts it perfectly.
And that's all we're trying to say here. We're not
saying that Bridget and I are dying to take off
our tops the minute we uh we walk out of
the studio, because I'm definitely not. When it comes to
(13:43):
like straight up gender discrimination, how is this not a
clear case of something that is legal for men and
illegal for women. And people would argue that men and
women's breasts look differently, but guess what across the full
spectrum of bodies in this country, that is not necessarily true.
That is so not true. And I think you know,
another wrinkle of this topic is folks who don't fall
(14:04):
along the gender bin area, right like folks who like
there are are We have such a vast rainbow of
bodies that fall along all kinds of of lines, and
this idea that we are we are legislating, but we're not.
Let our legislation has not caught up with the fact
that that is the case trans women exactly. And in
(14:25):
California just recently they they officially had determined that there
are more than two genders. That is on their legal
that is a legal ruling that they have found, and
yet our nipple laws are not caught up with that.
We still legislative along a bin area when we are
when we have acknowledged as a society that that's not
well correct, but we're working on We're getting there. Let's
(14:45):
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about this hashtag free the Nipple campaign
and how social media has become the new arena for
that's really a hotbed for this debate. After a word
from our sponsors, and we're back, and there's so much
(15:10):
more to talk about. This complicated right, they don't seem
that complicated. But so let's dive right into the hashtag
free the Nipple, which was coupled with documentary which frankly
all the buzz around the nipple campaign, and that documentary
(15:31):
is how I first learned about this issue and first
became aware that this was an issue, And I'll be honest,
when I saw this parade of topless women in New
York City on the Free the Nipple movie trailer, I
was thinking, Oh my god, this is too far. This
Like I'm a feminist, I'm a progressive, but this is
over the top. And my gut reaction was, you know,
(15:53):
this is not the battle to be fighting right now.
And I have to admit I've come around, but I
was initially like very skeptical that this should be a priority. Yes,
I completely, I mean I I probably I agree with you,
and my take is probably almost more extreme. And so
some of y'all might be surprised to know this. I
I'm maybe I'm a little bit of a prude or
(16:15):
something like I am. I have a very gut reaction
to public nudity. I personally, I don't dig it. I
don't dig it, and I don't dig it for like
very problematic reasons that I have like clearly internalized. Right,
this is one of those things that like it's very
clear to me that my problem with it is that
I have internalized some not great stuff from society around it.
(16:37):
Perhaps is religious because I'm I'm a person of faith
and I think you know, again, as someone who goes
to a lot of protests and things like that, like
the campaign fed in where it's it's these women who
are topless and they write things on their bodies. I'm
always my first instinct is people like, oh, I hate that,
like put your shirt on. That is always my gut reaction,
and I have to challenge myself to like not have
(17:00):
that right and say, oh, this is a legitimate thing. Well,
I think it's good that we're acknowledging this because internalized
misogyny is so prevalent, and that's really what we're talking about.
We've internalized messages about wrongness, that woman's body is not
what we think of as appropriate. And meanwhile, you know,
think about all the Kardashian photo shoots, which are like
(17:23):
the new and we can't even go there with like
the problematic race component to this. But I'm thinking of
the totally nude paper and we're like, yeah, Kardashian beautiful.
I mean racially not okay, But it's just interesting the
kinds of nudity context matter. Yeah, the context matters so much,
and it's interesting the kinds of nudity that we are.
(17:44):
We don't beat an eye at and the kinds of
nudity that we legislate shame, you know, but we're all
of us do it like we're all and I think
body shaming has a lot to do with it, right, definitely,
And what do you mean you can you can walk
around unapologetically topless and not conformed to like standard model
old catwalk standards, like we're not okay with us. Well,
that's what's so interesting about that is that a political philosopher,
(18:05):
Joel Feinberg actually found that or he argues that the
reason why we legislate nudity in this way actually has
little to do with public safety or doing what's good
for the public. And it's actually about the fact that
when shame, when feelings of shame discussed, anxiety, guilt, when
those are the kinds of feelings that are evoked by
something that's that's calls for a kind like that prompts
(18:28):
a kind of legislation for that has nothing to do
with public safety. Right, So, when when someone feels has
weird feels around someone who is topless, you know, legislators
and lawmakers and folks who make our laws feel the
need to step in and legislate that feel and we
know that legislation and legislators has been dominated by white
(18:50):
dudes for as long as we've had a government completely.
The Free the Nipple campaign can be found at Free
the Nipple dot com. She the sort of tagline here
is how far will you go for a quality? It's
about equality, empowerment, freedom, It's time and they make a
really compelling and interesting case for you know, it's not
okay for us to cheer women's bodies in one context
(19:12):
and shame and legislate and just treat women's nipples toplessness
as illegal, illicit and lud in another context. It's just
total politicist politicification. What is the word they're it's politicizing
women's bodies that are anatomically functional, that are anatomically equal,
and we should treat them that way completely and honestly.
(19:33):
And as I said earlier, I was a bit skeptical
as in terms of this, as are like big feminist issue.
But when I went to the Free the Nipple website,
something that I found really interesting was that they were
advocating for the e r A, the Equal Rights Amendment
that would guarantee that men and women would finally be
recognized as equals. In the framework of the Constitution and
under federal protection. And you know, there are currently so
(19:55):
many issues and ways in which women and men are
not equal. You know, we is there an episode on
the ear right. Just for the record, the Equal Rights
Amendment is just an uh an amendment proposed to the
United States Constitution which has been in political gridlock since
what I think the nineteen sixties is when it was
first introduced, almost passed and didn't. It would have legally
(20:18):
stated in our constitution that men and women must be
treated equally. And guess what our constitution and government currently
does not explicitly say that. And what's even more fascinating
is that the United States, it's only one of the
seven countries in the world, along with Iran, Somalia, Sudan,
South Sudan, uh Tonga, and Palau, but if not ratified
the UN Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination against
(20:39):
Women And so so before we get a little high
on our conscious and I know a lot of UM
conservative women criticizing Hillary's campaign, and I get it, like
it's fine to differ on politics, but I've heard from
a lot of conservative UM feminists who say, let's focus
on women who are actually oppressed abroad. Right here in
(20:59):
the United States, we are so lucky, we're so privileged.
And in many ways economically that is true, not for
all women, but in many ways as a nation that's true.
But hello, look, look, look, listen to where we're at
as a country. We haven't explicitly gotten on board with this.
We are so far behind in so many ways. Yeah,
and I think that's exactly right. And again, I mean,
(21:19):
this is an issue. It may seem small because it's
just two bits of skin, but it's a very I
think it's an interesting case study in terms of how
we think about gender equality, that this is a very
obvious and explicit and overt way in which women and
men are not legislated the same, and our bodies are
police correct, And so I think, like you know, even
though he was skeptical at first, it's it's true. I mean,
(21:41):
it's inarguably true that this is over overt discrimination against.
So let's talk about social media, because I think social
media is where this issue has blown up, specifically with Instagram.
But let's talk through some of the platforms and their
policies already. Yeah, So I did a little digging, and
so if you're curious, you know what you can do
and what you can show and how much skin you
(22:02):
can show. Here's a little breakdown of where we're at.
Uh So, Tumbler and Twitter they are, you're there there,
you an even goes. You can post whatever you want nipples.
Ni Nick was yeah, yeah, yeah, nip wise, so go
nuts on both of those platforms. UM on Facebook they
Facebook used to have a no nipple policy of any kind.
Now they are allowed if it's an image of someone breastfeeding.
(22:25):
And so if you're a mom who's posting a picture
of you know, like my friend from earlier, like that
was so strange to me that it was not a
sexual image, it was her. It was an image of
her celebrating her her pregnancy, and that she was banned
from Facebook for it. So now now it's fine on
Facebook as long as you're breastfeeding. UM on Instagram, they
are super super not allowed. And we're gonna get into
(22:47):
sort of some interesting face studies of that. Um I
did find this interesting. According to hyper Allergic, UM quote
LinkedIn's policy on nipples is unclear, so tested out, let
us know what happens. And and so let's talk about
a drama on Instagram because context. It's like, who comes
up with this stuff? But context really matters on Instagram.
(23:08):
So a piece of art, a painting or photo, or
even a T shirt or a bikini featuring nipples, Like
if you wore a nude bikini that had a photo
realistic nipple breast on it, you can get away with
that on Instagram. Should just show you how absurd this
an arbitrary, this rule, and um, your nips, like actual
(23:30):
nips not only not allowed in any context unless you're due,
unless you're dude. So uh. The guy from Orange is
the new Black Matt McGorry is that the name? He
actually posted a picture which I think really illustrated the
ridiculousness of this policy. It's a picture of him topless
and he has cropped out his own male nipples. And
(23:51):
on one side he has cropped in a picture of
Miley Cyrus's nipple, and on the other side it's a
picture of Christie Tigan's nipple. You can see me in
the studio, I'm illustrating with her hands in a very
awkward way. Um, but that picture is allowed even though
he has exposed female nipples. But because he is a man,
that picture is allowed, which is absurd. She did just
(24:12):
to point out the absurdity. Yeah, and I think it's
a good illustration. Yeah. And this policy on Instagram even
gets to the point where, um, a Vogue editor and artist,
Grace Cottington, was kicked off of Instagram after posting a
doodle an image. It wasn't even like a hyper realistic
like it was a very like a cartoon of herself topless,
(24:32):
and she was banned from Instagram for that. What Yeah?
That she just doesn't make it go to show you
how arbitrary and ridiculous as policy is. Well, I think
it's funny the folks who are pushing the envelope here
and trying to point out the absurdity behind it. There's
a a Instagram account called Genderless Underscore Nipples, which has
(24:54):
been uh criticizing and sort of highlighting the ridiculousness of
Instagram's strict stance on female nudity by posting hyper zoomed
in images of nipples. Look at this envy with a
nice piercing that says, bite me. I know. So we've
(25:15):
got a super close up photo of a nipple that
makes it impossible to tell if it was a male
or a female nipple and they're they're getting through, they're
sort of bucking the role here. Um, there's one other
Instagram kerfuffall, did you have one that you wanted to attack? Oh?
Well I would. I want to hear where you're going. Okay,
So there's one other Instagram interesting story here that I
think is really important to acknowledge, especially for women without nipples.
(25:37):
And I'm thinking specifically around breast cancer survivors post mestectomy. Um,
there was a really beautiful um Instagram account and a
bunch of women who are breast cancer survivors who posted bravely,
frankly in this hyper like hyper judge, you know, policing
women's bodies context photos of post mastectomy UM breasts and
(26:03):
sort of chess. And specifically there's an interesting account around um, well,
here's a person, specifically Amy Black, who is a breast
cancer survivor who got a post mastectomy nipple tattoo. And
you can get sort of nipples tattooed on. You can
get really beautiful, incredible art. Look at this art like
(26:25):
it's so powerful. I mean, I claim your body exactly
and saying like I'm going to do something that makes
me feel beautiful and reclaiming sort of that that space
on her body and her own way and whatever that
looks like for you. Women without nipples, women without breasts,
you know, if you identify as a woman, right, there's
(26:45):
also surgery to transition into being male without breast, but
that's a whole other bag. Um, these women were kicked
off inster him So nipple, not even nipples, breast reconstructed
breasts with tattoos celebrating breast cancer revival was banned by Instagram.
That is maddening. So I have another I have another
(27:06):
kind of wrinkle. It's not nipple related, but I think
it does show how Instagram does seem sort of hell
bent on, uh policing women's body. So in an artist
and photographer posted a picture of herself on Instagram of
her laying in bed with a period blood stain on
her pants and on the bed and insta and she's
(27:26):
fully clothed. That she's wearing long pants and a T shirt.
That's fully fully clothed. And Instagram deleted this picture and
the activated her account. And again, I mean, it's interesting
to me that Instagram is is policing what should be
you know, non controversial parts of of of body ownership,
(27:46):
right bodies men stright once a month, it's it's no secret, sorry,
all it happens. And the fact that Instagram is like,
oh no, no no, no, we can't have And another kind
of interesting point to make about this is that Facebook
owns Instagram, and Facebook often has really disturbing like images
and videos of people being murdered, people being tortured, and
(28:06):
yet nipples, menstruation, these are things you can't you know.
I think the counter argument would be that this is
a private company enterprise, that this is not a right,
say that this is our platform. We can censor it
the way we see fit. But with the ubiquity of it,
is that really true? Like, it's really it's really interesting.
(28:27):
But also how we treat women's bodies very differently, and
I don't Yeah, it's it's just fascinating to me. So
I don't mean to say that Instagram and Facebook should
change their like I mean not so I'm not making
the point that they should be like changing their corporate
policies around how they deal with this. I'm just pointing
out that, like it just seems absurd and there seems
(28:47):
to be no rhyme or reason to what they allow
and what they don't allow, and I think that says
something about our society and women. It's just very I
would go I would go stup further and say they
should change it to just treat men and women's bodies
the same. Here's a quote that um Lena Esco, the
founder of Free the Nipple, gave to Mike dot com
and this great article that I was just pulling from
around um how Instagram band photos of breast cancer survivor.
(29:08):
She says, quote equality in terms of toplessness applies to
the censorship of women's bodies on social media, the issue
of equal pay, or the stigma against breastfeeding in public.
It all falls down into the same category, which is equality.
So when we police women's bodies differently than men's on
the lawbooks or on social media, which is a huge
way that our communities, that our world communicates nowadays, we
(29:32):
are reinforcing this idea that men and women have different rights,
and that's messed up. It is messed up. And I
think we're gonna talk a little bit more about how
the various ways in which this is a real gender
discrimination issue after this quick break and Rebecca. We were
(29:54):
just talking about nipples from the nipple panic. They tend
to inspire the drama, the drama around nipples, and so
I wanted to talk about sort of what can be done.
So if this is an issue that you want to
get involved with, that you want to make noise about,
there are ways and there are groups sort of doing
that work. Um. And so one thing I would suggest
is going to go topless dot org, which really is
(30:15):
a one stop shop for all your nipple related activism. UM.
And then I would say watch the documentary fore the Nipple.
It's streaming on Hulu, and I think there's other places
online like Amazon Video that you can also find it,
or on iTunes, uh and Google Play. And it's a
really great rundown of not only the the whack history
(30:36):
behind h the discriminatory practices around enforcement and what's deemed lude,
but also a real chronicling of the movement right, the movement,
the March, the renaissance around women advocating for the right
to go topless and and not be deemed a criminal
for doing so. Yeah, and speaking of being deemed a criminal. Um.
(30:56):
In one county in New Hampshire, state representatives tried to
ban female toplessness statewide, and this bill to ban it
was killed in the How Subcommittee after its members found
out that has written a second offense would be a
felony and could require those convicted to register a sex
offenders which is absurd, right, which has huge ramifications on
(31:17):
someone's employment, eligibility and life writ large for showing off
what is publicly deemed appropriate for men and not women.
How is that not discriminatory? It's so discriminatory. And again,
I mean winding up on a a sex offender list
because you you know, for sunbathing like that, like that
I think is really something that we should be I mean,
(31:39):
the fact that was even something that was considered in
a modern day America I think is absurd and why
And that's also why it's so important to understand enforcement
and understand the very disjointed legality around this, which you
were telling me off air for a second about. Was
it New Hampshire? Yeah, so New Hampshire is kind of
a hotbed of case studies around nipple laws les. Yes,
(32:05):
And so what's interesting is there was a group of
women women in ten who were sunbathing in New Hampshire.
They were in They were in Laconia, New Hampshire, sunbathing topless,
and they had no complaints. Everything was fine. Then they
went to another part of New Hampshire, Guilford, New Hampshire,
topless to watch the fireworks display, and someone called the police. Um,
the two women were cited. They were given citations, and
(32:26):
it was determined that because there is no law banning
female toplessness in the state criminal code, there could be
no local ordinances that criminalized, you know, public toplessness of women.
And what it's also so strange is that, weirdly, the
people of this town to the women's defense, no, no,
they were like, no, we want this to be like
like they tried to get the right. They wanted the
(32:49):
judge to continue to uphold this citation, but the judge
was like, no, I'm not going to reverse my decision.
There's no state law against it. So they're there, we
can't cite them. But it's interesting that you find state
law outing up against uh city law and local law
and enforcement arresting anyway. Correct. So even in places like
New York City, where it's technically allowed to be a
woman who's topless on the street, police officers need to
(33:11):
issue reminders that they can't arrest women for simply going
shirtless and locations where it would be permissible to do
so if they were men um and so the New
York Times reports simply exposing your breast in public is
not a crime, and so you have people have to
remind cups because otherwise otherwise they'll treat it as as
if it's a crime, and people will call the police
and be like, oh, this woman is topless on the street,
and everybody just needs reminders that hey, this is not
(33:33):
a crime. And that just should go to show you
how kind of you find all these different laws plus
public opinion bumping up against each other because so bizarre.
And I think of New Hampshire as the most interesting
place for this to all be going down, because it
is such a libertarian state where they basically are like,
we don't want government interfering in our lives as much
(33:54):
as possible. We don't want government, which don't they have
like no sales tax, there phrases live for your daft,
and yet they're like, let's police women's bodies more. Live
for you or die unless you are a female sun
bather on the beach or just strolling around down with
the nips out, and I think it's important to acknowledge
the homology behind this, and so homology is the term
(34:17):
I first came across in Dr Emily Nagoski the sex
experts book about it's called Come as You Are. It's
a fascinating read. I highly recommend it about female sexuality
and sexual pleasure. And what she made me realize is
that men and women come from the same genealogy, right,
(34:37):
we come from the same d n A. We our
bodies have the this existence of shared ancestry. That is
the reason why our bodies are mirrored, our bodies are comparable.
And she actually goes into great detail about how women's
sex organs and men's sex organs are way more similar
than you think they are. And I couldn't help but
(34:58):
think about that when we think about why men have
nipples in the first place, Like why do men have
nipples if there's no uh like function but function to them.
And it's because of homologies, because of the historical sort
of um equality between our organs and how we're produced
as human beings in gestation and in development. So it's
(35:20):
just a good reminder the whole all the stigma, all
the drama, all the sexualization, all that titilating components to
women's nipples are one hundred percent society putting its per
like it's perspective on your body. Like men and women's
nipples come from the same DNA. Men and women's nipples
are not as different as we're made to think that
(35:41):
they actually are, and and all the like, the sexiness
of women's nipples is someone else's judgment put upon your
body totally. And I think that's I mean, I keep
coming back to this because I think it's one way
that it plays out so so obviously it's with breastfeeding, right,
like that we as a society have you know, made
(36:02):
breasts such a a titillating thing when they're when they're
they shouldn't be. And I think I think it was
Amy Adams who talked about and People Magazine about after
becoming a mom and starting to breastfeed that she was like, yeah,
I mean, the purpose of my body is to not
look good and is not to look at the bathing suit.
It's to feed my child at this point. And you know,
I'm she was like, yeah, I'm more concerned with that
(36:23):
functionality than like, you know, being in a bikini or
what happened, and so you know, I mean, there are
so many women out there who have been kicked off
of planes, kicked out of restaurants for simply breastfeeding. And
it's such a it's such a you know, it should
be a normalized thing. It's healthy for the baby. People
are like, oh, girl, breastfeeding politics are hardcore. I'm probably
(36:46):
I should say, I should say I probably said the
most thing. I'm sorry. I'm just saying, yeah, we're gonna
do a whole episode around brestfeeding politics because I know
it's tricky. My mom is a patrician and she is
often advocating for women's rights to breastfeed and as am
I or not to breastfeed, exactly all the things. Um,
but yeah, I think that when you have these people
who are like, oh, you should cover up or do
(37:06):
that in the bathroom, Like what do you want to
eat your lunch in a bathroom stall? No? Gross? You know,
it's just everyone policing women's bodies, just like the police
women's speech. And I have to give one more shout
out to Kristin Conger who did a really great YouTube
video on the question. I was just discussing why do
men have nipples? She was actually on brain Stuff's channel
on YouTube, so another how stuff works podcast, brain Stuff. UM,
(37:33):
just google why do men have nipples? You'll find Kristen
talking through that issue on more and more of a
level too. So I just want to throw that in
there because I've just mentioned it before. But yes, and
to get a soft breastfeeding You're like, no, no, it's
great though. So last thing we want to just shout
out to uh, those of us who are like, oh
(37:54):
my goodness, I need to take action to free the nipple.
I didn't realize this was such a big deal and
such an issue and it is. Um, there's an upcoming
event where you can do just that. It's called Go
Topless Day and it comes up every August in what
is it, the Tuesday Closest to Day, which is the Anniversity.
(38:14):
We've been getting the right to vote right, and so
all over the country you might find free the Nipple
days and marches and protests or demonstrations where women are
encouraged and welcome to go topless and men who there
are many men who are here to support women. And
we can talk about many complex reasons why, but let's
(38:35):
give them the benefit of the doubting and assume that
they're all there to support equality. UM. But there are
men who are who are encouraged to wear bras and
bikini tops and show up with their nipples covered and
see how wonderfully comfortable that can be. So U go
topless day. It's coming up in August. Check it out,
get out to a demonstration. If you're so inclined, you
(38:57):
also can go and not be topless. That's okay too.
It's just an opportunity to talk to women, to talk
to men, to talk about equality, and to talk about
how we can raise more awareness, especially amongst legislators. Uh
and and be a part of the activist community in
making the case for equality on the books. When it
comes to how we treat men and women's nipples, you know,
(39:18):
we want to hear from you, especially if you have
a challenging relationship with your nipples, Like how do you
feel about nipples? Are you a survivor of breast cancer?
Are you postmastectomy? Are you a transwoman? I mean, what
is what is what does nipples mean to you? Um?
And is it important that this is something that is
legalized for women in the same way that is for men.
(39:41):
I think there's a lot more to unpack that Frankly
Bridge and I didn't have time to get to in
today's episode, but we hope this gave us a good
starting point for our continued conversation on social and we
cannot wait to hear what free the Nipple means to you.
Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you
seeing w
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. In today's episode
is around a topic that I think we all might
have a little experience with. Nipples, you know, things on
(00:28):
your chest, right, I mean, what's interesting is that we
all have them. It's this thing that we all have.
Yet you might be surprised to find that nipples are legislated,
Nipples are argued about, Nipples are banned from various social
media platforms. There have been people advocating to free the nipples,
you know, have your nipples be loud and crowd displayed.
(00:50):
And so today we're gonna be diving into the weeds
of these things on our chest, why they can cause
such an uproar, and what really about it? Yeah, they're titterling,
one might even say. So. I was actually quite surprised.
This is not an issue that I think about a lot.
I tend to keep my shirt on when I'm in
public for the most part, so it's not an issue
(01:11):
that I thought about until sort of thinking about how
strange it was that a friend of mine who posted
a picture on social media of her breastfeeding, that picture
was taken down and she put it back up on
social media, and then her Facebook page was banned. She
was temporarily banned from Facebook because of this image. It
was kind of a while ago. Facebook has sensed, i think,
(01:33):
shifted their um policies, their nipple policies a little bit.
But I found that to be so strange, and I
mostly just thought it was interesting how we have this
big up for over you know, these two little bits
of skin, right, And it's definitely got some cross sections
when it comes to gender. Obviously plays a huge role
(01:53):
in this, because we must be explicit in mentioning that
men's nipples don't get removed from Instagram or Facebook. Men
can walk around topless today, although we're gonna talk about
how that wasn't always the case without getting arrested, without
causing up. And yet there's also an element of motherhood
that's kind of interesting here, right. The functional use of
(02:14):
nipples is somehow more tolerable in the public space than
the none functional. Like we're fine if it's sexualized, if
it's a sexualized woman's body, we're less fine if it's
if it's like it's not, it's not the same thing.
We're not we're not thinking about it in the same way. Um,
I remember being maybe I was nine and I have
I have brothers and male cousins and all of that.
(02:36):
I remember we had gone to the park and we
were all my dad used to do this thing where
he would let us run through the sprinklers when he
was nice. And I remember on the way back, you know,
it's summertime, our shirts were all clammy and wet, and
my cousins and my brotherhood they'd all taken their shirts off,
and I remember thinking, oh, like, well I should take
And then you know, I was a kid. I was
very flat chested, so I must have been like nine, okay,
(02:58):
so like not much going on upstairs, and when I
took my shirt off, it was like so quickly apparent
that I had made a huge error in and you know,
we didn't we didn't look that different, like my cousin,
my brother like like shirt, let's be pretty much all
looked the same. Yet for me it was clearly I
had made a huge mistake. Like I think it was
(03:20):
okay until you. I think, as as women, perhaps we
hit an age where it becomes not interesting at six, eight,
nine year old girls or whatever it might be, and
maybe it's from birth. In some families, it is already
you are already aware in the back seat, when you're
wearing an uncomfortably clammy shirt, you're already being told that
(03:42):
it is not okay for your little child nipples to
be out next the little boy nipples. Isn't that fascinating
even though you, I mean, for a lot of women,
they don't look that much different, like if you had
a nine year old boy up against nine year old girl.
For at least for me, I mean today, that's true
for a lot of us. Lady, it's not even the
(04:03):
It's the perception, right, isn't it. It's the gender. It's
gender that differentiates whether or not that's okay completely. So
this issue is a complicated one because it deals with law,
and so many of these laws are different state by state.
And disclaimer, we're not attorney. I am not a lawyer.
This is not let's down, this is not legal advice.
So please don't be like, oh, well, I listened to
(04:23):
this podcast and they said it was illegal for me
to be topless. Don't use that as a court defense.
That will not hold up. Um. And so it's interesting
that a lot of states, they differ in the laws
of how this is treated, Like, for instance, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois,
New York, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and Washington are the
only states in the United States whose laws expressly differentiate
(04:44):
breastfeeding from acts of public lewdness, right, And so those
are the only states where if you were feeding a
child in public and if you were you know, being
like lewed quote unquote in public, they would see those
differently legally. So this is an issue that you know,
if you craw supporder can be one way in one state,
can be another way in another state. UM. There are
(05:05):
actually communities of folks who have been advocating for public
toplessness like laws to be changed to kind of really
aggressively chart how it plays out in different states. So
if you want to know the legality of whether or
not you can go topless in your city or your state,
you can go to go topless dot org because they
are very meticulously charting the legality down to like different
(05:26):
subdivisions and things, um of where you can go topless
with a woman and where you can So not only
is this a modern day legal cluster something I can't
completely say on this podcast, but it's it's you know,
it's such a clear reflection of America's discomfort and difference
in opinions over nipples, whether they're on a man, man's
body or a woman's body. But then actually went through
(05:48):
the same fight back in the nineteen thirties, which you
can read more about Things to the marvelous former host
and founder starter of this incredible podcast, Kristin Conger, writing
for Stuff Mom Never Told You dot Com. You can
find it on the blog. She wowed a great article
about how American men won the right to go topless,
and in fact, in the nineteen thirties, there were lots
(06:08):
of laws saying that male you know, toplessness, male nudity
on the top was just as lewd as women. But
when we started hitting the beach a bit more and
bathing suits became a thing, there were there was a
brief fight to free the nipple for men. And that
(06:28):
brief fight was one swiftly in the in the courts, legally,
and in the nineteen thirties nip male nipples really had
their heyday on the silver screen. Kristen Wright, Olympian Johnny
Wisemoller wore nothing but a loincloth in Tarzan and the Apes.
Two years later, Clark Gable impressively sidestep the Haze Codes,
(06:51):
which were the laws outlawing male nipples in for public display,
with his famous undressing monologue to Claudette Colbert Colbert, and
it happened one night. So it's interesting how men's undershirts
even fell after the film's release. And these sort of
male swimmers uh and Coney Island sort of daringly flaunting
(07:13):
their nipples, bucking the laws, bucking the shirtlessness bands. Uh.
And finally, after a series of fines and some advocacy
on this issue, a judge overturned New York States male
shirtless band in seven So male nips won the right
to be on display in a short seven year legal
(07:33):
battle in a lot of ways, and male nipples were
here to stay. And I think it's interesting that, like
as it goes with many issues, women of course, are
kind of just catching up. You know, we're not even
held back, right, Like, I mean, it's not like we
we don't want that, right, I mean, it's it's just
like and also here's the thing people will say, and
I remember when I was first getting hip to this issue,
women's boobs are different boobs or sex objects. Boobs are
(07:56):
sexual in nature when they're on a woman, and reality
is is we've made them sexual, right, And again, I mean,
I just think it's very interesting and doing a little
bit of research for this this episode one when you
think about how many sexualized images we see all the time,
and that we've pack Hamburger commercials, commercials, and we've taken
(08:18):
like like that somehow is okay. But you know, when
you're like feeding a child or something in public like that,
it's not okay. Like I find that to be kind
of fascinating and also just nonsensical. It seems so arbitrary
how we've how we've gotten ourselves into kind of a
moral panic around something that should be so natural. And
you know, and every other part of your breast being
(08:38):
out is fine under boob side, boob top, boob cleavage.
We we love it all until you sho isn't it
Janelle Money who in her song Yoga says you cannot
police me, so get off my ariolas, Like just that
one part of your breast becomes not acceptable anymore. Then
you're like you can be arrested. Yeah, And and and
(09:00):
I think what's interesting again, is some of the legal
information out there around nipples um. The late Supreme Court
Justice Scalia in this landmark nine Supreme Court case Barnes
versus the Glenn Theater Uh. It concerned the First Amendment
and whether or not the government could outlaw certain forms
of expressive content if it involved public mudity. And so
(09:21):
in this ruling, which was like a landmark kind of case,
Scalia found that or he ruled that public mudity was
a just as a moral and lumped it alongside things
like drug use, cock fighting, beast reality. Would you think
of as when we say cock fighting, we're talking about
roosters to thank you for that, We're talking acts there
(09:42):
anything um? But yeah, And so he lumped public mudity
or along with those like things that you think of
as as um, you know, things you shouldn't be doing.
And another another judge he ruled that public mudity was
connected to arise in sexual assaults and things like other
kind of like you know, illegal behavior. And what's interesting
(10:03):
is that I couldn't find any research that showed those
two things were connected, that public mudity and arise in
sexual assaults? Were they very well? May they very well? Maybe?
But I couldn't find anything around that um And yeah,
I found that very interesting too, because when you look
at these individual cases where people are cited by police
for public nudity, they often times go back to this
idea of like, oh, well, we need to prevent traffic accidents,
(10:26):
so we can't have women out here topless. And in
one New Hampshire town they actually the reason why they
put a public nudity ban on the books in the
first place was because they were having a big motorcycle
um like motorcycle event where loss of motorcyclists were coming in. Yeah,
and they were like, oh, well, we can't have motorcyclists,
you know, we kind of women showing their boobs to
(10:47):
motorcycles and causing accidents. Just for the record, I've been
to an East Sturgist rally. It's a long story, is
too why that is a thing that has happened. But
I went to one in Virginia and guess what, all
the men were positioning themselves on the side of the
road and sort of fake not allowing people to pass
until the women did show them their boobs. So there
(11:08):
were some signs at those festivals saying show us your tits,
raise your tops and women everywhere we're doing it. Raise
your top I did not, you know why, because if
I'm gonna go topless, I'm gonna go topless for me,
not on command by a game of motorcyclist. Yeah. I
actually hid in the bed of a truck. Yeah, I mean,
I'll show them what I want to show them. I
mean it was pretty intense. So talk about hypocrisy. You know,
(11:30):
we're saying, oh, the paternalistic stage. And this is where
my anti anti federalist bones get aky. Like here as
as the government, we say you you must wear your seatbelt,
it's for your own protection. You must not drink and drive.
It's for the protection of everyone's for the good of all.
I know, by the way, you must not show your
nips if you're a woman, because it's for the good
of all. These distracted men. Mean, we're trying to take
(11:54):
care of you ladies. It's very Yeah, part of me
kind of gets it because I do. I do think
that if you were if you were a topless woman
walking down the street, I bet sun driver would would
cause an accident. But that's hit like, that's his fault,
and so a part of me gets where they're coming
from and that you know women were rocking on topless. Frankly,
(12:17):
I don't trust that men wouldn't be like running into
like poles of their car and causing a public safety
problem until it was normal, right until it was normal.
And we'll never we'll never get to normal if we
keep legislating. And so I want to hear from our
listeners from abroad, tell us what it's like to learn
in the society that's not so drenched in our puritanical
roots like it is here in the United Totally. I
I want to hear all about this um and so
(12:39):
one thing I do need to state is that this
issue people have been arrested to like in modern in
modern times for this. So in New Jersey, this woman
named Phoenix Phely she served time in the A County
Correctional Facility in Freehold Township, New Jersey, after she refused
to pay an eight hundred and sixteen dollar spine standing
from being arrested twice in the same day in two
(13:01):
thousand and eight while sunbathing in spring Lake, New Jersey.
And yeah, she basically was like, if you're fine, I'm
not paying this. I should be able to go topless,
um and She argued that going topless is not the
same thing as being nude, and that women, like men,
should be able to bear their chests in public. At
her sentencing, she you know, was great, Yeah, it's crazy,
(13:22):
So she quote, I refuse to pay a fine for
an act that is legal for a man but is
illegal for a woman. And I think that puts it perfectly.
And that's all we're trying to say here. We're not
saying that Bridget and I are dying to take off
our tops the minute we uh we walk out of
the studio, because I'm definitely not. When it comes to
(13:43):
like straight up gender discrimination, how is this not a
clear case of something that is legal for men and
illegal for women. And people would argue that men and
women's breasts look differently, but guess what across the full
spectrum of bodies in this country, that is not necessarily true.
That is so not true. And I think you know,
another wrinkle of this topic is folks who don't fall
(14:04):
along the gender bin area, right like folks who like
there are are We have such a vast rainbow of
bodies that fall along all kinds of of lines, and
this idea that we are we are legislating, but we're not.
Let our legislation has not caught up with the fact
that that is the case trans women exactly. And in
(14:25):
California just recently they they officially had determined that there
are more than two genders. That is on their legal
that is a legal ruling that they have found, and
yet our nipple laws are not caught up with that.
We still legislative along a bin area when we are
when we have acknowledged as a society that that's not
well correct, but we're working on We're getting there. Let's
(14:45):
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about this hashtag free the Nipple campaign
and how social media has become the new arena for
that's really a hotbed for this debate. After a word
from our sponsors, and we're back, and there's so much
(15:10):
more to talk about. This complicated right, they don't seem
that complicated. But so let's dive right into the hashtag
free the Nipple, which was coupled with documentary which frankly
all the buzz around the nipple campaign, and that documentary
(15:31):
is how I first learned about this issue and first
became aware that this was an issue, And I'll be honest,
when I saw this parade of topless women in New
York City on the Free the Nipple movie trailer, I
was thinking, Oh my god, this is too far. This
Like I'm a feminist, I'm a progressive, but this is
over the top. And my gut reaction was, you know,
(15:53):
this is not the battle to be fighting right now.
And I have to admit I've come around, but I
was initially like very skeptical that this should be a priority. Yes,
I completely, I mean I I probably I agree with you,
and my take is probably almost more extreme. And so
some of y'all might be surprised to know this. I
I'm maybe I'm a little bit of a prude or
(16:15):
something like I am. I have a very gut reaction
to public nudity. I personally, I don't dig it. I
don't dig it, and I don't dig it for like
very problematic reasons that I have like clearly internalized. Right,
this is one of those things that like it's very
clear to me that my problem with it is that
I have internalized some not great stuff from society around it.
(16:37):
Perhaps is religious because I'm I'm a person of faith
and I think you know, again, as someone who goes
to a lot of protests and things like that, like
the campaign fed in where it's it's these women who
are topless and they write things on their bodies. I'm
always my first instinct is people like, oh, I hate that,
like put your shirt on. That is always my gut reaction,
and I have to challenge myself to like not have
(17:00):
that right and say, oh, this is a legitimate thing. Well,
I think it's good that we're acknowledging this because internalized
misogyny is so prevalent, and that's really what we're talking about.
We've internalized messages about wrongness, that woman's body is not
what we think of as appropriate. And meanwhile, you know,
think about all the Kardashian photo shoots, which are like
(17:23):
the new and we can't even go there with like
the problematic race component to this. But I'm thinking of
the totally nude paper and we're like, yeah, Kardashian beautiful.
I mean racially not okay, But it's just interesting the
kinds of nudity context matter. Yeah, the context matters so much,
and it's interesting the kinds of nudity that we are.
(17:44):
We don't beat an eye at and the kinds of
nudity that we legislate shame, you know, but we're all
of us do it like we're all and I think
body shaming has a lot to do with it, right, definitely,
And what do you mean you can you can walk
around unapologetically topless and not conformed to like standard model
old catwalk standards, like we're not okay with us. Well,
that's what's so interesting about that is that a political philosopher,
(18:05):
Joel Feinberg actually found that or he argues that the
reason why we legislate nudity in this way actually has
little to do with public safety or doing what's good
for the public. And it's actually about the fact that
when shame, when feelings of shame discussed, anxiety, guilt, when
those are the kinds of feelings that are evoked by
something that's that's calls for a kind like that prompts
(18:28):
a kind of legislation for that has nothing to do
with public safety. Right, So, when when someone feels has
weird feels around someone who is topless, you know, legislators
and lawmakers and folks who make our laws feel the
need to step in and legislate that feel and we
know that legislation and legislators has been dominated by white
(18:50):
dudes for as long as we've had a government completely.
The Free the Nipple campaign can be found at Free
the Nipple dot com. She the sort of tagline here
is how far will you go for a quality? It's
about equality, empowerment, freedom, It's time and they make a
really compelling and interesting case for you know, it's not
okay for us to cheer women's bodies in one context
(19:12):
and shame and legislate and just treat women's nipples toplessness
as illegal, illicit and lud in another context. It's just
total politicist politicification. What is the word they're it's politicizing
women's bodies that are anatomically functional, that are anatomically equal,
and we should treat them that way completely and honestly.
(19:33):
And as I said earlier, I was a bit skeptical
as in terms of this, as are like big feminist issue.
But when I went to the Free the Nipple website,
something that I found really interesting was that they were
advocating for the e r A, the Equal Rights Amendment
that would guarantee that men and women would finally be
recognized as equals. In the framework of the Constitution and
under federal protection. And you know, there are currently so
(19:55):
many issues and ways in which women and men are
not equal. You know, we is there an episode on
the ear right. Just for the record, the Equal Rights
Amendment is just an uh an amendment proposed to the
United States Constitution which has been in political gridlock since
what I think the nineteen sixties is when it was
first introduced, almost passed and didn't. It would have legally
(20:18):
stated in our constitution that men and women must be
treated equally. And guess what our constitution and government currently
does not explicitly say that. And what's even more fascinating
is that the United States, it's only one of the
seven countries in the world, along with Iran, Somalia, Sudan,
South Sudan, uh Tonga, and Palau, but if not ratified
the UN Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination against
(20:39):
Women And so so before we get a little high
on our conscious and I know a lot of UM
conservative women criticizing Hillary's campaign, and I get it, like
it's fine to differ on politics, but I've heard from
a lot of conservative UM feminists who say, let's focus
on women who are actually oppressed abroad. Right here in
(20:59):
the United States, we are so lucky, we're so privileged.
And in many ways economically that is true, not for
all women, but in many ways as a nation that's true.
But hello, look, look, look, listen to where we're at
as a country. We haven't explicitly gotten on board with this.
We are so far behind in so many ways. Yeah,
and I think that's exactly right. And again, I mean,
(21:19):
this is an issue. It may seem small because it's
just two bits of skin, but it's a very I
think it's an interesting case study in terms of how
we think about gender equality, that this is a very
obvious and explicit and overt way in which women and
men are not legislated the same, and our bodies are
police correct, And so I think, like you know, even
though he was skeptical at first, it's it's true. I mean,
(21:41):
it's inarguably true that this is over overt discrimination against.
So let's talk about social media, because I think social
media is where this issue has blown up, specifically with Instagram.
But let's talk through some of the platforms and their
policies already. Yeah, So I did a little digging, and
so if you're curious, you know what you can do
and what you can show and how much skin you
(22:02):
can show. Here's a little breakdown of where we're at.
Uh So, Tumbler and Twitter they are, you're there there,
you an even goes. You can post whatever you want nipples.
Ni Nick was yeah, yeah, yeah, nip wise, so go
nuts on both of those platforms. UM on Facebook they
Facebook used to have a no nipple policy of any kind.
Now they are allowed if it's an image of someone breastfeeding.
(22:25):
And so if you're a mom who's posting a picture
of you know, like my friend from earlier, like that
was so strange to me that it was not a
sexual image, it was her. It was an image of
her celebrating her her pregnancy, and that she was banned
from Facebook for it. So now now it's fine on
Facebook as long as you're breastfeeding. UM on Instagram, they
are super super not allowed. And we're gonna get into
(22:47):
sort of some interesting face studies of that. Um I
did find this interesting. According to hyper Allergic, UM quote
LinkedIn's policy on nipples is unclear, so tested out, let
us know what happens. And and so let's talk about
a drama on Instagram because context. It's like, who comes
up with this stuff? But context really matters on Instagram.
(23:08):
So a piece of art, a painting or photo, or
even a T shirt or a bikini featuring nipples, Like
if you wore a nude bikini that had a photo
realistic nipple breast on it, you can get away with
that on Instagram. Should just show you how absurd this
an arbitrary, this rule, and um, your nips, like actual
(23:30):
nips not only not allowed in any context unless you're due,
unless you're dude. So uh. The guy from Orange is
the new Black Matt McGorry is that the name? He
actually posted a picture which I think really illustrated the
ridiculousness of this policy. It's a picture of him topless
and he has cropped out his own male nipples. And
(23:51):
on one side he has cropped in a picture of
Miley Cyrus's nipple, and on the other side it's a
picture of Christie Tigan's nipple. You can see me in
the studio, I'm illustrating with her hands in a very
awkward way. Um, but that picture is allowed even though
he has exposed female nipples. But because he is a man,
that picture is allowed, which is absurd. She did just
(24:12):
to point out the absurdity. Yeah, and I think it's
a good illustration. Yeah. And this policy on Instagram even
gets to the point where, um, a Vogue editor and artist,
Grace Cottington, was kicked off of Instagram after posting a
doodle an image. It wasn't even like a hyper realistic
like it was a very like a cartoon of herself topless,
(24:32):
and she was banned from Instagram for that. What Yeah?
That she just doesn't make it go to show you
how arbitrary and ridiculous as policy is. Well, I think
it's funny the folks who are pushing the envelope here
and trying to point out the absurdity behind it. There's
a a Instagram account called Genderless Underscore Nipples, which has
(24:54):
been uh criticizing and sort of highlighting the ridiculousness of
Instagram's strict stance on female nudity by posting hyper zoomed
in images of nipples. Look at this envy with a
nice piercing that says, bite me. I know. So we've
(25:15):
got a super close up photo of a nipple that
makes it impossible to tell if it was a male
or a female nipple and they're they're getting through, they're
sort of bucking the role here. Um, there's one other
Instagram kerfuffall, did you have one that you wanted to attack? Oh?
Well I would. I want to hear where you're going. Okay,
So there's one other Instagram interesting story here that I
think is really important to acknowledge, especially for women without nipples.
(25:37):
And I'm thinking specifically around breast cancer survivors post mestectomy. Um,
there was a really beautiful um Instagram account and a
bunch of women who are breast cancer survivors who posted bravely,
frankly in this hyper like hyper judge, you know, policing
women's bodies context photos of post mastectomy UM breasts and
(26:03):
sort of chess. And specifically there's an interesting account around um, well,
here's a person, specifically Amy Black, who is a breast
cancer survivor who got a post mastectomy nipple tattoo. And
you can get sort of nipples tattooed on. You can
get really beautiful, incredible art. Look at this art like
(26:25):
it's so powerful. I mean, I claim your body exactly
and saying like I'm going to do something that makes
me feel beautiful and reclaiming sort of that that space
on her body and her own way and whatever that
looks like for you. Women without nipples, women without breasts,
you know, if you identify as a woman, right, there's
(26:45):
also surgery to transition into being male without breast, but
that's a whole other bag. Um, these women were kicked
off inster him So nipple, not even nipples, breast reconstructed
breasts with tattoos celebrating breast cancer revival was banned by Instagram.
That is maddening. So I have another I have another
(27:06):
kind of wrinkle. It's not nipple related, but I think
it does show how Instagram does seem sort of hell
bent on, uh policing women's body. So in an artist
and photographer posted a picture of herself on Instagram of
her laying in bed with a period blood stain on
her pants and on the bed and insta and she's
(27:26):
fully clothed. That she's wearing long pants and a T shirt.
That's fully fully clothed. And Instagram deleted this picture and
the activated her account. And again, I mean, it's interesting
to me that Instagram is is policing what should be
you know, non controversial parts of of of body ownership,
(27:46):
right bodies men stright once a month, it's it's no secret, sorry,
all it happens. And the fact that Instagram is like,
oh no, no no, no, we can't have And another kind
of interesting point to make about this is that Facebook
owns Instagram, and Facebook often has really disturbing like images
and videos of people being murdered, people being tortured, and
(28:06):
yet nipples, menstruation, these are things you can't you know.
I think the counter argument would be that this is
a private company enterprise, that this is not a right,
say that this is our platform. We can censor it
the way we see fit. But with the ubiquity of it,
is that really true? Like, it's really it's really interesting.
(28:27):
But also how we treat women's bodies very differently, and
I don't Yeah, it's it's just fascinating to me. So
I don't mean to say that Instagram and Facebook should
change their like I mean not so I'm not making
the point that they should be like changing their corporate
policies around how they deal with this. I'm just pointing
out that, like it just seems absurd and there seems
(28:47):
to be no rhyme or reason to what they allow
and what they don't allow, and I think that says
something about our society and women. It's just very I
would go I would go stup further and say they
should change it to just treat men and women's bodies
the same. Here's a quote that um Lena Esco, the
founder of Free the Nipple, gave to Mike dot com
and this great article that I was just pulling from
around um how Instagram band photos of breast cancer survivor.
(29:08):
She says, quote equality in terms of toplessness applies to
the censorship of women's bodies on social media, the issue
of equal pay, or the stigma against breastfeeding in public.
It all falls down into the same category, which is equality.
So when we police women's bodies differently than men's on
the lawbooks or on social media, which is a huge
way that our communities, that our world communicates nowadays, we
(29:32):
are reinforcing this idea that men and women have different rights,
and that's messed up. It is messed up. And I
think we're gonna talk a little bit more about how
the various ways in which this is a real gender
discrimination issue after this quick break and Rebecca. We were
(29:54):
just talking about nipples from the nipple panic. They tend
to inspire the drama, the drama around nipples, and so
I wanted to talk about sort of what can be done.
So if this is an issue that you want to
get involved with, that you want to make noise about,
there are ways and there are groups sort of doing
that work. Um. And so one thing I would suggest
is going to go topless dot org, which really is
(30:15):
a one stop shop for all your nipple related activism. UM.
And then I would say watch the documentary fore the Nipple.
It's streaming on Hulu, and I think there's other places
online like Amazon Video that you can also find it,
or on iTunes, uh and Google Play. And it's a
really great rundown of not only the the whack history
(30:36):
behind h the discriminatory practices around enforcement and what's deemed lude,
but also a real chronicling of the movement right, the movement,
the March, the renaissance around women advocating for the right
to go topless and and not be deemed a criminal
for doing so. Yeah, and speaking of being deemed a criminal. Um.
(30:56):
In one county in New Hampshire, state representatives tried to
ban female toplessness statewide, and this bill to ban it
was killed in the How Subcommittee after its members found
out that has written a second offense would be a
felony and could require those convicted to register a sex
offenders which is absurd, right, which has huge ramifications on
(31:17):
someone's employment, eligibility and life writ large for showing off
what is publicly deemed appropriate for men and not women.
How is that not discriminatory? It's so discriminatory. And again,
I mean winding up on a a sex offender list
because you you know, for sunbathing like that, like that
I think is really something that we should be I mean,
(31:39):
the fact that was even something that was considered in
a modern day America I think is absurd and why
And that's also why it's so important to understand enforcement
and understand the very disjointed legality around this, which you
were telling me off air for a second about. Was
it New Hampshire? Yeah, so New Hampshire is kind of
a hotbed of case studies around nipple laws les. Yes,
(32:05):
And so what's interesting is there was a group of
women women in ten who were sunbathing in New Hampshire.
They were in They were in Laconia, New Hampshire, sunbathing topless,
and they had no complaints. Everything was fine. Then they
went to another part of New Hampshire, Guilford, New Hampshire,
topless to watch the fireworks display, and someone called the police. Um,
the two women were cited. They were given citations, and
(32:26):
it was determined that because there is no law banning
female toplessness in the state criminal code, there could be
no local ordinances that criminalized, you know, public toplessness of women.
And what it's also so strange is that, weirdly, the
people of this town to the women's defense, no, no,
they were like, no, we want this to be like
like they tried to get the right. They wanted the
(32:49):
judge to continue to uphold this citation, but the judge
was like, no, I'm not going to reverse my decision.
There's no state law against it. So they're there, we
can't cite them. But it's interesting that you find state
law outing up against uh city law and local law
and enforcement arresting anyway. Correct. So even in places like
New York City, where it's technically allowed to be a
woman who's topless on the street, police officers need to
(33:11):
issue reminders that they can't arrest women for simply going
shirtless and locations where it would be permissible to do
so if they were men um and so the New
York Times reports simply exposing your breast in public is
not a crime, and so you have people have to
remind cups because otherwise otherwise they'll treat it as as
if it's a crime, and people will call the police
and be like, oh, this woman is topless on the street,
and everybody just needs reminders that hey, this is not
(33:33):
a crime. And that just should go to show you
how kind of you find all these different laws plus
public opinion bumping up against each other because so bizarre.
And I think of New Hampshire as the most interesting
place for this to all be going down, because it
is such a libertarian state where they basically are like,
we don't want government interfering in our lives as much
(33:54):
as possible. We don't want government, which don't they have
like no sales tax, there phrases live for your daft,
and yet they're like, let's police women's bodies more. Live
for you or die unless you are a female sun
bather on the beach or just strolling around down with
the nips out, and I think it's important to acknowledge
the homology behind this, and so homology is the term
(34:17):
I first came across in Dr Emily Nagoski the sex
experts book about it's called Come as You Are. It's
a fascinating read. I highly recommend it about female sexuality
and sexual pleasure. And what she made me realize is
that men and women come from the same genealogy, right,
(34:37):
we come from the same d n A. We our
bodies have the this existence of shared ancestry. That is
the reason why our bodies are mirrored, our bodies are comparable.
And she actually goes into great detail about how women's
sex organs and men's sex organs are way more similar
than you think they are. And I couldn't help but
(34:58):
think about that when we think about why men have
nipples in the first place, Like why do men have
nipples if there's no uh like function but function to them.
And it's because of homologies, because of the historical sort
of um equality between our organs and how we're produced
as human beings in gestation and in development. So it's
(35:20):
just a good reminder the whole all the stigma, all
the drama, all the sexualization, all that titilating components to
women's nipples are one hundred percent society putting its per
like it's perspective on your body. Like men and women's
nipples come from the same DNA. Men and women's nipples
are not as different as we're made to think that
(35:41):
they actually are, and and all the like, the sexiness
of women's nipples is someone else's judgment put upon your
body totally. And I think that's I mean, I keep
coming back to this because I think it's one way
that it plays out so so obviously it's with breastfeeding, right,
like that we as a society have you know, made
(36:02):
breasts such a a titillating thing when they're when they're
they shouldn't be. And I think I think it was
Amy Adams who talked about and People Magazine about after
becoming a mom and starting to breastfeed that she was like, yeah,
I mean, the purpose of my body is to not
look good and is not to look at the bathing suit.
It's to feed my child at this point. And you know,
I'm she was like, yeah, I'm more concerned with that
(36:23):
functionality than like, you know, being in a bikini or
what happened, and so you know, I mean, there are
so many women out there who have been kicked off
of planes, kicked out of restaurants for simply breastfeeding. And
it's such a it's such a you know, it should
be a normalized thing. It's healthy for the baby. People
are like, oh, girl, breastfeeding politics are hardcore. I'm probably
(36:46):
I should say, I should say I probably said the
most thing. I'm sorry. I'm just saying, yeah, we're gonna
do a whole episode around brestfeeding politics because I know
it's tricky. My mom is a patrician and she is
often advocating for women's rights to breastfeed and as am
I or not to breastfeed, exactly all the things. Um,
but yeah, I think that when you have these people
who are like, oh, you should cover up or do
(37:06):
that in the bathroom, Like what do you want to
eat your lunch in a bathroom stall? No? Gross? You know,
it's just everyone policing women's bodies, just like the police
women's speech. And I have to give one more shout
out to Kristin Conger who did a really great YouTube
video on the question. I was just discussing why do
men have nipples? She was actually on brain Stuff's channel
on YouTube, so another how stuff works podcast, brain Stuff. UM,
(37:33):
just google why do men have nipples? You'll find Kristen
talking through that issue on more and more of a
level too. So I just want to throw that in
there because I've just mentioned it before. But yes, and
to get a soft breastfeeding You're like, no, no, it's
great though. So last thing we want to just shout
out to uh, those of us who are like, oh
(37:54):
my goodness, I need to take action to free the nipple.
I didn't realize this was such a big deal and
such an issue and it is. Um, there's an upcoming
event where you can do just that. It's called Go
Topless Day and it comes up every August in what
is it, the Tuesday Closest to Day, which is the Anniversity.
(38:14):
We've been getting the right to vote right, and so
all over the country you might find free the Nipple
days and marches and protests or demonstrations where women are
encouraged and welcome to go topless and men who there
are many men who are here to support women. And
we can talk about many complex reasons why, but let's
(38:35):
give them the benefit of the doubting and assume that
they're all there to support equality. UM. But there are
men who are who are encouraged to wear bras and
bikini tops and show up with their nipples covered and
see how wonderfully comfortable that can be. So U go
topless day. It's coming up in August. Check it out,
get out to a demonstration. If you're so inclined, you
(38:57):
also can go and not be topless. That's okay too.
It's just an opportunity to talk to women, to talk
to men, to talk about equality, and to talk about
how we can raise more awareness, especially amongst legislators. Uh
and and be a part of the activist community in
making the case for equality on the books. When it
comes to how we treat men and women's nipples, you know,
(39:18):
we want to hear from you, especially if you have
a challenging relationship with your nipples, Like how do you
feel about nipples? Are you a survivor of breast cancer?
Are you postmastectomy? Are you a transwoman? I mean, what
is what is what does nipples mean to you? Um?
And is it important that this is something that is
legalized for women in the same way that is for men.
(39:41):
I think there's a lot more to unpack that Frankly
Bridge and I didn't have time to get to in
today's episode, but we hope this gave us a good
starting point for our continued conversation on social and we
cannot wait to hear what free the Nipple means to you.
Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you
seeing w
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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