In case you missed it, this past Sunday was Go Topless Day in Vancouver. The international nipple liberation movement is supposedly intended to bring equality to the sexes when it comes to going shirtless in public. Or to quote those bastions of feminism and “Hump Day Hotties” over at Vancity Buzz (who refer to women as “ladies” and ran an accompanying stock photo described on one image site as “Sexy young topless girl in a deserted place”), “Go Topless Day is a 24-hour period when ladies are encouraged to show their breasts as a protest against hypocritical global laws and norms that allow men to walk around shirtless while women must remain clothed.” It’s like Rosa Parks if she was a pair of breasts and the back of the bus was a halter top.
Don’t get us wrong. We’re all for society not making a big deal out of nudity. The human body is nothing to be ashamed of. At least that’s what we keep telling ourselves when we shower in the dark. But the sad reality is there is a good chunk of the population who turn into drooling idiots when a woman’s naked breast is in sight. Just take a look at the “news” coverage of Sunday’s Go Topless Day parade, where participants were far outnumbered by creepy dudes snapping photos and taking videos with their smartphones, because apparently breasts are a rare, hard-to-find phenomenon on the Internet.
So yes, it would be great if men and women could walk side-by-side with their shirts off like it’s no big deal (though admittedly we’ve often mumbled under our breath to ourselves, “Is that really necessary? Put a shirt on buddy”). But unfortunately there are just too many flesh-starved guys who have to ruin it for everyone. Who knows, maybe the hope is that with enough Go Topless Days, bare chests will stop being a novelty to be ogled at and everyone will eventually calm down. People change. Heck, Vancity Buzz doesn’t even run its Hump Day Hotties section anymore.
