Men Can Go Topless So Women Should Be Able to Is a Silly Argument
If we want more freedom to bare all, we need to start using better arguments
It is really popular to make the argument that because men can bare their chests women should be able to bare their breasts. But in my view, this is a self-defeating argument.
Before anyone goes crazy, I truly believe that we should be able to bare our breasts in more places than we are able to, especially on beaches and in parks. I hate the tan lines I get from bathing on British and American beaches. I basically end up with a white bikini when I’m naked made up of those lines.
But if I tried to make the argument that I should be able to go naked to avoid tan lines, as ridiculous as that argument would be, it would have more merit to it than the argument that we should be able to go topless because men can. Yet, we keep selling this argument.
This is a problem, and it stems from a modern phenomenon where we have become obsessed with making direct comparisons between men and women over everything. But men and women are different and if we don’t take the nuances of those differences into account, we will never get equality, all we will get is endless fighting without any progress.
For example, take the picture below.
This is a typical meme shared across the Internet, there are loads like them. All of them say the same thing, “a man and a woman being topless is the same thing so why can’t a woman go topless?”
At first glance, this may seem like a good argument to which no one could give a good answer. The problem is it’s not and people frequently give very good answers.
Here is why, pictures like the above show just how very different a man and a woman being topless is.
For example, I would like to bet that there is not a single woman alive — or very few — who look at the picture of the above man, see his bare chest and his nipples and think to themselves, “Oh my god his chest is so hot, I would love to suckle on his nipples.”
I would also like to bet that there is not a single woman alive at all who would look at the above picture and think to themselves, “I’m going to wank myself off over those nipples/bare breasts later.”
In fact, I bet the above picture of the man would not even cause a flicker of arousal or sexual thoughts in any woman. It didn’t in me nor in any of my female friends.
Yet, how many people think the same could be said about people looking at the picture of the woman’s breasts — especially among the teenagers of the male population? Hell, I’m bisexual and my first thought on seeing the above picture was, “She has really nice breasts.” I barely even noticed the man.
This is not a slight on the man, he’s a decent-looking guy. He’s probably on par looks-wise with the woman — or at least the male equivalent of being on par, so they wouldn’t look out of place in a relationship together.
This is also not an attack on men for finding women’s bodies sexually attractive to the point they think such thoughts. If women had evolved to rate men based on their appearance, we would feel the exact same things about men. Instead, we rate men on other factors which are in truth just as objectifying.
That’s the point. Men and women are different which is why it is impossible to compare a man being topless to a woman being topless simply because women evolved breasts for the sole purpose of attracting men. That is why they exist. As a tool of sexual attraction.
We evolved them once we evolved to stand upright. That is why human females are the only females that have permanent breasts — because only we stand upright. All other female primates only have breasts when they are breastfeeding, and they probably are better off in a way due to the aerodynamics of not having permanent breasts — as much as I love having them.
The point is, these wobbly things on my chest — and on the chests of all women — exist to tell men we are of baby-making age and they are for us to use to tell them it’s time to make babies. It’s our choice when to use them that way but they exist for that purpose and as such, they still speak even when we’re not talking with them.
That’s why everyone looks at breasts, and why men love them so much, they are the language of sex i.e. their purpose is to say when it’s baby-making time.
This is likely why many women when with their partners get threatened by other women’s breasts, especially if they are bare, because likely in the past i.e. our hunter-gather and caveman days, the breasts could have posed a threat by those women using them to try to mate poach.
I wish to be clear this does not mean that men have some right over our breasts and that we should cover them up to protect men who are helpless to breasts’ almighty power. That argument is just as ridiculous as the argument women should be topless because men can be.
But what this means is that it has to be accepted that breasts, nipples included (female only), have the power to draw people’s eyes and arouse men simply through their existence.
That’s not women’s fault, but it’s not men’s fault either.
Breasts have power — to free them we must accept it
Adult men have no excuse not to be able to control themselves when a woman is bare-breasted — the vast majority control themselves perfectly.
Teenagers — especially male ones — on the other hand in my view do have an excuse, and as such need to be more protected because they may not yet have learned how to stop themselves from going erect upon the sight of bare breasts.
Unwanted erections are embarrassing, especially for young teenagers, I know it because I have a nephew who suffered this fate when we went on a European holiday.
This is why when I am in places where I can go topless, if I know youngsters are around, especially male ones, I find a part of the beach or park that is well away from them, put my towel down and then I take my top off when I’m lying down.
And it’s not the patriarchy that makes me do this, it’s not me being afraid of being ogled, it’s not me belittling men and implying they can’t control themselves that’s making me cover up either, what it is is me thinking of my fellow humans. It’s called understanding the power I can have over fellow humans.
In a perfect world, I would love to be able to walk around topless without any worries. But in the famous words of Spider-Man, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
Our breasts have power, especially over teenage boys, but also over adult men. It is what they’re designed to do. That power is a part of who we are as women. Men don’t have that power — many probably wished they did — but they don’t which is why they can go topless pretty much wherever they want.
That means in my view no matter how much we may dislike it, when those conservatives and the like give their reasons for why women should cover up, we must acknowledge there is some merit to what they say.
The benefit being, by acknowledging that there is some merit to what they say, we force them to have to acknowledge that there is also merit to what we say. Amongst the world of adults, breasts are just breasts, and women should be able to bare them on a beach or in a park without fear of adults being offended by them.
Yes, adults can complain if there are children around and we are bare-chested, that is their prerogative. But not if there are none around.
If we keep simply looking at men and comparing ourselves to them, and saying but men can do this so we should be able to do this, that message will never be heard.
Final words
If we are to finally start getting rid of those tan lines on our breasts, as a society, we need to start once again accepting men and women are different rather than punishing each other and sharing endless grievances over the differences in the way our existences affect each other.
That means we need to stop sharing ridiculous memes like the aforementioned one — which want to pretend that there are no differences between men and women but instead just prove how powerful the differences are — and instead embrace those differences.
That way we could work together to come up with solutions that work for everyone.
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