world

New York stages topless parade with 60 cities worldwide

54 Comments
By VERENA DOBNIK

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

54 Comments
Login to comment

Even if women are showing their breasts/nipples, it's not public indecency, however there are times where doing so would be illegal under the Minor Offenses Act. For men, there is no problem with being topless.

Cos men don't have much to grope and ogle at.

@Strangerland, you don't seem to get it. If teens (under 18) run around topless, its considered pedophilia, statutory rape, and practically anyone over 18 can be arrested just for looking if the girl says she feels molested or sexually harassed in any way. This is the US. It may be different for you in the UK. So we're going to have drastically different opinions on this matter. What works in one country may not work well in another, (i.e the time an Arab couple brought over their slave during their trip to the US).

I can already see the consequences of these things, because of the laws already in place as well as how US society is as a whole. It won't go over well.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Being topless is not illegal in Japan.

It appears it's not as cut and dry as that: http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1033473965

The final paragraph in the top answer sums it up:

女性が乳房を露出しても、公然わいせつにはなりませんが、 軽犯罪法違反になる場合があります。 男性の場合は、上半身露出では問題ありません。

"Even if women are showing their breasts/nipples, it's not public indecency, however there are times where doing so would be illegal under the Minor Offenses Act. For men, there is no problem with being topless. "

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Being topless is not illegal in Japan.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

But you should also teach them that there is a time and a place for everything. I agree that people shouldn't treat human nudity as "dirty" but we should also show some modesty as well.

Why? Nature dictates whether we need to cover up. If it's cold, people will wear more clothes. If it's hot, they don't need to.

should teen girls start going topless?

If they want to.

What do you think would happen in such a situation?

People would see breasts. Or lack thereof, depending on the girl.

What about teen boys actions?

Teen boys often don't wear shirts when it's hot out.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

On the contrary, I feel there is something wrong with adults presenting to kids that there is something wrong with the human body.

But you should also teach them that there is a time and a place for everything. I agree that people shouldn't treat human nudity as "dirty" but we should also show some modesty as well.

As I mentioned earlier, should teen girls start going topless? What do you think would happen in such a situation? What about teen boys actions? If a person wants to walk around nude in their home or back yard or anywhere else on their property, more power to them.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I'm big fan of GoTopless Pride Parade.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Jimizo,

I must admit the prudery from many Americans shocked me while I lived there ( I'm a Brit, hardly a country as grown-up as other European countries regarding these matters).

As another Brit, I have a similar experience. I was shocked to be told - by a bloke, in the company of other blokes, in other words no blokesses present - that I have a "potty mouth!" All I'd done was to use the "F" word a couple of times!

But I cannot understand why it's quite OK to show Rambo slaying hundreds with a burst of a machine gun, blood, gore, guts and splatter, but not OK to show a boob.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

HonestDictator: Obviously many of the Adult posters here are completely forgetting that more impressionable and less morally experienced youth still walk around in the world we adults present to them.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Close-ups_of_female_human_breasts

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Wow, so many people seem to forget about the young these days.

Whose forgetting? I think most of us just disagree with the premise that there is anything wrong with breasts, or seeing them. I couldn't care less if my kids see some boobs.

There is a reason why nude beaches are separate with ample warning signs.

Pray tell what that would be.

Obviously many of the Adult posters here are completely forgetting that more impressionable and less morally experienced youth still walk around in the world we adults present to them.

On the contrary, I feel there is something wrong with adults presenting to kids that there is something wrong with the human body.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Wow, so many people seem to forget about the young these days. As an adult I don't mind bare breasts... but, there is a reason we have laws about indecent exposure. Not a single person here has considered the reactions of young children, or even the more worrisome group... TEENAGERS. The younger boys won't let this slide and sure as hell won't stop ogling.... Also should teen girls run around topless??? Whoops, I can smell the pedophilia and child molestation laws rearing up hard in the back ground. There is a reason why nude beaches are separate with ample warning signs.

Obviously many of the Adult posters here are completely forgetting that more impressionable and less morally experienced youth still walk around in the world we adults present to them.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

If my statement was SO OFFENSIVE, Strangerland, why does absolutely nobody really care what I stated, and, in fact, has received three "thumbs ups"? And who made you THE Discerner of what is and what isn't offensive (I'll answer that one: NOBODY)?

I did. It was offensive.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

You know, preceding an offensive statement with 'no offense' doesn't negate the offensive statement. ---Strangerland

If my statement was SO OFFENSIVE, Strangerland, why does absolutely nobody really care what I stated, and, in fact, has received three "thumbs ups"? And who made you THE Discerner of what is and what isn't offensive (I'll answer that one: NOBODY)?

And I stand by my statement: a lot of these topless women should keep their tops on; a lot of the men, too.

DaDude --- There are reasons I don't go to nude beaches. The examples of topless people in these photos are but one....

0 ( +2 / -2 )

"Interestingly, expert testimony at appellants' trial suggested that the enforced concealment of women's breasts reinforces cultural obsession with them, contributes toward unhealthy attitudes about breasts by both sexes and even discourages women from breastfeeding their children."

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/the-history-of-toplessness

As for being prudish, there's worse..

https://news.vice.com/article/moscows-only-nudist-beach-is-being-threatened-with-closure

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Nudity in the civilised world DOES equal sex, and you'd be naive not to think so. Nothing to do with being prudish.

@Thunderbird2 I think you have a rather limited definition of the word "civilized". Perhaps you think it only applies to North America? And yes, it does have something to do with being prudish. Its just that prudes cannot see themselves as prudes, and insist on believing their way is normal and best, basically because that is how they were raised. And people believing how they were raised is the "one true way" explains a hell of a lot that is wrong with the world and why even good change is slow to come.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Don't know where y'all are getting your information from. I remember seeing a row of moons projecting from a passing car forty years ago in Pasadena, probably around Rose Bowl time. And mooning is protected by free speech laws, at least in Maryland and California.

Whereas in Australia a Japanese person was sentenced to 4 months in jail for mooning.

And have they had any topless parades in Japan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooning

In 2006, a Maryland state circuit court determined that mooning is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment as a form of speech.

Students at Stanford University conduct a "mass-mooning" in May 1995. This demonstration was in protest of censorship in the American media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mooning.jpg

http://www.news.com.au/national/japanese-law-lecturer-jailed-for-mooning-judge/story-e6frfkp9-1225732975585

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Strange thing is that nude beaches in many ways are far more sedate in how people act then at clothed beaches from my personal experience. Perhaps all the men who have this sudden problem with nude breasts should stop looking at all the centerfolds they drool over, and realize the purpose of breasts is to feed babies. I am sorry of most men did not get breast feeding when they were babies, but it is still time that the men grow up and stop acting like hormone crazed teenage boys for a change. Stop blaming women for your own refusal to grow up and act like men who can take full responsibility, and control for how they respond to even naked women. Kids act towards nudity, even adult nudity, better than most men do from what I have see personally at clothing optional events here in the United States.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

'Americans are caught up in the nudity equals sex mentality. There is nothing obscene with women's breasts. In the old days women went topless all over Asia. Then there is all of the slang because many people have to change the name due to being prudish. So guys how about relaxing there is nothing to be seen here, move along.'

I must admit the prudery from many Americans shocked me while I lived there ( I'm a Brit, hardly a country as grown-up as other European counties regarding these matters ). Then again, I don't think modern Japan - a country which arrested an artist for making a vagina-shaped canoe, is the most mature on these matters either.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I'm a fan.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

MarkG: "I didn't mind them but lots of children around and think that's inappropriate with underage around."

So, in the first couple of lines of your post you ask the rhetorical question: "If men can do it, why not women?" but follow that by saying you think it's actually inappropriate? Do you likewise, then, think it's inappropriate for men to be topless in the presence of children? If not, why the sudden inequality?

YuriOtani: "Americans are caught up in the nudity equals sex mentality."

Right, well, where is this topless parade taking place, Yuri, and where is it legal? How many topless parades in Japan? And before you make some excuse like "It's not Japan's fault! it's the West's influence!" then next time you're back in Japan feel free to walk around topless and see the reactions of YOUR people and YOUR police. Japan is far more prudish than a lot of other nations on this issue -- save for the obsession with pornography that's been filmed illegally in public (hence onsens shutting down) -- and NOT because of Western influence.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Nudity in the civilised world DOES equal sex, and you'd be naive not to think so. Nothing to do with being prudish... but if you won't let your kids look at topless photos in magazines then why is it okay for women to parade down the street without comment? Modern cultures equate nudity with sex... that's it.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

As long as the bare breast circus remains in New York I'm cool with it.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Americans are caught up in the nudity equals sex mentality. There is nothing obscene with women's breasts. In the old days women went topless all over Asia. Then there is all of the slang because many people have to change the name due to being prudish. So guys how about relaxing there is nothing to be seen here, move along.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

“What’s ‘equality for breasts?"

Good question!

Not favouring the right over the left or vice versa?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

“I don’t know why they’re making such a big deal out of it,” said Paul Martin, 37, of Amsterdam. “There are more important things to worry about than nipples.”

Not, apparently for many men, lol.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

For a bit of levity, check the organization's website. While there, don't forget to read about the leader's free ebook(replete with extraterrestrial dogma). NUTS!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Why don't they walk around completely nude if it's okay to go topless? Same for blokes. Oh, and isn't this just the same for bystanders as seeing topless photos in magazines? After all boobs are boobs whether they're in your face (as it were) or on the printed page.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Why are they wandering around topless looking for tips anyway? Sounds like a strange way to carry on. New form of busking? No talent? Flash your baps!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Now, If only them Kurd female fighters marched topless against ISIS in Syria, like these Times Square revolutionaries. Patriarchy would be smashed in minutes.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What other cities?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Got any proof to back up the claims? Correlation is not causation and New York has always been like that, I don't know if Deblasio giving free pre-school to poor families is causing it.

Sure, take your pick. NY was doing fine under Guliani and Bloomberg and now this guy de Blasio is showing the world that Dems are completely benign to the rule of law and think the individual is everything and accountability means nothing.

http://nypost.com/2015/06/17/de-blasio-and-brattons-policies-will-increase-murders-of-young-men-ray-kelly/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/de-blasio-defends-crime-record.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/nyregion/bump-after-bump-bill-de-blasio-is-still-hitting-political-potholes.html?_r=0

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

I didn't mind them but lots of children around and think that's inappropriate with underage around.

The old "do it for the kids" canard. There are and have been many societies where children are and were exposed to nudity and much much more and were not traumatized. If you raise kids in ignorance though, yes, there is more chance they will be traumatized. For example, a kid around ten from an ultra-conservative family might be traumatized by the sight of naked breasts. But I would blame the parents, not the display. You cannot blame others for the ignorance you instilled in your children.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Let the twin babes free! Start here at our home towns!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Boring women's breasts are only obsense in the sick western mind."

No, it's true for Asian mind as well.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

'Boring women's breasts are only obsense in the sick western mind.'

Less of the generalisations please. The puritanical views of the US right are thankfully not reflective of 'the western mind'. Many grown-up Americans and other grown-ups in other 'western' countries do not share their 10-year-old thinking.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Boring women's breasts are only obsense in the sick western mind.

-7 ( +3 / -10 )

de Blasio is ruining that beautiful city, crime is up, assault is up, murder is up, homelessness is out of control and running amok. Why not turn 42nd Street back to what it originally was. That's what he seems to want, an out of control liberal progressive free for all society without morals, conduct or any sort of accountability. Just disgusting!

Got any proof to back up the claims? Correlation is not causation and New York has always been like that, I don't know if Deblasio giving free pre-school to poor families is causing it

2 ( +2 / -0 )

they should entirely do away with clothing.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

'A pure idiocy of western style.'

Men running around with their buttocks on show carrying a shrine is of course far more tasteful.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Horrors! Our Puritan forefathers had it right. Woman is Satan. Cover her up from neck to toe - nay, head to toe. A naked statue in a museum is bad enough - but woman in the flesh?! "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee....." say ten of these and light a candle....

2 ( +5 / -3 )

A pure idiocy of western style.

-8 ( +3 / -11 )

WA4TKG: All I want to know is WHEN will they do it in TOKYO ?

Start by example, watch the effect snowball.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

You act as if that's a bad thing.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

No, it is showing kids that the parents values are not generally accepted. If nudity is okay then maybe other values must be acceptable.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

No offense, but some of these topless women in the photos need to keep their tops on. The topless men, as well....

You know, preceding an offensive statement with 'no offense' doesn't negate the offensive statement.

I didn't mind them but lots of children around and think that's inappropriate with underage around.

Yeah, because breasts are an offensive thing that will make kids turn to satan and crack cocaine.

1 ( +8 / -7 )

Freedom of expression and any other "freedom" is a result of or the benefit from "earning" such freedom responsibly satisfying not only one's personal values and ideals, but also those who "allow" such freedom.

Forcing one's own values and ideals upon others in some cases may not be the most beneficial for those who wish to make or create change in others. That is exactly the case with ISIS and their Muslim movement which has gone beyond expression to that of outright forced change.

One cannot change others, but when one changes himself or herself to a degree in a manner that others may want to adopt such change and change themselves, then it may be called real and meaningful change.

That is exactly what religions and other -isms of the world represent. They too needed a stage and a following and an opportunity to express their views and their way of life. Some took to semi-forcing others to join and some fought and still fight to express their differences. But then.. that may be life. Like the Yin and Yang, like positive and negative electrons, there are differences that "together" balance life.

I am not sure where exposing one's breast will make much difference except in what we wear. Already enough is visible in everything we wear. It all depends on weather and climate.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

No offense, but some of these topless women in the photos need to keep their tops on. The topless men, as well....

If you think this is bad, you'd be traumatized at a nude beach.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I agree, topless is not such a horrible site. Men can do it why not women. BUT, when some communities deeply frown on discretely nursing mothers in public this parade has impact.

For those who don't like what Bass wrote in his post, look up the statistics. They support his view.

I was in NY last week and saw the Times Square topless gals. I didn't mind them but lots of children around and think that's inappropriate with underage around. I will say the women were artfully and appealingly painted.

-11 ( +1 / -12 )

All I want to know is WHEN will they do it in TOKYO ?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

No offense, but some of these topless women in the photos need to keep their tops on. The topless men, as well....

5 ( +11 / -6 )

Its hard to believe there are still people who think the human body is nasty and dirty, unsightly and lewd. But they are out there.

The question is if we should respect them by covering up, or they should respect people like myself by averting their eyes. I would be all for respecting them if it were not for their tendency to not be happy with that, but rather to charge selfishly on and attempt to ban all sorts of other freedoms as well. So, we should put them in their place and demand they shut up, and avert their eyes.

I was led to believe that topless women and people in mascot costumes were actually physically harassing people for money, but considering that there are those people so very offended by the human body, I am not sure I believe its happening or even common.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

What does that rubbishl have to do with the topless parade above poster?

7 ( +8 / -1 )

de Blasio is ruining that beautiful city, crime is up, assault is up, murder is up, homelessness is out of control and running amok. Why not turn 42nd Street back to what it originally was. That's what he seems to want, an out of control liberal progressive free for all society without morals, conduct or any sort of accountability. Just disgusting!

-13 ( +5 / -18 )

What is the point of supporting topless day if you are covering your nipples?

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites