Topless in Times Square: Column

“She shielded her nipples until they were cloaked with brush strokes, though her curvy, sun-kissed body — with the exception of a nylon thong…”

— New York Times, August 16, 2015

So far so good, right?

Not according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who thinks the presence of topless women covered in body paint strutting around Times Square posing for pictures with tourists in exchange for money is intolerable.

“As a human being and a parent, I don’t think it’s appropriate, in the middle of one of the busiest squares in New York City, that women should display themselves that way,” de Blasio said. One should note that the seminude women in Times Square, who are also human beings, and some of whom are parents, think it’s perfectly fine to flaunt their bare chests publicly. As do most men with cameras.

But de Blasio isn’t the only one complaining. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the proliferation of bare-chested ladies reminds him of the “bad old Times Square.” Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, said, “If I spend 10 minutes in Times Square, I will witness someone being deeply upset.” “BUST THIS FLESH PIT,” proclaimed the New York Daily News.

De Blasio announced the formation of a multi-agency task force, the purpose of which is to study the issues involved in “regulating topless individuals and costumed characters.” Just about everybody with a shirt on is participating in it, including representatives from the New York City Police Department; the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office; the Departments of Transportation, Consumer Affairs and City Planning; the Law Department; the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice; and NYC & Company.

The task force faces a problem: the law. In 1992, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that women could bare their breasts in public for noncommercial purposes. Panhandling is also legal.

Though lawful in New York, the public exposure of women’s breasts remains a cultural taboo. When Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunctioned during the halftime ceremony of the 2004 Super Bowl, thus exposing her nipple to millions of viewers, controversy ensued. Had her singing partner, Justin Timberlake, performed shirtless, it is doubtful that anyone would have cared. What the incident revealed, besides Jackson’s mammilla, was that, in America, unconcealed breasts are more controversial than concealed weapons.

(Except when they belong to pansexual Miley Cyrus, in which case, no one cares anymore.)

In 2001, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, outraged by a depiction of Jesus as a topless woman at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, appointed a Decency Commission, to be composed, he said, of “basically decent people.” This was the same man who appeared at public events dressed in drag.

De Blasio is emulating Giuliani, except for drag part. He wants to regulate — in effect, to quasi-criminalize — noncriminal activity, simply because some people disapprove of it.

As often happens, calls for regulation turn into calls for criminalization. Already, New York State Sen. Ruben Diaz wants to make toplessness illegal for everyone, as his press release makes abundantly clear: “Make Toplessness in Public Illegal for Everyone.”

That some people find toplessness objectionable does not make it an emergency requiring the full resources of municipal government. It merely demonstrates that certain people are perpetually irritable, and often irreconcilably so.

Freedom can be offensive. That’s part of the deal. But the annoyance of some is no reason to suppress the freedom of all, even in seemingly trivial matters. Far more annoying than the practice of freedom is the suppression of it.

This is not to say that shirts and blouses are mortal threats to freedom, or that disrobing women liberates them. After all, Lady Liberty herself has kept her top on over the years, and people still take pictures of her.

Windsor Mann is the editor ofThe Quotable Hitchens: From Alcohol to Zionism.

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