this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Is it illegal for women to be topless?
I'm pretty sure it's not. It's not common for women to ever be topless in Scotland, but it's not explicitly illegal to be naked (men or women). Only more vague public decency and harassment laws. If a woman in Scotland was topless sunbathing, they'd definitely get some looks, but I think it's very unlikely the police would intervene.
Yeah. That seems sexist.
Free the nipple.
Genuine question, how is it sexist? Is their no acknowledgment of biological differences between men and women as a general rule (trans issues being more of an exception to the rule)? We acknowledge differences in general in regards to sports, bathrooms, fitting rooms, the way clothes are made, people’s consumption of pornography, magazines and media. Why on this point are we ignoring that all of those things ls are real and happen and pretending there’s no difference?
Genuine answer: I'm specifically speaking to how men and women are treated as a matter of law.
Laws should not differentiate between men, women, sexual orientation or identity, sexual preferences, kinks, lifestyles, etc.
If a thing is illegal, it should be illegal for everyone, or noone. In this case, the law says that it is legal to go topless unless you are a woman. It specifically cites, as a rule of law, that women are to be treated differently on purpose. That, by definition, is sexist.
Almost all of the other examples you provided are matters of social norms, comforts, and tropes. Nothing else you mentioned has the same weight as the rule of law.
Women have different clothing and different clothing styles than men, they're shaped differently so we make clothes that fit the female form better, just like we have clothes that fit the male form better.
Different washrooms, I disagree with; we should have gender neutral bathrooms and put all this transphobia bullshit about what bathroom people use, to bed. Bluntly: the bathroom isn't a social gathering, people generally are not walking around unclothed or partially clothed in the common areas of even a gendered bathroom. You go in there to resolve your bodily needs to expel waste. Get in, do what you need to do, and get out. With a little more effort in isolating stalls, an ungendered bathroom is the best option. You don't have a "men's" and "women's" bathroom at home... They don't pointlessly gender bathrooms in planes or busses, among many other places, so making bathrooms that are meant for larger groups in public spaces, gendered, does not really logically make any sense at all.
There's a ton more I could say about this or many other things but simply: I feel like I've addressed your question.
Let me know if you need any further clarifications.
Aren’t decency laws based on current societal norms? And age of consent laws often acknowledge a difference between genders.
Men and women both have nipples. The difference is that women might need to pull them put to feed a baby. If we want to treat them differently, should it not be reversed?
It is sexist because you're treating them differently based on arbitrary cultural standards. Why are you pretending made up social constructs are real? We shouldn't be consistently sexist. We should want equality for all.
Ok. So if it’s based on arbitrary cultural standards that are made up, wouldn’t the new version just be a different made up social construct that we would pretend is real as well? Except we would just be pretending that boobs aren’t real? Or have no relevance
arbitrary cultural standards that are not applied equally are sexist.
If the rule changed as to be everyone has to cover up their chests it would become sexist to men because men don’t even have breasts.
Men have chests. Fat men also have breasts.
But it seems the defining feature is the nipple, and both sexes have those.
Yes but the attraction to men’s chests is based on the muscle tone usually where as women it’s the shape of the breast and further more the centre of that. I think there also an acknowledgment that women’s nipples are way more sensitive and prone to triggering arousal when touched compared to a man. These are broad generalisations but laws need to be broad and general.
Also no one’s getting excited by man boobs, generally speaking
So the solution is to treat all chests and nipples equally. Allow them to be shown, or hide them from everyone, but enforce the rule consistently.
But in general men and women are different in this area and there’s vastly different reactions to each scenario ie a man having his shirt off vs a woman having her shirt off
Laws can only be enforced on someone's actions, not on other peoples reactions.
Yes but decency laws are applied purely because of the reactions they cause. If someone takes a shit down a drain on the street it’s not the littering that bothers me so much. I want there to be a law that can make that stop.
Again, someone has to act indecently. It's not the reaction that makes something illegal.
Nudism has already been ruled as not being indecent, this applies equally to males and females.
Ah. Now we are getting to your point. You want it to be illegal for someone to offend you. Not going to happen, because it is not practical. Different people will be offended by different things. It's not a basis for law.
If nudism (where you are) is not deemed as indecent I completely agree there should never be a law that specifically targets women. That seems obvious. Where I am nudism or more specifically being naked in a public space is deemed as indecent.
Because the sexualization of the female nipple is the only reason it is illegal to bare it in public. There is no universal or biological reason to ban it, just a cultural conditioning.
Yes, I guess what I’m asking is are we pretending that this “conditioning” isn’t a real thing? I also read recently (sorry if this is wrong) that there was a study done on arousal of breasts between societies where they are covered up vs where they are not. It found the level of arousal remained consistent.
Why wouldn't having to deal with that arousal be the problem and responsibility of the aroused instead of, by default and preemtively, limiting the rights of any prospective and involuntary "arousee" in existence?
If arousal isn’t a real thing and it’s the fault of the person being aroused, would that suggest total nudity should be ok as well?
Remember this whole discussion is about discrimination. So what you're asking is "In contexts where full male body nudity is arbitrarily deemed acceptable, why wouldn't full female body nudity be acceptable as well?"
And the answer, of course, is that there's no reason to make a distinction, is there?
Well yes. In the same context there are varying degrees of nakedness. A man only need his pants off to be able to describe him as exposing himself, you know exactly what’s going on and the rest is kind of irrelevant. Whereas with a woman you would have to specify as to whether she is exposing her genitals or breasts.
Some of these users are unironically repeating rape cultural word for word and in this case with the add on of "I'm just asking questions". Thanks for sticking it to them. =)
I really don't think that's a useful mindset. We're all just people here, having conversations and - ideally - socratic dialogues. What could be gained by sticking anything to anyone?
If women everywhere suddenly felt that men showing their faces was arousing, should they be required to cover that too?
I’m sorry but I don’t feel that’s a reasonable hypothetical. Society would be so different in so many ways if that were true that the time line would look completely different, who know we probably wouldn’t have made it to now. And yes hypothetically if this did happen all of a sudden there would be lots of calls to do something about the new situation
The only reason to cover women's nipples is because the gender in power may have hormonal changes that they are unwilling to control.
I’m sorry I’m not following. What’s the “gender in power?” Is that societal or the individual?
The patriarchy
Why should a nipple be hidden only if it is a female one. Why would man have the right to walk without t-shirts and woman be punished for the same walk?
Yet imo it should be the other way. Males need to cover up to. Lets see how fast they start complaining.
I think there’s less of a need for men to cover up. That not to say I don’t agree with your point entirely. While shirtless men do seem to arouse women and gay men, correct me if if wrong, it’s seems like it’s more of a overall thing, where with women the arousal is mostly centred around the breasts themselves and the nipples.
I think it’s also more appropriate to say feminine breasts, I know this opinion can vary person to person but most people can agree man boobs generally don’t excite people, it’s the muscle and tone that women find attractive. This can apply to feminine breasts but I think it’s generally more accepted that they are more likely to arouse or at least be interesting.
It is not the womans fault that a guy gets exited. It is not her duty to cover up to make sure his weak mind has a bit more ease. It is his to control his thinking and doing.
And btw why is males make woman/gay exited a good / allouwable ( is that a word ? ) thing and female nipples make man exited a bad one. 2 different rules because of sexe... That is sexist.
I don t think i would go naked shopping or so. The fact that some woman who want to can not do that is the thing that is wrong. Ergo hide the male body to => no more differences.
There has to be some acknowledgement that getting aroused by bare breasts is a completely normal and healthy thing. If I didn’t become aroused my gf would think there’s something wrong with me in fact a lot of women would say there’s something wrong with a man or even think they are broken if they didn’t. It’s generally accepted that the reason women modify their breasts are for purely sexual reasons and to create attraction and arousal. But arousal isn’t really the main point. The main point is a line has to be drawn somewhere that balances the generally accepted standards of decency with the individuals freedoms and the impact that freedom has on everyone else. I think current laws do a reasonable job of that. If I had kids I wouldn’t want a woman with large implanted boobs to stand in front of them on a bus for half an hour while they bounced up and down. I’m happy for the law to prevent this scenario from happening. I can acknowledge that I wouldn’t want a man with big gross man boobs to either but the difference in emotion that creates seems relevant.
There are differences, but there is no need for different rules.
Can you, or are you willing to, say outright, why it should be illegal?
Because I think having breasts is different to not having them and that human arousal and disgust (may be a strong word) is real and that as a general rule it’s appropriate and even beneficial to exclude the extremes of these things from day to day life unless the individual wants to opt in. I suppose a line has to be drawn somewhere and given that there is a real reaction across most of society it’s a reasonable place to draw it.
So because men are more horny than women, women should habe fewer freedoms?
And what about tribal societies where everybody is bare chested all the time? Do you believe all nen there are horny all the time because the See female breasts every day?
I can see this point, I’m just not sure going back to what is generally considered a primitive culture is really worth the trouble to get there. We don’t live like that any more. Can we at least beat the billionaires first?