Toplessness

"Topless" redirects here. For the Miles Tredinnick play, see Topless (stage play).

Two Tahitian Women, (1899), by Paul Gauguin

This article deals with topless females. For males, see Barechestedness.

Toplessness is the state in which a female's breasts are uncovered, with the areolae and nipples visible, usually in a public space. It can also refer to a female not wearing any clothing above the waist, which is the female equivalent to a male barechestedness.

The history and even the present-day contexts of toplessness vary extremely widely and are not by any means limited to situations meant to prompt sexual arousal. With that said, most Westernized societies do view exposed female breasts as sexually arousing, and as a result, there are large industries in which toplessness is deliberately used in a manner that exploits that sexual equivocation. Additionally, toplessness in its own right is not the same as exhibitionism, but depending on the context of the toplessness, it may be either intended or taken as such.

Toplessness can arise in a variety of situations, including:

• A topless woman posing topless in artistic glamour photographs or softcore erotic modelling situations, whether with or without sexual undertones, can be referred to as a "topless model"
• a woman lying in the sun at a beach who wears only a bikini bottom is engaging in "topless sunbathing"
• a beach where female toplessness is specifically expected as opposed to simply tolerated is a "topless beach"
• a pub in which women employees serve drinks and bartend topless is a "topless bar" (not necessarily a strip bar, which are often designed as lounges that include bars for drinks)
• a swimsuit garment designed in such a way as to still have a 'top half', but nevertheless to reveal the breasts and the nipples (arranged almost like suspenders around the shoulders, with nothing in the centre), meanwhile, is a "monokini" or topless swimsuit.
• a cupless garments designed in such a way as to still have a 'one big hole or two holes', but nevertheless to reveal the breasts and the nipples (ovals around the breasts, with nothing covers in the breasts), meanwhile, is a "cupless or nipple dress, cupless or nipple mini top, cupless or nipple cupless top, cupless or nipple bra, and cupless or nipple swimsuit".

In society

Two bathing Indonesian women, c. 1950

Two Wichita Native Americans in summer dress, 1870. Photographed by William S. Soule

In many societies today, it is a cultural norm for females from adolescence onward to cover their breasts, especially the nipples and areolae, in a public place or in front of those with whom they are not in an intimate relationship. The practice is considered an aspect of female modesty. However, attitudes to toplessness have varied considerably across cultures and over time.

The lack of female clothing above the waist was the norm (and not regarded as toplessness) in the traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands at least until the arrival of Christian missionaries, and it continues to be the norm and acceptable in many indigenous cultures today. The practice was also the norm in various Asian cultures before Muslim expansion in the 13th and 14th centuries. Upper-class women had been clothed fully, while other women had gone topless in public at most regions of India before the Muslim conquest of India. Female toplessness had been the norm in Southern India in medieval age. Toplessness was the norm for women for several peoples of South India like Tamils along the Coromandel coast, Tiyan and other peoples on the Malabar coast, Kadar of Cochin island, Toda, Nayar, Cheruman (Pulayar), Kuruba, Koraga, Nicobarese, Uriya until the 19th century or early 20th century.

Thai Cultural Mandates issued in 1939 and Western writing prove Thai women would go clothed fully or topless in public before the westernization of dress. In the late 19th century the influence of missionaries and modernization under King Chulalongkorn encouraged local women to wear blouses to cover their breasts. Until the early 20th century, women from northern Thailand wore a long tube-skirt (Pha-Sin), tied high above their waist and below their breasts, which were uncovered.

In 1858 Henri Mouhot took the picture of Laos women in which virgins clothed their breasts, while the married women revealed both breasts in public as the function of breastfeeding was attached to their breasts.

Toplessness had been the norm among Dayak people, Javanese people, Balinese people at Indonesia before being affected by the culture of Islam and the West. In the Javanese and Balinese society, toplessness had been limited to the women to work comfortably or rest. In the Dayak society, only the sagged or big breasted women among the married covered breasts which can disturb them in their work.

In most Middle Eastern countries, toplessness has not been socially accepted since at least the early beginning of Islam (7th century), because of Islamic standards for female modesty. However, toplessness was the norm in earlier cultures within Arabia, Egypt, Assyria and Mesopotamia. Tunisia and Egypt are an exception among Arabic states, allowing foreign tourists to swim topless on private beaches. In Himba society of northern Namibia, the social norm is for women to be bare breasted.

Cultural and legal attitudes in the West

History

Agnès Sorel, known to appear topless in the French court, was the model for Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, by Jean Fouquet (c.1450)

In many European societies between the Renaissance and the 19th century, exposed breasts were more acceptable than they are today, with a woman's bared legs, ankles or shoulders being considered to be more risqué than her exposed breasts. As a result of the Renaissance, many artists were strongly influenced by classical Greek styles and culture, and images of nude and semi-nude subjects in many forms proliferated in art, sculpture and architecture of the period. In aristocratic and upper-class circles the display of breasts also invoked associations with classical Greek nude sculptures and art and was at times regarded as a status symbol, as a sign of beauty, wealth or social position. To maintain youthful-looking bosoms women could employ wet nurses to breastfeed their children.

Breast-baring female fashions have been traced to 15th-century courtesan Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII of France, whose gowns in the French court sometimes exposed one or both of her breasts. (Jean Fouquet's portrayal of the Virgin Mary with her left breast uncovered is believed to have taken Sorel as a model.) Aristocratic women sought to immortalise their breasts in paint, as in the case of Simonetta Vespucci, whose portrait with exposed breasts was painted by Piero di Cosimo in c.1480. During the 16th century, women's fashions displaying their breasts were common in society, from Queens to common prostitutes, and emulated by all classes.

Similar fashions became popular in England during the 17th century when they were worn by Queen Mary II and by Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England, for whom architect Inigo Jones designed a masque costume that fully revealed both of her breasts.

From the mid-19th century onward, however, social attitudes shifted to require women's breasts to be covered in public, especially in the United States. This attitude has been reflected to a more limited degree in the arts. In the 1930s, the Hays Code brought an end to nudity in all its forms, including toplessness, in Hollywood films. Although a degree of liberalization took place in the later 20th century, contemporary Western societies still generally view toplessness unfavorably, with the very term "topless" often carrying the connotation of sexual licentiousness or deliberate defiance of cultural taboo.

Social attitudes

See also: Indecent exposure and Public indecency

As a result of social conditioning, many people feel uncomfortable viewing exposed women's breasts and regard such exposure to be indecent. Most women do not regard their breasts as indecent. However, at the same time, most women are reluctant to be topless. This may be due to their own social conditioning, social or sexual inhibitions, because of their upbringing or because of the social norm which traditionally expected women's breasts to be covered. Also, most people have an innate, psychological aversion to being the only person who does something in a public context, so that most people are uncomfortable being the only one in a situation who does something, like removing upper clothing.

Contemporary view

Topless dress 2010

See also: Dress code

In contemporary society, the extent to which a woman may expose her breasts depends on social and cultural context. Women's swimsuits and bikinis commonly reveal the tops and sides of the breasts. Displaying cleavage is considered permissible in many settings, and is even a sign of elegance and sophistication on many formal social occasions, but it may be prohibited by dress codes in settings such as workplaces and schools, where sexualized displays of the female breast may be considered inappropriate. Showing the nipples or areolae is almost always considered partial nudity and sex appealing. Women and girls may consider toplessness acceptable in gender segregated areas such as changing rooms and dormitories, and toplessness may be permitted in specific mixed-gender zones such as topless beaches (see below), but full breast exposure outside of these contexts is mostly confined to occasional acts of exhibitionism or protest.

During a short period in 1964, "topless" dress designs appeared at fashion shows, but those who wore the dresses in public found themselves arrested on indecency charges. However, toplessness has come to feature in contemporary haute couture fashion shows.

Some cultures have even begun to apply the social interdiction on female toplessness to prepubescent and even infant girls, who may be dressed by their parents in bikinis or one-piece swimsuits on beaches and at water parks. This trend toward covering the female nipple from infancy onward is particularly noticeable in the United States and the Middle East, but is much less common in Europe and Latin America.

Legality

See also: Topfreedom

Legally, many Western jurisdictions consider the public display of women's breasts to be indecent exposure. However, the activist topfreedom movement has been successful in some instances in persuading courts to overturn such laws on the basis of sex discrimination, arguing that a woman should be free to expose her chest in any context in which a man can expose his. Successful cases include the District of Columbia 1986; New York State 1992; Columbus, OH 1995; Ontario, Canada 1996; Moscow, Idaho 1998 and Maine 1998.

Many jurisdictions permit public breastfeeding. In the United States, for instance, a federal law enacted in 1999 specifically provides that "a woman may breastfeed her child at any location in a Federal building or on Federal property, if the woman and her child are otherwise authorized to be present at the location."

In March 2008, after a year-long campaign by a pressure group, the Topless Front, Copenhagen's Culture and Leisure Committee voted to approve topless bathing by women. Also in 2008, the city council in Vancouver, British Columbia, location of the World Naked Bike Ride, gave women the right to go topless in public, not solely at swimming pools and beaches.

In 2009, women in Malmö, Sweden won the right to swim topless in public swimming pools when the City Council voted unanimously to approve the action. "We don’t decide what men should do with their torso, why then do women have to listen to the men. Moreover, many men have larger breasts than women", said a council spokesman.

In many indigenous, non-Western cultures it is completely acceptable for both men and women torsos to be unclothed. Female toplessness can also constitute an important aspect of indigenous cultural celebrations. However, this can lead to cross-cultural and legal conflict. During 2004, Australian police banned members of the Papunya community from using a public park in the city of Alice Springs to practice a traditional Aboriginal dance that included topless women.

GoTopless.org, a US organization, claims that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men. They further claim constitutional equality between men and women on being topless in public. In 2009, they used 26 August (Women's Equality Day), as a day of national protest.

Sunbathing

Main article: Topfreedom

Original design of the monokini by Rudi Gernreich, 1964.

A topless swimmer at a beach in Devon, 2009

Sunbathing and a tanned skin became increasing popular after the 1920s. In the 1940s, advertisements started appearing in women’s magazines which encouraged sunbathing. At this time, swimsuits' skin coverage began decreasing, with the bikini making its appearance in 1946. In the 1950s, many people used baby oil as a method to accelerate a tan, while in the latter part of the 1950s silver metallic UV reflectors were common to also speed up tanning. However, visible tan lines produced by any swimsuit were not popular, and women made an effort to avoid creating them, such as undoing the back strap when laying on the front, or removing shoulder straps, besides wearing swimsuits which covered less area than normal clothing. Also, women did not feel comfortable in swimsuits when they were wet.

In 1964, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich designed the first topless swimsuit, which he called the "monokini" in the US. The design was first printed by Look magazine. Gernreich's monokini looked like a one-piece swimsuit suspended from two halter straps in the cleavage of bared breasts. It had only two small straps over the shoulders, leaving the breasts bare. Despite the reaction of fashion critics and church officials, shoppers purchased the monokini in record numbers that summer, though very few monokinis were ever worn in public. By the end of the season, Gernreich had sold 3000 swimsuits at $24 a piece, which meant a tidy profit for such a minuscule amount of fabric. The novelty of the design caught significant attention, and San Francisco Chronicle featured a woman in a monokini with her exposed breasts clearly visible on its first page. A photograph of Peggy Moffitt, the famous model for the suit, appeared in Women's Wear Daily, Life and numerous other publications.

The topless swimsuit was not very successful in the United States, where people never wore it on beaches. The Soviet government called it "barbarism" and a sign of social "decay". The pope called it immoral. The New York City Police Department was strictly instructed to arrest any woman wearing a swimsuit by the commissioner of parks. In Chicago, a 19-year-old female beachgoer was fined US$100 for wearing a topless swimsuit on a public beach. Copious coverage of the event helped to send the image of exposed breasts across the world. Women's clubs and the church were particularly active in their condemnation. In Italy and Spain, the church warned against the topless fashion. Even in Saint-Tropez, French Riviera, it was banned. Jean-Luc Godard, a founding mover of French New Wave cinema, incorporated a topless swimsuit footage shot in Riviera into his film A Married Woman, but it was edited out by the censors.

In the mid-1960s, while Gernreich was promoting his monokini, and before the rise of woman's liberation, with its call for women to retake control of their bodies, women achieved the same result (at a lower cost) by simply removing their bikini tops. The first women to publicly defy the law and convention were movie starlets and models in Cannes and Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera. The act achieved worldwide publicity and these resorts became a mecca for those wishing to sunbathe topless.

The practice slowly spread to other Western countries, many of which now allow topless sunbathing on some or all of their beaches, either through legal statute or by toleration. A topless, or top-optional, beach differs from a nude beach in that beach goers of both sexes are required to keep their genital area covered, although females have the option to remove their tops without fearing legal prosecution or official harassment. Women who sunbathe topless do not necessarily consider themselves to be nudists.

In Europe and Australia, however, topless swimming and sunbathing on public beaches became common, and the practice mostly became uncontroversial. By the mid-1990s, Australian researchers found that 88% of Australian university students, of both genders, considered it socially acceptable for women to remove their tops on public beaches, even though the majority disapproved of women exposing their breasts in other contexts, such as public parks. However, media reports in recent years note that the number of women sunbathing topless on French beaches has markedly declined, and that younger French women have become more disapproving of public breast exposure. In parts of Europe, for example in Sweden, toplessness is unpopular and uncommon.

In the United States, which is generally less tolerant of female toplessness, a woman's right to be topless wherever a man is permitted to go without a top has been recognised in Washington, D.C., New York, Hawaii, Maine, Ohio and Texas. However, women in Texas appearing topless in public can be charged under public nuisance laws, with the exception of Austin, the state capital, where some women sunbathe topless in Zilker Park, at various festivals, and at Hippie Hollow. Topless bathing is permitted on designated public nude beaches.

Mythology

A "Snake Goddess" statuette of ancient Minoan Civilization, c. 1600 BC.

In European pre-historic societies, sculptures of female figures with pronounced or highly exaggerated breasts were common. A typical example is the so-called Venus of Willendorf, one of many Paleolithic Venus figurines with ample hips and bosom. Artifacts such as bowls, rock carvings and sacred statues with breasts have been recorded from 15,000 BC up to late antiquity all across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Many female deities representing love and fertility were associated with breasts and breast milk. Figures of the Phoenician goddess Astarte were represented as pillars studded with breasts. Isis, an Egyptian goddess who represented, among many other things, ideal motherhood, was often portrayed as suckling pharaohs, thereby confirming their divine status as rulers. Even certain male deities representing regeneration and fertility were occasionally depicted with breast-like appendices, such as the river god Hapy who was considered to be responsible for the annual overflowing of the Nile. Female breasts were also prominent in the Minoan civilization in the form of the famous Snake Goddess statuettes. In Ancient Greece there were several cults worshipping the "Kourotrophos", the suckling mother, represented by goddesses such as Gaia, Hera and Artemis. The worship of deities symbolized by the female breast in Greece became less common during the first millennium. The popular adoration of female goddesses decreased significantly during the rise of the Greek city states, a legacy which was passed on to the later Roman Empire.

During the middle of the first millennium BC, Greek culture experienced a gradual change in the perception of female breasts. Women in art were covered in clothing from the neck down, including female goddesses like Athena, the patron of Athens who represented heroic endeavor. There were exceptions: Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was more frequently portrayed fully nude, though in postures that were intended to portray shyness or modesty, a portrayal that has been compared to modern pin ups by historian Marilyn Yalom. Although nude men were depicted standing upright, most depictions of female nudity in Greek art occurred "usually with drapery near at hand and with a forward-bending, self-protecting posture". A popular legend at the time was of the Amazons, a tribe of fierce female warriors who socialized with men only for procreation and even removed one breast to become better warriors. The legend was a popular motif in art during Greek and Roman antiquity and served as an antithetical cautionary tale.

Art

In many European societies as a result of the Renaissance many artists were strongly influenced by classical Greek styles and culture. As a result, images of nude and semi-nude subjects in many forms proliferated in art and sculpture.

During the Victorian era, French Orientalist painters such as Jean-Léon Gérôme presented an idealized depiction of female toplessness in Muslim harem baths, while Eugène Delacroix, a French romantic artist, invoked images of liberty as a topless woman.

From the mid-19th century onward, there was a shift in social attitudes in the West, especially in the United States, towards the prohibition of the exposure of women's breasts. This has been reflected to a more limited degree in the arts.

The artifacts in the Ancient City Museum located in the neighbourhood of Bangkok depict Thai women topless. The Ramakien Mural representing an epic and lives of the Thais found at the Wat Phra Kaew Temple show Thai women with their breasts uncovered, wearing only a skirt in public.

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  Wild Women with Unicorn, c. 1500–1510 (Basel Historical Museum)
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  Liberty Leading the People Eugène Delacroix, 1830, French
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  Édouard Manet – Blonde Woman with Bare Breasts (c.1878)
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  Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 1824–1904, French
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  Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci (c.1480), by Piero di Cosimo

Entertainment and media

Josephine Baker topless, 1927

The French have traditionally been relaxed with nudity and toplessness in entertainment, and dancers and actresses performed topless during the 1910s and beyond in musical theater and cinema. Toplessness in entertainment has survived to this day at the Folies Bergère and the Moulin Rouge.

In the 1920s, toplessness was featured in some Hollywood silent films as well as on the stage, though not without objections from various groups, and several States set up film censorship boards. In the 1930s, the Hays Code brought an end to nudity in all its forms, including toplessness, in Hollywood films. Social and official attitudes to toplessness have eased since those days and the Code came under repeated challenge in the 1950s and 60s, and had to be abandoned. Women now appear topless in mainstream cinema, although usually somewhat briefly. A notable exception was Rapa Nui which featured repeated scenes of bare-breasted native women. Film critic Roger Ebert said the producers got away with ongoing toplessness because of the women's brown skin:

Rapa Nui slips through the National Geographic Loophole. This is the Hollywood convention which teaches us that brown breasts are not as sinful as white ones, and so while it may be evil to gaze upon a blond Playboy centerfold and feel lust in our hearts, it is educational to watch Polynesian maidens frolicking topless in the surf. This isn't sex; it's geography.

It has become increasingly common for actresses to appear topless in movies. Actresses who have appeared topless include Denise Richards (Wild Things, 1998), Patsy Kensit (Lethal Weapon II, 1989), Erika Eleniak (Under Siege, 1992), Renee Russo (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1999), Katie Holmes (The Gift, 2000), Rhona Mitra in (Hollow Man), and Halle Berry (Swordfish, 2001). Toplessness in film is no longer considered controversial. In an interview in March 2007, Halle Berry said that her toplessness in Swordfish was "gratuitous" to the movie, but that she needed to do the scene to get over her fear of nudity, and that it was the best thing she did for her career. Having overcome her inhibitions, she went on to a role in Monster's Ball, which included a nude scene and which won her an Oscar for best actress. On the other hand, some actresses use body doubles so as not to expose their own breasts on film.

In many Western cultures today, women are regularly featured topless in magazines, calendars, and other print media. In the United Kingdom, following a tradition established by the British newspaper The Sun in 1970, several mainstream tabloid newspapers feature topless female models on their third page, known as Page Three girls. Although images of topless women are increasingly prevalent in Western magazines and film, images of topless girls under the age of eighteen years are controversial, and are potentially considered child pornography in some jurisdictions. Photographers such as Jock Sturges and Bill Henson, whose work regularly depicts topless and naked adolescent girls, have been prosecuted or been embroiled in controversy because of these images. Even insinuated toplessness by minors can cause controversy.

Women are also at times employed in adult-only venues to perform or pose topless in forms of commercial erotic entertainment. Such venues can range from downmarket strip clubs to upmarket cabarets, such as the Moulin Rouge. Topless entertainment may also include competitions such as wet T-shirt contests in which women display their breasts through translucent wet fabric—and may end up removing their T-shirts in front of the audience.

Female toplessness has also become a feature of carnivals such as Mardi Gras, notably in New Orleans, during which women "flash" (briefly expose) their breasts in return for strings of plastic beads, and Carnaval of Rio de Janeiro where floats occasionally feature topless women.

See also

• Décolletage
• Pasties
• Topfreedom

References

Media related to Toplessness at Wikimedia Commons