Topless Is Legal in Canada… So Why Aren’t More Women Doing It?

A man can mow his lawn without a shirt, walk down the street bare-chested or spend an afternoon at the beach without anyone giving it a second thought.

Put a woman in the exact same situation and suddenly it can become a thing.

People stare. People comment. Someone might complain. Someone might grab their phone. And there’s a decent chance somebody nearby is debating whether what she’s doing is even legal.

That’s what makes the topless debate so interesting. It sounds like a conversation about boobs, but it’s actually a conversation about equality, sexuality, body image, safety and who gets to decide which bodies are acceptable to show.

We got into all of it in Episode 90 of Taboo Talk: Not Safe for Brunch, including one revelation none of us were expecting: apparently Vicki participated in a topless march when she was 18 and somehow waited until NOW to tell us.

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/QAdyuLFOwzg

The Canadian Court Case That Changed the Conversation

One of the biggest moments in Canadian topfree history began in Guelph, Ontario, in 1991.

A 19-year-old university student named Gwen Jacob removed her shirt while walking outside on a hot summer day. She was charged with committing an indecent act and initially convicted.

Jacob challenged that decision.

Why should the exact same exposed body part be socially acceptable on a man but considered indecent when it belongs to a woman?

In December 1996, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned her conviction and acquitted her. The court concluded that simply exposing her breasts in those circumstances did not amount to an indecent act. The ruling applied directly in Ontario and went on to influence cases and attitudes elsewhere in Canada.

More recent Canadian legal explanations continue to note that simply being topless is not prohibited by the Criminal Code, although other laws and circumstances can still matter.

So nearly 30 years after the Jacob decision, there’s an obvious question:

If women can do it, why don't we see more women walking around topless?

Having the Right Doesn't Mean Feeling Free to Use It

The first answer all three of us came up with was pretty damn quickly:

Safety.

A woman may legally be able to take her shirt off, but that doesn't control how other people react to her body.

There can be staring, comments, harassment and unwanted attention. And today there's another concern that Gwen Jacob didn't have to deal with in quite the same way in 1991: practically everyone is carrying a camera.

You might be comfortable with your breasts being visible while swimming in your own pool. That doesn't necessarily mean you're comfortable with someone taking a photo, uploading it and having that image follow you around online.

That's a huge difference between choosing to expose your own body and losing control over who gets to capture and share it.

Then There's Body Image

Imagine for a second that topless women became completely normal.

Not Instagram boobs.

Not perfectly positioned, lifted, filtered, symmetrical boobs.

Boobs.

Big ones. Small ones. Saggy ones. Uneven ones. Post-baby boobs. Post-surgery boobs. Nipples pointing wherever the hell nipples have decided to point that day.

Because that's where this conversation gets interesting.

It's easy for someone to say, “Hell yeah, women should go topless!” when the picture in their head looks like a Sports Illustrated shoot.

But equality doesn't mean only exposing bodies considered sexually desirable.

As Coralie pointed out during the episode, you don't get just the “pretty” boobs. You get everybody.

And maybe seeing real bodies more often would actually help dismantle some of the ridiculous expectations we've created around what breasts are supposed to look like.

Breastfeeding Shows Just How Weird This Gets

One of the strangest examples of our relationship with breasts is breastfeeding.

Breasts literally produce food for babies.

Yet women still hear complaints about breastfeeding in public or feel pressure to cover themselves because someone else is uncomfortable.

At the same time, female breasts are used constantly to sell lingerie, entertainment, beauty products and pretty much anything an advertiser can stick cleavage beside.

Apparently breasts can sell us shit, but feeding a hungry baby can still make people uncomfortable.

Make that make sense.

Why Are Female Breasts Automatically Sexual?

Men have nipples.

Women have nipples.

Yet culturally, we've assigned completely different meanings to them.

A man's bare chest at the beach is just...a chest.

A woman's bare chest can immediately be interpreted as sexual.

That doesn't mean breasts aren't sexual within intimacy. Of course they can be. Plenty of body parts can have both sexual and non-sexual roles depending on the situation.

The problem starts when we decide a woman's breasts are sexual by default, regardless of context.

Swimming isn't sex.

Breastfeeding isn't sex.

Sunbathing isn't sex.

Existing in your body isn't sex.

So What Exactly Is Go Topless Day?

That double standard eventually became the focus of Go Topless Day, an annual gender-equality event connected to Women's Equality Day in the United States. The organization behind it was established in 2007, with the first annual observance generally dated to 2008. At demonstrations, supportive men have sometimes worn bras or bikini tops to highlight the absurdity of requiring one sex to cover a chest while allowing another to expose it.

And frankly, we appreciate the commitment.

Wear the underwire for a few hours, gentlemen. Then we'll talk.

Would Women Actually Want to Go Topless?

Here's the part that sometimes gets lost in conversations about women's rights:

Having the right to do something doesn't mean every woman wants to do it.

Amber wouldn't be comfortable casually walking downtown topless.

Coralie only became comfortable swimming topless in her own pool in recent years.

Vicki? Apparently give her the right environment and she's been living her best topless-coffee life for years.

Different women. Different comfort levels.

And that's kind of the entire point.

Equality isn't forcing women to take their shirts off.

It's removing a different standard simply because the person underneath that shirt is a woman.

And We Have One Question for the Men…

If women going topless became completely ordinary tomorrow, would you actually support it?

Not just when it's the woman you find attractive.

Not just on a beach.

Not just when it's somebody else's girlfriend or wife.

All women. All boobs. Same rules.

And while we're asking uncomfortable questions: would you feel exactly the same way about your own partner exercising that right?

Because that's where equality gets a little more complicated than yelling “FREE THE NIPPLE!”

Ultimately, the topless debate isn't really about whether everyone should walk around with their tits out.

It's about choice.

It's about why we've spent decades treating the same body part differently depending on whose body it's attached to.

And maybe the bigger question isn't:

“Why would a woman want to go topless?”

Maybe it's:

“Why are we still so bothered when she does?”

Want to hear the full conversation, including nude beaches, breastfeeding, cameras, Vicki's surprise topless-protest history and whether men really want ALL women going topless? Watch Episode 90 of Taboo Talk: Not Safe for Brunch here: https://youtu.be/QAdyuLFOwzg