Topless
Toplessness refers to the state in which a woman or postpubescent girl has her breasts uncovered, with her areolae and nipples visible, usually in a public space. Some people and cultures regard toplessness as partial female nudity. The adjective topless can refer to a woman who appears, poses, or performs with her breasts so exposed (a "topless model"); to an activity or performance that involves exposing the breasts (a "topless dance"); to a graphic, photographic, or film depiction of a woman with her breasts uncovered (a "topless portrait"); to a place where female topless-ness is tolerated or expected (a "topless beach"); or to a garment designed to reveal the breasts (a "topless swimsuit"). The topfreedom movement objects to the risqué connotations of the term "topless" and usually prefers the adjective "topfree."
Many indigenous, non-Western cultures, such as those found in parts of Africa and the South Pacific, consider it culturally normative for both males and females to go without clothing on their torsos. Because "toplessness" can imply sexual licentiousness or deliberate defiance of cultural taboos, the term should not be applied to women in societies where breast exposure is the norm.
Cultural and legal issues in the Western world
While it is fashionable and culturally acceptable for women in Western cultures to display cleavage, particularly when wearing swimsuits or dressing for social occasions, concealment of the lower portion of the breasts, including the nipples and areolae, is a sociocultural norm of postpubescent female modesty in the Western world. In many Western jurisdictions, the public display of breasts is considered to be indecent exposure. The topfree equality movement opposes such laws as sexually discriminatory, arguing that a woman should be at liberty to expose her breasts in the same circumstances that a man may expose his chest and nipples.
Heated debates have taken place on the issue of public exposure of breasts, particularly when nursing mothers have been prosecuted for breastfeeding their babies in public. In response to campaigns promoting the health benefits of breast milk, many jurisdictions now permit public breastfeeding while retaining indecent exposure laws, essentially differentiating the lactational from the sexual functions of the female breast.
Attitudes to the exposure of breasts are generally relaxed in appropriate gender-segregated areas such as women's locker rooms, changing rooms, or communal showers, or in specific mixed-gender zones where public female toplessness is deemed acceptable, such as beaches or saunas (see below). However, Western women will generally cover their breasts in public at all other times. As such, public toplessness in the Western world is mostly confined to sunbathing and occasional acts of exhibitionism or to draw attention to a cause.
Zones permitting toplessness
Women sunbathing topless on a beach. Either through legal statute or through established precedent, many societies exempt some zones from prohibitions on female toplessness, most notably the topless beach. Found in many liberal parts of the world, topless beaches are especially common in Europe and Australia, where they are mostly uncontroversial: An academic study found that 88 percent of Australian university students (of both genders) consider it socially acceptable for women to go topless on public beaches, although the majority of those surveyed disapproved of female toplessness in other contexts (Herold, Corbesi, & Collins, 1994; 1995). A topless beach differs from a nude beach or naturist beach in those beachgoers of both sexes will keep their genitalia strictly covered. Women who sunbathe topless generally do not consider themselves to be nudists.
Other zones where female toplessness is tolerated or expected may include the Finnish sauna and carnivals such as New Orleans Mardi Gras, where it has become customary in recent years for women to "flash" their breasts in exchange for strings of plastic beads.
Entertainment and media
Specific adult-only venues may employ women to perform or pose topless as a form of commercial erotic entertainment; these can range from downmarket strip clubs to upmarket cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge. In many Western cultures, female toplessness is regularly featured in magazines, calendars, film, television, and other media.
In the United Kingdom, following a tradition established by The Sun in 1970, several mainstream tabloid newspapers feature topless female models on their third page, known as Page Three Girls. The tradition has sometimes caused controversy, as when feminist Member of Parliament Clare Short campaigned vigorously but unsuccessfully to have Page Three Girls banned but is generally accepted as inoffensive and even amusing.
See also Handbra
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