Toplessness

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

The traditional women's clothing of Southern Ethiopia

Two Tahitian Women, (1899), by Paul Gauguin

This article deals with topless or barechested females. For males, see barechestedness.

Toplessness refers to the state in which a person, especially a woman or postpubescent girl, has her breasts uncovered, with her areolae and nipples visible, usually in a public space. The adjective topless may refer to a woman who appears, poses, or performs with her breasts exposed (a "topless model"); to an activity or performance that involves exposing the breasts (a "topless dance"); to a graphic, photographic, or filmic depiction of a woman with her breasts uncovered (a "topless photograph"); to a place where female toplessness is tolerated or expected (a "topless beach"); or to a garment designed to reveal the breasts (a "topless swimsuit").

Toplessness has often been a culturally and legally charged issue in Western cultures (see below). In traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands toplessness was normal until the arrival of Christian missionaries. There are indications that it was also the norm in Sri Lanka and other Asian cultures before Muslim expansion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 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 of modesty. However, toplessness was normal in earlier cultures within Arabia, Egypt, Assyria and Mesopotamia.

Cultural and legal attitudes in the West

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

Attitudes towards the exposure of female breasts vary widely among cultures and have also varied throughout history, even within the Western world.

Toplessness was the norm in ancient Egyptian society. Public bathing was practiced in antiquity by the Greeks, Romans and others, but the custom declined in the Middle Ages under pressure from various sources, including the spread of the Black Plague and disapproval from the Catholic Church.

Harem Pool, Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 1824–1904, French

European societies between the Renaissance and the nineteenth century did not necessarily see breast exposure as overtly risqué, with a woman's bare legs, ankles, or shoulders being considered much more scandalous. Historians have traced breast-baring female fashions to fifteenth-century courtesan Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII of France, who was known to wear gowns in the French court that exposed one or both of her breasts. (Jean Fouquet's portrayal of the Virgin Mary with her left breast exposed is believed to have taken Sorel as a model.)

Similar fashions were popularized in England during the seventeenth century 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 displayed both of her breasts. As the trend gained acceptance, upper-class women often exposed their breasts as a sign of virtue, beauty, or wealth, invoking an association with the nude sculptures of classical Greece that were exerting a huge influence on the art and architecture of the period. Wealthy women would make an especial effort to maintain youthful-looking bosoms by, for example, having wet nurses breastfeed their children.

Images of the nude breast proliferated in art and sculpture during this period. During the Victorian era, French Orientalist painters such as Jean-Léon Gérôme presented an idealized depiction of female toplessness in Muslim harem baths.

From the mid-nineteenth century onward, social attitudes shifted in the West, especially in the United States, to prohibit the exposure of women's breasts. In the 1920s, the Hays Code brought an end to toplessness in Hollywood films. However, the French musical theater and cinema continued to use topless dancers and actresses during the 1910s and beyond. Toplessness as a form of entertainment has survived to this day at the Folies Bergère.

File:Breasts-not-bombs.jpg

An anti-war demonstration in Washington, 24 September 2005.

Contemporary Western norms of female modesty take an unfavorable view of toplessness, with the very term "topless" often carrying the connotation of sexual licentiousness or deliberate defiance of cultural taboos. Displays of cleavage are considered permissible and even a sign of elegance on many formal social occasions, but displaying any portion of the female nipples or areolae is considered to be partial nudity. Toplessness may be considered acceptable in gender segregated saunas, changing rooms, dormitories, or communal showers, or in specific zones such as beaches (see below), but full breast exposure outside of such contexts is mostly confined to occasional acts of exhibitionism or protest.

Some cultures have begun to apply social interdictions on female toplessness to prepubescent and even infant girls, who are often dressed by their parents in bikinis or one-piece swimsuits on beaches and at water parks. This trend is particularly noticeable in the United States and the United Kingdom, but is much less common in continental Europe and Latin America.

Legally, many Western jurisdictions consider the public display of women's breasts to be indecent exposure. However, many jurisdictions make exceptions for public breastfeeding. In the United States, for example, 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 the United States and Canada, a small "topfree" equality movement promotes equality in legal and social attitudes to what they call male and female "topfreedom" (toplessness for all) and to protest legal proscriptions on it, especially when females are restricted but not males. They argue that such laws are sexist. In some cases, the movement has overturned such legal discrimination. They promote the terms topfree and topfreedom as preferred over topless, which has different connotations.

By contrast, many indigenous, non-Western cultures consider it culturally normal for both men and women to go without clothing on their torsos. Female toplessness can also constitute an important aspect of indigenous communities' cultural celebrations. Cross-cultural and legal conflict has taken place on the issue, such as when Australian police banned members of the Papunya community in 2004 from using a public park in the city of Alice Springs to practice a traditional Aboriginal dance that featured topless women.

Topless beaches

File:Two topless women.JPG

Two women on a topless German beach

In the mid-1960s, led by movie starlets and models in Cannes and Saint-Tropez, women began to remove their bikini tops while sunbathing on the beaches of the French Riviera. 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 custom. A topless beach differs from a nude beach or naturist beach in that beach goers of both sexes are required to keep their genital area covered, while at an officially sanctioned topless beach women have an option to remove their tops without fearing legal prosecution or official harassment. Women who sunbathe topless do not necessarily consider themselves to be nudists.

Beaches permitting topless swimming and sunbathing are especially common in Europe and Australia, where they are mostly uncontroversial. An academic study conducted in the mid-1990s found that 88 percent 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 female toplessness in other contexts, such as public parks. In the United States, which is generally more disapproving of female toplessness than Europe or Australia, topless sunbathing is permitted at specifically designated beaches such as South Beach in Miami, Florida and Black's Beach in San Diego, California. However, women can find themselves in legal trouble for sunbathing topless in countries with traditionally conservative values. In July 2008, as part of a crackdown on indecent behavior, police in the Muslim city-state of Dubai arrested 79 Western tourists for offenses including topless sunbathing. Multilingual signs have now been erected on Dubai's beaches warning that women who remove their tops can face criminal prosecution.

Topless sunbathing is sometimes permitted in contexts other than beaches. Many resort hotels now allow topless sunbathing at their swimming pools, and some cruise ships offer decks on which women may remove their tops. At the Kenwood Ladies' Bathing Pond in London's Hampstead Heath, the Greater London Council has permitted topless sunbathing and swimming since 1976, although men are not allowed to enter the bathing area.

Entertainment and media

Joséphine Baker topless

In many cultures, women are regularly featured topless in magazines, calendars, and other print 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. 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 features images of topless adolescent girls, have been prosecuted or been embroiled in controversy because of these depictions. Even insinuated toplessness by minors can cause controversy.

Women also often appear topless in mainstream cinema, although some prominent actresses have used body doubles instead of exposing their own breasts on film.

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 before 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 Janiero where floats occasionally feature topless women.

Image gallery

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  Petra Mosaic
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  Snake Goddess Crete 1600 BC
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  Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci (c.1480), by Piero di Cosimo, in Musée Condé, Chantilly
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  Venus de Milo on display at the Louvre
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  Liberty Leading the People (1830), Louvre
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  Diana the Huntress, by Gaston Casimir Saint-Pierre
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  Fleurs des Champs, by Jules Joseph Lefebvre
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  Blonde Woman with Bare Breasts, by Edouard Manet
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See also

• Sociology of clothing.
• Topfreedom.
• Breastfeeding.
• Naturism (including nudism).
• Handbra.