The breast defense!

It's well...a good pair of breasts, apparently! Actually they don't even have to be "good". They just have to be bared for the world to see. It's amazing what one can accomplish with a pair of bare nipples and a hearty dose of chutspah! As is evidenced by this story from a Toronto news service: Bare Breasts vs. Neighbour's ATV.

In a nutshell a Kingston area (Southern Ontario) woman got so fed up with the noise incurred by the ENDLESS hours that her neighbours' five-year-old grandson spent driving his ATV up and down her quiet suburban street....that she took matters into her own bra...and walked out her front door topless. The grandparents were so horrified by the vision of a pair of bare areolas that they immediately hauled their grandson inside out of sight of the lethal apparatus. Lest his childhood innocence be marred and forever lost in the face of such visual brutality. If you think I sound a tad unsympathetic to the grandparents plight...well...you'd be absolutely right. Having dealt with inconsiderate, noisy, pot-smoking, muscle-car-engine-revving-at-2 a.m. neighbours in the past I am in total sympathy with the woman's plight. In fact if I had thought walking outside with my shirt off would have saved me the $700 it cost to get a survey that forced our neighbour to move his fence back onto his OWN property...I most certainly would have done so! Unfortunately I don't think that would have addressed the problem, however I have to applaude the woman for her creative problem-solving! And goddamnit....I'm so glad to live in a country where bare boobs are a protected human right!

Now there is one very telling aspect to this story...one line that bothers me and that really sums up the problem with the entire situation. It's a quote from the police officer who was called to the scene. And I quote: "It isn't right to go around topless in front of kids." And that brings to mind the question...Why??

What is it about breasts that is so damaging to young minds? Now, I confess....I am hesitant to go topless in front of my teenage boys. However, in my defense I only discovered a more...enlightened  sense of sexuality and the confidence to go topless ANYWHERE in the last 6-7 years. Previous to that I was quite repressed and busily working through my own sexual issues. So to suddenly expose my boys to seeing their mother's breasts now after so many years of maternal modesty...and especially as teenagers....does seem a tad over the top. Even for me. HOWEVER...over the last number of years, during our countless hours of movie-watching as a family I have rigorously enforced my view that there is nothing wrong with the female form and that just seeing a pair of breasts is no threat to their moral fiber. Basically that means that any bare breasts that flash across the screen are free to do so unhindered....and without comment from me. It is part of life and, more importantly, part of being human. Same goes for shots of bare asses of both the male or female persuasion. And even the far-too-rare full-frontal penis-shot. I refuse to cringe at my children's being exposed to evidence that there are other men out there with penises...just like theirs.

What is it about breasts (and penises, btw) that makes them so threatening? I would propose that it is the very fact that they are hidden. The sense of forbiddenness merely adds to their mystery and the titillation potential is enhanced. Was it not barely a hundred years ago that sight of a woman's ankle was cause for gasps and hauling out the epsom salts? Let alone the moral downfall of respectable man?

Strange how as the skirts got shorter, the ankles, knees and even thighs somehow lost their ability to corrupt. I would propose the same to be true of breasts. Strike that. Nipples, as in reality (and as I've discussed before) that is really what the controversy boils down to.  I would contend that the sight of a bare nipple is not enough to send anyone to a life of moral depravity (what does that mean, btw??) and crime. And that teaching our children to be considerate of others is a far more important lesson than teaching them how to cover their eyes when a woman loses her bikini top in the surf. And I deeply believe that the younger we start teaching children that lesson--along with the lesson that there is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to the human body--the better.