Livienne Love

Livienne Love, an Asheville resident, was the organizer of the recent topless rally and march in the downtown area.
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The breasts have been bared, the pot has been stirred. The GoTopless demonstration held on Sunday, Aug. 21, has been making waves here in Asheville. And while some viewed the demonstration as silly, I saw that it brought many important issues to light.

Some folks expressed that the large turnout of observers was counterproductive.  What I saw in the hundreds of men who came to take photos of women’s breasts, as well as the hundreds of women who felt uncomfortable going topless, was a reaction to a repressed society.

We need to remove these harmful social stigmas — mostly stemming from religious indoctrination - that exist around breasts, nudity and sex.  

There once was a time when women were shunned for wearing skirts that fell above the knees.  Nowadays, we wouldn’t see hundreds of people showing up to watch women walk around town simply because they’re wearing shorts.  If we move society forward with top freedom for women, there will come a time when people won’t think twice about seeing a topless woman in public, much less take photos and cheer.  

The most absurd argument behind the so-called logic of requiring women to cover their chests is that children are traumatized by the sight of female breasts.

During the march, not one child I passed even looked at my breasts, much less cried and turned to their mommies and daddies in horror.

And yet, there are currently two local politicians who are claiming that the women who participated in the GoTopless Asheville demonstration “sexually molested a large group of children.”

I find it embarrassing for these men that they would use such a term — one that evokes in our imagination truly traumatizing acts performed on children — to describe a group of women walking around town without shirts on.

This way of thinking isn’t healthy for our society; on the contrary, it keeps us stagnant in antiquated religious notions that continue to oppress us to this very day.

It’s time to once and for all remove religious values from our politics and law-making. After all, it was this same kind of religious mindset that once argued slavery was acceptable and that women were the property of the men they married.
The shame that women endure for simply having breasts is harmful not only to women, but to our society as a whole.
I have yet to hear a truly intelligible reason as to why a woman shouldn’t have the freedoms of a man in all areas, including being top-free.

Topless rights is not an issue to be brushed off.  By belittling the importance of any of our rights, we only stall the progress of our society’s maturity — in this case, in the areas of respect for and freedom of women.   

So, while there are many people who are ready for the topless talk to end, I would suggest that it has only just begun and will benefit us all that it continues.