Judge Makes Critical Distinction Between T & A, Blocks Anti-Nipple Ordinance

Judge Jackson struck down a Fort Collins, Colorado ordinance that prohibited "public exposure of the breast below the top of the areola and nipple."

OMG, I can see his nipples! (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

OMG, I can see his nipples! (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

If U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson, a 70-year-old white man in Colorado, can handle an exposed nipple without losing his mind, you have no excuse.

Jackson struck down a Fort Collins, Colorado ordinance that prohibited “public exposure of the breast below the top of the areola and nipple.” Well, it prohibited “women” from public exposure, except for girls under 10 and breast-feeding mothers.

And it’s not like Fort Collins forgot about men. The city also bars public exposure of the genitals or buttocks for both women AND men. But only women are prohibited from going topless.

This seems like a good time to point out that a woman’s “genitalia” does not extend all the way up to her chest. I know that can be confusing to people. While we’re here: thighs, hair, and midriffs are also NOT sex organs. The more you know!

It’s a double standard, and Jackson was having none of it. From the ABA Journal:

Jackson said the ordinance likely violates the equal protection clause. The ordinance “perpetuates a stereotype engrained in our society that female breasts are primarily objects of sexual desire whereas male breasts are not,” he wrote….

“At bottom, this ordinance is based upon ipse dixit—the female breast is a sex object because we say so,” Jackson wrote. “That is, the naked female breast is seen as disorderly or dangerous because society, from Renaissance paintings to Victoria’s Secret commercials, has conflated female breasts with genitalia and stereotyped them as such. The irony is that by forcing women to cover up their bodies, society has made naked women’s breasts something to see.”

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The city argued, and I’m not making this up, that bare-chested women could cause… traffic accidents. Somebody actually stood up in a court of law and argued that women weren’t entitled to the equal protection of men, because men might be so busy objectifying women that they won’t be able to drive.

What I don’t understand from all these cultural conservatives who act like a fleeting areola can induce a crisis of faith: why don’t they just ban men from going topless too? That’s solves your constitutional problem and at least puts a pastie over your sexism.

That’s how we do it in the big city, folks. NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE. Out here in Elitistan, we’ve been fighting the battle against shirtless bros at least since we evicted all the black people to make Central Park. Maybe if you started treating men and women equally, all you people west of the Hudson could do something about your “Situations” and your “Cable Guys” (I know Larry the Cable Guy is technically wearing a shirt but… it has NO SLEEVES and looks smelly).

Or go the other way. Because shirts are stupid, and I don’t think people should be required to wear them. I don’t think people should be required to wear, or not wear, anything. Not a burka, not a tie, not a shirt. It’s freaking clothes, who cares. Try looking at a woman’s face. That’s where her people parts are.

Federal judge goes out on a ‘lonely limb’ and blocks Colorado town’s ban on topless women [ABA Journal]

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.