Much ado about nipple

Straight men of the world missed a great opportunity last Sunday: Go Topless Day.

The event is what you’d think, women participating in topless sunbathing for the day.

What you might not think is that it’s to honor and celebrate women’s equality and their right to vote.

It’s true the correlation between voting and letting your breasts see the light of day is a little blurry. It’s also true the event is fairly messy as a bunch of topless women lying on a beach would surely inspire gawkers and thus undermine having a day to celebrate equality of the sexes.

This column isn’t going there.

Going past the obvious flaws, I say it’s great.

Personally, I remember my first breast experience watching “Titanic” and having Kate Winslet’s nipples stare back at me, and I thought, “Oh. There they are. That’s it.”

And really, shouldn’t that be the response?

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about breasts.

Different, I know.

During the summer months I realized just how strange it is that women have to cover up at the pool or the beach. 

Frankly, it’s a debate I don’t think we hear enough of.

Apparently other Americans feel the same way.

The website Gloss conducted a survey that revealed 80 percent of American women would like to sunbathe topless and only 12 percent were embarrassed or thought it wrong.

Personally, I would enjoy any support available if I had to deal with breasts, but clearly the majority thinks differently.

The obvious question now is: Why do we let men go topless but not women?

What’s the difference between flesh and nipples on one body versus another?

True, women and men have different amounts of flesh, but I think we’ve all seen enough heavyset men hitting the beach to say even this distinction isn’t valid anymore.

Is it because women use their breasts to feed our children? If that’s the case, it’s pretty rude to make women hide solely because an infant is almost perpetually sucking on their nipples until they bleed and hurt.

Breasts are nothing sensational. They are not overtly sexual, We have sexualized them.

There’s no real threat in women being topless on the beach, We should let them do it if they so desire.

Europe has sunbathed topless for years, and we haven’t seen Europeans explode into mass hedonism.

Speaking as someone who has been able to be topless all my life, it’s really nothing thrilling.

Sometimes your nipples burn, and it hurts.

If women want to go through this, I say they should be welcomed.

­— sjostrow@umail.iu.edu