I’m off this week, at Kiezburn, the biggest “burn” in Germany, just outside Berlin. Flo, Baby, and I all went together! But as I forgot to let you know last week, I wanted to send you an email, anyway.
In honor of the weather getting warm I’m sharing one of my most popular articles I wrote a few years ago about going topless as a woman. It’s on Medium, but I copy and pasted it below. TLDR; Do it!
Happy summer!
<3 Sarah
Why You Should Dare To Go Topless in All the Places Men Do
I was at a public beach far out in Brooklyn with a guy I was seeing and some of his friends when four breasts came out.
Two of his female friends took off their tops and ran into the water with only a bikini bottom on. As soon as they did, I looked left and right at the other New York beach-goers around us…
Big Latin families serving each other hot food, an old wrinkly couple drinking cocktails, a group of friends dancing to Caribbean music, teenagers in groups smoking cigarettes and taking selfies.
We weren’t at Burning Man or on some sexy beach in southern France. We were in Brooklyn with everyone and their mothers.
I couldn’t have imagined doing what they had just done. First off, no other woman on the beach had their top off. Second, I wasn’t comfortable enough with my tiny boobs to expose them so shamelessly in front of strangers. Third, I’d already spent a lot of energy in my life trying to avoid being ogled or cat-called. Wasn’t this just asking for it?
I was a little worried that this might be expected of me when hanging out in this crowd.
At the same time, I was in awe. I admired the confidence those women had to go ahead and take off their tops, despite all those reasons not to.
I wondered why I felt I couldn’t do the same.
Women’s breasts are different than men’s, you say
There are differences between men's and women’s chests of course.
For example, women’s are larger than men’s on average. Furthermore, women with newborns can feed their babies with their breasts and men can’t.
But the difference in size doesn’t mean much objectively. And a mother’s need to feed her baby just gives us all the more reason to make exposing breasts socially acceptable.
A mother must feed her child in public every so often. It’s a matter of practicality. And if it’s practical and acceptable when a mother exposes her breasts, then it should be practical and acceptable at any other time in her life too.
The tendency for women in our society to cover up is a totally arbitrary phenomenon. So, again, what really was stopping me?
Boobs and the law
In public spaces in New York City, even in the thick of the financial district, with skyscrapers and men in suits looming in all directions, the police are not allowed to arrest a man or a woman for walking around topless.
So legality was not the issue here either.
There was no really good objective reason I couldn’t run into the water with my top off with those women that day at the beach.
Finding the courage to go topless
Five years later (about two years ago), I was at one of the lakes outside of Berlin, where I now live, with a bunch of friends. It was a sweltering hot day and I’d just come out of the water.
I looked at the three boys I was with, shirtless trying to keep that coolness they felt in the water with them as long as possible.
Meanwhile, my bathing suit top was already starting to feel sticky and uncomfortable. I wanted to take it off, but I saw no other woman who was bare-chested. I didn’t want people to stare at me. I didn’t want to be looked at.
But then I remembered that day in Brooklyn years ago. I remembered the respect I felt for those women. I remembered the fact that the only reason I felt I couldn’t take off my top is that I looked female.
And that just wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.
The only thing that was really stopping me from doing what I wanted was myself.
Convention told me that I should keep my top on. But no individual did. The law didn’t. My friends didn’t. My partner didn’t. No, none of those things or beings were stopping me from taking off my top.
The only thing that was really stopping me from doing what I wanted was myself.
And I knew it didn’t have to be that way. I knew I didn’t have to let my culture trap me. I could break free as long as I could justify it to yours truly. I was the only person I needed to convince.
So with those thoughts flying through my brain, I unclipped my bathing suit, lay face-up on my blanket, and let the sun warm my bare nipples. And it felt wonderful.
For some time at least.
Self-consciousness kept bubbling up here and there. I worried about what my friends were thinking. I even worried my girlfriends would think I was trying to seduce their male partners.
But ultimately, I felt safe there among my friends and the liberal Berlin people.
Free your nipples, a few moments at a time.
I know it’s going to be a process to change my stripes and really feel confident about being naked on top. But it will happen, the more I do it.
And I know pushing myself to do it more often is not just about me and my own comfort. It’s about the comfort of all women.
It’s completely in your power, every person’s power, to change this norm.
When you decide to do what you want to do and be happy in the way that suits you, then you give other people permission to do the same. I know if I had seen at least one other woman with her shirt off that day at the lake, it would have been a hell of a lot easier for me to take my top off too.
Why not be that person for someone else?
You don’t have to follow how you believe society wants you to behave. It’s completely in your power, every person’s power, to change this norm. We just have to be a little braver. We have to be willing to go to the edge of our comfort zones and simmer there.
Once you do something one time, it becomes easier the next until soon enough you’re just like those women at the beach in Brooklyn. You really don’t give a damn. Because it’s your body and it’s not your problem if others find it erotic or offensive. You have the right to be comfortable too.
And fuck anyone who tells you differently. Even your goddamn self.
Get angry.
Because when enough of us feel this injustice, enough of us will take action, and that is when change can spread like a virus.
#FreeTheNipple