The Failure of #FreeTheNipple
Until men evolve to have breasts, those globs of flesh will never be desexualized.
This article appeared on Medium on June 7, 2024. If you are a Medium subscriber, you can read my full collection of feminist essays here.
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I do not wear bras. One of the perks of being in the small-chested club is you can forgo those metal-wired medieval torture devices invented by designers who failed physics. (Seriously, why can’t anyone invent a bra that doesn’t contain the same material used in an elevator shaft?)
But during the summer, fabrics are sheer, and nights are chilly. So, I behave and slap on self-adhesive “boob tape” until my tits are wrapped up enough to resemble a no-entry crime scene.
Before I go out, I will ask my teenage daughter one vitally important existentialist question, “Can you see my nipples?”
She always laughs and shouts, “#FreeTheNipple, Mom!!!”
It’s a running joke between us because we realize the ridiculousness of finding feminist liberation by flashing our breasts.
Brace yourself. Bad feminist opinion coming…
#FreeTheNipple was the dumbest and most pointless feminist movement in the history of feminism.
In case you missed this women’s liberation historical footnote, the #FreeTheNipple campaign began in 1992 when New York resident Ramona Santorelli filed a case claiming toplessness was discriminatory because it singled out women. Her argument is the same one feminists use today — if men don’t have to cover their chests, why do women have to?
Santorelli won her case, and toplessness became legal in New York. (Do what you will with that info on your next Central Park picnic.)
Since then, #FreeTheNipple has become a feminist battle cry for women demanding the right to go topless. In one New York Times op-ed video, a topless blonde proclaims, “All of them [men] probably at one point sucked on them, so I don’t know why they should be such a big deal.”
Let’s unpack why nipples are a “big deal.”
First, men are not exactly flashing their nipples at the office luncheon. Most civilized establishments require men to wear shirts. So, the argument that men get to expose their nipples when the mood hits has enough straw dogs to feed a farm.
Second, claiming men get to expose their nipples, so women should too, is such fatuous third-grade logic that I want to bop anyone who says it over the head with The Descent of Man. And since it is a rather heavy tome, it might get the job done quicker than my lecture on sexual dimorphism.
Here are the cliff notes. Sexual dimorphism is the evolutionary phenomenon in which males and females of the same species exhibit distinct differences in appearance and behavior. For example, men have more muscular upper bodies than women. And, of course, women develop enlarged mammary glands, and men do not.
Right about now, half of you are screaming, “I love sexual dimorphism (and boobs),” and the other half are sharpening your daggers. For the dagger throwers…hear me out.
If sexual dimorphism did not exist, the world would be a terribly dull place. Mallard ducks would all look grey, a baboon’s butt wouldn’t make schoolchildren giggle, and I might never be able to open another pickle jar. (Note: Only male mallards are colorful, only female baboons have swollen red bums, and probably only I lack the strength to open pickle jars.)
In other words, sexual dimorphism is nature’s way of keeping the dating scene spicy. Just imagine if every species had matchy-matchy males and females. It would be like trying to find your soulmate at a monochrome masquerade ball. Boring.
However, many feminists see sexual dimorphism arguments as another way to keep men and women in their lanes. They feel sex differences are overblown and junk science. Fair enough. Some of it, especially behavioral tendencies, is overblown and influenced more by culture.
But the sexualization of breasts is not some sinister plot by the omnipotent patriarchy to repress women. Breasts are sexualized in women and not men because (most) humans assigned male at birth don’t have them. That’s how heterosexual attraction works. We admire what we don’t have. So until manboobs are hot, female breasts will never be desexualized.
Don’t believe me? Well, then, let’s look at the anthropological record…before the patriarchy. All the 3-D pinups from our earliest ancestors share one trait – bodaciously big, naked breasts.
The most famous example is the Venus of Willendorf. This shameless little hussy is letting all her jiggly bits hang out. (And she has the smallest shoe size ever.)
The Venus of Dolní Věstonice’s spindly breasts might not turn heads on OnlyFans, but she was a goddess in her day. Some anthropologists claim that humans favored elongated breasts because they were easier for babies to grab and latch on to. (These scientists clearly have never breastfed a hungry baby who will latch onto a circuit board if it contains food.)
And lastly, there is the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük, whose naked breasts hang like she is the Michelin Man’s saucy sister. No amount of boob tape can contain this vixen.
Most anthropologists believe these statues were fertility icons since breasts get larger when a woman is pregnant or lactating. What you won’t find is many male fertility figurines. There’s probably a reason for that. The female form has always been more revered.
Interestingly, one study on upper Paleolithic figurines found that the colder the climate, the bigger the breasts. Researchers theorized that as temperatures dropped and food scarcity increased, obesity became the beauty ideal. It makes sense. In times of nutritional stress, survival of the fittest is survival of the fattest. And breasts store a lot of fat.
Yet, humans are the only primates with permanent breasts. Most animals only have large breasts when lactating. Why?
One theory is that when Homo ergaster diet contained more meat, their brains got bigger and needed more fat. Again, breasts (and bums) are great places to store fat.
Another theory is that women developed permanently large breasts to trick men. When humans were flat-chested and polyamorous, men didn’t know if a woman’s enlarged lactating breasts were feeding his baby or another dude’s. So it behooved him to protect the lactating women in the tribe in case she was his baby mama. However, if the woman always looked like a mom…she always got special treatment. Therefore, breasts caught men’s attention and became another product of sexual selection. Thousands of years of boob worship followed.
Still, many cultures get as turned on by breasts as they do big toes. The Himba tribe of Namibia, the Zulu of South Africa, and most of Europe do not sexualize breasts. These cultures see breasts as mainly functional. Breasts produce milk. The rest is gratuitous.
Unfortunately, Americans can not divorce breasts from sex. So, now and then, the internet loses its collective mind when a mother is shamed for breastfeeding her child in public. And rightly so. Any mother should be allowed to feed her baby without sexual shame.
However, many feminists take the stance that non-breastfeeding women should be allowed to expose their breasts without objectification. They argue that they are just tits. Nothing to see here.
Sure. Anyone claiming that boobs are just a glandular organ designed to feed our young has to be living in a cave with no internet connection. Scroll through any social media site, and you will be barraged by thirst traps of women flashing their half-naked upper half for clicks. Nothing wrong with it. Breasts are beautiful. Breasts are also sexual. And until women stop using them to attract the opposite sex (guilty!), they will continue to inflame male genital tissue.
Then, there is another camp of feminists who conflate nudity with sexual empowerment. My body. My choice to flash it during the family picnic. They claim if we make women cover their breasts, we are following a patriarchal script that will lead to further inequality.
Yeah, so buckle up if you are in the nudity = equality camp. You are not going to like the recent research on this subject.
A recent study analyzing over half a million “sexy selfies” from Twitter and Instagram found that women living in areas with higher income inequality were more likely to post semi-nude pictures. The researchers theorized that low-status women are more likely to seek status based on their sexuality. In other words, online nudity leads to a culture of sexualization that diminishes women’s self-esteem and earning power. There goes all our Mardi Gras boob flashing.
Better yet, let’s pretend for one moment that #freethenipple reached its goal. Frostbite be damned; women can choose not to cover their nipples. Naked breasts are everywhere. They are at the beach, in the boardroom, and bouncing around in the melon section of the grocery store. Men see a perfect set of tits, yawn, and maybe get a hankering for milk. OnlyFans girls can’t make a dime off their upper half because… ho-hum breasts are no longer sexualized. Yay for progress!
You know what would happen then? Women would use their brains and endearing personalities to attract men, and the baddies would never sexually harass women, right?
Suuuuure. Sorry, but humans would simply find another body part to signal reproductive health. Most likely, every man would become an ass guy, and bum surgeries would skyrocket. Ass bras would be in every retail store, and young girls would be doing squats until their hamstrings fell off.
Then #FreeTheAnalSphincter would be the next feminist battle cry, and feminists would be right back to complaining about sexual objectification.
Don’t we have bigger (and more winnable) battles to fight? There’s wage discrimination and child trafficking, and god damn it…I can’t get my insurance company to cover the cost of my recent mammogram when my mom had freakin’ breast cancer!
To be clear, every woman has a right to nudity. If I had my way, all beaches would be topless because tan lines are annoying.
However, some feminists get naked and then scream, “Don’t look!” Looking is not objectifying. Objectifying is the act of degrading a woman into a powerless object. If you choose nudity, that power is yours. But part of that choice means men will look.
And trust me on this one — there may come a day when your breasts are resembling Ms. Çatalhöyük’s that you might miss men looking. (Not a personal reference…yet.)
Our eyes are a big part of the sexual arousal that keeps our species from dying off.
Don’t hate the nipple-loving men. Hate biology. And sticky bras. They are from the devil. #InventaBetterStickyBra
Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Subscribe to Conversations with Carlyn for free content every Wednesday, or become a paid subscriber to get the juicy stuff on Sundays.
This article could've ended at the byline. Enough said for those trying to make a fairness/political statement. But, your way of making a simple read much more interesting is superb as usual.
Yes, men do spend more time than they should admiring the upper anatomy of women. But many women also fetishize the lower anatomy of men with equal fervor.