Topless In Asheville. Finally.

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Finally, a little fun and debauchery masquerading as social commentary in Asheville again. Why, what has it been, four months now? Well, as one frog said to another, “my, time’s fun when you’re having flies!”

Back in late April, Slutwalk Asheville appeared downtown at Pack Place, a group of mostly young women, plus a few men who wanted to be women, or were hoping to be in one later that day, picketing, prancing, and preening to enlighten the rest of us to the paramount social injustice displayed when someone who dresses to showcase their sexual objects is sometimes sexually objectified.

But that was so AAA rated. It’s time to stop pussyfooting! No more dicking around! This Sunday, August 21st, at Pack Place, a group apparently inspired by gotopless.org, a UK based website, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times, plans to celebrate National Go-topless Day by protesting the social stigma of public female toplessness by having participating females go topless.

Really, if you think about it, it’s kind of original. Except for, you know, the European Renaissance. And the Sixties. Oh, and New Guinea. And France, of course, although even young French women are coming to their senses, even as a few of ours are losing theirs.

But this is a step in the wrong direction for these young ladies, who mistake prudishness for prudence. If we could limit toplessness to the fat and elderly, we wouldn’t be talking, would we? And you know as well as I do that that’s not what we’re talking about right now. Because this issue isn’t about religion, or what’s morally repugnant. This is about human nature.

Men, by nature, are visually oriented, you see, and much more so than women. Stimulus leads to thought, and thought leads to action. Put a naked woman in front of one man, and he might, but probably won’t, just silently walk on by. Put a naked woman in front of ten men, and all will notice, a few will ogle, and a couple will approach her. Put a naked woman in front of one thousand men every day for a month, and at the most opportune moment, a few will try to rape her, and one will probably succeed. Tempt enough men, and the odds will catch up sooner or later. It is the one who denies this truth about men who is naive and in denial.

That’s one reason modesty is so important. Women generally get the quality of man they dress to attract. Dress modestly but beautifully as a woman, and attract more men who are possibly as interested in your mind and heart as they are your physical beauty. If one likes what he finds in the heart and mind of such a woman enough to commit his life to her, she may accept the offer, and give him what no other man has ever had.

Dress as a woman to suggest, accentuate, and maybe even reveal every curve, and expect to succeed in attracting many men who would consume it all without giving the first thought to the value such a woman has apart from her curves. That’s not the way it should be, but that’s the way it is, and any woman who doubts it sets herself up to lose what she might never be able to recover. At least 6,000 years of roadtesting humans has shown that there is a reason for the social stigma behind public nudity. It’s not because nudity is bad. It’s because humans are.

We do live in a free country, but rules, legislated or not, are often there for a reason, meant to protect and prevent as much as restrict.

There’s nothing wrong, for instance, with defecation. It’s natural, it’s functionally necessary, and of it there is nothing to be ashamed.

If I and ten of my friends decided to walk out to Pack Place, buckets in hand, pull our pants down, sit on the buckets, and defecate while reading our Mountain Xpress, there should be nothing stopping us, in an ideal world. We defecate, we wipe with our Xpress, we deposit that into our buckets, we spray our Lysol liberally, pull our pants up, cover the buckets, and move along. We were sanitary and respectful of others, and we didn’t ask for any outside involvement. We just want the freedom to defecate at a time and place of our choosing. That’s understandable, right?

Wrong. Just because something is good, natural, and common doesn’t mean it is fit for public consumption.

 

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