Last week in Venice Beach, CA, the neighborhood’s council passed a
measure to approve topless sunbathing for women and men. Since L.A. still bans topless sunbathing, Venice will next have to petition the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to become an
exception to the rule, joining a small (but growing) number of places that outwardly support equality in bare-chestedness.
"I think this is a serious equality issue,
and I'm not going to shy away from it," Melissa
Diner, the Venice council community officer who sponsored the resolution, told the LA Times. Proponents of #FreeTheNipple, the
social media campaign aiming to decriminalize female nudity and
call attention to double standards of decency that decry women’s nipples as
unacceptably graphic, would tend to agree with her, reports TIME magazine in a fun feature
revealing exactly where in the United
States of America women can legally go topless.
And now, thanks to this handy map from GoTopless.org, you never
have to wonder again!
Bad news for Indiana, Tennessee, and Utah — there, women wearing shirts is 100% required. (Sorry, Miley,
Madonna, and Chelsea.) Other states have more ambiguous laws — usually meaning that certain towns or cities allow toplessness, but the state overall doesn't. (Note that even in the "green" states, that doesn't mean anyone can just wander around topless, just that the laws are more forgiving there.)