I’ve got a topic that might make some people mad, and I don’t expect a lot of people to agree with me on this one. I just need to get my thoughts down on digital paper and maybe they’ll sound more coherent. Okay. Ready? My thesis statement is the sentence after this one.
Society really needs to get over the problems it has with female breasts.
Think about it. Why are boobs considered too hot for television? Why is it when a naked breast appears on cable TV, they throw in some token pixilation or a black bar over the nipple—which, I must point out, is the only portion of the breast that looks the exact same on women as it does on men. Why is the nude form of a woman visual contraband in mediums and real-life locations that don’t hold the same standard for men?
Some might argue it’s because of their tendency to arouse or at least excite your average heterosexual male. This argument might hold water if the entertainment industry were something like it was in the 1950s, when Lucy and Ricky had to sleep in two different beds, even though they were already married. But every medium today is full of sexual themes, T&A, 
and fan service. Television shows like Nip Tuck have shown scenes of oral sex that couldn’t have been more explicit without showing the body parts. Movies that miss the R Rating can still be packed with all-but-naked women or lacy lingerie love scenes.
And don’t even get me started on comic books, where sixteen years old is NOT too young to have female characters stripped down and in compromising positions. (A 2006 issue of Teen Titans comes to mind, in which a naked—and underage—Rose Wilson attempted to drunkenly seduce Robin. Conveniently placed black-as-night shadows were the only thing keeping the comic from a Mature Readers label.)
So if there is so much media intended to arouse—sometimes by means that go far beyond simple nudity—then why is it so offensive to just show boobs?
Seriously, I’m asking. I don’t know.
But here’s why I think it matters and why I think it should change. The emphasis on knockers going unseen except in adult content—whether intentionally or not—fetishists boobs. It takes a perfectly innocuous body part and turns it into a something seen as dirty, or at least off limits. That creates a problem when puberty hits the male gender. You see, while most boys will see their fair share of women’s naked chests, a few will believe that their desire makes them perverted or dirty minded. Instead of telling them that their interest is natural, we tell the
m that looking at nude women is a sin—and all the while they get a bizarre mixed message from the media that nudity is bad, but sexual promiscuity isn’t.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is pretty personal, because it’s what I went through. I was raised in a fairly conservative Southern Baptist home and went to a fairly conservative Southern Baptist church, and went through a truckload of utterly needless guilt over the issue of looking, lusting, and how much skin is too much. I didn’t even want to watch pornography—that is, I didn’t want to watch depictions of sexual acts, all the while those who were supposed to be guiding me were making me think I was a horrible person for the sin of… having hormones.
There’s another angle to this too. The Internet makes nude pictures easily available, but it also makes a lot more than that available. Just one wrong click can get you some of the vilest porn ever conceived. I was fortunate that I didn’t get pulled deep into the darker side of adult content on the internet—the stuff like bestiality, scat porn, and worst of all, child porn.
But some kids do wind up exposed to that stuff—and then what would be normal interest in the opposite sex becomes legitimate perversion.
Now, if you’re just flat out disagreeing with my… rant… diatribe… whatever this is… please bear with me as I’m gonna answer some objections I anticipate.
“What about the sin of Lust?”
Yeah, that’s the thing my church—especially my youth pastor—liked to harp on. But let’s take a look at the Bible passage that condemns lust in context. It’s in Matthew 5, if you want to compare.
27. "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'[a] 28. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Notice the context? Jesus spoke these words to married men who were using their minds to be unfaithful to their wives when it wasn’t possible to use their bodies. This is not a condemnation of the healthy and normal sexual desire that everyone experiences. The Greek word translated lust here is ‘epithymia’, also translated Covet. Covetousness and Lust both imply a strong and willful desire—in this case, a desire for someone who is not yours. Thus it’s okay to look at and enjoy the site of the opposite sex on both an aesthetic level and a hormonal level, if you don’t let yourself strongly desire them. (And weak desire can’t logically be a sin because humans do not have direct control over what they fancy; desires are not simply chosen, but cultivated over the course of time.)
Furthermore, notice that in this passage, that the impetus not to sin is placed ENTIRELY on the one who would lust. Thus, the church cannot Biblically argue that a woman who dresses (or undresses) in a manner that shows off the body God gave her is ‘inviting’ men to sin. Not only do the men have the option to look without lusting, but they have the option to not look at all. (Though I must say the latter option is considerably more difficult.)
The second objection might sound something like this:
“But that’s so immodest!”
Not necessarily. Modesty’s association with covering body parts is nothing new, and is found in the Bible—and likely in the holy books of other religions, but since I know very little about other religions, I’ll deal with just the Bible.
But... well, I did a bit of searching on the IntarWeb just to be certain, and the only reference I could find relating to female modesty is this, a passage in 1 Timothy.
9. I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10. but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
Modest dress, it would seem, has more to do with not flaunting wealth than it does with the length of your skirt. Modesty is an inward trait that may be reflected in dress, but is not determined by it. A woman who flaunts her sexual attractiviness would do it in jeans and a T-shirt as well as she would do it in a bikini.
And lastly...
“So you’re saying you think it’s good for us wimm’n-folk to just go around naked/topless/whatever?”
And the answer to this is… Not exactly. First of all, I understand that for many reasons, many women would not be comfortable in situations where they were exposed around the opposite sex. I’m not arguing for an end to appropriate attire or that nudity is appropriate in any situation, and obviously personal comfort and taste come in to play.
What I’d like to happen is for society in general just to chill out over nudity. The sight of the human body isn’t going to corrupt anyone. If that means women who want to are allowed to go topless wherever men are, then I’m fine with that. It’s already legal in some cities, including 
In closing, uncovering the body isn’t necessarily even a sexual act. Hopefully the drawings I’ve scattered throughout this blog post (which are all copyright to me, don’t steal them or anything) have pointed out some other possible meanings for depictions of nudity.
And with that, I’ve said what I wanted to say.
Peace.
