Shirt Police! Shirt Police!

Many years ago, my sisters and I came up the concept of Shirt Police. This squad would be charged with enforcing our notion of public decency and making sure that flabby men with beer bellies and moobs - especially flabby men who were pasty white - put a shirt on when they were anywhere in public other than the beach. No, we didn't need or want these guys to be arrested. We just wanted someone to insist that they put a tee-shirt on.

When we would see a shirtless miscreant, we would roll our eyes and mutter "Shirt Police," which over the years turned into just plain old "SP."

Other than runners, most of them pretty darned fit and thus not subject to the Rogers Sisters' shirt patrol, I don't see many shirtless men out there. And most of those runners don't merit us whistling up the SP. 

But as a matter of personal preference, I wouldn't want to see female runners, no matter how fit and runnerly they were, join the shirtless Esplanade-running, Marthon-prepping men folk.

Not everyone agrees with me, of course. And in mid-August, when it was still warm enough out to go shirtless, a handful of activists from organizations like Go Topless and Equalititty freed themselves of shirts and bras and paraded around demanding that women be allowed go topless, too. And so, on a hot August afternoon:

A half-dozen women marched topless through Boston Common to the State House on Saturday while calling on legislators to make it legal for women to expose their breasts in public in the name of gender equality.

The “Topfreedom” protest was organized by groups who say legalizing toplessness for women would promote gender equality, as men are not bound by law to wear anything above the waist.

Massachusetts law prohibits women from exposing their breasts in public except when breastfeeding. Women who go topless in public can face six months in jail, a $200 fine, or both. (Source: Boston Globe)

Maybe they have a point. Apparently, it's legal for women to go topless in most states. (Massachusetts is one of 15 states where the law is considered ambiguous.) And if it's at the beach, go for it. (Just remember, girls, to slather plenty of SP50 on those girls that may not have seen the light of day since you were splashing in the backyard pool in your diapers.) 

But I really wouldn't care to see women running on the Esplanade topless. Of course, now that I think of it, my fatwa on topless female runners would be similar to how I feel about flabby males. A woman who's flatchested or who has 100% perked-up non-drooping breasts, fine. Women where gravity has taken hold, put a shirt on! (Or at least a bra.)

Of course, I'm probably nothing but an old prude.

Sure, when I was young I wore very short skirts, lowcut scoop necked tee's, cutoffs that were cut off within an inch of decency. (No, my ass cheeks never hung out, but I wore short shorts short.) I wore bikinis at the beach. I wore spaghetti-strap cotton knit shirts without benefit of bra.

And, while I never went topless, there was that one beach in Greece where I might have done so if I hadn't been afraid of third degree burns.

So overall, I'm going to refine my position and okay topless at the beach, and even for non-wobbling topless runners. 

Goose/gander and all that. 

But what surprises me is that there are women taking up this cause.

In many states, women have lost their reproductive freedom, and things could get worse. There's a fellow running for governor of NC who's put out the idea that women maybe shouldn't have the vote. The guy running against Amy Klobuchar US Senate in Minnesota has said that women have gotten "too mouthy." The R-ahole running for president has retweeted a meme about Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and blowjobs. 

I think we've got bigger problems than whether Massachusetts should enact less ambiguous laws around female toplessness.

But I guess if you really, really, really want to go out in public without a top on, something that strikes me as pretty trivial becomes critical. Be warned: if I spot someone who looks like me going around topless, I reserve the right to call the Shirt Police.

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The picture is from a Boston Magazine article on aa 2013 demonstration. Guess the issue's been around for a while.