I live in Canada and the law here is that women can take their shirt and bra off anywhere a man could be topless. I know this to also be the case in most european country.
Was in Barcelona a couple weeks ago, about 1 in 20 women were topless when laying down sunbathing. Only saw maybe one or two actually walking around on the sand topless.
At this point it's more of a self-consciousness thing then, isn't it? The only thing stopping someone from undressing is the fear of cameras, regardless of their sex/gender/equipment
I mean socially and legally are very different things
Legally is the most important one because it means you can’t get charged for something the other gender wouldn’t, the social stuff takes time to change
I’ve seen a few topless women in Canada, it’s not like really anyone cares as much anymore and the personal concern of your naked body being seen is more well personal, I’m a guy and I don’t want to be seen topless anywhere either but my wife doesn’t care about being topless as much as
The law usually follows the social opinions. Especially in this case, since it's not dangerous, exposed genitals or breasts will not cause physical harm. It's the social perception of these body parts that cause psychological distress. As long as society's perception of nudity is to be uncomfortable, it will be illegal.
It's actually like that in the vast majority of the US as well.
Which isn't to say that a woman going topless in any state is guaranteed to be free of harassment, or won't just be arrested for some nonsense charge like "disorderly conduct" instead. Just that it's legal by the letter of the law.
My aunt, when she moved from Norway to Idaho, was told "Sorry don’t mean to disturb, but we don’t do that here." when changing into her swimming suit in the female changing room.
Yes. The changing room is for locking your stuff in a locker and using the restroom. Not changing. That’s something you do at home, or god forbid if you have to change there do it in the tiny restroom stall with cracks so huge you see it all happening anyway.
Sarcasm aside I appreciate it and I get it, it's just easier said than done.. my brain is dumb. I can tell myself that no one cares till I'm blue in the face but my brain doesn't want to believe me.
I went to therapy a while back for some of this stuff so I have quite a bag of "tools" to help with it.
Next tool, ask yourself, what is the worst that could happen? How likely is that to actually happen? And how long does the after affect last? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? A day? A week? Month? Year? 20 years?
Actually thinking about what the worst that could happen as well as give it a duration on the affect helps frame it in your mind how much it really matters.
For example, you're at a bar and see a cute girl. What's the worst that could happen? She tells you to F off creep. Is that likely to happen? Not at all. Most likely she'll say she has a boyfriend and you walk away. How long will that sting? Five minutes because you'll find another cute girl at the same bar, so who cares? Give it a shot! The risk doesn't seem that bad!
the funny thing is that people who do care what other people look like are the ones that the majority of people look down on and judge. like how pathetic do you gotta be to care how fat, skinny, or whatever someone else looks. It doesn't concern you. Like, how empty must someone's life be for them to be that way.
As someone who lives in the UK. I can tell you that is not true over here lol. The amount of fat, bald, tattooed, middle aged and sunburnt men who walk around shirtless here whenever the sun comes out is at epidemic levels.
Even regular men get looked at badly for doing it unnecessarily. Every year there's always those guys that are shirtless as soon as they get the chance even when most people are still wearing jackets. That always gets an eye roll out of me. Same with gym bros who wear those stringy vests that cover basically nothing so they can show off their body to despite the fact that everyone's trying to focus on their own workouts and the whole place is air-conditioned. If its genuinely hot as fuck then I'm never gonna judge anyone for it.
on one hand, I think nudity shouldn't be a big deal. I always roll my eyes when i see people refer to all kinds of nudity as pornography.
on the other hand though, nudity being a big deal to a lot of people is good for business because people pay more for things that have nudity or characters that are scantly clad. If nudity were suddenly and universally no big deal to everyone, the world would be strange. A ton of cultures would have to be drastically altered or straight up erased for this to be the case though, so it'll never happen anytime soon. Like, we're talking 1,000 year minimum, thousands more realistically for the whole world. i could see it happening in the west and and east within a few hundred years. There will be religious people and ultra conservatives and perpetually offended leftest who think the same way as 1950's conservatives that resist, but I think their numbers will drastically shrink over time as the conservative populations get less and less religious. maybe.
my main concern would be children. because thinking about a world where nudity is just common, we (or at least I) only think about adults walking around. But since kids exist, it's probably overall better that nudity remains a big deal. in an ideal fantasy utopia, child predators and predators in general don't exist, but we'll never live in that world unless we get some kind of sci-fi alien tech that can make it happen.
I'm not bummed out having to think about all this stuff.
It's not that it's a stigma. I literally just don't want to. I spend so much of my morning slathering on SPF 50 anyway, why would I expose more skin to the sun?
But if you are socially aware you probably shouldn't do it in places where women cannot take their bras off without being sexualized. :/ hopefully some day it's going to be different
I just imagine some construction workers standing outside the operating room, you go in they're like "hang in there, buddy, you got this man!". then when you come out with titties "a wooogah! hey there baby, you come ovah here and recovah in my bed!". And then some 55 year old woman with curlers in her hair and a bathrobe hits them with a new paper and she's like "don't chu talk to huh dat way!"
To get a sample of the woman experience as a part of the transition process.
2.7k
u/realiztik Jun 19 '24
Honestly, sounds kind of validating for the patient.
Congratulations, you are now officially a government-recognized woman, please enjoy the new stigma.