This is an essay about nipples
I have a proposition for you. It’s a product idea, of sorts. After long thought I’m pretty sure I’ve found a gap in the market, and the results will be life-changing. Or at least a bit novel. Now, first things first, are you a possessor of breasts? A member of clan boob? If so, I imagine you’ve dreamt of running topless through a field of golden corn, sun on your back and wind in your hair, without a care for the suffocating restraints of modern society. I certainly have.
So what if I told you I could make this dream a reality? How, you ask, could such a feat be possible? Well, ladies and gentlemen – but mostly you breasted folk – I present to you…printable man nipples.
No, wait, don’t stop reading, hear me out. We all know the law regarding male and female nudity is different, as men are legally allowed to be topless in a public area, but women are required to cover their oh-so offensive nipples in order to maintain order and stop car crashes and Marxism and such. Well, with my wonderful invention (patent pending), we can now all walk around topless, just as long as our awful, heinous female nipples are covered by images of perfectly legal male nipples. Voila! Not naked nor in any violation of the law. Ingenious idea, if I do say so myself.
But seriously, jokes aside, this is a ridiculous law. If you apply even the slightest bit of criticism, it crumbles under the weight of its own nonsense. It seems to have completely missed the point that the only difference between male and female chests is some fat and milk glands, the very things that help to feed our children. People still get offended by this? Grow up. Or, rather, get younger. Because babies seem perfectly capable of grasping, quite literally, the simple purpose of those breasts you’d ‘rather she put away’. They are distracting you, after all.
The implications of this law, which blatantly promotes inequality between men and women, are huge, and affects many more people than just your average topless sunbather or kooky naturist. The societal attitude towards breasts is still one of suspicion, which isn’t helped by the fact you rarely see them except when used to advertise beer, or in ‘Game of Thrones’, putting the ‘tit’ in titillate. You can turn on the television in the afternoon to see topless men, young or old, fat or thin, flaunting their bare chests and nobody will bat an eyelid. But in order for you to see a topless woman you must wait until after the nine o’clock watershed or switch on Pornhub. And I guarantee the majority of the time these women will not even be above a size 10.
This is an extremely unhealthy environment for children to be growing up in; young boys begin to see breasts as hyper-sexualised, something that perpetuates misogyny generation after generation. Young girls are conditioned to think that their bodies are dirty and only exist to please men, which ingrains a huge pressure to conform to what society considers it ‘normal’ for them to look like. This does not encourage healthy emotional or sexual relationships.
Another area of women’s lives the law negatively affects is motherhood. Changing the law would mean women could breastfeed in public without prejudice, which would hopefully alleviate the discrimination and verbal abuse they receive for simply feeding their children, something which adds enough pressure as it is. An example of this was when a woman was publicly called a ‘tramp’ when a photograph of her breastfeeding her baby appeared on social networking site Facebook. It highlighted the negative attitude still commonly held by men and woman, and quite rightly caused outrage amongst mothers and anyone with sense.
Sadly, in the case of this image, which was taken without permission, it wasn’t removed. However the website doesn’t extend the same liberal logic to most photographs of breastfeeding. Despite stating they believe it to be ‘natural and beautiful’, images are still regularly removed and the mother’s account suspended on the grounds that the image is ‘pornographic’. Whether you agree with censorship or not, Facebook’s discrepancies are sickening.
The benefits to society that a change in this law could create would be slow, yes, but worth it. I see it like working out; the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll notice the results. As Bruce the shark once said, ‘I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself’. Just substitute ‘shark’ for man and ‘eating’ for sexist and you’ve got yourself a big ol’ pile of truth there.
The unfortunate fact is that, for thousands of years, straight white men have written and upheld the laws across the world. When it came to them deciding what qualified as ‘public indecency’, they saw breasts not for what they are, functional baby-feeding collections of milk glands. Oh no, because this is the clincher: they saw them as not belonging to women at all, but as sexy fun bags specifically grown for men to gain gratification from. Rude, salacious, offering no other purpose than to bounce around or as something to hold onto. A thing to be possessed by men. This is why we must reclaim breasts for ourselves.
The inequality that exists in society encompasses a vast range of areas, from the banal to the most extreme. Of course, this issue may not be the most pressing or victimising and it can be argued, quite rightly, that domestic violence and female genital mutilation are far more deserving of recognition. However the discussions and debates that researching this essay triggered within my year group and beyond cannot be unacknowledged.
Sometimes it’s the smallest of ideas that become the most important and engaging. And at the very least, never before have I had a nickname as amusing as ‘nipple girl’. Fairness will only be achieved through small, yet significant steps, and this is certainly one to start with. The answer is staring us all right in the chest: Women are friends, not boobs.
Alice Orr, 17, who has just left Musselburgh Grammar School, was runner-up in the recent Scottish Schools’ Young Writer of the Year competition co-organised by the Young Programme charity and the Scottish Review
By Alice Orr | July 2015
