Why has topless women become a taboo subject in our society?

Question

like when was it "written" that women could not go topless as men do?

Answer 1

*DRINK*

Answer 2

In the Midwest, I'm lucky if I see someone showing a little leg. It's too cold--they get fat and insecure so by the time summer hits, they're all bitchy and no one wants to see them anyway.

What's this society you're talking about? "Culture" you mean?

Answer 3

Because if a women was bare breasted and just walking around all the time... Well I could imagine it might be difficult for a man to control himself at times. Massive fondlage might occur. 0_0

Answer 4

It's not taboo. People are just close minded about it. If women were allowed to go topless in the first place, b*****s would not be considered sexual to look at.

Answer 5

If it happened, people would get used to it very quickly and become quite bored.

Answer 6

what,s with all the sexist questions, because it was like that from the begining of time, women are not men,we have b***s to protect.

Answer 7

That's a great question.  Maybe it was decided they were too distracting?  Or the reverse, some guys could not handle it?  In a way, it's not fair men can go shirtless while women can't.

Once when I was in Paris (long time ago) I was jogging shirtless.  A few older women hit me as I jogged past?!  I asked a French policeman and he told me it wasn't socially accepted (a man jogging or going topless!)

Right across the street from me was a billboard of a topless woman...

Answer 8

Because westerners decided that b*****s were sexually appealing, therefore making them taboo.  Don't ask me to explain the logic because there is none.

Answer 9

I don't know where we went wrong but it needs to come back. Air those boys out I'm fine with it.

Answer 10

its a matter of personal preference. Different people takes it in different way. Women can not topless becoz of different traditions and cultures across the globe.

Answer 11

Its not that its a "taboo subject"; rather, its not a subject, period.

Answer 12

*eats from tree of knowledge*

*feels shame*

Answer 13

Well, cause our b*****s bounce & if they were out in the open there would be a lot of car accidents .

Answer 14

Because we're a much more puritanical society. Europeans also find the b*****s sexual but they've seen b***s growing up (and I'm not just talking about horror movies and p**n).

It would take a while for Americans to get used to the idea of a topless women walking around. Europe has public beaches that allow nudity whereas here in the US we have only privately owned nude beaches.

I personally think its ridiculous that a woman wouldn't be able to walk down the street topless without a bunch of eyes glaring at them and possible boners lol.. BUT that's the society we have and it would take a while to get rid of that. b***s are fabulous and even if we saw them more often outside of typically sexual things (strip club/porno etc) they would still be sexually stimulating. It would just take a while for our society to get used to it.

Answer 15

Well, to most people female b*****s are a sexual feature, whereas most people don't feel that way about male b*****s.

In fact, men's chests used to be kept covered up as well, men were still wearing bathing suits with tops until the 1920s for instance.

Moreover, if you are reasonably well endowed in the breast area, it is not actually particularly comfortable to go around with them flopping around loose, it actually feels better to have some support.

In Europe, there are topless beaches where women can go around without tops if they want to, and quite a lot do.  It's not something I'd be comfortable doing myself, but it doesn't bother me if other women want to do it.  I think I would be a bit disconcerted if they went around topless in everyday life though.

Mr Wzard is correct about women being a major influence in the passing of Prohibition, but I think underestimates the number of women involved.  It was a huge number of women who supported prohibtion, and they weren't all 'little old ladies' by any means, women of all ages were involved.

Answer 16

technically in the USA they can. Federal courts already ruled that it is discriminatory(illegal) to allow men to go topless but to make it illegal for women to be topless.

I don't know how often women check out topless men but I think if women went around topless it might be uncomfortable for them... Lets face it alot of us guys almost have it hard wired into us to check out certain parts of a female body. But with time the taboo would be lessened, and the more exposed society is to something the less it will matter.

     All in all it is a women's rights choice. If there in a setting that allows men to be topless then by constitutional law they are allowed to be topless.

Answer 17

Women in society really held far more social power than they realized in days gone by--many many years ago; they just got men to influence their ideologies into social norms.

Prohibition is likely the most recent example to prove this theory holds merit: A group of little old, blue haired spinsters convinced the United States President that liquor was the Devil's brew, set to drive people ( mostly men ) to behaving like wild rabid dogs.  And so it came to be, written down into law.

The topless taboo, I think, was born from women who didn't look appealing---and were likely quite bitter at other women more attractive than they were.  Ask 10 women why they don't go topless or why they feel going topless is bad---and I bet you'll get hints I'm right in this area.

Is my answer sexist?  Yes, I won't deny that--but oftentimes, the truth is denounced vehemently as either narrow minded, racist and/or sexist---because the truth sometimes is hard to face as fact.  Hence, we are a society not only of double standards at times---but we also are in denial.