Boston, MA

I completely agree with this. It shouldn't be a crime. My concern is this becomes a monkeys paw or Pandora's box. Legal vs normalization. Legal needs to come first but I cannot imagine how long we're looking at things to get normalized.

What is the point of being dismissive of parent's concerns and straight up misrepresenting what they said in the last "quote"?

I'm in favor of making the law gender neutral, and quickly without having answers to all these questions.

Doesn't mean there won't be unintended consequences that aren't worth discussing to get ahead of them.

My gut reaction is if its legal in public does that make it legal in the media? Will publishers and advertisers use this to further objectify women? Even though I'm asking these questions, I'm 100% in favor of gender neutral laws for media and advertisements.

My off the cuff and likely unrealistic solution that has nothing to do with gender is to just ban most forms of advertising out right. This includes never requiring users to make the "choice" to agree to any ads in the terms of services in order to access goods and services (e.g., gas pumps, accessing a bank account, etc.).

do you understand what a "choice" is?

I do. I've expressed this plenty above. Sometimes expanding on it bothers people with sensitivites. Discussion can do that.

yeah, topless dudes on the train can be annoying. im sure topless women on the train would be almost as annoying. and don't care! also, have you heard of a "choice"?

And that should be the normal way things play out. I assume you are capable of understanding that the ideal is not always the norm.

shit, okay, you got me. I can't deal with opposing opinions so I need to lose my cool and throw a tantrum. oh well.

Noted.

then make it illegal for men to be topless wherever women can't be topless.

Sure that's an option. It's a regression from what we're talking about but it is undeniably equal.

making it illegal for women to be topless "for their own safety" and "to protect them from the evil men" is not based. the solution to men staring at women that wear or don't wear certain clothing is not to make it illegal, I hope we can agree on that.

We don't disagree. From my first to my most recent responses that hasn't changed.

If you look objectively at my statements you will see I clearly am for the equality and for the law to be put in place. My statements following that were simply expanding on my "Herculean task" assertion I made early on. We are talking about human nature which is arguably pretty shitty when left to its own devices and you needn't look very far to see examples of this. The law change is the first step in a series of steps. I simply am acknowledging this fact.

Cheers. It's a complex topic and there are lots of views that should be expressed. It's a good discussion honestly- very good reading and worth being a part of.