Let’s talk breasts in America

Unacceptable: Naked images of breasts on public display.

Acceptable: Naked breasts in any painting from before, say, 1860 in every public museum or images of the Madonna breastfeeding baby Jesus.

Unacceptable: Breastfeeding in the USA “out in the open for the public to see” on airplanes, public beaches, hotel lobbies, restaurants or courtrooms.

Acceptable: Breastfeeding anywhere else in the world.

Unacceptable: Naked breasts at the beach.

Acceptable: Naked breasts at the beach in deeply Catholic Italy, Spain, France.

Unacceptable: Naked breasts on broadcast TV.

Acceptable: Naked breasts on any cable channel.

Unacceptable: Naked breasts on magazine covers on sale.

Acceptable: Google image search, any Google search, with the word breast in the search line.

Unacceptable: Sexting images of breasts to your lover.

Acceptable: Private printed images of you topless sent to your lover.

Unacceptable: Beach pictures of topless celebrities.

Acceptable: Topless celebrities on a public beach.

And so on.

Years ago the state broadcaster in Holland realized that the creative work of television producers was being hampered with a puritanical outlook on nudity. So they decided to help the public get over their fear of nude human body parts by staging a special program, announced to great fanfare, in which a woman, completely naked, would appear at 8 p.m. on public broadcast television. Sure enough, on a Thursday, the show started and there was a stage empty except for a high stool. On walked a completely nude woman who proceeded to sit and occasionally move around for 20 minutes. Then the show ended. The following week they repeated the program with a nude man.

By defusing the titillation of seeing an unclothed human body, one can only be left with the realization that, actually, humans are basically all the same. Nudity is not pornography. Pornography’s purpose is to entice and enflame. Nudity is natural. Sure it has its place, but at some point intelligent people across our nation have to get over the confusion between naked breasts and sexual enticement.

As our great friend and master photographer Lucien Clergue once said, “Dirty is in the eye of the beholder.” 

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.

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