Topless: here to stay?

In our April edition (page 12) we reported the decision of three judges of the Ontario Appeal Court (Coulter Osborne, Allan Austin, Karen Weiler) to permit women to go bare-breasted in public. As radio commentator Lowell Greene of Ottawa put it in disgust, "the monkeys are now running the zoo."

Equality

The arguments used in favour of the ruling are "equality" and "natural." Women, feminists say, are equal to men and therefore whatever men can do, women can do too. That's why women should be permitted to be pilots in the Air Force and infantry captains in the army. If men can go shirtless, women should be allowed to do so as well.

What's wrong with this argument is that it confuses equality in dignity with equal identity, or sameness of men and women. Thus physical -- not to mention psychological -- differences between men and women are sloughed off as unimportant.

Natural

The other argument (used for example by Sun columnist Michael Harris on CTV's Sunday Edition show on June 15), is that it is perfectly natural for women to go topless. It's the argument used by nudists to justify their camps and beaches. What's wrong with it?

This kind of reasoning goes back to the eighteenth century when the influential philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others identified what is "artificial" or "man-made" with evil, and "nature" and "natural" with good. If only we could return to nature, all the evils of modern society would disappear, Rousseau thought. Man, he argued, was made good; unfortunately it is human society that brings out the worst in him. So, back to nature.

Alas, Rousseau and friends, not exactly religious by intent, ignored the Bible's account of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Paradise and the subsequent deprivation of holiness and justice, which Adam and Eve not only lost for themselves, but also for all their descendants. Instead of man being wholly good, original sin has "wounded" human nature, allowing passion, concupiscence and other vices frequently to overcome the best of intentions. One of these vices is called lust. One of the virtues opposing it is modesty, as explained in the Catholic Catechism:

Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate centre of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them, in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity. (#2521. See also 2522-2527)

Is it a fad or here to stay?

Alas, one fears this latest moral degradation is here to stay. However, the counter argument which is, that it imposes itself on the population without choice, is powerful and should be used to the utmost to refute the ruling. But pornography has made great strides recently. Initially promoted in the early sixties by Playboy and other magazines, pornography has recently acquired semi-legal status in Canada.

On November 16, 1996, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that owners of porn videos cannot be held responsible for the wares they sell. Scarborough "adult" video store owner Randy Jorgnsen was acquitted of "knowingly" distributing material that was obscene. He relied on the approval of the Ontario Film Review Board, even though the police found some videos depicting sex with violence, which is prohibited under criminal law. The Supreme Court ruled that it was not up to the OFRB to decide these matters anyway, and that for Jorgensen to be convicted, there had to be some evidence that he knew that the videos were obscene!

In early April the Canadian Broadcasts Standard Council ruled out a complaint against FashionTelevision, the popular City TV program with hostess Jeanie Beker, which since 1994 has become a supper-hour show for Peeping Toms. Over the last several years fashion designers have regarded see-through blouses and frocks as perfectly acceptable. Images of nude women and exposed genitals are neither pornographic nor sexually exploitative, the council stated, thus dissolving whatever standards still remained.

Finally, full frontal nudity has recently arrived at the regular movie houses as well. These developments lead one to think that toplessness is here to stay. Yet, as mentioned, there is one huge difference between that and the video, film and television nudity: the latter can be avoided, but public toplessness cannot.

What should be done? New legislation should prohibit toplessness. The judges who approved it should be fired for abuse of office, if possible. The city councillors who permit it should not be re-elected. And religious leaders should oppose it loudly and clearly. As the Christian tradition has repeated time and time again, the social order depends on the moral order. When morality disintegrates, so will society.