A Free the Nipple lawsuit claims a Fort Collins ordinance against liberated nips is unconstitutional …
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, it was illegal for women to show their nips in public. Now, for the quiant and quiet town of Fort Collins, Colorado, maybe not so much …
While men frolick about, laser-pointing their evolutionarily pointless mammaries every which way, women are forced into a state of nonconsensual modesty and have to pretend, with clothing, that they don't bear the exact same body parts as men.
However, Free the Nipple, an association which advocates for gender equality, has come to the rescue of Fort Collins' damsels in distress. It's trying to make it legal for women to release their beasts into the wild.
In a 12-page lawsuit filing against the city, Free the Nipple argues that a Fort Collins ordinance banning women from exposing their breasts in public is sexist, violates the Constitution and is "rooted in outdated puritanical values and discrimination."
A ruling has not been made quite yet, but given the public sentiment towards nipple freedom — as well as neighboring Boulder and Denver's successful nipple liberation movements — we wouldn't be surprised if Fort Collins women could be sun tanning their high beams in the very near future.
“We do have the complaint and we are in the process of reviewing it,” says Carrie Daggett, Fort Collins’ city attorney to the Denver Post. She had no further comment.
“I’m extremely excited that the legal ball is finally rolling,” Free the Nipple founder Brittany Hoagland said at the conference. Us too!
Hoagland started the bare breasted campaign last October when she began fighting to change the language of Fort Collins' nudity ordinance so that both men and women would be free to unleash their boobs upon the world within city limits.
However, the Fort Collins City Council rejected the idea, but conceded slightly by altering the current law to allow public breastfeeding and clarify how the ordinance applies to children younger than 10.
Free the Nipple's response to that?
Not good enough.
The modified version “continues to criminalize women who appear at public places with their breasts and nipples exposed,” the lawsuit says. Hence, the ramping up of Free the Nipples clamp port crusade.
So far, 30 states, as well as Denver, Boulder, and New York, have recognized a woman’s right to appear topless in public. In fact, free nipples are so free in Colorado, that Boulder has even started a topless yoga trend, which one of our intrepid reporters covered back in 2014. Boulder is pretty much ground zero of nipples you can see from space. Good job, Boulder.
However, in many places, female toplessness is still considered to carry the misdemeanor charge of public indecency. These gender-specific indecency laws have received much media attention as of late. The 2014 film “Free The Nipple” explores the topic, and celebrities including Rihanna and Miley Cyrus have freed their own nipples on social media while calling out sites for censoring women's bodies, but not men's.
Well then! We're 100 percent all in for liberated nips and the Free the Nipple movement, but being only slightly evolved Neanderthals, we're still highly confused about what a world with freed nipples would look like … you can read about our neurotic speculation and the burning questions we have about Free the Nipple right here. In the meantime, we hope your nips are getting the vitamin D they need regardless of things like pointless and degrading rules.
Photo: The Bivy
Leave a Reply