Letters

The nudity question

Most Canadians will agree that there's nothing intrinsically wrong or indecent about nudity. Canadian law reflects this. In fact, under Canadian law, full nudity, not just bare female breasts, is permissible in public if it is not intended to insult, offend, or is not for a sexual purpose.

In their December 10, 1996 decision, the Ontario Appeals Court decided that public offense could be simply avoided by averting one's eyes. "No one who was offended was forced to continue looking at her." A rather strange statement. How could a parent ensure that a child's eyes are averted? How could parents who didn't wish their teenage boys to view bare female breasts prevent it?

Is nudity harmless to children? No. Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Joyce Brothers and some other leading psychologists and pediatricians believe that nudity can be damaging to children. In the critically acclaimed bestseller Show Me, Marilyn Fithian, a sex therapist, psychiatrist and president of the Swiss School for Parent Education says: "A child who has never been allowed to see his parents and brothers and sisters naked sees nudity as something shocking."

It's quite clear that governments in Ontario as well as the majority of constituents are unhappy with the court's decision. As individuals, we have no power to change the decision. But we do have the power to ask our M.P.'s to amend the law (sec. 173 & 174 of the Canadian Criminal Code).

I continue to support women who wish to remove their tops AND BOTTOMS in the street, on the beach or in the bedroom, in front of adults who wish to see them.

Bobby Ratcliffe
Mississauga

The nudity question II

Re: The argument that municipalities have the same power to ban female public "toplessness" in the name of (sexual) assault prevention as they have to ban lap dancing in the name of this: Legally prohibiting women from exposing their breasts in public because their doing this may be (deliberately) misinterpreted by other people as constituting permission to touch them in places (most notably, their breasts) that they have not explicitly consented to be touched in is like legally prohibiting strippers from lap dancing because their doing this may be (deliberately) misinterpreted by other people as constituting permission to touch them in places (most notably, their breasts and genitals) that they have not explicitly consented to be touched in. Neither women who expose their breasts in public nor strippers who lap dance should be sexually imprisoned for the criminal behaviour of other people.

To quote from feminist Louise Murphy, "by placing the responsibility and onus for rape on women (be they ones who expose their breasts in public or ones who lap dance), the essential prerequisite of mutual consent prior to any sexual advance has been obscured.

Sheldon Warnock
Shelburne