Topless tanner creates controversy in Whitby neighborhood
By SUSAN O'NEILL / staff writer
WHITBY - Jeanette McCormack isn't wrapped up in what the neighbors think, in fact she often isn't wrapped up at all.
The Whitby woman and mother of three has been cooling off by doffing her top in her yard this summer and says she'll continue to do so despite the neighbors.
"I am a nudist at heart and I really appreciate this opportunity," she says. "I think I'd rather see women topless than some men."
However, while Mrs. McCormack, 39, has been happily sun tanning and gardening without a shirt since mid-June she says she's "upset" by the reaction of one of her neighbors.
Mrs. McCormack says her toplessness has escalated into a "ridiculous problem" with one Cobblestone Drive resident but adds apart from that "nobody really notices."
She says her neighbor has complained about her bare breasts and will no longer allow her children to play in the McCormack's yard if she's topless.
"I feel that her children will have long-term problems because of her reaction to me," she says. "I'm the same person I was before I took my shirt off," adding there is "no reason for me to ask her permission."
When contacted by This Week, Mrs. McCormack's neighbor said she did not want to comment.
Mrs. McCormack says she grew up going to a nudist camp with her family and says it was the "most happy, open, honest, wonderful place that I've ever been...no one had anything to hide."
She says her own children, aged five, eight and 10, are comfortable with it, adding she doesn't want her kids to think of breasts as "dirty and taboo.
"My children don't mind at all," she says. "I think society has brought people up to be narrow-minded to combine sex and nudity...most people can't see past that."
She says the court ruling allowing women to go topless is one way of treating men and women equally.
"If I'm going to be one of the first, then so be it," she says. "Hopefully it will continue."