Florida County Tickets Woman for Sunbathing Topless on the Beach

On
a warm day in May, Fallon Johnson, a 21-year-old waitress, found
herself on a deserted public beach in St. Augustine, Florida. She
decided to stretch out in the sun and subsequently drifted off to
sleep. She doesn’t know how long she was asleep before she was
awakened by a police officer asking to see her ID. With her mind
still hazy from being abruptly awakened, she wasn’t sure what law
she’d broken, but she handed over her New York driver’s
license.

Johnson, who had been sunbathing topless, was unaware that
female shirtlessness is illegal in St. Johns County. She was handed
a ticket and fined $53 for violating the
county’s public nudity ordinance, which was drafted by the
county’s board of commissioners in 1992.

The ordinance states that “appearing nude in public places is
still contrary to the general societal disapproval
that the people of St. Johns County have of persons appearing nude”
and “the mere appearance of persons in the nude in
public places generally increases incidents of
prostitution, sexual assaults and batteries, attracts
other criminal activity to the community, and encourages
degradation of women and other activities which break down
family structures.”

The ordinance generously offers women the chance to choose how
they cover up, stating that “each female person may determine which
1/4 of her breast surface area” to conceal. But that covered area
must include the nipple and areola. 

Thirty-seven states have some sort of legislation making it
illegal for a woman to be publicly topless, according to
director of Free The Nipple Lina
Esco. Free
the Nipple is a movie about women launching a movement
against the censorship of nudity.

Recently, Scout Willis, the daughter of Bruce Willis, made some
comments endorsing the film after
she walked around New York City wearing only a floral skirt. In
a
blog post on xoJane, Willis wrote:

There are also some people who would criticize my choice to
relate nipples with equality at all. To me, nipples seem to be at
the very heart of the issue. In the 1930s, men’s nipples were just
as provocative, shameful, and taboo as women’s are now, and men
were protesting in much the same way. In 1930, four men went
topless to Coney Island and were arrested. In 1935, a flash mob of
topless men descended upon Atlantic City, 42 of whom were arrested.
Men fought and they were heard, changing not only laws but social
consciousness. And by 1936, men’s bare chests were accepted as the
norm. 

If the government wants to regulate breasts, then it should at
least be equitable about it: Give large men with big tits tickets,
too.