Do bared breasts break Philly laws? How going topless can be a powerful, and legal, form of protest.

To protest conservative policies, desexualize women’s bodies, enjoy a summer breeze on bare skin, or maybe all of the above, one Philadelphian wants to invite queer female friends to go topless in a city park.

“Nudism, it’s not really about exhibitionism,” said Helena, a 26-year-old recent transplant to Philadelphia. “It’s about, in a way, you’re almost fighting to not be looked at.”

If Helena and her friends doffed their tops and bras in public, though, would the result be nothing more than a start to summer without tan lines, or citations from the Philadelphia Police Department? That’s what she wondered through Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city and region.

Philadelphia doesn’t have a specific statute that addresses nudity in public gatherings, according to a city spokesperson. The state does, however. Pennsylvania is very specific about what constitutes nudity, saying people are considered naked if genitals, pubic areas, or rear ends are exposed, or if a woman’s breasts are exposed below the top of the nipple, basically making it illegal to bare the area that would be covered by a bikini top.

The state defines an illegal lewd act as behavior that’s likely to be seen by others, “who would be affronted or alarmed.”

So would a woman going topless in public violate that law?

Sarah Peterson, the city spokesperson, declined to address the legality of a public topless party without knowing more specifics.

There is precedent for legal nudity, though. The Philly Naked Bike Ride, for example, has invited hundreds of cyclists to ride through the city in various states of undress for 14 years. It is protected because it serves as a protest, Peterson said.

“The nudity itself is an attempt to raise political and social awareness of bike safety and therefore is considered a protest,” she said.

» READ MORE: A naked (sort of) protest in Center City

Nudity as protest is nothing new. Lady Godiva became famous not for her chocolates, but for a 13th-century legend in which she protested her husband’s tax policies by disrobing and riding a horse through an English town.

Another guy who shows up in that story, though, is Peeping Tom, who refused to look away when the naked lady rode past. The story is an early illustration of the complicated interactions between a woman’s body and a straight man’s gaze, wrote Ashley Bohrer in a 2015 article in the Melbourne Journal of Politics on the role of nudity in political protest.

The difficulty controlling whether others objectify and sexualize women’s nudity has led some feminists to conclude nudity inevitably feeds female oppression, wrote Bohrer, an author and professor of gender and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame. Context matters, too, Bohrer wrote: Objectification of an Indigenous woman can be accompanied by the specter of colonialism, while objectification of a Black woman’s body evokes the horrors of slavery.

» READ MORE: Topless TV actress rushes Bill Cosby outside courthouse on first day of retrial

Others, though, see the female body as a powerful messenger. A naked body can symbolize vulnerability; the material needs of a human body, like food or housing; or can just gain attention for a cause, Bohrer wrote. In Europe, a group of female activists, Femen, have used bare breasts as a form of protest for years, most recently to demonstrate against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Female nudity, free of patriarchal system, is a grave-digger of the system, militant manifesto and sacral symbol of women’s liberation,” Femen’s website states.

Locally, a woman went topless in 2018 to protest Bill Cosby during his retrial. The woman jumped a barricade and rushed toward Cosby outside the Montgomery County Courthouse with “Women’s Lives Matters” in red ink on her bare torso.

There’s a movement in public health, as well, to weaken the associations between breasts and sexuality. Public health departments, including Pennsylvania’s, are introducing campaigns to destigmatize breast feeding in public to encourage women to breast feed infants, which can contribute to better health outcomes for babies.

Helena, who declined to reveal her full name because as a trans person she is concerned about being the target of harassment, said a topless party, particularly one attended by queer women, would have multiple messages.

Before transitioning, she said, she didn’t think twice about being shirtless in public. She’s struggled with what seems arbitrary: A man’s bare chest is acceptable in a public space but a woman’s is not.

“We shouldn’t have to hide our body,” she said.

Spending time topless in public raise questions about political policies, such as conservative efforts to curb abortion and gender-affirming care, that affect women’s autonomy. She also noted the power dynamics of police potentially enforcing a lewdness law on someone whose offense could be seen as an act of vulnerability.

“Who is the person exerting dominance and control?” Helena said. “I don’t think it’s the particularly dominant action to walk around with your boobs out. You’re actually somewhat vulnerable in that situation.”