'Topless Moira'

I EXPECTED gal pal Ronnie Polaneczky's Wednesday column on "Topless Moira," the seminaked stroller, to be titillating. I expected snark.

So did Ronnie, she confessed, but steered away from pointing and giggling after 30-year-old Moira Johnston explained why she walked around staid Rittenhouse Square with her breasts exposed. Sort of Skin in the City.

What I got was "if men can do it [go topless] women should be allowed to do it, too." Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah.

For me, men shouldn't go around Rittenhouse Square shirtless either. Or Walnut Street. It's not Wildwood. (Chestnut Street, OK. It's kind of crappy.)

But that doesn't explain why Johnston didn't go whole hog. She covered her nipples with pasties. Guys don't.

Why the modesty?

It's the law.

In Philadelphia, District Attorney spokeswoman Tasha Jamerson tells me, adult women may not expose their nipples.

The law discriminates against women. Call the ACLU!

Much to my disappointment, or maybe relief, Ronnie didn't come to work topless Thursday morning. She was happy to endorse it, not mimic it.

So that raises a question.

Look around your office. How many of the women do you want to see topless? For a rough equivalency, how many of the men do you want to see bottomless? (I don't even want to see me naked.)

[Editor's note: Stu speaks for all of us.]

There are women walking around clothed in leggings who shouldn't. There are guys in baggy shorts who shouldn't. Breasts are different, it seems.

So let's examine breasts. Who has them, and why?

If you guessed "women" to the first, give yourself an A.

Answer to why, two answers: Primarily to suckle their young. Secondarily, to excite men.

That's how it is in Western culture. In other parts of the world - from Africa to Polynesia - women's breasts were no more stimulating than men's chests. Then the missionaries arrived and spoiled everything, for men - and National Geographic. (In the pre-Playboy era, that's where boys could see "native" breasts.)

The sexualization of breasts led to the commercialization of breasts - Johnston revealed she was a onetime stripper, hoo-hah - and that descended into objectifying women, which is bad, except when women use them to make a pile of cash by posing for Playboy or by becoming entertainers. I think that explains Britney Spears' success.

The sexualization of breasts led to objections to women nursing in public, for using breasts for the purpose they were intended.

Women should be allowed to nurse in public, as they are now, but at the same time they don't have to make a spectacle of themselves, as Johnston did. Polite moms nurse in public quietly, as they have forever. It needn't be a statement about anything other than nursing their child.

So, yeah, Johnston made a point - two of them, really - but will this lead to an explosion of toplessness in Center City?

Let's hope not.

There's a place for everything, even toplessness and nudity.

Johnston's stroll put me in mind of last fall's well-intended "Slut Walk" or Mark Fiorino's campaign to display his guns openly on his hip, which is legal. But that doesn't make it wise.

In places where it's permitted, nude people on the beach, most of them aren't any more interesting than when they are dressed. Mostly, less. For the few men and women with extraordinary physiques, you can even get tired of watching their perfect, buff bodies after a while.

Or so I am told.

Phone: 215-854-5977

On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

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