Comments

When I was young, dumb and full of cUmera film

In Daytona Beach, Florida, a week of thunder on two wheels (aka Bike Week) is finishing up with an emphasis on America's favorite obsession, breasts. According to the Daytona Beach News Journal, Liz Book hoped to lead 1,000 "top-free" women and men along a half-mile of Main Street protesting the city's ordinance. Ironically, if the nudity is part of a political protest, it is allowed. Otherwise, on the beach or on the back of a Harley, it's a lewd act that carries a $253 fine.

Last year, 59 women were fined during Bike Week doing what Book considers part of the biker lifestyle for more than 50 years.

According to Daytona Beach police sargeant, Al Tolley, "The complexion of any protest can change, and it can turn into a lewd act in a heartbeat." In a pre-emptive move, Book sued the city and mayor in federal court in Orlando, seeking a restraining order to prohibit police officers from arresting topless marchers. U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell refused to grant the injunction because there wasn't time to hear from both sides.

Women recently have won the right to go top-free in parts of Maine, Vermont and in several provinces of Canada, said Morley Schloss, a retired school administrator who helped decriminalize women's bare breasts in New York in the late 1980s. Perhaps some good first amendment attorney could argue that a biker chick flashing her breasts from the back of a Harley is considered an impromptu political protest. Is this a cause with no support?

Read the article and commentary on Plastic.

[> permalink <]