This 'bares' scrutiny

(Warning: I did no research on this; it's purely my personal observations.)

The controversy between Facebook and women who want to put photos of themselves breast feeding topless rages on. (You can watch this video about one particular mom on CNN.com.)

Is this prudishness?

Stepping into the Wayback Machine, I once again see the French exchange student who lived with my family for a year and photos she showed us of her life in France - including ones of her on a beach that allowed semi-nudity (bottoms but no tops).

As my warning above indicates, I have no figures on how hung up Europeans are on females baring their breasts ...

But if Facebook should change its policy, an unlikely event I would say, what's to stop everyone from wanting to post pictures of bared female breasts? Nada.

But (again) - if you are banning female nips, you should ban male ones as well. If mandatory dress codes have taught us nothing, they have taught us that you can't apply standards to women without also applying them to men.

So I say de-criminalize the female breast. How can a woman feel comfortable with her body if she knows exposing parts of it is considered "obscene?"

But no! The bits below are still 'bad.' Bad bits.

So I retract my previous bare statement and amend it to: let's go back to the 19th century, where women had to cover themselves from head to toe.

We haven't come a long way, baby.

Isn't it funny how something so purely functional (the human body) became a matter of shame and censorship? When did that happen? Not recently! Bad, naughty, evil Eve.

And for those of us not into the religious explanation - Bad, naughty, evil Mother Nature.

Well, folks, there are a million stories in The Naked City - and I have to go write up a few of them now!