Nantucket is one step closer to opening all the beaches on the small island of Massachusetts for topless bathing.
Residents voted 327-242 at the city’s annual meeting Tuesday night to pass an amendment to the Gender Equality Act on the beaches, which will allow beach vagrants to walk topless, the Boston Globe reported.
“We did it, we did it!” sex educator Dorothy Stover, who proposed the amendment, said on Instagram after the victory, although she noted that the measure still needs to be approved by the Attorney General’s office before it becomes law.
“Being topless does not mean being naked,” Stover said at the meeting. “These rules will not make beaches boring. These rules will allow the tops to be optional for anyone who chooses to be topless.
The amendment states that “in order to promote equality for all people, every person will be allowed to be topless on any public or private beach in the city of Nantucket”.
Stover, who runs Nantucket’s online love school, argued, citing the history of allowing men to walk topless on the beach nearly 90 years ago, human anatomy and other places that allow people to walk topless on public beaches.
Dorothy Stover proposed the amendment.Facebook / Dorothy Stover
She also clarified the definitions of topless and nudity, explaining that the first means not wearing anything in the upper body, and the second refers to showing the genitals, pubic areas and buttocks.
One woman at the meeting said that “Nantucket women have always practiced and lived gender equality. Now I may not choose to go topless… but I think other people should have that choice… I would suggest we vote for it to have a choice. ”
But one man said that “speaking like a father, I just feel like it’s opening a box of worms that we may not be able to control,” the paper said.
Stover recently described how she came up with her plan in November.
Residents voted 327-242 at the city’s annual meeting Tuesday night to pass an amendment to the by-laws on gender equality on the beaches.Boston Globe via Getty Images
“Last summer I was on the beach and I wanted to lie topless,” the 40-year-old recalled. And I thought, why can’t I do this?
In a recent profile for Nantucket Current for the campaign, Stover explained that topless beaches are a way of life in other countries.
“It’s perfectly normal in Europe to be topless, you don’t even think about it,” Stover said.
“I had more support than I thought I would have. It was surprising to see who supported him and who repulsed him. “They say women’s breasts are sexual, but I said no, they are sexual, not sexual,” she said.
“We have exactly the same make-up – men have mammary glands and nipples – so I started doing more and men can be topless, but we can’t,” Stover continued.
“It amazes me that we are still in this space. But this has become a problem with capital and I know that I am not the only one who thinks this, “she added.
Stover also explained to the Cape Cod Times that the current law, which allows only men to be topless, is a “really outdated” idea and “inequality” is emerging.
“Some men have bigger breasts than me,” she joked.
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