About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park this afternoon in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity.Yeah, everyone was seeing double that day.
The women, preceded and followed by several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras, stayed on the sidewalk because they hadn't obtained a demonstration permit to walk in the street. About a thousand people gathered as the march passed through Monument Square, a mix of demonstrators, supporters, onlookers and those just out enjoying a warm and sunny early-spring day.
Watching the first annual Tit Parade.
After the marchers reached Tommy's Park in the Old Port, some turned around and walked back to Longfellow Square, but most stayed and mingled in the park. Some happily posed for pictures.
And sold autographed jump-ropes.
Police said there were no incidents and no arrests – nudity is illegal in Maine only if genitals are displayed.
Hmm, maybe they could hold the next one in Alaska . . . .
Ty McDowell, who organized the march, said she was "enraged" by the turnout of men attracted to the demonstration. The purpose, she said, was for society to have the same reaction to a woman walking around topless as it does to men without shirts on.
Your cause is doomed to failure because men don't have tits, Ty. But you're welcome to keep trying.
However, McDowell said she plans to organize similar demonstrations in the future and said she would be more "aggressive" in discouraging oglers.
What a bunch of boobs.