Topless Protest Planned for Tempe, With March Down Mill Avenue

Topless women (and men) will be marching down Mill Avenue in Tempe in a couple of weeks.Last year marked the first time a Phoenix-area "Go Topless Day" protest was organized, as about 40 men and women marched in downtown Phoenix in what was billed as a protest against gender inequality...
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Topless women (and men) will be marching down Mill Avenue in Tempe in a couple of weeks.

Last year marked the first time a Phoenix-area “Go Topless Day” protest was organized, as about 40 men and women marched in downtown Phoenix in what was billed as a protest against gender inequality.

See also:
Slideshow: Go Topless Day in Phoenix, 8/25/12

The belief is that women should have the same right as men to be bare-chested in public.

Jenna Duffy, the local “Go Topless Day” organizer, tells New Times the protest will start at the Tempe Farmers Market at 10 a.m. Sunday, August 25.

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Duffy expects many more people in this year’s protest because of the move to Tempe.

Laws around the country vary on the issue. In some places, including New York City, there’s “top freedom” — meaning there’s no issue with bare-chested women in public.

Arizona law says it’s indecent exposure if a woman “exposes the areola or nipple of her breast or breasts and another person is present, and the defendant is reckless about whether the other person, as a reasonable person, would be offended or alarmed by the act.”

So, women looking to protest Arizona’s law will have to cover their entire nipples with tape, to keep it legal. Men do the same, in protest of the law.

Check out photos from last year’s protest on the next page.

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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.

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