In case you haven’t noticed, boobs are back, and they’re everywhere. They’re on Twitter in all their droopy, asymmetrical glory in Adidas’ buzzy new ad campaign; they’re in the news, with Dolly Parton’s massive assets once again entering the discourse; and they’re the subject of Kim Petras’s impassioned disco pop ode to her own coconuts. But there’s one place a Nantucket-based sex educator would still like to see more boobs: on the beaches of her posh New England town.
Dorothy Stover, a sex educator and head of the Nantucket Love School, has reportedly launched an initiative to make Nantucket’s beaches an equal opportunity chest-bearing location for people of all genders, according to the Cape Cod Times.
“This past summer, I was at the beach and I wanted to lay out topless,” Stover told the outlet. “And I thought, ‘why can’t I do that?’”
The answer, of course, is sexism, which is why Stover decided to file a petition to make Nantucket’s beaches topless for all beach-goers, not just male-presenting ones. According to Boston.com, Stover suggested a bylaw amendment, “Gender Equality on Beaches,” back in November 2021. The amendment reportedly seeks to “promote equality for all persons” by declaring that “any person shall be allowed to be topless on any public or private beach within the Town of Nantucket.” Nantucket residents will reportedly vote on the amendment in May.
In a recent profile for the Nantucket Current about the campaign, Stover called out the inherent sexism of the current law, which only allows men to go topless at the beach. “We have the exact same makeup — men have mammary glands and nipples,” she said. “It blew my mind that we’re still in this space. But it’s turned into an equity issue, and I know I’m not the only one who thinks this.”
Stover added that she’s received a surprising amount of support. “I’ve had more support than I thought I would. It’s been surprising seeing who supports it and who is pushing back. They say women’s breasts are sexual, and I said no, they’re sexualized, not sexual.” The sex educator also noted that in Europe its common for people of all genders to go topless at beaches, calling the American attitude toward female-presenting nipples a “really antiquated” idea rooted in “inequality.”
Whether a town in New England can ever be persuaded to drop those puritanical reservations remains to be seen. But if Adidas can splash a five-by-five Bingo board of boobs across our social media feeds, hopefully the women of Nantucket will be able to go tits out at the beach this summer, as god and nature intended.
More Like This
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
