Living in the Past

Last August about 50 women staged a “Free the Nipple” protest at Hampton Beach. There is a nation-wide movement to desexualize the breast and strike down local, state, and national laws against toplessness. A month later, six women were arrested for being topless on a beach in Guilford. Going topless is a misdemeanor offense for a woman in the state of NH. Driving while impaired is a misdemeanor. You can kill someone while driving drunk. Our state equates the crime of driving while impaired to being topless and female in public.

Clearly something had to be done about those dangerous breasts and the women who might flaunt them in public. State Senator Nancy Stiles of Hampton wrote a bill  (SB 347) to enable the state and municipalities to adopt ordinances regulating attire on state and municipal property. The bill concerned itself largely with regulating bathing, sunbathing, and swimming in municipal or state properties. It was going to be added to a statute that is intended to restrain and punish vagrants, mendicants, street beggars, strolling musicians, and common prostitutes and prevent them from engaging in obscene conduct. The state and municipalities would be allowed to create ordinances to dictate what sort of attire should be worn on state or municipal property. 

One could imagine, perhaps: Tuxedo Thursdays in Tuckerman’s Ravine?  Or maybe Hawaiian shirt day in Crawford Notch? Mendicant Mondays? Naturally every day would be coverall day at Hampton Beach to keep those rampant bosoms out of sight. This would also include the State House, which doesn’t seem to have occurred to the sponsors.

One could further imagine the creation of the Governor’s Commission on Proper Public Attire. What the bill lacks (other than any sort of coherent rationale) was an enforcement mechanism. It needs a Dress Code Czar, which is pretty much my dream job. I’m ready, willing, and able to instruct strolling musicians, common prostitutes and legislators on how to dress.

This bill came to us from Senate Republicans. Republicans, you may recall are the folks who complain so bitterly about what they “nanny state.” Then again, legislating the behavior of women has always been at the heart of the GOP agenda, and is therefore exempt - the accusations of “nanny state” only apply if they affect MEN. This attempt at dressing women in burkas at public beaches is just business as usual. Any idiot can have a gun in this state, but breasts are apparently the REAL danger. Two of the bill’s sponsors are not running for reelection. The rest of the bunch should seriously consider retirement, if this is their idea of important or necessary legislation.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, by the time a child reaches the age of 18, they will have seen over 16,000 simulated murders and over 200,000 acts of violence. And we’re worried about naked bosoms scaring the children?

In the category of actual important legislation, the House will have voted on the omnibus opioid bill (as well as the dress code bill) by the time you read this. The big drug bill is intended to do something about the opioid epidemic that is having such an impact on our state. It is one of the bills that were written last year to be “fast tracked” by the legislature. There is no fast track in NH. (If a provision had been added to give every addict a gun, this would have been passed months ago.) One of the actual provisions of SB 533 is an appropriation for $2 million to the Housing Finance Authority for supportive housing for substance abusers.

This is important. Addiction does not lend itself to cookie cutter solutions. Addicts have a variety of different needs. My second husband became a heroin addict after we split up. He had a good job, a car, and a place to live. When he got to rehab, he had the clothes on his back. No car. No place to live. Holes in his shoes. He still had the job – and lucky for him, he had excellent health insurance. He called me from rehab, because I was the only sober/clean person he knew. His world had narrowed to being populated mostly by other addicts, which is not unusual. He stayed clean for a while, but relapsed, which is common with any drug addiction. The second time, he stayed clean. He moved into a sober house when he got back from the second stint at rehab, and he stayed there for a couple of years. Some addicts need to put a lot of distance between the new life they’re trying to begin and the old life they’re trying to get away from.

New Hampshire doesn’t offer much in the way of substance abuse treatment. Supportive housing for people who need a complete change of venue if they’re going to be able to stay clean is crucial. Heroin (and other opioid) addicts can recover and go on to lead productive lives, despite what one sees in the comment section of the Union Leader. Unfortunately most people know very little about addiction, and that includes most of our legislature. We weren’t overly concerned about addicts until the children of the middle class started dying.

A disappointing aspect to all of the bills intended to deal with the opioid crisis is the heavy emphasis on law enforcement solutions. At the beginning there was a lot of talk about how NH couldn’t arrest its way out of the problem. That is still true, yet our legislature is determined to try. The war on drugs, the pledge, and trickle down economics are all failing our state, but we are unable to end our addiction to living in the past.

Edited to add:

Every story I read about the Free the Nipple events was incorrect. The NH media didn't do a very good job of covering the story. Going topless is not against the law in NH. Only 2 women were arrested in Guilford. I found SB 347 mockworthy for a number of reasons, mostly, because it would have allowed dress codes at every public property. That was and is silly, and deserved to be made fun of. I didn't intentionally spread misinformation - and I'm sorry that I inadvertently did. 

I wasn't writing to be sympathetic to the Free the Nipple activists, because frankly, their issue isn't even on my list. There are many, many things that need to change in women's lives. Homelessness, poverty, health care, equal pay, good jobs, the right to bodily autonomy, and affordable child care are right at the top, along with doing something about guns and violence against women. I find the Free the Nipple "movement" silly and self-indulgent. 

Published as an op-ed in the May 13 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper.

Pass The Fruit Salad

Those of us who watched the last Republican debate learned a few things about the men who would be president. Dr. Carson, when asked how he would choose a nominee for the Supreme Court said he would look at the fruit salad of their lives. He may be brilliant in an operating room, but the rest of the time he appears to exist in a rather lizard-like torpor. That said, at least (unlike most of his fellow candidates) he can act like a grown up in public.

You may have seen the moment where things REALLY went to hell. That was when the person doing the closed captions abandoned all hope and just put, “unintelligible yelling” on the screen. The men who wish to convince us that they are the right candidate to lead our nation (and handle the nuclear launch codes) were engaging in what looked slightly less mannerly than a 3^rd grade playground fight.

This is where the party of Reagan has led us. Lo these many years, we’ve been hearing that gummint is bad, and gummint is the problem, and we’ve elected people who ensured that it was so. They invited the ill-behaved louts of the Tea Party into their bosom, and the Tea Partiers showed their appreciation by taking over the party, and kicking out anyone who retained any vestiges of sanity or reasonable behavior. NH followed right along. Since then, we’ve watched as a variety of churls shouted down Congresswomen at town hall meetings. We’ve seen them behave badly in the legislature, and everywhere else they go. Recently the Carroll County Commissioners had to deal with an outburst by a Wakefield resident. Steve Brown has been an ongoing problem at the meetings. He’s a libertea guy and like so many of his ilk, he is the center of the universe. He is all that exists, and he has the right…nae the DUTY to say or do whatever crosses his mind at any given moment. And so, when he was caught on tape simulating masturbation, the members of the Commission decided that perhaps Mr. Brown should be compelled to develop some impulse control, and that the Commission and others present, should not be subjected to his lack of propriety and courtesy. Brown is a member of the Wakefield School Board. Hopefully children don’t attend the meetings. 

This week, Marco Rubio (a candidate for President of the United States) made penis jokes about Donald Trump (a candidate for President of the United States.) Also this week, the NH House Criminal Justice and Pubic Safety Committee had a public hearing on HB 1525: relative to the circumstances that constitute indecent exposure and lewdness.  This bill was written in response to the topless protests held last summer at Hampton Beach. A group of women didn’t think their bodies should be considered obscene, and espoused the view that they should be able to go topless at the beach. This is also the bill that caused a dust-up back in December, when one of the original sponsors, Rep. Josh Moore, tweeted at a female colleague his opinion that a nipple out in view was fair game for grabbing. Rep. Moore has since removed himself from the bill. It’s worth noting that Rep. Moore is a member of the House Education Committee. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for a woman to show her breasts or nipples “with reckless disregard” for whether it would offend someone.

The current sponsors of the bill are Representative Brian Gallagher, a freshman legislator from Sanbornton; Rep. Peter Spanos, a freshman legislator from Winnisquam; and Rep. George Hurt, in his third term, from Gilford. All are Republicans. At the hearing, these men warned the committee that if women can go topless at the beach, they’d soon be topless at the library and at Little League games. (Do these guys ever even go to the library?) They said that NH could lose tourism dollars if women wander around in public with exposed breasts. Good point. No one goes to Europe any more. All those topless beaches keep everyone away. One hopes these tender legislative blossoms avoid Weirs Beach during Bike Week.

It’s almost amusing. Breasts are used to sell nearly every product on the market – but heaven forfend you should see one at the beach! Men spend their whole lives trying to catch a peek at them yet now they’re all boogered up about the idea of seeing an uncovered gland in public. The underlying message here is that women’s bodies are obscene and must be covered. Women are perverts who will flaunt their dirtypillows at the library! Women’s filthy bodies will drive away tourists! Keep those reckless breasts under control! What a wonderful message these men are sending to their own daughters and granddaughters. Perhaps next year all their daughters can wear festive holiday burkas for the family Christmas card.

On the one hand, we have Republican male presidential candidates making rude comments and jokes, and male Republican elected officials simulating masturbation at public meetings. On the other hand we have Republican male legislators who are so offended by women’s bodies that they want to make it a crime to show a breast in public.  Seriously?  It sounds to me, as if you boys need to clean up your own side of the street before you try anything big like governing.

What we ought to do is take a cue from the Italians. Topless sunbathing is a matter of choice in Italy. It is, however, against the law for men to touch their genitals in public. Italian men do not paw at, grope, grab, or tug at their crotches in public. This law was upheld by Italy’s highest court. From The Guardian: “The third penal division of the Rome court was having none of it. It said that public genital-patting "has to be regarded as an act contrary to public decency, a concept including that nexus of socio-ethical behavioural rules requiring everyone to abstain from conduct potentially offensive to collectively-held feelings of decorum".

That’s right. Men’s grabbing at their private parts is an act contrary to public decency – not the showing of a nipple.

Next year perhaps a bold legislator will write THIS bill. The women of the nation (and many men) will thank you.

Published as an op-ed in the March 4 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper