Topfree and Proud

On a hot August evening in 2005, after an art opening at a Lower East Side studio, Phoenix Feeley stepped outside for some fresh air. She then did something that would lead to her arrest, a stint at Bellevue psychiatric hospital, multiple court appearances, and ultimately a $29,000 settlement: she unzipped the top of her jumpsuit, baring her breasts on a public sidewalk.

She had the law on her side: a 1992 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals established that women are afforded the same right as men to have their breasts uncovered in public. Nonetheless, she found that even the law could be overruled by an individual’s interpretation of decency.

“The cop stopped me, and I tried to explain to him that it was legal,” Feeley said. “Eventually, his opinion got me in jail.”

Although the legal systems in New York, Ohio, Maine, Texas, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii do not prosecute women who choose to be top free in public places, the perception that a woman’s breast is inherently sexual has led many to be punished for indecent exposure.

The law, it seems, is not always enough to overcome the view that nudity, even in a non-sexual context, is a vice crime that must be punished.

Such groups as the American Family Association are vocal about what they see as the negative impact that such behavior purportedly has on society, often citing the effect on children.

“If society descends into hedonism or neo-Paganism or whatever you want to call it,” said Frank Russo, president of AFA-New York, “then it will be because we have made choices to allow amoral behavior like what these women are doing.”

In response to the view that a woman’s exposed breast is indecent while a man’s is not, Feeley has leveraged her own experience to become a sort of freedom fighter for topless women everywhere. On Feb. 14, she had her first court appearance in New Jersey, where she appeared without a top on a beach in June last year and was consequently issued five citations related to indecency, with a total fine of almost $2,000, according to Feeley.

“Since there were a hundred men on the beach with me who were top free, I didn't think it was fair that I couldn't take my top off too,” she said.

She is supported by groups like the Topfree Equal Rights Association, which campaigns to change laws against what it calls “top freedom” in the United States and Canada, and supports women in their legal battles against what they see as a form of sex discrimination.

The movement, at least in New York, began with the “Rochester Seven,” a group of women who were arrested in 1986 for having a picnic with their tops off in a public park. They were convicted of indecent exposure, a ruling overturned in 1992 by the New York State Court of Appeals, which ruled that the law was discriminatory for penalizing the display of a woman’s breasts but not a man’s.

Jordan Matter, 42 and a married father of one, has become the unofficial "topfreedom photographer" since he began taking pictures of top-free women around New York for his upcoming book, “Uncovered.” Between 2002 and 2008, he photographed over 100 women for the project. More than 60 of those women, including his wife, appear in the book.

More photographer than activist, Matter says he is not trying to change society, but rather wants to do what he can to give the women a voice in their struggle for their freedom of expression.

"Will there ever be a situation where women will walk around with their shirts off? I don't think so," he said, but added that women should have the right to do so if they choose.

And although four of the women whom he photographed for the book have since asked him not to print the photos, the vast majority of the women, he said, see participation in the project as a powerful and positive experience.

One of his subjects, Christa Justus, is a 45-year-old singer who met Matter when he came to shoot photos for a cabaret show she was performing in. When she heard of his project, she knew within five minutes that it was something she wanted to be a part of, she said.

“Doing the shoot was a blast – it was so freeing, it was fantastic,” she said.

Justus has no regrets about appearing in “Uncovered,” but acknowledges that some people she has told about the project have reacted with more surprise than support.<

“It’s hard to break through taboos when you’ve been told since time immemorial that certain things are bad, and certain things aren’t bad,” she said, “and taking your top off isn’t exactly looked on as a reputable thing to do.”

Another of Matter’s subjects, Jisann Roberts, has not and does not intend to tell her parents about her involvement in the project, despite how liberating she says it felt to pose top free in Union Square. A 25-year-old actress, she is not shy about her body, but knows that her more traditional parents might see it differently.

“They are very big on discretion,” she said. “That would not be OK.”

The final photograph in Matter’s book, which depicts him photographing one of his top-free subjects, includes a mother shielding her child's eyes as they walk by the pair.

"I wanted to take photographs that looked like women doing normal things,” he said. “Behind me, though, there was always a significant amount of mayhem.”