Nantucket Gives The OK For Going Topless On Its Beaches

There once was a man from Nantucket…

But seriously, there could wind up being many more “men from Nantucket” now that the island has opened its beaches up for topless sunbathing. 

Residents voted for the measure at the annual town meeting this week and it passed 327-242. But it was the way the measure passed that some may find interesting: it passed as a “Gender Equality on Beaches bylaw amendment”, the New York Post wrote this week.

Sex educator Dorothy Stover proposed the amendment and celebrated the measure by writing on Instagram: “Thank you thank you thank you for choosing equality.”

Stover also runs the online Nantucket Love School, according to the report. She brought up that men have been allowed to go topless on beaches for nearly 90 years. She made arguments about human anatomy and the history of the beach, the report said. 

At the meeting to vote on the issue, she said: “Being topless is not being nude. This bylaw would not make beaches nude beaches. This bylaw would allow tops to be optional for anyone that chooses to be topless.”

She talked about how she came up with the idea: “This past summer, I was at the beach and I wanted to lay out topless. And I thought, ‘Why can’t I do that?’ In Europe, it’s completely normal to be topless, you don’t even think about it.”

A supporter of the proposal said at the meeting: “Nantucket women have always practiced and lived gender equality. Now I may not choose to go topless … but I think other people should have that choice … I would suggest that we vote for this so that we have choice.”

She continued: “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. We have the exact same makeup — men have mammary glands and nipples — and so I started reaching more into it and men can go topless but we can’t.”

“Some men have bigger breasts than I do,” she quipped. 

One man who expressed concern said: “Speaking as a father, I just feel as though this is opening a can of worms, for which we may not be able to control.”

The official amendment reads “in order to promote equality for all persons, any person shall be allowed to be topless on any public or private beach within the Town of Nantucket,” the New York Post reported.