An argument has broken out over a ban on topless men at a funfair in England. Firm or flabby, men’s bare chests will no longer be free to the wind on a hot day (well, in parts of Essex at least).

Now I take no personal pleasure in the type of semi-nudity that we’re talking about here (although for the record I am much, much more offended by the gnarled and fetid unpedicured feet of your average suburban man in flip flops), but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a step backwards for everyone.

Women are constantly told to cover up their top halves in public, even when attempting to breast feed (well it’s not like that’s their primary biological function or anything…).  That we’d got to the point where men could freely bare their dimpled, sinking, sporadically fuzzed chests to the world on a hot day without recrimination left a glimmer of hope that one day soon we might realise that we’re all just two nippled creatures, and that getting upset by a flash of one or two is as archaic as fretting over a flash of ankle. By enforcing a cover up, you confirm that nipples are something scandalous.

I never thought I’d say this but men: it’s your moral duty. Get them out for the girls*.

Original article from the Guardian here.

*And put those feet away while your at it, yeah?