Acceptance of female public toplessness: Structural, contextual, and individual predictors of support

Abstract

Despite frequent attention in contemporary culture, little empirical research has been done on acceptance of female public toplessness during the past 20 years. As a replication and extension of prior work (Fischtein et al., 2005), an international survey of 314 women and 86 men reported their opinions toward the legality of female toplessness in three public settings. Overall, support ranged from 58% to 76% and was higher than observed in prior surveys from the 1990s. Context, or the specific location where toplessness occurs, remained an important consideration for support. In addition, demographic and attitudinal factors served to predict support and opposition to public toplessness. Specifically, higher religiosity and lower attitudes toward sexual permissiveness were associated with opposition to public toplessness, whereas, lower child protectiveness beliefs and lower trait disgust sensitivity were associated with support of public toplessness. Although men were generally more supportive of public toplessness, gender did not emerge as a significant predictor. Sampling differences and concerted efforts through social media and political campaigns that occurred between prior surveys and the current study may explain, at least in part, the increased overall support and lack of gender differences. As such, these findings may have important societal and legal implications for the acceptance of female public toplessness.