This. I am all for top freedom and to be fair I also support casual nudity for both sexes in the appropriate contexts (eg most public beaches) if people are sensible about it. Nudity does not have to be sexual. Two experiences I had.
First, in Germany and Austria I went to a couple of spas where no clothing was permitted in the sauna area and the saunas were mixed sex. People of all ages and sexes (and I say sex not gender because while I could see one’s genitals, I had no idea what their gender was, nor did it matter) were just enjoying the experience without it feeling sexual in any way.
Second, on the Romanian seaside I visited a couple of resorts that cater to younger folk and there were areas on the beach where people were anywhere from fully clothed to fully naked. And the naked and half naked people were not lewd middle aged men stalking some tits and ass or craving attention, but people in their 20s enjoying the sea and the sun, including many quite attractive young ladies. There was seemingly nothing sexual about it outside my own mind. Speaking to a couple of locals, they told me that while nudity was technically illegal, no one policed it. Reason being that those two resorts were very popular with young people back in the communist days and being naked at the seaside was one of the few ways to flout an otherwise very oppressive regime. The custom remained and I imagine getting the police involved to ask people to dress up because some random prude might be offended would risk stirring tensions on political grounds.
However, I am British and the context I grew up in as well as the over sexualisation and objectification of the female body in most Western media makes it hard for me not to feel something sexual when I see a naked female. I am probably reasonably desensitised to breasts, as toplessness is common on European beaches, but still, if I see an attractive body I cannot help but look. Some of this is human nature - after all we also look at beautiful faces, but I feel most of it is just cultural.
As for the legal position on the matter, I am a libertarian when it comes to personal rights. Women should be able to be topless in any context it is deemed appropriate for a man to be bare chested. However, it might take some time in some places (and the US probably more so than in most other Western countries), before society will stop sexualising breasts. Whether we should advocate for more acceptance of bare breasts in general and condemn the objectification of the female body is a separate matter, which I feel can only be achieved through education, making the legal debate less important. Societal norms should drive legislation, not the other way around. Making it legal for women to bare their breasts in the US, while commendable, will not change people’s prejudices overnight.
