So, for the Fourth of July, we got a group together and headed down to Battery Park, in view of the Statue of Liberty, for a picnic on the grass. No better time for it, right? Statue of Liberty, Fourth of July. Enjoying our liberty to be topless outdoors, as established as a right under New York law some 24 years ago.

An hour or so into our blissful afternoon, these two uncomfortable-looking policewomen show up.

“We’ve had complaints. It’s the Fourth of July. There are children around.”

And?

“You can’t be naked here.”

We’re not naked. We’re covered from the waist down, just like the men in the park. We’re uncovered from the waist up, just like the men in the park.

“But…you can’t…”

Call your headquarters. Please. Talk to them. You’ll see. We promise, you’ll learn that you’re wrong. What we are doing is 100 percent legal. It has been since a court ruling in 1992, establishing that women and men have equal rights under the law, in this case the equal right to take our shirts off in a park on a hot summer day. Every time a police officer has forgotten this and arrested a woman for doing something that’s actually legal, the city winds up getting sued and it costs the city tens of thousands of dollars in damages–

“Are you trying to get these women arrested?”

No, officer. We’re trying to keep you from making a mistake that will embarrass you and cost the city a lot of money. Call your headquarters. Trust me. You won’t be sorry you did.

And…they did. Call headquarters. And then did, learn. They stood around with their backs to us for maybe twenty minutes while waiting for backup to arrive…

…but when backup did arrive — two uncomfortable-looking male police officers — they were told we were right. “They have the same right to take their shirts off that I do,” said one of the men, looking a little wistful standing in his heavy uniform under the July sun. “Has anyone bothered you?” he asked us. “Harassed you?”

Only the police, we said.

He nodded. Well, let us know if there’s any problem.

And off they plodded, to foil evildoers elsewhere.

A blow for liberty. A police force educated. A small victory, but one we shouldn’t have had to win, and that women shouldn’t have to keep fighting for over and over again. People sometimes ask us, “Why do you bother making such a big deal about the right to go topless in New York, where it’s already legal?” This is why.

Now, ignorance isn’t a crime. Not even ignorance of the law. Not even if you’re a police officer whose job is to enforce the law. And to these officers’ credit, they behaved politely throughout, if grimly, and when proven wrong, they conceded. Their sidearms stayed in their holsters throughout. But we shouldn’t have had to negotiate rights we already have with armed agents of the government. We really shouldn’t.

A little later, a late-arriving friend showed up and we told her about the excitement she had missed. Cops! In uniform! We heard handcuffs clanking as they approached! We didn’t know what was going to happen!

So what did you do? she asked.

We bribed them, we answered. With a little truth. Slipped them a bit of knowledge, under the table.

And…?

And we were left at liberty, we said.

Our 4th of July was not all about educating the police in the laws of New York — before and after our blue-suited friends showed up, we spent a blissful afternoon in the pursuit of happiness, and we want to show you that side of the day as well.

Food treats included pastries from the legendary Dominique Ansel (yes, including two cronuts!)…

…while books included classics (Isaac Asimov’s The Stars, Like Dust! Kafka’s Amerika!)…

…non-fiction (Freakonomics! Please Kill Me!)…

…graphic novels (Sex Criminals! The Misadventures of Jane!)…

…and the yet-to-be-published (Quarry In the Black! The Knife Slipped!).

Our companions included one member’s 3-year-old daughter (who briefly went bottomless, the little nudist) and another’s gorgeous parrot, represented in both actual and tattoo form.

We enjoyed the shade and the sun,

the grass and the waterside promenade,

vigorous activity and lazing around.

And we made many new friends, ranging from these 12-year-old boys

to women of all ages who were astonished and/or delighted to learn that female toplessness is as legal as the male variety.

If you’re astonished and/or delighted yourself and would like to give it a try, we’re just an email away (toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com), and we welcome inquiries from any bold, body-positive women in or visiting the New York area.

We’ve got eight weeks of summer left — don’t miss your chance to enjoy them the way they were meant to be: with liberty and justice for all.

While most days you’d get arrested if you walked fully nude down the sidewalk at 47th Street and Second Avenue in New York City — topless is fine, for all genders; bottomless is not, for any — there is an exception.

Bodypainting Day.

Once a year, for the past three, Andy Golub has organized a mass bodypainting festival, gathering a hundred models of all sizes, shapes, ages, races, and genders to pose fully nude in the street and act as human canvases for dozens of talented artists flown in from all over the country and all over the world.

This year it threatened to rain — but despite all the gloomy forecasts, not a drop was felt, and the proceedings came off without a hitch. Several members of our august bookclub were there (even though it was still July, hee hee):

…enjoying the privilege of getting naked with countless strangers:

…all of us filled with boundless energy (you need it, to stand stock still in one place for four hours while an artist turns your body pink and gold) and utterly devoid of self-consciousness or reproach. This was a place of acceptance, of kindness, of generosity and fellow-feeling, all of which went splendidly with this year’s theme of “Inner Beauty.”

And the spirit of the day extended to the crowd that came to watch, which included the usual mix of the curious and the photographically inclined, but also just pedestrians who happened upon the event and stayed to watch, parents with toddlers in tow or on their shoulders, and senior citizens who asked with mischievous grins if they could pose for a picture with us. One little girl shielded her eyes as she walked past, until her mom told her it was okay to look. Another tugged mom over to watch Sailor Moon come to life.

Two high school girls (age, sheepishly confessed: 16) had finagled press passes and were in seventh heaven interviewing the naked men. But it wasn’t necessary to be sheepish — everyone was happy to talk with them.

Which is really the point. We’re all just human beings; we all have bodies. There is nothing shameful about them. A chin, an elbow, a breast, a penis. No one is harmed by seeing these things, with or without paint affixed. But if paint gives us an excuse to be naked one day a year — and yields such beautiful artistic results to boot — we’re beyond delighted to embrace it.

In fact, we were one of the sponsors of the event this year!

And if it continues (as we very much hope it does), we’ll be back again next summer, with bells on. And nothing else.

When we go up to our favorite rooftop sundeck, we usually have it to ourselves. But technically it is the roof of a hotel, albeit a small boutique hotel, and any hotel guest is welcome to use it. So once in a while we’ve been joined by hotel guests, who generally share our taste for naked sunbathing (it’s a clothing optional roofdeck whether we’re there or not) and who pay us as little attention as we pay them.

This last time, though, we met a fellow named Matthew, a real estate professional by trade, who turned out randomly to be a fan of ours. He’d been reading our blog for years (hi, Matthew! you’re probably reading this!) and even had an unfinished message to us in his outbox, half written. Small world, is all we can say.

While normally we are leery of random men who express interest in our group and hang around one of our events, Matthew was perfectly nice and handled the situation exactly as we might have hoped — no goggling and adulation, and in fact not even much attention paid after the first few minutes of “No way, you’re them?” To be all beatnik about it, he was a cool cat.

He even introduced us to the pleasures of sunning under the influence of coconut oil, an all-natural substance with, he assured us, an inherent SPF of something like 4 and a pleasant smell and sensation as you rub it in. Several of us gave it a try, including the one male member we had with us this time, and we were amused to observe that the whole “pleasant sensation as you rub it in” aspect seemed to particularly appeal to him and Matthew. It’s ok. There’s a kind of separate upper section to the deck and we left the boys alone up there to enjoy their coconut oil.

Meanwhile, the rest of us had a blast with the aid of a variety of other intoxicants, including ridiculously yummy popcorn,

fruit,

hose play (is that a thing?),

Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

Hard Case Crime,

inexplicably hilarious coffee-table artbooks,

and napping,

and napping,

and napping.

It was about as perfect an afternoon as you could wish for, with none of the rain that had been forecast (that’s a recurring theme so far this summer: ominous weather forecasts that don’t come true) and the joy of hanging with good friends and good books and loads of salubrious nakedness.

Oh, and an inflatable pool filled with very, very cold water.

We talked and ate and slept and dreamt and read until the sun began sinking in the west. Could we call it paradise? Why not. Everything seems paradisiacal with enough sunshine on it.

And enough coconut oil.

How many times over the past six summers have people suggested that we take a trip to a beach? Many. But we never did it, mostly because the nearest beach is an hour away from midtown, and the nearest nude beach is even farther, and we are sometimes very, very lazy. Why spend an hour on the Q train when you can just go to Central Park…?

The ocean, that’s why.

The ocean, the sand, the boardwalk…all the things that make Coney Island Coney Island. Let’s not forget the junk food. The rides and games, too.

So…we finally went. We went with our books, our sunscreen.

We went with our dogs.

We went with our wheelchair.

We went with our kids. (Yes, a few of us have kids!)

And what a happy, warm, delicious afternoon it was.

We spent most of the time on the sand, basking in a way that the grass of Central Park just doesn’t permit. Then some time cooling off in the ocean. Then back to the sand. The water. The sand.

Did we mention the junk food? At one point we made a hot dog run, giving up on Nathan’s because of the ridiculous lines there, but greatly enjoying the alternative fare at the stand known as Paul’s Daughter. (Mango slushie? Eh. Hand-cut French fries? Yes, please!)

What sort of reception did we get? No complaints, no visits from the police — unless you count this NYPD helicopter that hovered low over the shore. (We waved. It seemed to satisfy them.)

One dour-looking fellow appeared to be so fascinated by the sight of us that he hung around for several hours, staring at us creepily. But we didn’t let him bother us.

A number of women came by to congratulate us, thank us, or say they didn’t know it was legal to go topless — that always feels good, when we get the chance to educate people about their rights. One woman even took our info and swore she’d join up and come to future events. Who knows? Maybe she will.

And speaking of new members, we had one come out with us this time who is a terrifically talented manga artist, and she spent much of the afternoon sketching the rest of us.

She gave us permission to share the results:

So what’s next? Will we eventually get up the get-up-and-go to go all the way to Gunnison as a group? (Gunnison is the region’s only official nude beach, as far as we know.)

Maybe. We’ll see. But in the meantime we’re glad we finally got at least a taste of sun and sand. Even if only one of us was brave enough (briefly!) to go all the way…

There’s an event each year called the NYC Underwear Run; it’s a 1.7-mile footrace held in Central Park the Friday before the annual Triathlon wipes out all the city’s serious runners. Are we serious runners? Bite your tongue. But two of our members decided that a casual 1.7-mile jog in their underwear would be a pleasant way to spend a summer evening, and the rest of us came along to cheer them on.

First, we had to get to the starting line, which called for a topless walk through the park — not 1.7 miles, but a decent warm-up for the race.

(And a decent cool-down too, thanks to some judiciously purchased Snow Cones.)

Along the way, we got some curious looks, like this one from a man who asked “Why don’t you have shirts on?”

To which we answered “Why do you have a shirt on?” And explained, for the umpteenth time, the law in New York, equal rights, gender equality, etc., etc., etc.

Eventually we got to Cherry Hill and checked our runners in.

Interestingly, although everyone in the 500-person race was in their underwear — that’s the whole point of the event, isn’t it? — an official came over to us to say women aren’t allowed to run the race topless. That didn’t seem right to us; women have the legal right to go topless anywhere in the park that men can, and there were men all around with nothing on but tighty-whities. A discussion ensued on the finer points of the law. We would eventually have prevailed — we were right — but in the end our two runners did put sports bras on, not because they were told to, just because, well, running. Comfort. You know how it is.

But the rest of us stayed topless and enjoyed the event from the spectator area that way, and plenty of other people seemed to enjoy it as well. We posed for photos with runners,

and with one of New York’s OG topless celebs:

And then retired to a nearby hillside to enjoy twilight in the grass. A bottle of wine might have circulated among us. (If that weren’t against park rules, we mean. It might have, but we’re quite sure it didn’t.) And then out we went to the subway, heads held high.

Oh, wait, we’re telling this story backwards — before heading to the race we spent a couple of hours hanging out near the miniature boat pond! But that’s a story for another post…

So — before we headed through Central Park to join the annual NYC Underwear Run, we met up by the boat pond, just to relax on the grass and carry out a suitable pre-run ritual. (Otherwise known as nibbling sea salt lemon ginger cookies and reading Chinua Achebe.)

No major developments to report this time. It’s one of the nicest and most serene spots in Central Park, and we found we were left alone not only when enjoying the late afternoon breezes under the branches of the lawn’s great oaks (are they really oaks? we’re city girls, we don’t know from trees)

…but also when strolling by the pond, past unfazed fellow recreation-seekers.

Our reading  material included (as usual) a mix of the high and the low — the advance copies we got from Hard Case Crime of Max Allan Collins’ latest, Quarry In the Black, got a workout,

as did Stephen King and Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

And The Mating Mind got passed around a bit.

As we always like to see, our numbers included a mix of old-timers and first-timers.

If you are a curious first-timer in the making — an NY-loving, body-positive woman who knows it’s legal for women to go topless outdoors but maybe is still working up the nerve to try it for herself — we remind you that we’ve still got  a month of summer left (well, almost two months, technically; but a month of balmy August days), and we invite you to reach out to us. An email to toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com will get you in on the fun. The winter will be here all too soon, and with it the need to fold up the beach towels and get dressed again.

Before we enter the season of gloves and hot chocolate, before the leaves turn red and gold, while the mercury is still straining to escape its narrow glass channel…won’t you join us?

Most of our trips to the park are characterized by an extreme lack of physical exercise. Oh, we have some fit people in the group — some very fit people, in fact. Our pole dancing adventure revealed that. But fitness isn’t what we do when we get together.

But when we saw Tim here, working out with a TRX rig in the park we’d chosen as the site for our latest exercise in courageous sloth…

…we had to give it a try ourselves.

Speaking of sloth (or Sloth, I guess, with the all Jesuitical implications that capital letter confers), we also shared the park with artist Alana Jade Ramnarine, who was working on one of her Seven Deadly Sins pieces, which have been cropping up around lower Manhattan. This one was Sloth.

Now, how being dead counts as being slothful, I don’t know — it seems like adding insult to injury to call the poor woman a sinner on top of everything else she’s suffering in that picture. But maybe it’s the man who’s being called slothful. Since he’s just standing there and all. Didn’t protect her, isn’t avenging her. Maybe? Anyway, it’s a gorgeous piece of art, and an excellent book.

The rest of the afternoon passed in sun-dappled splendor.

There’s nothing quite like coming to a little green patch in the center of a towering metropolis and undressing to lounge about in the grass.

If you’ve never had the pleasure yourself…the exhilaration of taking off that layer and just enjoying, in the open air, being the woman you are underneath…well, the summer’s not over yet. Write to us at toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com and we’ll give you the chance to experience it.

If you’re thinking about it, finger hovering over the Send button…just do it.

Don’t keep us in suspense.

So, after an afternoon of sunning and TRX’ing in a park near the Hudson River, and waving at people in those double-decker tourist buses as they passed, iPhones raised and clicking away–

–we decided it was time for some more ambulatory pleasures and walked a block north to the High Line.

The High Line is a set of long-abandoned railway tracks that used to bring meat to the meatpacking district on Manhattan’s far west side. Left in disuse and disrepair for decades, they got revived a few years ago as an elevated urban park, and in that new role they draw crowds from every  part of town. The design is rambling and serene, artistic and intriguing, and we’ve gone from time to time as a group, but not recently.

It was early evening, and only a few of us remained, but we had a lovely walk. We checked out some of the artwork that dots the High Line, which ranges from ultra-realistic sculpture…

…to photography (and no, nude sunbathing is not permitted, this is just a photo an artist took at a nude beach and installed here, perhaps in an attempt to confuse).

There is also plenty of interesting downtown architecture to enjoy and to photograph, or to photograph yourself in front of.

And when we descended again, to the streets of Manhattan,

it was just in time to capture the sunset.

Walking the sidewalks once more, we got the usual mix of reactions: Why aren’t you wearing a shirt? on the one hand, Free the nipple! on the other. But none of it unfriendly, and some of it wildly enthusiastic. (Check out the woman on the right, arms upraised. She was shouting “Yes! Yes!” gleefully as she passed.)

All in all, a lovely reminder of what makes NYC both wonderful and unique. There’s room for a little bit of nature among all the concrete and steel–

–and on a hot summer day you can take a stroll without your shirt on, no matter what you’ve got under your clothes.

We’ve been lucky for most of the summer — the weather has been beautiful. But every coin comes up tails eventually, and this past week our visit to our favorite rooftop sundeck got called on account of rain.

Oh, we had a couple of gorgeous hours before the clouds rolled in. Eating strawberries,

reading David Sedaris and tales of surprisingly principled hitmen,

showering off in the sun.

But then darkness loomed, and the next several hours ranged from drizzle to torrent and back again. We huddled close under a giant beach umbrella

until stir-craziness set in and we decided to just let ourselves get wet.

Nothing wrong with a little cooling down on a summer day. But the key word there is “little,” and we eventually threw in the towel. (Threw on the towel? Whatever.)

Point is, we had fun. For a while. But eventually tapas down the block won out over continued exposure to the elements.

We’ll be back, though. You know it. And if you’d like to be with us when that happens? Just send email to toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com. We welcome inquiries from all body-positive women in the NY area. (Especially waterproof ones.)

Like Uncle Sam used to say:

We want you.

Yes, we’re New Yorkers. But some of us sometimes travel. And when we do it’s sometimes to a part of the world where we can indulge our inner nudist. (If that isn’t a contradiction in terms. Outer nudist makes more sense, I suppose.)

One of our members took a trip to the Balearic Islands and sent back these photos from her holiday. We thought we’d share them with you.

Do we envy her? Perhaps; but no more than we envy the inhabitants of Ibiza and Formentera for having her company. Meanwhile, our scenery back home may be less sparkling and azure, but rest assured that we’re enjoying our own version of a naked holiday every chance we get, in a very different setting but under the selfsame sun.

Many years ago — not too many to count, but let’s call it that, it sounds more romantic that way — Bryant Park was known for its heroin addicts and violent crime. But, in one of New York’s greatest stories of urban renewal, it bounced back. Now it’s a gorgeous green lawn, lovingly tended, surrounded by peculiar amenities such as a bocce court, a carousel where you ride on frogs and rabbits rather than horses, and an open air “reading room” filled with free books and magazines donated by the city’s various publishing concerns.

So when we went to Bryant Park this past week only to discover that the lawn we’d planned to sunbathe on was in the process of being lovingly tended (pesticide had just been applied, so no sunbathing!), we knew which part of the periphery we wanted to head toward. That’s right: the bocce court.

Just kidding. We headed for the Reading Room, with its plethora of folding chairs and books and book lovers, and even an author seated behind a microphone discussing at length the films of Alfred Hitchcock and his encyclopedic new book about same. We commandeered a pair of tables within earshot of the presentation (Cary Grant…Grace Kelly…Psycho…McGuffin…), unpacked our own books (we’d brought extras so we could leave a donation of our own),

took off our shirts and bras,

and had one of the most pleasant and relaxing afternoons of our long and distinguished career as an outdoor literary society.

What made it so? Well, first of all, the multiple women who stopped by to say they supported what we were doing, including the one who said she’d join us if she weren’t on her way back to the office from her lunch break, the one who called herself an old hippie and recommended some nude beaches for us to visit, and the one who took our info so she could join next time.

But second of all the men, who for once startled us by having something to say about books, such as this fellow who started with “Are you the outdoor topless pulp book club?” and then followed that not with questions about our choice to be bare-chested but rather, having seen a copy of Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon on the table, a comment about Novik’s recent win over N.K. Jemisin in the Nebula Awards (he originally supported Jemisin, but after seeing one of her tweets about how great Novik is, he tried one of her books and had to admit he agreed, she’s pretty great too).

All in all, an encouragingly positive day, full of sunshine and breezes and occasional surprised glances, but nothing worse than that. If only every afternoon could be like this!

Alas, they aren’t: just two days earlier, in the very same park, two of our members — one with her three-year-old daughter in tow — came to sunbathe and were approached for it by a park official and a pair of cops. They’d gotten several complaints, they said, and while they knew they couldn’t do anything about it, they wondered if our friends would put their shirts back on.

No, our friends said. Not least of all because one of them happened to be nursing her daughter at the time. How old is she? one of the men asked. Does that matter? our friend replied. Well, no, the man conceded. When you’re finished, though, will you cover up?

Um, our friend said. No?

To which the official had no comment, and in the end he had no choice but to leave her alone. But what an awful, awkward, needlessly embarrassing experience it was. And why? Why were two women, one nursing, approached and bothered, while just a few days later something like nine of us could sit happily topless just a few yards away, in the very same park, and not be pestered?

Ah — of course.

The pesticide.

Applied only a few days too late.

This past May, we put on an all-female, fully nude production of Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest, outdoors in Central Park. It was a huge success, attracting not only an audience of hundreds to the park but also coverage all over the world, from NBC News here in New York (and the New York Post, and the Daily News, and New York Newsday, and many more) to four of the five major newspapers in the UK (Daily Mail, Independent, Guardian, and Times), and from Jezebel and Salon online to The Huffington Post and The American Spectator. We were covered in Oregon. We were covered in India. We were one of the “photos of the week” chosen by The Atlantic. For an hour or two, we were one of the top 3 trending topics on Facebook.

But despite all that attention, not everyone who wanted to see the show was able to.

Well — now’s your chance. Our Tempest is coming back, this time to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, for four nights only: September 7-10, at 5:30pm each day. You can find information about the show and directions to the location in the park here.

The cast and creative team is mostly the same, though we have a new Miranda and Gonzalo joining us, and a new painter doing the body art for our supernatural characters.

We’ve already started to get attention — CBS News ran this story last night, and local Brooklyn publications have been all over it.

If you’re in the New York area on the dates in question, we hope you’ll join us in Prospect Park for some open-air Shakespeare and to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy as New Yorkers. And needless to say, if you do come, you’re welcome to watch the show topless yourself.

Two summers ago, we scoured the city to find a hotel with a rooftop pool that would let us come and swim topless. All but one expressed horror at the idea. That one — the Dream Hotel Downtown — said that topless sunbathing and swimming was of course fine. And they of course got our business.

We had such a good time, we returned for a second go-round last summer, and this week we came for our third visit. For the record (and in case any of the Dream’s competitors are reading this, and we know they are), no other guests at the pool complained and no one seemed to mind that both men and women were enjoying the pool bare-chested. The Dream has now enjoyed several thousand dollars of our patronage, not to mention whatever incidental benefit publicity on this blog might confer, with no negative side effects whatsoever. Other hotels might do well to reconsider their senselessly restrictive, sexist policies. We’re looking at you, Hotel Americano.

But enough editorializing. Back to the fun stuff. Which in this case included a nice shady cabana for getting out of the sun,

Some truly delicious champagne–

–and nibbles,

Hanging out both in the pool–

–and on the pool (fun with inflatables, yay!),

Showing off new hairstyles,

Taking selfies,

And of course reading some wonderful books, ranging from the serious poundage of Infinite Jest to the tawdry pulp pleasures of Sinner Man. (Each a wrist workout in its own way, as one wag observed.)

Best of all was hanging out with friends, and holding the onrushing end of summer at bay for one more glittering, timeless afternoon.

And while we may not have another pool adventure in the works this year, we’re not letting the summer slip from our grasp without a fight. If you’re in the city and would like to join us for one of our end-of-summer flings, we welcome inquiries from all brave, body-positive women (or even timid, body-positive women — we were nervous our first time too). Email us at toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com and let us know a little about you. We’d love to meet you sometime, before warm afternoons are once more just a thing of legend.

We meet outdoors. Why? Because it’s warm outdoors; it’s pleasant; it’s sunny, and it won’t always be this warm. New York is a beautiful city in the winter too, we love New York at Christmastime, but summer in New York is something special, and we want to enjoy every last bit of it.

We meet in the park. Why? Because it’s a touch of nature in a city that has all too little of it. We love tall buildings too, we love the rumble of a subway train, the rattle of the taxis, but grass is lovely, it feels nice underfoot, and you can lie down on it and roll around in it and do backbends and bridges and handstands in it.

We meet in a group. Why? Because our friends are important to us, because we enjoy their company, because reading books is more fun when you can tell your friends about them; but also because there safety in numbers, and support in numbers too. There’s comfort in knowing you’re not the only one who enjoys what you enjoy and confidence in doing something together with other likeminded folk. Because a harasser is more likely to target a solitary woman than a group of women, and because that’s true even if the solitary woman is fully clothed and the group is topless.

We meet topless. Why? Because it feels good; because we can; because the law permits us to. Because men do it without anyone asking why, and have for eighty years, but once upon a time people thought male nipples were scandalous too. Because eighty years from now, people will think it’s equally ridiculous that people once thought female nipples were scandalous — but only if we start normalizing ours now. Because a beautiful chest is no sexier, and no more inherently sexual, than a beautiful pair of legs or lips or eyes, or beautiful hair, or a beautiful back, and we don’t require either women or men to cover up any of those things, or shame them if they choose not to. Because a beautiful chest is no sexier, and no more inherently sexual, if it’s a woman’s than if it’s a man’s. Because our daughters need to learn this, and our sons too. Because our bodies are all we have, ultimately, and we can’t shed them, and if you criminalize them, you criminalize us. If you shame them, you shame us. If you hide them, you hide us.

We photograph ourselves, and we post the photos here. Why? Because what we do in New York can benefit women all across the world. We’re fortunate to live somewhere where it’s legal to do what we do. But not all women are so fortunate. Most women are not. And we want to show women everywhere — and men, men everywhere too — that a bare breast will not cause the downfall of civilization, that exposed nipples need not be met with outrage, that sane, normal women can enjoy a day in the sun with no top on just as sane, normal men can. Because we are proud of what we do and want you to know we are. Because we choose not to hide.

We want you to write to us at toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com. Why? Because you’re a woman, because you love books and the sun, because you have a body, and you choose not to hide either.

For the last three nights, our all-female, fully nude production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest has played to sold-out houses in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. (Well, tickets are free, so maybe “sold out” isn’t precisely the right phrase. But packed houses. Standing room only. Let’s call it that.)

Tonight — Saturday, September 10, 2016 — is your last chance to see the show. If you’re in New York and at all curious, we encourage you to come.

The show is different in Brooklyn than it was in Central Park in May. The performance space is less isolated, so random pedestrians walking by are more likely to stumble across a mystifying and magical scene. The bulk of the audience is watching from an elevated pagoda, and the lawn before it is flat, reversing the earlier dynamics (in Central Park, most audience members sat on the ground and the stage had a variety of vertical levels). And two new actresses, one new dancer and a new pair of musicians have  joined the cast, appearing in new costumes and new body paint.

But the script is the same — the same timeless fable of exile and liberation, of vengeance melting into forgiveness, told in some of the most beautiful verse ever crafted. And once again we celebrate the female body in all its variety and wondrous versatility. Our cast displays tenderness, rage, horror. wonder, despair, elation — the full range of human experience, giving the lie to the premise that a naked women conveys only one thing: sexuality.

Come join us tonight and see Prospero and Miranda, a sorcerer and his daughter–

Ariel, spirit queen of the magic isle–

Ferdinand, boy prince, thought orphaned–

Alsonso, King of Naples, and his loyal retainer, the good lord Gonzalo–

Sebastian and Antonio, conniving conspirators–

And the other spirits in attendance–

See love blossom,

and ripen

See perfidy punished

and virtue rewarded

See magic abjured

and captivity…prolonged?

See it all, before it vanishes into air — into thin air…

Well, it’s true: we do want to change the world. Just like John Lennon wrote.

We want people to see women’s bodies the same way they see men’s: neutrally, as objects in the world, objects of beauty some of the time, objects of simple utility other times, in either event deserving of respect and fair treatment. The way we set out to achieve this is by going out in the world and using our bodies in a wide variety of ways, and doing it unclothed to the same extent men have been doing for ages, and hoping that repeated exposure to the sight will cure people of whatever concerns or anxiety or fear or prejudices they might have.

Most of the time this involves sitting in the park reading books — we are a book club, after all. But when Adam Benedetto of Loudest Yeller Bicycle Tours approached us to suggest a topless bicycle tour of literary and historical sites in downtown Manhattan, we jumped at the chance.

So, at 11am on a balmy Saturday morning, a dozen of us met up with Adam at his headquarters in Brooklyn, at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Now, not all of us are what you would call expert riders of the two-wheeled contraptions we were being asked to climb aboard. But Adam reassured us that in all his years of running bicycle tours around the world, from here to Shanghai, he’s never had an accident. And sure enough, once we were all seated and pedaling and got the initial wobblies out of the way, breezing through the city streets turned out to be a joy — an absolute joy.

We headed first for the ferry dock to drop off supplies with Adam’s fiancee (she was leading another tour at the same time — not a topless one, sadly), then bicycled across the Williamsburg Bridge. And let me just say this: if you have never bicycled across a New York City bridge bare-chested on a warm summer day, well, you simply haven’t lived.

The next five hours — yes, five hours — sped by in a blur of exercise, education, conversation, and bare bodies. We rode along the Battery Park esplanade toward the Statue of Liberty, where one of our number was enlisted to recite poet and activist Emma Lazarus’ sonnet The New Colossus — not just the famous part, but the whole thing: “Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand/A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame/Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name/Mother of Exiles…” (Imagine it, if you will, read in a beautiful British accent, courtesy of one of our ex-pat members.)

From there it was on to Wall Street, purely for the ironic juxtaposition, and to discover that tourists find bare breasts absolutely astonishing, judging by the number who turned their cameras on us.

City Hall Park, where the mayor presides over New York’s affairs, was a short ride away, and Adam pointed out the site — now up for rent — where in the 19th century Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton published the women’s rights newspaper called The Revolution. (An appropriate theme for our group on any day, but doubly appropriate on a day of bicycling!)

After a stop at the African Burial Ground National Monument, we cycled past the giant, imposing courthouses where in past years women were sometimes brought before judges for doing no more than we were doing on that very spot, at that very moment.

On we went, to the crowded streets of Chinatown and Little Italy,

…where finally we stopped to pick up the makings of a picnic lunch. Disappointingly, Murray’s Cheese chased us out before we could buy anything there, citing some entirely nonexistent health code supposedly being violated by our bodies, but their next door neighbor — Faicco’s Italian Specialties — welcomed us warmly, sold us sandwiches and cookies and fancy imported sodas, and did it wall with a smile.

Next stop: Washington Square Park, where we rested our well-worked-out calves and thighs and glutes while munching, kicking a ball around with some guys who were playing nearby, and chatting with a New York Post reporter, who looked like she was about two seconds away from taking her shirt off too…but never quite got there. Next time.

After lunch we had all those new calories to work off, and we did it with a visit to a former women’s prison, the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the Stonewall Inn, and the former workplace of Anais Nin.

At this point it briefly rained, but you know what? Far from ruining the day, it felt refreshing and wonderful. Basically nothing could ruin the day for us. Even when one of us got a flat tire and we had to stop while Adam patched it, we found ourselves outside a downtown boxing gym, where this fellow entertained us by working his jumprope outside on the sidewalk.

Now, look at that chest. Just look at it. Isn’t that an object of beauty? Sexually attractive? It certainly is. And no one but no one told him to put a shirt on or asked what he was doing exposing himself where children might see. No one bothered him or whistled at him or booed or cheered or applauded. And that’s as it should be. All we ask is equal treatment for our bodies. It’s really not that much to ask.

From there, it was back to the bridge–

–and back to Brooklyn, where we returned our bikes and helmets and bid Adam a fond and grateful farewell.

He’s the best — well informed, a great guide, a feminist through and through, and a whiz on two wheels. If you’re in the mood to discover New York by bicycle, you should totally contact him: adam@loudestyeller.com.

And if you’re in the mood to discover the pleasure of being topless outdoors while it’s still warm enough to enjoy it, you should totally contact us: toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com.

It’s your body. Why not enjoy it?

It’s how we hold our revolution.

It’s how we change the world.

Summer has, at last and alas, come to an end — but that has never stopped us before and won’t stop us this year. There may yet be a warm day or two in October and November (one year we even met in the park in December!), and if not, we’ll find indoor spots to enjoy while waiting for the Spring. In the meantime, though, a colder, damper season has replaced sun-streaked days.

Before it settled in in earnest, on the last 90-degree day of the year (technically one of the first days of autumn), we enjoyed a valedictory visit to our favorite rooftop sundeck, where we devoured French pastries, California strawberries, and Caribbean rum.

The event was also a debut of sorts, since we had not one, not two, but half a dozen first-timers in attendance — people who’d not only never come to one of our events before but who, in some cases, had never gone nude outdoors before, or in front of strangers. We asked if any of them would like to share their experience with you, and two of them took us up on it:

To be completely and openly honest (wrote the first), I was slightly terrified of attending my first time with the Topless Pulp Fiction crew. When I would scroll through the blog I felt excited and for lack of a better word, empowered, by their message and ideas that directly coincided with my own. Packing a towel and book before coming, I felt this same wave of excitement. But the minutes walking from the train, leading up to meeting the group, was a moment of panic.

Meeting new people is always abstractly scary in some way, but meeting new people with the known fact that the group celebrates, de-sexualizes, and normalizes women’s bodies; well that’s a whole new level of scary.

But somewhere between slipping off my shoes and feeling the last proper summer warmth in my feet, I opened up.

That isn’t to say I immediately shed my clothes, but the walls I put up in normal conversation, just didn’t show up. I’ve never felt like I knew a group of people so well, with barely even knowing their names.

I think what makes the experience special and emotionally rewarding is that suddenly all the physical barriers society has created and rudely placed upon us, have been stripped away. I was no longer making small talk about my job, I was having a critical discussion about my industry with someone who I had known for 5 minutes. I felt a strong emotional connection to women (and men, shockingly) who didn’t come to ogle my body, but to make friends and truly indulge in the human experience. 

I really thought this Mercury Retrograde was going to fuck with me, but it directed me right into the hands of new friends, new experiences, and brought an action to my politics. Well played, Topless Pulp Fiction.

And here’s what the second had to say, in a piece she titled “Eden”:

I was naked in the middle of New York City. Outside on a rooftop, with a crowd of people I’d never met, there I was with my bare butt in a soft chair, eating a chocolate chip cookie and drinking a bottle of water. And everyone around me, including my husband, was similarly naked.

No, it was not some weird dream. It was real. And weirder still, to some at least, might be the fact that I identify as a Modern Orthodox Jew. Yes – it was a Friday, and my husband and I stayed for about an hour before heading home so we could make it on time to prepare for Shabbas (the Jewish Sabbath).

To many, this makes no sense – I’m a contradiction! Isn’t my religion incompatible with such an activity? Shouldn’t my body be only for the eyes of my husband? If I’m so religious, then where’s my modesty?

Modesty. What does it mean?

When nakedness is discussed in Genesis in the Bible, it is associated with shame. Adam and Eve had just eaten the apple, realized they were naked, and felt ashamed.

Shame. What does it mean?

Modesty, to me, means having something to be proud of, something beautiful, yet not bragging about it or showing it off. Shame, to me, means having something to be guilty of, something ugly, and therefore hiding it.

I am a contradiction because the body is a contradiction.

So what is the body? Should we be proud of it? Ashamed of it? And should we hide it either way?

To me, the body is nothing to be ashamed of, and I chose to come to our naked rooftop gathering because it is my way of spitting out a piece of the apple – a way of seeing what it might have been like in the beginning in Eden.

I agree that the body is beautiful, because God created it. Like any gift of God, it can be misused and lusted after. So to protect it from such misuse and lust, we hide it. But it is only misused and lusted after when it is seen as a solely sexual object.

There is a fear of who we might become if we were let loose from law: William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, comes to mind. Civilization equals protection; it is how we save us from ourselves. The moment we return to our natural state, we risk turning into “beasts” that have no control over ourselves. No, we must hide from our nakedness, under masks that disguise our true nature – beasts temporarily restrained by the cage of civilization, who would no sooner come out of our clothes than we would jump on the next naked member of our species we see.  

But at our rooftop event, I was surrounded by people who, I feel very sure, recognize that the body is more than a sexual object. And as we recognize that the body is more than sexual, we recognize that humans are more than we can imagine.

It may not be warm outdoors anymore — at least not in the narrow sense captured by thermometers. But in the ways that count, there’s no shortage of warmth to be had. We want to thank our newest members for so powerfully demonstrating that.

Won’t you join us too? Email us at toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com, tell us a little about yourself, and perhaps together we’ll  discover what naked pleasures we can unlock while the rest of the world is jack o’lanterning, turkeying, caroling, and hibernating.

Last week was ComicCon in New York, and more than 100,000 people (supposedly — we didn’t count them) descended on the Javits Center, many of them dressed as Harley Quinn or Wonder Woman or Rey from The Force Awakens. (I guess there were boys there, too.) More power to them all, we say. But we prefer wearing less rather than more, and convention center rules prohibit what New York City law permits in public places, so we picked up our comics — in this case, the first two titles from the brand new Hard Case Crime comics line, PEEPLAND and TRIGGERMAN — and took them out to Central Park for a little outdoor reading time.

Yes, it’s October. So what? It was sunny and warm(ish) and pretty much a perfect day to have your shirt off in the park. So that’s how we enjoyed the tale of a peepshow worker in 1980s Times Square getting involved in murder (by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips), and the tale of a convict sprung from prison in the 1930s to track down debtors for the Mob (by film director Walter Hill). Cool stuff. On an unseasonably warm day.

Will there be another one like it before the winter shuts us in for good? (Or at least for the season.) We’ll keep watching the weather forecast.

If you’d like to join us, drop us a note: toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com. All body-positive women are welcome, whether it’s comic books, plain old prose, or just brisk fall weather that gets you excited…

So there we were, in Central Park, reading our comic books. But was everyone doing that? No, of course not. Some of us were reading book books,

some were enjoying hot chocolate and baked goods,

some experimenting with a deck of tarot cards (yeah, tarot cards — wanna make something of it?), and some just basking in the unseasonably warm, sunny weather.

Is it different enjoying the afternoon topless in a city park in the fall, as compared to the summer? A little. You’re apt to be the only person around who doesn’t have a shirt on, never mind no top on at all; in the summer, there are sunbathers galore. But no passers-by stared or gave us a hard time. One fellow stopped by and offered to share some hash with us (we politely declined, both his hash and his company), but that was it for awkward encounters. Do the occasional chilly breezes make the outdoors less inviting? Not at all. I don’t think any of us would trade a beautiful 75-degree day with changing foliage as a backdrop for the sweaty 95-degree days of August.

But there is a subtle melancholy that pervades any autumn gathering — the knowledge that days like this are in short supply and a long, cold winter is coming. You value each golden ray that much more when you know it’s going to be a while before you get the chance again. Just thinking of all the new friends we made this summer, and the freedom we enjoyed, some of us for the first time ever — it’s gratifying, and so hard to let go of!

Well, the spring will come again, and so will we. But if you’re a body-positive woman in the NYC area and would like to hang with us even while it’s cold out, we have some indoor events planned for the colder months and would welcome the chance to meet you at one of those. Just email us at toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com.

And in the meantime?

This Wednesday it’s supposed to hit 80 degrees. Yes, 80 degrees on October 19. Just saying.

We’ll be there.