Some two dozen topless women protested in a New York City park on a hot, sweaty Sunday as part of what they called "National Go-Topless Day" to draw attention to inequality in topless rights between men and women.

There were topless men in the park, too, but nobody paid them much attention, a disparity, organizers said, that demonstrated the need for the event.

The topless women drew crowds of onlookers who took pictures and video with their cell phones.

"We say there is nothing wrong with the female nipple," Karen Heaven, an organizer of the event, told the crowd that quickly formed around her in Manhattan's Bryant Park. She was wearing white pants and not much else besides a purse over her shoulder. "My dog has six, I have two, but I can be put in jail for showing my nipples. It's 2012 -- what are we thinking?"

It is legal for women to go topless in public in New York City but laws vary widely across the United States. Heaven and her colleagues say discrimination is unconstitutional and they want full equality.

Similar protests were scheduled in about 30 U.S. cities and 10 around the world, organizers said.

The annual Go-Topless Day was established in 2007 by a former sports car journalist called Rael, who founded a religion called the Raelian Movement after he said he was visited by a space alien in a French volcano park who told him life on Earth was created by extraterrestrial scientists, according to an account on his website.

Occasional references to alien creators did not seem to register with the crowd, which focused mostly on the breasts.

"I'll show these to a few friends and then delete them after a few days," Rudy Sison, a New Yorker who happened to visit the park on Sunday, said as he thumbed through photographs and video he had just taken on his phone. "They're topless."

Several women waved signs saying: "Equal Topless Rights For All".

After the speeches, a guitarist led the crowd in a reworking of The Beatles' song "Let It Be".

"Let 'em breathe," people sang. "Let 'em breathe."

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Mon May 20 21:15:14 SAST 2013 ::

Aug 27, 2012

maneater

bring it here in Jozi............
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Aug 27, 2012

DJ-Winner

That is a kind of protest I'm talking, yeah....

Anyone in KZN, women still walk around topless in some areas. Greyville is one of the areas. Damn, I miss that place....
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Aug 27, 2012

cherokeedas

Lol.... Maneater
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Aug 27, 2012

MaezizstoAgain4sure

Sowetan di kae di pictures the grand mara heee


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Aug 27, 2012

Limpopoist

African have been doing it for centuries.........maneater

ONLY cold continent where not doing it...
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Aug 27, 2012

MommaC

LOL
Americans are crazy.

Is the right to bare your boobies really the biggest issue that women's rights is facing in the world?
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Aug 27, 2012

seutullamakunutu

@ Sowetan do not wste our time what's new here.
We have BURNING ISSUE OF MINES HERE AT HOME !!!
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Aug 27, 2012

mhlupheki

cant our ladies do it here i will like to see them. i wish i was there
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Aug 27, 2012

JnrJack

topless not for all...other women's breats s@cks...they are completely wrecked...cracks and stretch marks all over...
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Aug 27, 2012

sakhomba

it is ok for New York babes to do it, there was one for men in Noord taxi rank last year.
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