OPINION:
Nothing excites teenage boys and lascivious men quite like the sight of the female breast. In New York City, where sophistication was invented (ask any New Yorker), some see mammary menace the governor and the mayor see opportunity.
Topless women have replaced squeegee men as the sign of the approaching end of the world. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor, cracked down on the squeegee men, not so much for making a mess of windshields but for intimidating motorists, and the turnstile jumpers and other miscreants who by their defiance of law and good order were making life miserable in Gotham. Mr. Giuliani became so popular for cleaning up the streets that not even the politically correct Michael Bloomberg dared unto his reforms.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who succeeded Mr. Bloomberg, is no Rudy Giuliani. He has quickly given in to the demands of those who resist nearly every reform Mr. Giuliani and his successor made. The squeegee men are back. The latest menace are shirtless women — some of them wearing nothing but stage paint — who importune tips from tourists who want a souvenir selfie.
The mayor’s solution is to rip up the pedestrian plaza in Times Square, where the intimidating topless congregate. He could push for repeal of the city ordinance, enacted 20 years ago in a fit of liberty, egality, fraternity, liberating women’s bosoms, but that would surely offend the ladies. If men don’t have to wear a shirt, then women don’t, either — if anyone gets to peek at an uncovered female breast, he has to pay for it by looking at an uncovered man, ugly as he might be.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who might or might not want to take a peek, nevertheless sees opportunity at hand. He doesn’t see a naked breast, but something else to tax. If semi-clad women are taking tips for being in a selfie, the State of New York wants a cut. Officials from Albany have been in Times Square with clipboards. “Either the activity is legal, or it’s illegal,” the governor says.
He told the New York Daily News that if the bare-breasted buskers are operating as a business, the state must make sure they’re in compliance with tax laws and workers’ compensation regulations. But if the ladies’ tops, such as they are, are painted on, they can’t stick themselves with an errant bra snap. So what’s to compensate?
There’s abundant opportunity for the tax man. It’s not just the topless who are making everyone miserable in Times Square. A 19-year-old man from New Jersey dressed as Spider Man was arrested last week for “aggressive solicitation.” He offered to pose with tourists in a selfie, too. Nevertheless, the ladies, as usual, get the last word. One Clare Hogenauer, age 69, attracted one of the bigger crowds. She sees herself not as an exhibitionist, but as a fighter for uncivil rights: “I’m doing this only to say that we all have the same right to be topless.” Maybe. But this was surely something Washington, Jefferson, Adams and those worthies in Philadelphia had not foreseen.
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