On Monday the 6th of February 2017, Free the Nipple Auckland (FTNA) held an event at Mission Bay beach. The event was the second to be held at Mission Bay with supporters again purely relaxing topless on the beach and occasionally going for a swim throughout the day. The idea being that topless woman on the beach reveals the usually censored female nipple to the public, and helps normalise something that is already entirely normal on male chests. Our events also create a safe public space for women who would like to go topless in public but feel unsafe doing so. Until this most recent event on the 6th of February we have received a lot of support from the public, and almost no negative attention. However, around midday a lady separately approached two of our supporters to tell them she was uncomfortable and thought the uncensored female breast was inappropriate. When our supporters disagreed with her and explained there were many topless men on the beach, the lady responded by calling our supporters demons and telling them they would go to hell. Our supporters chose not to escalate the situation and the lady walked off in frustration. Upon returning to her friends she called the police who showed up to the event some time later. After taking a complaint from the lady and her friends the police told Free the Nipple Auckland and its supporters that they were creating a public disturbance and had to move on. FTNA believes this approach was taken to prevent the situation escalating as opposed to observing who was in the right, and we along with our supporters complied with the police.

Women going topless in New Zealand is 100% legal and as we were doing nothing more than that we had a legal right to remain. The incident however left many of our supporters feeling like their bodies were something illegal, that while men could walk around topless, if they did it it was criminal. As the only relevant difference between our male and female supporters is their biological sex, the women came away feeling like their very existence was somehow lesser than their male counterparts. While FTNA understands why the police acted as they did, we wish the police would have supported us and our legal right to equality between genders as opposed to enabling discriminatory behaviour and fear mongering. At one point our supporters were verbally harrassed and threatened by those taking issue with us, and yet we were made to feel we were in the wrong by the police.

We feel this incident is an excellent example of the dialogue that sits just below the surface in New Zealand and vindicates the need for our movement. We fight for a world where women and men can enjoy the same social reality, where women are as comfortable expressing themselves in public as men.

FTNA’s next event will be a BBQ in Auckland, any and all are welcome for a fun day in the sun. Further details can be found on the Faceboook event page.

Free the Nipple Auckland

© Scoop Media