Maine Topless Protesters Draw Oglers

The ideal: A topless woman walking down a street on a hot day would arouse no more attention than a guy parading his beer gut and back hair for all the world to see. The reality: A few dozen Maine women yesterday flaunting their right to go sans shirt ran smack into a wall of quite-attentive young men and their cameraphones, reports the Portland Press Herald. "I'm amazed," says the 20-year-old organizer, and "enraged (at) the fact that there's a wall of men watching."

The organizer admitted that women going topless "is not socially acceptable yet, and obviously there's going to be a reaction to something that breaks the norm." But as for the gents armed with cameras, "A lot of people were taking pictures without even asking," she says. "Even if you're somewhere where people are fully clothed, you should ask." (More topless stories.)