Holly Van Voast (born 1965) is an American artist, photographer, videographer, painter, and perceived topless activist mostly known for her topless appearances in public and in front of celebrities. These events tested New York City courts' interpretation of legal precedent from New York State, asserting that, on the basis of gender equality, women as well as men can walk topless in public.
Holly Van Voast is an artist and journalist from the Bronx [1] who has created an entertainment persona she calls Harvey Van Toast, actually herself topless with a painted moustache on. The character Harvey Van Toast was created, according to Van Voast, to reflect the "punk drag" nightlife performance community she has documented with her photography and videos.
In May 2013, the New York City Police Department directed its personnel through a memo not to arrest women for "simply exposing their breasts in public", because in doing simply that, the Department stated, "women are guilty of no crime." [2] Even if the topless display draws a lot of attention, officers are to "give a lawful order to disperse the entire crowd and take enforcement action" against those who do not comply, the memo stated. "Whether the individuals are clothed is not a factor in making a determination about whether the above-mentioned crowd conditions exist." [2]
This directive was the result of a federal suit filed by Van Voast against the city and the police department in May 2013. The suit listed a number of past episodes in 2011 and 2012 in which the police detained, arrested or issued summonses to Van Voast, for baring her breasts at sites that included the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, in front of a Manhattan elementary school, on the A train and outside a Hooters restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. That last episode, the suit alleged, concluded with Van Voast being forcibly taken by the police to a nearby hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. [2] The lawsuit aims to prove the NYPD's institutional ignorance of The People v. Ramona Santorelli and Mary Lou Schloss resulted in repeated violations of Van Voast's civil rights.
Each complaint against her was dismissed or dropped, Van Voast stated in her suit, because New York State Supreme Court has ruled more than two decades ago that baring one's chest in public—for noncommercial activity—is as perfectly legal for a woman as it is for a man. [3]
Van Voast has covered New York City as topless Harvey Van Toast, exposing her ideas to passers by and celebrities alike, and calling herself "the topless paparazzo". [4]
Van Voast maintains that she created the Harvey Van Toast character as an entertainment persona and has never presented herself as an activist. She has appeared at Go Topless Day to talk to attendees about the event's sponsor, a controversial UFO religion named Raëlism which is criticized for activities included in cult-status.
In October 2012, Van Voast appeared in court following a summons she received for exposing herself inside Grand Central Station and The Oyster Bar in August. She took her top off before judge Rita Mella [5] and she refused to cover herself or apologize, as asked by the judge. After the judge tabled the case for later in the day, Van Voast stated that what she did "was out of line", which the judge decided was equivalent to an apology and dismissed the case, sealing it for six months, during which the defendant would have to "remain out of trouble". [5]
On account of disrobing inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in January 2012, Van Voast was arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct. She was also cited for pot possession. In February 2013, the court dismissed all charges against her. [6] Upon exiting the courthouse, Van Voast took off her shirt and bared her breasts to photographers and passers by. [6]
In October 2013, Van Voast was awarded a $40,000 settlement in a lawsuit against New York City and the NYPD, while her lawyers got $37,250. [7]
Topfreedom is a cultural and political movement seeking changes in laws to allow women to be topless in public places where men are permitted to be barechested, as a form of gender equality. Specifically, the movement seeks the repeal or overturning of laws which restrict a woman's right not to have her chest covered at all times in public.
The monokini, designed by Rudi Gernreich in 1964, consisting of only a brief, close-fitting bottom and two thin straps, was the first women's topless swimsuit. His revolutionary and controversial design included a bottom that "extended from the midriff to the upper thigh" and was "held up by shoestring laces that make a halter around the neck." Some credit Gernreich's design with initiating, or describe it as a symbol of, the sexual revolution.
A wet T-shirt contest is a competition involving exhibitionism, typically featuring young women contestants at a nightclub, bar, or resort. Wet T-shirt contestants generally wear white or light-colored T-shirts without bras, bikini tops, or other garments beneath. Water is then sprayed or poured onto the participants' chests, causing their T-shirts to turn translucent and cling to their breasts. The comparatively rarer male equivalent is the wet boxer contest, sometimes held at gay bars.
Toplessness refers to the state in which a woman's breasts, including her areolas and nipples, are exposed, especially in a public place or in a visual medium. The male equivalent is barechestedness, also commonly called shirtlessness.
Alycia Lane is an American television journalist. Until October 2013, she served as weekday morning anchor at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. From September, 2003 until January, 2008, she was co-anchor of the weekday evening newscasts on KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lane's contract with KYW-TV was terminated shortly after being arrested for allegedly striking a New York police officer and calling her a homophobic slur.
Judicial immunity is a form of sovereign immunity, which protects judges and others employed by the judiciary from liability resulting from their judicial actions.
Romona Moore was a 21-year-old Hunter College honors student who disappeared April 24, 2003, in Brooklyn, New York. Two months later, her body was discovered outside an abandoned house which an anonymous caller had directed her mother to. Two male suspects were arrested; they were convicted in 2006 of having kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered Moore. The young immigrant from Guyana had been living at home with her parents and relatives before she was kidnapped.
Throughout the history of the New York City Police Department, numerous instances of corruption and misconduct, and allegations of such, have occurred. Over 12,000 cases have resulted in lawsuit settlements totaling over $400 million during a five-year period ending in 2014. In 2019, taxpayers funded $68,688,423 as the cost of misconduct lawsuits, a 76 percent increase over the previous year, including about $10 million paid out to two exonerated individuals who had been falsely convicted and imprisoned.
Go Topless Day is an annual event held in the United States to support the right of women to go topless in public on gender-equality grounds. In states where women have that right topfreedom laws are celebrated, and protests are held in states where topless women are prohibited.
Adrian Schoolcraft is a former New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who secretly recorded police conversations from 2008 to 2009. He brought these tapes to NYPD investigators in October 2009 as evidence of corruption and wrongdoing within the department. The tapes were used as evidence of arrest quotas leading to police abuses such as wrongful arrests, and that emphasis on fighting crime sometimes resulted in under-reporting of crimes to artificially deflate CompStat numbers.
Stephanie Adams was an American model and author. She was Playboy Playmate of the Month for November 1992.
Elizabeth Annette "Beth" Grimes is an Associate Justice of the California Second District Court of Appeal, Division Eight, having been appointed to the post by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010.
The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society was a group of several dozen women and a few men that had, since August 17, 2011, organized regular gatherings around New York City, meeting to read and discuss books in public while topless. The primary objective of the group, besides enjoying the sun and book reading, was to create awareness that New York law allows toplessness in public, and to change social attitudes to the exposure of women's breasts. The group's blog had reported that there had been no harassment of the participants by the police, and very rarely by the public.
Topfreedom in Canada has largely been an attempt to combat the interpretation of indecency laws that considered a woman's breasts to be indecent, and therefore their exhibition in public an offence. In British Columbia, it is a historical issue dating back to the 1930s and the public protests against materialistic lifestyle held by the radical religious sect of the Freedomites, whose pacifist beliefs led to their exodus from Russia to Canada at the end of the 19th century. The Svobodniki became famous for their public nudity: mostly for their nude marches in public and the acts of arson committed also in the nude.
Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., 959 F. Supp. 2d 540, is a set of cases addressing the class action lawsuit filed against the City of New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and named and unnamed New York City police officers ("Defendants"), alleging that defendants have implemented and sanctioned a policy, practice, and/or custom of unconstitutional stops and frisks by the New York Police Department ("NYPD") on the basis of race and/or national origin, in violation of Section 1983 of title forty-two of the United States Code, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Constitution and laws of the State of New York.
Free the Nipple is a topfreedom campaign created in 2012 during pre-production of a 2014 film of the same name. The campaign highlights the general convention of allowing men to appear topless in public while considering it sexual or indecent for women to do the same, and asserts that this difference is an unjust treatment of women. The campaign argues that it should be legally and culturally acceptable for women to bare their nipples in public.
In April 2013, Emma Sulkowicz, an American fourth-year visual arts major at Columbia University in New York City, filed a complaint with Columbia University requesting expulsion of fellow fourth-year student and German national, Paul Nungesser, alleging he had raped Sulkowicz in her dorm room on August 27, 2012. Nungesser was found not responsible by a university inquiry.
During his career as a film producer, Harvey Weinstein, formerly of Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company (TWC), exploited his influential position to commit criminal sexual acts including rape.
A desnuda is a seminude, topless female performer covered in body paint who poses for photos in exchange for tips in the pedestrian plaza of New York City's Times Square. The desnudas typically wear thong underwear, high heels, and use red, white, and blue body paint to emulate the colors of the American flag. The performers are primarily Latina. In Spanish, desnuda means naked.
In the United States, states have primary jurisdiction in matters of public morality. The topfreedom movement has claimed success in a few instances in persuading some state and federal courts to overturn some state laws on the basis of sex discrimination or equal protection, arguing that a woman should be free to expose her chest in any context in which a man can expose his. Other successful cases have been on the basis of freedom of expression in protest, or simply that exposure of breasts is not indecent.
