Small turnout for Topless Day in Pittsburgh
Attendance at Sunday's “Go Topless” rally Downtown was as scant as a dancer's pasties, but organizers said the group's call for equality in public nudity laws drew wide support from the public.
Fewer than a dozen men and women took part in the rally, which took place mostly outside the Wyndham Grand Hotel because city nudity laws are more relaxed than those in adjacent Point State Park, said organizer Brian John Paradis, 41, of Upper St. Clair.
While the three or four men in attendance were able to strip off their shirts and soak in the sunshine, the women had to wear pasties or stickers on city land, and bikini tops once they marched into Point State Park on their way to the fountain — though only Judith Sherwood, 35, of Hamilton, N.J., admitted to taking the law to its limits.
“The rangers said the women wouldn't be allowed in the park with just pasties on,” Paradis said. “That said, we saw a couple of women down here with bikinis on that were showing more than our women with pasties.”
Organizers expected at least 60 people to show up based on responses to a Facebook group. Sherwood said she was pleased by the positive reception the rally received from pedestrians and park-goers on the sunny afternoon.
Passing men and women in cars honked their horns and shouted support, and one woman from the street joined the small march to the fountain with her shirt still on, Paradis said. There were a few hecklers at first, and a few men carrying cameras left the park looking disappointed.
“I think people expected complete nudity,” Sherwood said, having covered up with a bikini top to enter the park. “This is my first time in Pittsburgh, and apparently nothing happens here.”
Park rangers said no one was cited after the initial warning to obey park rules.
Organizers of the event, set to take place in 45 cities on Sunday, said it was based on the belief in equal rights for women, including equal treatment of toplessness for men and women.
The day of the rally is set for the Sunday closest to the anniversary of the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
“If we want to save the world, it has to have a more feminine aspect to it, not have this stigma around women's sexuality,” Sherwood said. “Equal rights means equal everything.”
Matthew Santoni is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5625 or msantoni@tribweb.com.
