I hear what you’re saying. If we just saw the boobs, like so many National Geographic ethnographies, would we still be interested in it. I think, to some degree, yes, but that’s sort of precisely my question. What if all women were to just walk around topless (at various topless affairs like beaches, or wherever men might, not the workplace, for example)? I think we might obsess a bit less.

I’m going to have to disagree with Chally here… (i.e. “your intentions are irrelevant b/c you’re in a position of power, which makes a woman/girl feel disrespected when her breasts are seen, etc”)… pardon me, but wtf are you talking about?

First of all, intentions are *entirely* relevant to this context. No girl is going to interpret a viewing of her breasts from a creepy suspected rapist in the same way she would from a trusted friend. Secondly, this power asymmetry that you presuppose does not apply universally to every interaction between a man and woman, nor does it always have a bearing on how a woman interprets an outside evaluation of her physical features. Finally, it strikes me as odd that you agree with Thomas that a man may appreciate a woman’s physical beauty while at the same time losing no respect for her humanity or objective non-physical merits, yet you would deny women the capability of discerning the difference between a man who is doing just that, and some Jersey Shore-esque douche who’s merely dreaming about fucking a piece of meat. If you feel “objectified and disrespected” every time you notice someone else noticing your physical features, I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been quite an unpleasant post-pubescent life indeed. But I don’t believe your experience or interpretations are generalizable across the entire female population by any stretch.