“A study into why women flashed crowds of Calgary Flames fans during last year’s NHL playoffs should shed light on current Canadian attitudes about female nudity, says a Calgary professor. ‘There are gender role issues here,’ said Mary Valentich, of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Social Work… At a sex research forum last fall, Valentich heard a report on Canadian attitudes towards female toplessness that suggested that while most Canadians were comfortable with women baring their breasts at the beach, they were ill at ease when it was done on the street… Valentich is seeking women who flashed crowds of fans last spring along Calgary’s famous Red Mile — the site of huge parties and celebrations as the Calgary Flames marched into the Stanley Cup final… There are several possible scenarios as to why these women were lifting their tops including peer pressure… Valentich said women have flashed their breasts at folk festivals and other musical events in the past, but it is not an activity usually associated with hockey. ‘We need to hear from women what was happening to them in that particular setting,’ she said.” —AZcentral.com (US)

(Thanks to alanr for the link.)

So far as academic research goes, this doesn’t sound like an especially important topic to pursue. You want explanations, professor? It’s really pretty simple. Women flash their breasts at concerts and sporting events for the exact same reason that crazy football fans paint themselves blue and take off their clothes at January playoff matches — at outdoor stadiums. There’s a very simple explanation: it’s fun. Mass gatherings are like carnivals. They all have a little mardi gras in them. The rules regarding “normal” public behavior become flexible. If you flash your tits at the local shopping mall on an average Monday morning, you may well get arrested. But if you do it at a concert or a sporting event, it’s not exactly a big deal. The cops will look the other way — well, if they’re male cops and you’re a female flashing your breasts, they may not really look away. But they’ll let you get away with it.

Naturally all this happens against a background of convention and normative behavior. And while some might rebel against the inherent prudery of such norms, there is also a silver lining to repressive conventions. Do you really want hot chicks walking down the street with their mammaries hanging out? Your gut impulse might be to say “Lord yes! Bring ‘em on!” But then again, when you consider the way that desire operates, you might just realize that to see boobs all the time would deprive them of any erotic appeal whatsoever. You’d see Salma Hayek — who must have one of the best sets in Hollywood — prancing down Sunset Boulevard, and you’d yawn the same way you yawn at the sight of the dangling mammaries of tribal women in old copies of National Geographic. Desire most wants what it thinks it can’t have, and therefore “prudish” conventions — by seeming to hold things out of reach — are precisely what invest them with erotic intensity. Do you really want to inure yourself to the libidinal charge of the female breast? Ask any (straight) man on the street, and no doubt one of his fondest memories in life will be the first time — with groping, fumbling fingers — he snapped open a girl’s brassiere. Would you really want to deprive future generations of that thrilling moment?

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