The sun is radiant. The young woman has spread a yellow blanket on the fresh grass. She moved there to do macramé. She wears a long skirt printed with butterflies, her breasts in the air, a cigarette between her lips.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
No, it’s not set in 1969.
We are May 29, 2022, in a park in Quebec. Éloÿse Paquet Poisson, 21, is hot. Around her, several men are enjoying the sun, shirtless. She takes off her t-shirt. After a while, a policeman approaches him.
“We would ask you to cover yourself, please.
– Nope.
‘It’s because there are families passing through here.
– OK ? Have you seen all the chested dudes in the park?
– Yes…
“Well, why don’t you tell them?”
“We just want you to cover up.
– No, it will not happen, ever. »
Ten minutes later, five police officers arrived as reinforcements, according to the testimony that Éloÿse Paquet Poisson posted on Facebook. They spend 20 minutes, she writes, in “their big tank of big straight ci white guys full of cash.”
No mistake possible: we are in 2022.
“The five of them come towards me. My heart is pounding, but I keep my breasts high and my gaze piercing. »
The police explain to her that they wanted to make sure that she was not committing an act of indecency – which would have earned her a fine. Doing macrame, according to the latest news, is not considered an indecent act. So the police leave. End of the story. Or almost.
Éloÿse Paquet Poisson’s Facebook post goes viral. Her story is making its way into news reports. The mayor of Quebec reacts: no, he will not block topless people in his city. In any case, the law does not prohibit Canadians from exposing their breasts in public.
That includes, yes, Canadian women.
The police recognized that. They made no mistake. Not the slightest microburr. At Sun, Eloÿse Paquet Poisson admits that they were “very smart”.
In short, this story is not really one. In reaction, however, the demonstration “Free the breasts” is organized in Montreal. Women are invited to demonstrate, topless, on June 19, at the tam-tam of Mount Royal. “Because gender equality is far from being achieved. Because it bothers when we take control of our body, ”we explain on the Facebook page of the event.
Our mothers and grandmothers burned their bras. We are now invited to burn the rest. Let’s revolt! It is high time, we are told, to normalize the nipples.
And why not ? We are there, I guess. Although the law does not prohibit women from exposing their breasts, recent cases show that it is still disturbing. A lot. Like that absurd incident in March when a security guard banned a mother from breastfeeding at the Eaton Center.
Four centuries after Molière, women are still enjoined to cover this breast that cannot be seen.
The only reaction to the non-story of Éloÿse Paquet Poisson shows how much Quebec society is still moved by a simple pair of tits. Starting with that of the citizen who saw fit to call the police. Can you imagine the face he would make if he had to walk on European beaches?
Over there, a bare-breasted woman is normal. Unmarked. No one calls the police for so little. No one thinks of writing a column. No one is doing call-in shows on the radio.
Heard on the airwaves of a private radio, Manon, a listener: “If women walk around bare-breasted, they are going to be stared at, whistled, some could even be raped. And after that, we’re going to accuse the men of… it’s provocation! »
It was Tuesday, June 7, 2022. I specify the year, because one could believe that it happens in 1969, that too.
Read in a daily newspaper of the metropolis, the same day: a columnist who, in his capacity as “straight honest, in good working order”, warns future demonstrators that men will look at their breasts, whether they are agreement or not”. And that this vision will excite them.
Incidentally, the columnist attacks the misogyny of a belief that requires women to cover themselves to hide their bodies from the lustful eyes of men…
I want to say: if they are excited, it’s their damn problem. Let them learn to control themselves, damn it. And I’m talking about both Islamists and decent straight guys in good working order.
I don’t find it hard to believe that people are shocked or bothered by a topless woman in the park or at the beach on a hot summer day. It’s all a matter of habit. The first women to wear the bikini were just as shocking and disturbing. At the time, good people called the police in the face of such indecency. You have to believe that the world is changing. Slowly.