A woman’s right to go topless in New York has a long history. The defendants in the 1992 case People v. Ramona Santorelli and Mary Lou Schloss were arrested along with five others in a Rochester park for violating a law which prohibited women from showing “that portion of the breast which is below the top of the areola.” (Areola = coloring around the nipple). Santorelli and Schloss argued that the law was “discriminatory on its face since it defines ‘private or intimate parts’ of a woman’s but not a man’s body as including a specific part of the breast.” The New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the two women.

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