What the Times Square Topless Girls Will Teach My Son

“Keep your nose clean.” My grandfather’s straightforward advice to recognize and avoid a troublesome situation is an axiom I’ll be passing down to my son one day. Probably when I start explaining women to him. Not the girls who chase him on the playground, mind you. The women who drag mattresses around college campuses and chase him in Times Square, asking if he’ll pay money to take a picture of their topless bodies.

We knew DeBlasio would return New York to the ’70s. We just didn’t think that return would involve topless women shaking it for tourists’ tips. Folks in the ’70s were respectable enough to keep that kind of show behind closed doors. Today it isn’t just a show, it’s a “social justice movement.” This “movement” is defended by feminists, no less, who feel it is a woman’s right to walk around topless in public. Offering to exchange photographs for tips. With pimps hanging over them. Sorry, I mean “bodyguards” “protecting” them in exchange for 30% of their “earnings.” Life, liberty and the pursuit of boobs for cash. Seriously it’s in the Constitution. Check it out.

These women and their supporters are not only turning women into objects, they’ve made themselves an object lesson for my son. Along with teaching him that you don’t pay a woman to look at her breasts, he’ll be learning that women should value their breasts (and their bodies in general) at a higher price than a spare dollar bill. Men, too, for that matter. My son will be learning about concepts like false accusations and how wrongful convictions impact your chances when it comes to both higher education and employment opportunities. These women will teach him how a casual attitude toward sex can lead to having to go door to door telling your new neighbors you’re a sex offender thanks to this thing called a “permanent record.” Speaking of permanent, these women and their pimps will be used to warn my son of the bodily damage that can be inflicted via a beating delivered in a back alley by a pimp with a bad attitude. In short, these women will exemplify to my son how being in the wrong place at the wrong time can ruin your life.

I’ve been to Times Square since DeBlasio took over. It’s a hole. The fact that women willfully parade around half naked with their pimps lording over them does not surprise me. It’s a behavior that gels with the seedy vibe. I felt cleaner after watching Midnight Cowboy than I did after walking that sorry neck of Midtown. Amsterdam, with its display-window peep shows, has more class. But, New York is far from dead. I will be reminding my son that great places like the Top of the Rock and Museum of Modern Art are only a stone’s throw away. I’ll also be emphasizing to my son the trouble he’d be asking for if he ever so much as got near that hot mess of a show in Times Square.

So, dear topless women of New York, thank you for making my job as a parent all the easier. Women like you were once the stuff of hushed whispers and wild imaginations. You would inspire a young man’s intrigue and lure him into dark places or lurid pay websites. Now my son can see you for what you’ve allowed yourselves to become, and what you’re encouraging every modern woman to be: more trouble than you’re worth.

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