August 2005
Phoenix Feeley is arrested in New York City for being topless in public. She is later released and receives $28,000 in damages because female toplessness had been legal in NYC for almost 15 years.
January 2007
At a Television Critics Association Q&A, the creator of Desperate Housewives claims to spend $100,000 a week digitally editing tapes to remove nipples that show through clothing.
2012
Director Lina Esco shoots her film Free The Nipple, which features a group of women coming together in NYC to protest public nudity laws and censorship. She finds it almost impossible to release due to the subject matter.
February 2012
Live! With Kelly viewers mistake the darts on Kelly Ripa’s Stella McCartney dress for nipples. Mass outrage ensues. The show receives so many letters that Ripa apologizes on air with a joke: “Everyone knows I had my nipples removed years ago.”
December 2013
A frustrated Esco starts the #FreeTheNipple movement, which aims to desexualize the nipple in the eyes of Western society and fight indecent exposure laws, taboos and censorship policies that unfairly target women.
February 2014
Kendall Jenner posts a photo of herself from Marc Jacobs’s runway show at New York Fashion Week. She is wearing a sheer blouse, and the photo is promptly removed by Instagram.
March 2014
Ukrainian “real-life Barbie” Valeria Lukyanova has her nipples surgically removed.
April 2014
Rihanna posts her NSFW cover of French magazine Lui, which results in her being briefly suspended from Instagram. She quits the social media app for six months in protest.
May 2014
In support of Rihanna, Scout Willis (yes, Bruce and Demi’s daughter) walks the streets of New York City wearing nothing but a floral skirt. She also stages a Twitter protest, posting images of the event and writing, “What @instagram won’t let you see #FreeTheNipple.”
May 2014
Instagram suspends Vogue creative director Grace Coddington for posting a pencil drawing of herself with nipples. After her account is reinstated, Coddington posts a censored picture of her cats to make a statement.
June 2014
Chicago feminists Robyn Graves and Michelle Lytle launch The TaTa Top– a bikini with photos of bare breasts printed on the cups. It comes in three different skin tones to look as natural as possible. They encourage customers to post on social media with the hashtag #TheTaTaTop when they don the bikini. Many of the photos are removed by Instragram.
July 2014
Cara Delevingne posts a topless photo on her Instragram account to support #FreeTheNipple. Her nipple is covered with an X, but her male companion freely bares his. Underneath there are two captions, “censored” and “free.”
October 2014
Chelsea Handler posts a photo spoofing Vladmir Putin, riding a horse topless. Instagram removes the photo. She tweets: “If a man posts a photo of his nipples, it’s OK, but not a woman? Are we in 1825?”
December 2014
The film Free The Nipple is released in North America by Sundance Selects.
March 2015
Iceland member of Parliament Björt Ólafsdóttir posts a photo of her naked left breast in solidarity with a trolled 17-year-old #FreeTheNipple activist.
June 2015
Model Chrissy Teigen posts a topless photo on Instagram to promote her appearance in W magazine’s social media sirens shoot. It is removed. She continues to post the image as a sketch or coloured pencil crosshatch drawing or oil painting, and it is removed each time.
June 2015
Free The Nipple becomes available to stream on Netflix.
July 2015
Women begin Photoshopping male nipples on their breasts to protest Instagam’s gender-biased censorship.
August 2015
Miley Cyrus appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live with her breasts exposed, save for some sparkly nipple pasties. She passionately advocates for the #FreeTheNipple movement, saying, “[My dad would] rather me have my tits out and be a good person than have a shirt on and be a bitch.”
August 2015
The Parents Television Council blasts vocal #FreeTheNipple supporter Miley Cyrus in a statement condemning her split-second (purposeful?) nip slip at the VMAs.
September 2015
Trans woman Courtney Demone, undergoing hormone replacement therapy, starts the campaign #DoIHaveBoobsNow? to challenge #FreeTheNipple to include all bodies, not just cis women. She asks: “At what point in my breast development do I need to start covering my nipples?”
September 2015
Naomi Campbell posts a topless photo of herself from a Garage Magazine shoot and hashtags it #FreeTheNipple. Instagram removes the post.
September 2015
After a #FreeTheNipple rally in Springfield, Missouri, city council passes an indecent exposure law that also prohibits underboob and sideboob.
sabrinam@nowtoronto.com | @sabrinamaddeaux
