Photos: Women Go Topless At North Avenue Beach Protest (NSFW)

By Emma G. Gallegos in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 24, 2015 4:10PM

This Sunday's Go Topless Day protest along Lake Michigan was a relatively quiet affair in Chicago.

The Raëlian Movement, a sex-positive religion whose theology involves aliens, has been holding annual Go Topless protests all over the world each August since 2007. The protests, which attracts topless women, allies and lots of men with cameras, target laws that bar women from going topless in the same way that men are allowed to.

Female toplessness is illegal in Chicago, and last year a woman who wore only body paint was cited and sued the city. (There's a change.org petition from a few months ago calling for charges to be dropped.) This year protesters—both females and men acting in solidarity—wore pasties. Like other years, it was a mild-mannered affair at North Avenue Beach with a small group handing out fliers and chatting to passers-by about our society's prudish approach to female nipples.

There were bigger turnouts for Go Topless Day in New York City where toplessness is legal but ruffling some feathers thanks to the body-painted ladies of Times Square.