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Won't Somebody Think Of The Children: Women's Bodies Are Still Destroying Times Square
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 16, 2015
Modified Mar 26, 2018
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 16, 2015
Modified Mar 26, 2018
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Earlier this year, the NY Post published a scathing expose about a disgusting fringe group that has been terrorizing children and tourists around Times Square with their semi-exposed flesh. The Post riled up its easily manipulated readership by finding a Montana man willing to accuse those loathsome harlots painted in the colors of the American flag of "engaging in child pornography." April 2015 was a hell of a time to be alive.
Now, four months later, the Daily News has followed in their tabloid's brother's footsteps and joined in on the female body shaming from the lede on down: "An out-of-control influx of near-naked women jockeying for tips has turned Times Square into the XXX-Roads of the World — shocking children and incensing legions of tourists and New Yorkers alike."
Like the Post did four months ago, the News found two HIGHLY OFFENDED tourists to serve as their mouthpiece: "It’s inappropriate," fumed Tourist #1. "It is offensive,” fumed Tourist #2. "It doesn’t make me feel so angry that I want to leave, but I wasn’t really expecting to see anything like that. Naked women walking around is for Las Vegas, not New York." What would these fuming people say if they chanced upon a Spider-Man brawl, or a gropey Woody, or anything in Times Square circa 1970-1996?
Then there is the one token native NYer they were able to find, who twists himself into a pretzel trying not to say anything too offensive: "I understand New York is all about self-expression,” said NY Banker #1. "But there are a lot of kids out here. 'They could keep these women in a different spot, away from the Disney characters, but they wouldn’t make as much money. That’s what this is about, right?" So kids are in danger of being corrupted by a mere glimpse of the female form, but there's no problem with the bus ticket drivers stabbing each other, or the costume characters who fight over territory, or the body shaming advertisements?
The person with the best response to the whole nontroversy is the Naked Cowboy, who offers some sage words for the easily offended: "There’s so many boobs," sighed Robert John Burck, "you don’t look at them anymore."
The News actually has a second story today devoted to the subject, which paints a very clear line in the sand about what is and isn't art. "There are allegedly two kinds of women who parade nearly naked through Times Square for tips: street artists and pure capitalists," they write in the lede. But the true meaning of that sentence can only be parsed in the caption to one photo in the story, which reveals what this sudden interest in the morality of Times Square is really about: "The artsy types tend to be native New Yorkers, while the women focused more on the cash are often immigrants."
The only thing more offensive than that sentence is when they coin the horrible phrase at the end of the sentence: "Most of the ladies, in a patriotic show of pulchritude, sport the American flag across their breasts — but a growing number of critics aren’t saluting their multicolored mammaries."
As ever, no word on whether the News approached noted classic Times Square character witnesses Predator or Alien for comment.
Tagged
daily news
morality police
terror
Times Square
topless women
women's bodies
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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