Does the US have a problem with topless women?

Women fed up with being forced to cover up their breasts and nipples are challenging American laws about nudity and sparking a debate about the country's attitude to the naked female form.

In September, Effie Krokos was awarded a $50,000 (£38,178) civil settlement after she took her shirt off in public in Loveland, Colorado, and panan was issued a summons for doing so.

The 20-year-old was charged with indecent exposure after she played Frisbee topless in her fiance's front yard.

She had thought that the law in Colorado had changed and she was safe to take her shirt off when she got hot and sweaty during the game - after all her fiance had removed his top too. They were equal, right?

Image copyrightEFFIE KROKOS
Image caption
Effie Krokos was playing Frisbee topless because she thought it was allowed
"I thought it was fine because there had been a ruling by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals which covers Colorado. I'd read an article about it saying that it was OK for women to go topless.

"It was a warm September day and the weather พนันออนไลน์ was roasting. I took my shirt off without thinking too much about it."

But a few hours later, a police officer turned up to tell her that there had been complaints and she was facing charges.

Krokos told the BBC: "I kept asking the police officer what I was being charged with, but I was just told I was disgusting the neighbours and that there were children around, and what made it OK for me to think I could be topless?

"I was taken aback because for everyone to be here today who was breastfed, you would have had a topless woman feed you. What is so disgusting about that?"

Life-changing effects
Krokos said that by the time the officer arrived at her home, she was fully clothed while her fiance remained topless, and yet there had been no complaints about him.

"It's not like I was standing in the middle of the road, screaming 'look at me'. I was discreetly playing Frisbee in my yard when I had my top off," she added.

But it didn't matter. She had to get lawyers involved to have the charges dismissed and the case sealed so it would not come up in background checks.

If the charge of indecent exposure had been upheld it would have derailed her dream of teaching.

"There was a risk at one point that I would have been marked down as a sexual predator as indecent exposure is a sexual offence," Krokos said.

Free the Nipple
Krokos had thought she would be safe because of a court ruling made earlier in the year.

Brit Hoagland and Samantha Six, activists with Free the Nipple - a global movement that campaigns for gender equality in nudity - sued the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, for females to have the right to be topless in the same way men could be.

In Fort Collins, females aged 10 and older were not allowed to "knowingly appear in any public place" with their breasts exposed. This also included private places where there was any chance of somebody at ground level seeing them from a public spot.

There were some exemptions such as breast-feeding but Hoagland says the city council's stance "criminalised and sexualised minors over 10 years old" and she wanted to take a stand.