Retro Raunch Revisit

Free the tiddies! 30yrs ago today, the controversy of female toplessness in Canada began in Guelph,ON when on a sweltering hot day, 19yr old university student Gwen Jacob took off her shirt while walking down a street. After a local Karen who witnessed her, called the police to complain that one of her young children had glimpsed the bare boobies, Gwen was picked up and charged with public indecency. While awaiting trial, in the surrounding media scrum & protests about the right of women to claim that exhibited breasts are not lewd, Gwen blasted discrimination, bias, hypocrisy & double standard claiming that at the same time of her arrest, bare-chested men were visible in a nearby sports field. With the Criminal Code citing the specific nudity as being offensive for contravening community standards and thus a violation of law, a judge found her guilty in Jan 1992 and fined her $75. After losing on appeal to the Ontario Court, she then appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal who 5yrs later in December 1996, overturned her conviction saying being topless was not a sexual act, based for the purpose of profit, or an action that was under a definition of degrading/dehumanizing. The brief attention had seen Gwen appear on a talk show, and directly resulted in the cases of 2 other women (Saskatchewan, British Columbia) have their similar charges dropped. Although vindicated based on a less restrictive interpretation of morality, the ruling remains still murky due to the Supreme Court of Canada NOT finalizing that while there was no obscenity, being topless doesn't fall under the consideration of a constitutional right of equality. Although now legal (yet not necessarily culturally easier), the same actions by women afterward can still see charges laid & facing prosecution elsewhere in the country.
[I'm almost certain the talk show was Sally Jessy Raphael, and I def remember Gwen recounting a funny incident of how a city bus driver with passengers nearly jumped a curb and crashed into a pole because he was straining to look at her topless, and also of being annoyed & getting snippy at another female panel guest who was interruptive and condescendingly called her "dear" which set her off].