Okay, I grant you it’s been hot. Really hot. To quote Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues, “Africa hot.” This weekend, New Yorkers were treated to temperatures over 100 degrees. But, contrary to Nelly’s come-on, that’s no excuse to take off all your clothes. Unless you’re protesting in favor of a woman’s right to go bare breasted. According to the New York Daily News, 10 women went au naturel in Columbus Circle yesterday to protest the arrest of a gal who opted to bare all on the Lower East Side. The woman, a self-described gypsy who lives in an RV powered by veggie oil, and her pals wanted to affirm a ‘woman’s right to be top-free just as the other half of the population,” according to her lawyer. Now, I’m all for going topless by the pool or by the seaside, or in an appropriately zoned “Gentlemen’s Club.” But on the street? On rollerblades? All aerodynamic questions aside, I think these ladies have the wrong idea. If I were in the habit of frivolous protesting, I’d be asking lawmakers to make sure we all kept our tops on. Even men. Especially men. Whether sporting a testosterone tapestry and a beer gut or waxed clean and gym-chiseled, it is just not acceptable to peel off your T-shirt, tuck it into your shorts and waltz down the street schvitzing on passersby. No one wants to see that.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit