Life

Best. Body Positive Stunt. EVER.

by Emma Cueto

You can see all kinds of things on Google Street View; indeed, the snapshots it provides of life all over the world sometimes even result in people getting immortalized on the map (at least until the next update). But in what has to be a first, Australian woman Karen Davis recently flashed the Google Street View car, resulting in her topless image going up on the site. But don't worry — that's exactly what she wanted to happen.

I look at Google Maps a lot and I wanted to be on there and I thought this is the way to do it,” said Davis, the thirty-eight year old woman from Port Pirie, Australia. In fact, according to her story, she actually chased after the car once she heard it was in the neighborhood in hopes of getting herself included. She caught up with the vehicle just in time to pull up her shirt and get caught on camera.

The whole thing was mostly for fun, she says, but there was also a bigger point to it as well. “I want my kids to be proud of their body and proud of who they are no matter what they look like," she said.

Since her image caught the world's attention, Google has apparently tried to get rid of it, first by obscuring Davis's breasts and eventually by blurring out her entire body. She currently looks like this:

But if that seems excessive, that's nothing compared to the response from the Pirie police. Davis has been charged with disorderly conduct, though it's unclear what sort of punishment she may face. But it seems that local officials are taking the whole thing very seriously — perhaps too seriously.

"The woman's actions were the same as someone flashing their genitals and the public expectation is that we take action," said local police chief Superintendent Scott Denny. "Recently in Port Pirie we arrested a man for exposing himself in public — this incident is no different. It is not appropriate for anyone to expose themselves in public places."

So apparently Port Pirie is not one of the many places where going topless is totally legal for women. If they were, they might have realized that seeing a woman's breasts is not the end of the world — and that, in fact, it is not the same as flashing genitalia. Seeing as how genitalia is genitalia and breasts are... what's the word I'm looking for... not. They are not genitalia. Just, you know, to make sure we're all clear on that.

I'll be honest: The whole response, both from Google and from the town, seems disproportionate to me. Do people really get this freaked out by the sight of a woman's breasts? Given the amount of porn you can find via Google, you'd think they wouldn't blush so easily — but then again, maybe they figure that boobs are only okay when part of a male fantasy. The sight of them just being normal body parts? Outrageous!

Obviously it would be one thing if Davis were caught unawares by the Street View car and didn't want her photo on Google for the whole world to see. But she's totally fine with it. So maybe everyone should just calm down, stop with the legal action, and quit attempting to scrub her very existence literally off the map. I'm just saying.

Image: Google Maps Street View