Women go topless for #FreetheNipple walk

Standing on a picnic table in the Highlands' Willow Park, 18-year-old Nan Elpers removed her top as cameras started to roll.

Stone-faced, she held her shirt to her side, taking in the scene. Beside her on the table, women held #FreetheNipple posters. In front of her, hundreds of men, women and children stopped talking to take photos or show support. Within seconds, many of them started to applaud.

It was a good turnout for Kentucky's first #FreetheNipple walk, where hundreds of men and women joined a national movement that has sparked similar marches in 60 other cities around the world — including a recent Manhattan march that drew 300 topless women.

In the Cherokee Triangle park Saturday, dozens of still-covered women waited for Elpers to talk.

"Lina Esco started this campaign in New York to change public policy," Elpers told the audience. "She did that. In New York, this is legal. In Kentucky, this is legal. This is not a protest. This is a promotion of the understanding, the acceptance and the personal acceptance of women's bodies. We are not here to change laws. We are here to change minds."

Women and men of all ages and sizes removed their shirts to participate in the walk, which headed from the park down Bardstown Road to the Douglass Loop and back, passing two farmers markets, numerous restaurants and dozens of filming men along the way.

Arric Fendwick, holding his phone camera up at an intersection on Bardstown Road, said he was filming the march for friends who didn't believe it was happening.

"It is a shocking thing," Fendwick said, "because it's in the city limits, not on a nudist campus or on a beach or in a private home, in a backyard. It is shocking seeing women getting together, bonding and doing something they feel is a positive thing. ... It's a new generation now. Do what you feel."

Twelve Louisville Metro Police Department officers escorted the march, blocking traffic and keeping the marchers to the sidewalks. Elpers said she was grateful for the city's support after the event took on a life of its own, far exceeding the response she anticipated when she first made a Facebook event inviting friends to join her in the cause.

"One of the things that has been so important to me and made this event so much more real is that I've gotten comments from women and girls I know, then on Facebook, people that I've never met before have given me their very personal reasons for supporting this campaign and why they need it," Elpers said.

Mariah Harrod and Michelle Kim, students at Centre College, drove from Danville, Ky., to attend the march after learning of the campaign through supporter and pop culture icon Miley Cyrus.

"I think it's definitely time and it's clearly unfair that women can't reveal their nipples in a social setting without being like considered immoral, scandalized or even possibly arrested," Harrod said.

Several of the women participating said they were unsure if they'd take off their tops or show their support while remaining clothed, but some chose to remove their shirts after seeing dozens of other women do so.

"That's a huge thing," Elpers said, "because this is as much a self-acceptance campaign as it is a public acceptance campaign, and it's been really powerful for a lot of people here."

Reach reporter Bailey Loosemore at 502-582-4646 or bloosemore@courier-journal.com.