EDITORIAL: Times Square “desnudas” are part of tourist culture

Times Square is the center of the city that never sleeps. Full of theatres, restaurants and shops, it is a go-to tourist destination in New York. And if you’ve walked through Times Square lately, you’ve probably seen some pretty interesting activity in the street performers, costumed characters and even nearly naked women.

You may be asking, how is this allowed? These women, who call themselves “desnudas,” basically wander the streets topless, wearing only thong underwear and body paint, asking tourists to pose for pictures and hoping for money in return. But, in the words of The New York Times, these women are “topless panhandlers.” And both going topless and panhandling are legal in New York.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed a mayoral task force in association with the Times Square Alliance on Wednesday to bring some containment to these “street performers,” whom he believes have become much too aggressive, the Times reported. It would also place regulations on CD sellers, bus ticket sellers, people who hand out flyers and basically anyone else who works in the Times Square area by refurbishing the plazas on which these street performers stand.

Civil rights lawyers, however, argue that placing regulations on these street performers is a violation of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression.

While Times Square is nightmarish for most American tourists to walk through, there’s nowhere else in the United States that emits that same sort of feel. Giving the impression of a concentrated Las Vegas, it seems that Times Square has become what we would call a “tourist trap,” in every sense of the word. Tourists from all over the world are romanced by these street performers, who draw them in with cute fuzzy faces or naked bodies and then pester them for money once their photo is taken.

But while this tourist culture may seem weird and degrading to us in the United States, this type of tourism is strikingly similar to tourist cultures elsewhere, such as those in European countries. That being said, aside from these women being topless, their behavior is in line with exactly what Times Square is: a place of entertainment and salesmanship.

However, it seems that these street performers may fall under a different category than those who are selling CDs or handing out flyers for Broadway shows. If this is true, then it does become discriminatory to only regulate this one group of performers in the Times Square area. And this is where the line becomes blurred. That being said, it does seem sort of odd that taking photos with naked people on the street is a form of entertainment these days, but we digress.

Let us keep in mind that there are two kinds of laws that regulate free speech. To break them down in laymen’s terms, there is regulation in both what a person can and can’t say, and in when and where you can and can’t say it. It seems the mayor’s task force isn’t planning on censoring what the performers can say (e.g. being topless and painted in stars and stripes), but instead when and where they can say it. Realistically, then, as long as the mayor’s task force doesn’t single out just these women or just Elmo by removing them from the premises, then it would seem free speech is not being threatened.

However, some of this behavior is scarring. We are twenty-something’s who don’t want to see half naked cowboys on the street — what about the thousands of children drawn to the area each day? Perhaps, then, we can consider this more of a harassment issue than a free speech issue. If these performers truly are harassing people on the street, then we need to take action in order to protect people from harm.

Of course, if these street performers don’t act aggressively, then there isn’t really an issue with their activity. But many people do feel accosted — it makes for a generally unpleasant experience if you are the one to whom Hello Kitty is reaching out for a photo while you are simply trying to open the door to Starbucks.

This sort of behavior doesn’t just occur in Times Square, either. Washington Square Park and Central Park can be the home of some pretty odd activity. Even still, if you were to take these street performers and costumed characters out of their homes in Manhattan, there likely wouldn’t be a question as to whether or not this behavior should be considered inappropriate, if not slightly horrifying.

A fine line must be drawn between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, but that would be incredibly difficult to do. After all, the New York Police Department can’t possibly have eyes on every single Times Square street performer throughout the day — they can’t realistically regulate grabbing or accosting. In this case, it wouldn’t be difficult to define a line, but it would be incredibly hard to enforce it. Perhaps the mayor’s task force could work to define a specific area in which activities such as these could take place. Either way, it would take a great deal of effort to actually remove these people from the streets — for now, naked performers might be here to stay.