Anti-female-breast policy in leather contingent?

To the San Francisco Bay TIMES:

Photos of the 2004 SF Pride Parade's leather contingent, taken by The Mahtin, can be seen at IndyBay.org
[ http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/06/1687166.php ]

Unlike play parties, these photos don't seem to include any bare female breasts.
Were there ANY topfree women in the 2004 leather contingent?

In the early and mid Nineties, I think bare-breasted women were often seen in the leather contingent at SF Pride parades.

Later in the 90s, SF leather organizations were secretly given a hint that Pride and the SF Police Department would be happier if no bare female breasts appeared. So the leather contingent, bottoming to prudery, began self-censorship of skin.

Admittedly, SF Pride never OPENLY banned breasts; but in the late 90s the Dyke March pointedly distinguished itself from Pride by proclaiming "We have no titty policy"; a statement heard at DM as recently as 2004.

By 2003, or perhaps earlier, topfree women were common at the Pride Festival; and a few nude men were also seen there. In 2003 and 2004, the Pride committee clearly didn't object; so now the SFPD ignores nudes and topfree women at the Sunday afternoon festival. Such ignoring merely indicates tolerance, not approval.

Yet in the 2003 parade, a woman breast-cancer survivor/activist reportedly was pressured to cover her chest, by leather contingent leaders who claimed her single bare breast would cause TV cameras to avoid televising the contingent. She documented this censorship in SF Bay Times.

In June 2004, did the leather contingent continue to ban the female breast?

Also, is skin less welcome in the morning parade than in the afternoon festival? If so, is this because of television coverage?

I challenge leather contingent members and leaders to reply in the LGBTI/queer section of IndyBay.org and in SF Bay Times. Also I invite comments, including herstorical corrections, from all SF area queers, especially Dyke March and Pride participants.



Tortuga Bi LIBERTY
for Senior Unlimited Nudes
http://pages.prodigy.net/seniornude
1 July 2004