Public Decency: Steady as She Goes

The law in all its majesty seems to have found the dividing line between permissible and impermissible exposure of female breasts. The topless-bathing-suit caper may be finally resolved—at least in California.

In 1964 Jeanne and Harlan Davis tangled with police at a boite they ran called the Golden Nugget in suburban Los Angeles. There, the cops spied ex-Dancer Jeanne, 36, modeling the lower half of a leopardskin bikini without the upper half. Distressed, they arrested the Davises for violating Section 650½ of the state penal code, a catchall law for moral suasion that forbids any act "which openly outrages...

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