Sunday is Second Annual Topless Day at Hampton Beach

The Gilford woman who has organized Free the Nipple day at Hampton Beach is telling fellow activists to "ROCK that town on Sunday" when women plan to turn out topless.

Heidi Lilley posted on Facebook to say she hopes to be at the beach; but if she can't make it, she wants the organizers to know she's with them in spirit.

It's not really a sit-in, or even a protest, though, according to B. Liz MacKinnon.

Kari Stephens of Hampton expects to attend Free the Nipple day at the beach on Sunday; and while she doesn't want to speak for others, for her, it's a human rights issue.

"I've been an advocate for lessening the hyper-sexualization of the human form for quite some time," she said, and going topless at the beach is another way to send the message.

"I actually have had both positive and negative experiences," she said when she's gone to the beach and not worn her bikini top. If people haven't been raised to be accepting of the human body, she said, they may be scared by women going topless or equate it with attention-seeking or an attempt to be sexually arousing.

It's not, she said.

She'd ask men if they are trying to arouse anyone when they take off their shirts to mow the lawn or go swimming, she said, and she'd guess the answer would be no.

New Hampshire state law does allow people to go topless, she said. Although Hampton officials honor the spirit of the Granite State's Constitution, that's not the case in Laconia or Gilford, where police have tried to enforce local ordinances.

Those rules are unenforceable, Stephens said, but the Gilford police have been trying to throw the book at some of the Free the Nipple people by charging them with criminal trespass.

Stephens and other activists left the Gilford Beach earlier this year when the park ranger ordered them to cover up and called police. They didn't want to spoil the day for the other beach-goers, she said, so they took their protest to the Gilford police station and stood on the highway -- topless -- to make their point.