Skip to content

Friday, Jul. 7, 2023

Did Minnesota’s tourism office produce a promotional video for Pride that included a topless dancer?

Alberto Gomez, MinnPost
yes

Explore Minnesota collaborated with the Wanderful Wives, a travel vlogging duo, in 2022 to promote Pride and other activities in the area. A topless person wearing nipple coverings with tassels can be seen for less than one second in the promotional Pride video shared on Instagram last month.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, says its nudity policy has become "more nuanced over time." Its current policy reads:

"While we restrict some images of female breasts that include the nipple, we allow other images, including those depicting acts of protest, women actively engaged in breast-feeding and photos of post-mastectomy scarring."

Minnesota law does not have an outright ban on women being topless, but does stipulate that "willfully and lewdly" exposing the body is a misdemeanor.

Similar concerns have been raised about Pride events in Seattle and on the White House lawn.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

MinnPost is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces thoughtful, in-depth journalism about civic and cultural affairs impacting Minnesota. Through our reporting, we take readers beyond the headlines and deep into the issues that matter through our public-service journalism, empowering them to engage in the politics and policy-making shaping Minnesota’s future.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.