This morning I saw several stories appear in my Facebook newsfeed about Gorgi Coghlan and her supposed wardrobe malfunction on The Project last night. If you haven’t heard about it – apparently the seams on her dress made it look like her nipples could be seen through the material of the dress.

I have two questions:

1. Why the hell does it matter?

2. And if they were her nipples rather than the seams of her dress, who the hell cares?

Here’s a quote from one article on the subject:

“Sometimes a screen test can make the world of difference. This is the lesson Gorgi Coghlan learned last night when the top she was wearing – rather than the news she was reading – became the focus of everyone’s attention.”

This is the lesson she learned? Why exactly did she need to learn a lesson? And who was it that taught her that lesson? What is so traumatic about the visibility of a set of nipples? Are they so offensive that not only should they remain covered up, but it should also appear as though they never even existed in the first place?

There’s a particular reason why this incident is bothering me so much.

I went to a cocktail party the other weekend (where, for the record, I had an absolute blast for most of the night). I wore a new dress to this party – a dress I found that day and absolutely fell in love with. It was a halter neck, but it wasn’t until I got home that I realised it had been so long since I’d worn a dress in this type of a style, that I no longer owned a single strapless bra. I was desperate to wear my new dress; I decided I could get away with no bra.

At the party, at first I found myself self consciously crossing my arms over my chest a lot. Then I had a couple of drinks, I started to relax and I made a few jokes with some close friends about the fact that I’d gone braless. I think the reason I brought it up was because I figured if they knew I wasn’t clueless about it, it was less embarrassing.

The problem came a little later in the night when a guy at the party that I didn’t know started to comment on my dress. He saw me walking through the house looking for someone and asked me what I’d lost, then added with a smirk, “Are you looking for your lost bra?” This guy was a complete stranger to me, and I immediately felt uncomfortable. There was something in the tone of his voice that particular bothered me, something a tiny bit nasty – as though he thought he almost wanted to make me feel uncomfortable. I tried to laugh it off and I moved away from him.

Later on I ran into him in the kitchen. He was sitting next to his wife. “She’s not wearing a bra,” he said loudly, pointing me out to his wife. “I know because she told me.”

“Why did you tell my husband you’re not wearing a bra?” she asked me.

I felt flustered, I probably went red. “I didn’t tell him,” I started to explain. But then his wife suddenly changed her tone – I’m not sure if it was because she realised I looked worried, but she said, “You know what, if you can get away with not wearing a bra, then I think you’re awesome.” I was flooded with relief, I could have hugged her.

But I still wanted to get as far away as possible from that guy. I found Steve and pulled him aside. “I want to go home.”

“Really?” he was surprised, we had both been having a great time. We were kid free for the night; we were planning a late one.

“I want to go home,” I repeated.

He realised something was up. “What’s wrong?”

I explained what had happened and he got angry.

“It’s my fault,” I said, “I shouldn’t have worn this stupid dress.”

He got angrier. “No, it’s not your fault, it’s his. Where is he? I’ll talk to him.”

I told him to forget about it and that I just wanted to leave.

We called a taxi and just before we left, Steve disappeared momentarily. I found out afterwards that he’d gone to ask the guy for a quiet word: ‘The next time you want to make a comment on what someone else is wearing, don’t,’ he told him.

He thought that would be the end of it, but the guy followed us out the front, swearing and yelling at us. He pointed at me and said, “She was the one who started all this.”

I felt sick. Again, like it was my fault. I felt silly for thinking I could get away with wearing that dress. I felt like an idiot for joking about it with my friends. I felt like I’d been walking around half naked all night. And I felt awful for my friend who’s birthday it was – the last thing I wanted was to cause a problem at her party.

It wasn’t until the next day that I started to rethink the whole incident. Why did it matter that the shape of my nipples were visible under my dress? Why should I feel guilty about that fact? And why should it mean I have to put up with unwanted comments from a complete stranger?

But more importantly, what is the big fucking deal about a set of nipples anyway? Why is it wrong for a woman’s chest to be visible in public, while men can go topless without it being seen as against social norms? Once upon a time, men also had to keep their chests covered up in public, this was until the 1930s, when a group of men in the U.S. protested their way to bare-chested freedom. Good for them. But, considering many women are still made to feel ashamed for simply breastfeeding in public – it seems unlikely that we’ll be given those same rights any time soon, even with the ‘free the nipple’ campaign slowly gaining traction.

Last night, on The Project, Gorgi Coghlan ended up feeling the need to apologise for her outfit, to clarify that it was just the seams of the dress, and to assure viewers that there was in fact, ‘heaps of buffering there.’

I don’t think she should have had to apologise. I think the people who should be apologising are the ones who decided to publicly shame her for her outfit on social media.

And for the record, I think she looked damned great.