Nude Jersey?

Once among the top seaside resorts on the East Coast, Asbury Park is considering letting women go topless on a city beach.

But unlike other secluded nude beaches in the Garden State, this one could be right in your face, with the boardwalk offering a prime view that some parents might not want junior to see.

The city council is considering a request from Reggie Flimlin, an Asbury Park woman who owns a yoga studio, to allow women to decide for themselves whether they want to wear bikini tops on the beach. She says it's already happening on less populated beaches in the city's north end.

"A lot of women are just organically deciding they want to sunbathe without their top," she said. "That's great, that's fine, and I have no problem with it."

The 48-year-old city resident has lived and sunbathed topless in Europe and Miami, where such conduct is paid little mind.

She said Asbury Park, with its thriving gay and lesbian community and its wildly diverse ethnic and racial population, has long been progressive.

"Asbury has always prided itself as having an open mind and being accepting and welcoming to a lot of different cultures and lifestyle choices," she said. "If not in Asbury Park, where else in New Jersey would a woman have the right to choose whether or not she has to wear a bathing suit top?"

Right now, that would be Gunnison Beach on Sandy Hook, part of the federal Gateway National Recreational Area, where total nude bathing is permitted. Higbee Beach, a Cape May County beach that once permitted nude bathing now no longer does due to problems with sexual activity in the dunes and parking lot.

There is no state law banning topless bathing. The state Attorney General's Office says it is up to local communities to decide through their own ordinances what level or dress — or lack thereof — is acceptable on the sand.