No Thanks for the Mammaries

I confess that I really don't understand people who have a deep disgust for the naked female breast, but there are a significant number of people who feel that the bosom is something to be covered up at all times.

Case in point: a woman columnist for the UK Daily Mail was on a Mediterranean holiday and encountered some nude mammaries at the pool and on the beach. Naturally, she was horrified, and fearful of what harm the sight of nipples would do to her children.

Settling onto my sun lounger that first morning, I wondered how on earth I would distract my three sons from the fact that a near-naked woman was sitting just a few feet away.

Thankfully, my nine-year-old was preoccupied with test driving his inflatable dolphin in the pool.

My 12-year-old, at the confused crossroads of adolescence, simply dived in and began swimming with unseemly haste.

As usual, when it comes to matters of nudity, the children have more sense than the parent.

It's bad enough that this gymnophobe finds topfree women distasteful, she then goes on to insult the bodies of some of the women on the beach.

On one busy stretch of sand, I ended up being pitched next to a hefty sun-worshipper in her late 50s whose horn-rimmed glasses, sensible haircut and foil-wrapped sandwiches were hardly suggestive of Bardot-esque allure.

But this didn't stop the unleashing of two weighty breasts from her hammock-sized bikini top.

This is one of the most hostile comments I've personally ever read about topfree equality. Not only is this columnist a prude, she approaches the subject of these women with the mentality of a moron. There is absolutely no excuse for berating people simply because they do not fit into some sort of preconceived mold.

At the end of her column comes the "justification" for her vitriol.

But topless sunbathing affects everyone.

Parents, for example, who have yet to discuss sexual issues with their children, may not want their youngsters' first biology lesson to be delivered by an Essex shop girl who thinks a Mediterranean-beach can transform her into the next Pamela Anderson.

Why confine centrefolds to the top shelf when children of any age can get an uncensored view while building their sandcastles?

Morality aside, massive sunburned boobs do not a romantic vista make. Surely it's more captivating to leave something to the imagination rather than stripping off for a nearly all-over tan?

There is so much wrong with this woman's logic that I don't know where to begin. First of all, children need to be taught at home that the human body is nothing to be ashamed of. Also, topfree sunbathing is not a sexual act, and women who enjoy topfreedom are not trying to be Pamela Anderson, or a centerfold.

But in the end, the author touches upon the heart of the matter: "leaving something to the imagination". Nudists believe that covering up and hiding certain body parts is unhealthy; that making people use their imaginations only further sexualizes and objectifies the human body. We place far too much importance on our own appearances, and the appearances of others, rather on what we really are as human beings. People are not all perfect, any nudist knows that, and once that is accepted it makes life just a little easier to get through.

Tags: nudism, naturism, nudist, nudists, naturist, naturists, nudity, nudes, bare, au naturel, nude, naked