What your mother always told you: if you got it, flaunt it. In the U.S., that’s not so easy when “going around topless” translates to “indecent exposure.” Now, ladies in Malmö, Sweden have won the right to swim and sunbathe topless at the city’s pools. The issue was pushed by a feminist organization called Bara Bröst (translation: “bare breasts”), which gained publicity back in 2007 when two young girls were prohibited from swimming topless, one of whom explained her motive: “It’s a question of equality. I think it’s a problem that women are sexualized in this way. If women are forced to wear a top, shouldn’t men also have to?” (Amen, sister.) The city’s committee just put into action an egalitarian motion that wins the case for women, but only in a matter of wording, stipulating that everyone has to wear a bathing suit at a Malmö pool, but not insisting that a bathing suit for a female need include a top. While nude tanning is much more a European thing, we have to ask if this measure should be extended to the United States. What do you think? Should you be able to go sans-top without trouble on a beach? Or are Americans just too pervy to deal with a half-naked lady with an adult attitude, and not adult manner? [Thelocal.se]
