Womens Equality Is Ok As Long As It Does Not Interfere With the Size of Our Bikinis
Posted: Sunday, July 26, 2009
by Alisa Miller
http://alisa-miller.com
Very recently I read in a report on French beaches that the women who choose to go topless these days belong to the 40 to 50 age group and that most of the women my age choose the traditional two-piece bikini or the latest fashion craze for one-piece swimsuits.
There is a lot we can read into that including perhaps, as recent church leaders have tried to imply, a return to morality and more somber practices. Most of the arguments which can be extrapolated and generalized from this trend will be tainted by the same solipsist logic which imbues a few centimeters of fabric with the ability to define the existence of morality or the lack of it in a person.
The fact that we are now covering up as woman has nothing to do with morality and a lot to do with common sense. First equality between the sexes is more about the ability to flaunt a pair of breasts without being stared at (and I know a few women who would break down in tears if they did flaunt and weren't stared at anyway), second it is totally hypocritical to claim that breasts have nothing to do with sex or the sexualisation of the female body. The multi-billion dollar push-up bra industry alone would probably quite happily hang, drawn and quarter the person who dares to support this view publicly. Thirdly, in the age of commercialized sexualization when denim adverts look like invitations to glossy Roman orgies and the purchase of a pack of Doritos is charged with sexual innuendo, there is not a woman on the planet who does not want her body to be considered as sexy and desirable.
All of which now leads down to the real reasons why women are covering up. Sex and sexuality are mostly cerebral. You need the active involvement of the onlooker as an implicit participant to complete the equation of desirability. For that to happen the mind must be engaged in parts other than just the eyes. You need, in short, as a woman to be able to spark off a guy's imagination and the only way for that to happen is to tantalize and tease' rather than show and shock. Push-up bras are such big business because for the last twenty years dresses have been getting daring with their necklines and T-shirts have become tighter, smaller with deeper Vs at the neck. The reason for this is precisely because when it comes to creating a sexy look the less is more' rule holds when it comes to the amount of flesh on show.
For a woman it's hard to hide imperfections or draw attention to a particularly nice part of her body if she has no fabric to help guide the eyes. Monokinis did away with the top and, at a stroke, deprived women from the ability to flaunt, tease, be playful and feel sexy. Their demise in an age where fashion stretches from the boardroom to the bedroom and everywhere in between is then hardly a surprise and, lest we get the wrong message, hardly a moral stand.
As this year's swimwear fashions show bikinis are both small and provocative, flaunting with a sense of how much they dare reveal rather than being revealing and one-piece swimsuits seem to have reached new standards of sex appeal by vying to look seamless, skin-thin and project a look of total nudity (which needs to be imagined, rather than observed).
The beach is the place where we traditionally go to play. Bereft of suits and ties, power-dresses and high heels we are there to frolic in the waves, enjoy the sun and have some fun. To make it the battleground for equality between the sexes or even morality is both misguided and less than clever.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Now that is a really refreshing point of view!! ;)
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