We Need to End the Taboo of Topless Sunbathing for Women in the UK

My first experience happened on a remote beach in Thailand. After some gentle encouragement from my best friend, who repeatedly assured me how much better I’d feel afterward, we both decided the time had come. It would mark a major transition in my life, from girl to adult. I was 18; it felt vital, necessary, monumental. As I looked around at the nearby strangers and felt my insides fizzing with nerves, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and whispered, “I’m ready.” Then, I did it: I took off my bikini top.

Topless sunbathing for women remains, in many ways, one of our last taboos. In the UK, we remain incredibly prudish about it, where our fear of breasts is apparently so visceral that whenever a famous woman dares to ditch her bikini top on holiday, it warrants headline news. The latest example is Heidi Klum on a beach in St. Barts. It happens often this time of year: one quick scan of the celebrity gossip rags shows three women being spotlighted for this exact audacity.

The most notable example occurred in 2012 when photographs of the Princess of Wales sunbathing topless were published in the French magazine, Closer. The photos were taken of Kate and the Prince of Wales while on a private holiday at a villa in France. The violation led to the couple winning damages over the magazine’s publication of the photo.

Besides being an outright invasion of privacy, and no one ever supposed to see those images in the first place, the ensuing scandal casts a shadow on how society views women who forgo bikini tops. Back then, Kate was vilified and shamed for the photos coming to light. It was seen as a salacious act that painted the then 30-year-old as a wily seductress intent on wreaking havoc by way of her bare breasts. At the time, Donald Trump even tweeted: “Kate Middleton is great – but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude – only herself to blame.”

I’m the same age Kate was back then and, having regularly sunbathed topless ever since that first time at 18, I can safely say it has nothing to do with sex. I’ve done it almost every time I go away with friends, even when the friends I’m traveling with are male. It doesn’t bother me or them. Even if there’s initial discomfort, it quickly dissipates as people acclimatize to the fact that a body is just a body. My decision to showcase mine has nothing to do with anyone else but me.

Why do I enjoy it? Firstly, it’s a subversion of societal norms that dictate women’s bodies aren’t good enough as they are. We must spend thousands on products and treatments that pinch and plump our faces. We have to squash ourselves into smaller dress sizes to be considered beautiful by society’s limited standards. It’s not hard, then, to see the appeal of embracing our bodies as they are by baring parts of it in front of others.

Then, there’s the entirely superficial reason of not wanting tan lines on my upper body. It’s so much nicer and better for my body confidence to have an even tan. Plus, there’s no worry about which necklines can or can’t be worn. Mostly, I just feel more comfortable in the heat when my breasts aren’t being squashed and hoisted by flimsy fabric. Men don’t face such constraints, so why should we?

It’s great to have celebrities like Florence Pugh and Maggie Rogers, who frequently campaign for us all to #FreeTheNipple by wearing sheer clothing on red carpets. But the fact that it causes such online outrage shows just how far we have to go in truly accepting and celebrating women’s bodies.

I understand that some people might not feel comfortable baring all—and sometimes, in groups of girls, I am the only one sunbathing topless from the beginning. But that is only a result of strict social conditioning that has warped perceptions around the female body, turning it into an object for male desire as opposed to something we own and have autonomy over. Generally, whenever I’m the only one topless sunbathing at the start of a holiday, by the end, other women usually follow suit, taking my decision as an invitation for them to do the same. They always feel so much better for doing so.

We lose so much by oversexualizing women’s bodies. But there’s something joyful about removing all that noise and simply celebrating how different we all can look, regardless of age and body shape. I often think this whenever I visit the Hampstead Ladies Ponds in north London. On the meadows there, women regularly sunbathe topless together. There’s nothing more heartening and empowering than seeing them free from society’s shackles, having a gossip and a giggle while enjoying each other’s company, paying zero attention to the fact that they’re half-naked because it’s totally irrelevant.

None of us do it to impress anyone else or even necessarily to make a political point. I can only speak for myself, and personally, I feel more comfortable without a bikini top. I think a lot of other women would too, if they gave themselves permission to do so.

Source: The Guardian