Wet T-shirt Competitions

[Tiepose]

Were they real and how did they work?

Were they planned or spontaneous?

How good were the prizes?

When did they take place? (as in: which decade?)

How ubiquitous were they?

Am I likely to know anybody who would have taken part, and what sort of person would this be?

TIA

Are you a DM journalist by any chance ? Very strange post.

Mostly an 80s thing I think. I remember seeing them advertised when I started going out to pubs and clubs in the early 90s.

What possible DM article could this lead to????!

I was actually wondering if wet T-shirt competitions really did ever take place. They aren’t referenced on tv or film or plays, and yet I am aware of the phrase.

I would say that Mumsnet is exactly the sort of place to find this sort of thing out (… but I’ll keep reading the Daily Mail in case they answer more comprehensively than you did @KangarooKenny )

@Florenz I would have said 80s.

Interesting that you saw them being advertised.

… would you need to bring a pre-wetted shirt?

Yes they were in a lot of tacky, misogynistic nightclubs. Did you not live through the 90's/00's?

Wet tee shirt competition were happening through the 70s and 80s. Girls would wear a tee shirt with no bra underneath. Men would throw buckets of water at them, making the tee shirt almost transparent. I guess the girl with most pert boobs would win. Thank God they are a thing of the past.

What kind of shite is this?

… but where would this happen? Pubs? Holiday camps?

It sounds so totally ghastly, and yet so organised. Did people do it professionally?

80's - fairly often in nightclubs or on 18-30's holidays and the prize would be a bottle of some alcohol or other. The winner would then be encouraged to take off her t-shirt because it was all wet and since they were usually already pissed, they would do it. Grim really, when you think about it.

Well, DH said that his work were going to have a water pistol fight, and I said, ‘Don’t do that because it smacks of wet T shirt competitions’, and then genuinrly started to wonder if they ever actually happened.

It’s quite a lot worse than Carry on Camping, though. Presumably, no one was pitching thenm as innocent fun, even in their hey day.

Yes they were real.
They used to happen in the Spanish hotels we stayed in with our parents in the 90s. They did them with kids there

Yes they were a thing in the 80s/90s in pubs and clubs along with the ‘ dentists chair’ and the ‘ ‘sex positions’ game. Does anybody remember those?!! They stopped the dentists chair after several people died.

Um...they still happen.

I went to a lot of pubs and clubs in the 80s and 90s and never saw any of this stuff!

What is the dentist chair?!

I went to dance clubs in the 90s...as in Ministry etc...

I better be careful talking about this if sone people think I was at the sort of place that had these contests.

sometimes it was an actual dentists chair other times it was just a tipped back/ reclined chair, copious amounts amount of alcohol would be poured into the participant/ volunteer/ victim, usually through a funnel. Several people died from alcohol poisoning, it made the news, they all stopped as deemed irresponsible . ( obviously)!

Pubs clubs - girl in the year below me at school won £100 - she was 15 ☹️

I’m talking about manky, seedy, dives where most of the men and some of the women would be shirtless and covered in blood shortly after last orders. Burger van and a brawl type places . Nostalgic………🤣

The last time I saw a wet T-shirt competition was in a nightclub in Cairns, Australia in 1994.

You do know OP that a certain newspaper would count down to a girls 16th so she could legally get her tits out on page 3?

All men would look. They still would if it was still there.

I would say synonymous with Club 18-30 holidays

Weren't they a club 18 - 30 holiday thing too.

Omg. That sounds so horrendous nowadays!

And what about that girl Mandy Smith who was groomed by that Rolling Stone guy, was it Bill Wyman?

I saw them in Stringfellows in London in the 80s and thought she was a cheap little tart. Strike me down!

Looking back, what was I thinking? That poor poor little girl, let down by her mum and sexualised by the papers.

Horrific when you think of it now.

And Pricilla Presley, a decade or so earlier.

Dd and I got caught in the rain today and my white T-shirt was drenched, i comments about wet T-shirt competitions. She didn't know what they were do I had to explain. I lived in South Florida in the 80's, they happened in the tackier night clubs and pretty much everywhere during spring break. I never took part, no bloody way, lol