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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be topless around the kids pool?

561 replies

WaitrosePigeon · 17/07/2018 16:23

Backstory...

On holiday at an all inclusive hotel with kids club etc. Got some tan lines from my bikini so this afternoon took the bikini top off to try and sort them out. DH comes over and says it is inappropriate near the kids pool. I said that he had his top off so why couldn’t I. He said because I was female.

I didn’t put the bikini top back on but is it inappropriate? It’s just boobs?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
IAmGrootGrootIAm · 17/07/2018 17:37

In Bognor Regis. Inappropriate. (Not sure why. It’s just not what we Brit’s do 😂)

Ibiza. Totally appropriate. Have fun!

flopsyrabbit1 · 17/07/2018 17:37

yabu

would you go topless if you were at home with your friends and their kids there??

Original poster
WaitrosePigeon · 17/07/2018 17:38

would you go topless if you were at home with your friends and their kids there??

The opportunity has never arisen but I think I would, yes.

OP posts:
SPARKS17 · 17/07/2018 17:38

Seems like a shed load of double standards, so women in the UK are actively encouraged to not feel ashamed of getting a boob out to feed their infant, but go on holiday and get them out in the sunshine on a beach or pool area, god forbid!

Some of the views on here are bizarre and quite disappointing.

My view they are just boobs, sunbathing with them out on holiday is fine. I remember seeing women sunbathing topless as a child and I was not scarred for life.

TheHulksPurplePanties · 17/07/2018 17:38

To be perfectly honest, my only concern would be the sun exposure. I make my entire family wear sun shirts and even recently made my 65 year old father wear one. My DGM died of skin cancer, so I'm sensitive about it. Nothing to do with modesty though. I don't care which part of you you're exposing, just make sure you cover it with sun screen. Grin

Original poster
WaitrosePigeon · 17/07/2018 17:39

Hulk I’m slapping on the factor 50 constantly. I’ve managed to burn my shins, how does that even happen?!

OP posts:
dadshere · 17/07/2018 17:39

You are perfectly reasonable to be topless by the pool. Your dh is being a nob. To anyone on here saying women should cover their breasts to prevent other people being uncomfortable. Take a long walk off a short pier, since when is it a woman's job to do this?

UneMoonit · 17/07/2018 17:39

YABU. It's a bit of a close up intimate setting where everyone is facing each other, and you might make families feel embarrassed or uncomfortable.

If you take it to the beach where there is the whole wide vista rather than being front-and-centre view of everyone there, it is much easier for everyone to do as they like to some extent.

LuckyAmy1986 · 17/07/2018 17:40

Do you also get in the pool topless and walk around topless or is it just for sunbathing?

TheHulksPurplePanties · 17/07/2018 17:41

Waitrose no clue. Once burnt the inside of my foot so bad it blistered. Not sure how the rays even reached it

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 17/07/2018 17:41

I was with you until you said you’d do it at home in front of your friends and their kids. Yuk, too much, I’m sorry I’d be really uncomfortable. It’s different when you are abroad and don’t know anyone.

AudiQ2 · 17/07/2018 17:41

Would you do this at your local pool? Would you do it walking down the high street? If not, then why is it different when on holiday?!?!

WinnieFosterTether · 17/07/2018 17:42

I'm not sure what I think about it tbh. I sometimes go topless on holiday and am relaxed about nudity at home. But I wouldn't go topless around a kids' pool because I recognise people have different attitudes towards nudity and as a PP said I wouldn't want to take that decision away from other parents.

If there are lots of topless women round the kids' pool, why did your DH think it was an issue?

Original poster
WaitrosePigeon · 17/07/2018 17:42

Lucky, no just on the sun lounger with a hat over my face!

OP posts:
starsinyourpies · 17/07/2018 17:42

Curtain shopping how is it essential for men to not wear a top but it is essential for women? Some men going topless frankly I'd rather they kept a top on but it is none of my business really how they choose to dress.

AirForce0ne · 17/07/2018 17:43

Who is comparing being topless and breastfeeding? You don't take off your top to breastfeed, and you are not actively showing your boobs. The comparison is rather silly.

Talith · 17/07/2018 17:43

I wouldn't myself because I bloody love bikinis and a good tan line is a sign of a good holiday, but if other women did it I'd not have a problem with that, and if the kids commented I'd tell them it's not a big deal.

Kingkiller · 17/07/2018 17:44

Fgs. We all to a certain extent choose to abide by social norms, even if the original reasons for them seem illogical.

In the UK it is not the norm for women to go topless, so it's quite understandable that many UK women feel uncomfortable going topless (even if they are visiting a country where it's more the norm).

Finding female toplessness inappropriate is no more 'repressed' than finding full nudity or peeing in the street inappropriate.

I would find it both physically and socially uncomfortable to go topless. It helps, perhaps, that I don't sunbathe and find caring about tan lines baffling.

Branleuse · 17/07/2018 17:45

it wouldnt bother me one bit, and if my kids said anything or looked too much then i would tell them not to stare.
I think in many ways its less obscene and sexualised than some bikinis ive seen

Original poster
WaitrosePigeon · 17/07/2018 17:45

Through, I said I think I would. I’m not sure. Would have to see what the situation would feel like first.

Winnie I’m assuming because he couldn’t go up to any other random woman and say he thought it was inappropriate. He could only say it to me.

Audi yes I would do it an outside pool in England if I saw other women doing it. Never seen a woman walking topless down the street in the U.K. so probably wouldn’t. Lots of women topless walking around the strip here in Ibiza so I guess I could I felt confident enough.

OP posts:
Wherismymind · 17/07/2018 17:45

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that surely if you are doing something that causes others to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable or whatever, the kind and polite thing to do is to stop.

Whatever that something is.

So you don't think women shouldn't breast feed in public, because that makes some people uncomfortable. Disability also makes some people uncomfortable as does disfigurement, should those people stay indoors?

It's not ops problem of some people are so upright they can't stand the site of a pair of boobs, somthing half the population have. Sometimes you will be subjected to stuff you don't like - get over it and look away.

Igorina · 17/07/2018 17:46

My inner prude would probably shriek "Oh my goodness! Boobs!"

But only for half a second then common sense would kick and I would continue on with my holiday without giving it another thought.

I certainly wouldn't be worried about my children seeing.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 17/07/2018 17:46

Fair enough.

LuckyAmy1986 · 17/07/2018 17:47

Would you go in the pool or walk around topless or would you put your bikini top back on for that?

Frosty66612 · 17/07/2018 17:47

How do you feel if a woman was wearing a tiny thong beside the children’s pool when sunbathing? They seem to have become the fashion as there were so many women wearing them on my holiday last week

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