To not understand why my mum ( or anyone ) needs to sunbathe topless ?

[aghak]

I'm staying with mum and my two kids at a holiday cottage. It's private so no one can see, but I still don't get why she or anyone feels the need to sunbathe topless ? I would just never do it and it makes me a bit uncomfortable to be around people who sunbathe topless.

I get it I get it, not everyone is like me.

But why do your boobs need to be brown ?

She also insists on wearing a bikini at almost 70. Ok fine, I don't wear a bikini and I'm not even 40 yet. I do think, good for you but I do think one pieces are just more classy. Same with having everything on display.

I realise I sound mean spirited don't I ? Or just uptight ? But isn't more, less and more classy in general ? Interested in opinions !

She raised me so I'm surprised I am not more on display myself but I'm pretty private about my body and always have been.

Why is it 'prudish'? It's such a pejorative term

It's just a preference

I do think we’re quite prudish in this country. When I lived in Europe women of all ages were topless on the beach. Groups of young girls/teenagers would all do it around their male friends too, along with small children and much older ladies and no one batted an eyelid. No one was being weird and pervy, no one was trying to look elsewhere.

i have a friend who is a nudist and she said it’s not awkward and perch there either. People don’t stare because nakedness is standard and you just get used to it. Prudishness is the problem here, I think that’s kind of what leads to people getting over excited by the sight of a pair of breasts, because they think they HAVE to be covered up because they’re so sexual they cannot be allowed out on somewhere like a beach because they’re only for turning other people on. Well they’re not, they’re part of a woman’s anatomy and they’re normal and yes they can be sexual and yes they can have a feeding function, but lots of body parts can have functions and be sexual to different people. They don’t have to be sexual organs like the penis or vagina (yes I’m calling it a vagina before anyone jumps on me about correct anatomical words, I don’t care). They can just be part of the body and be sexual during sexual activity. Like my neck is to me. It’s just me neck but during sex it can be my favourite erogenous zone.

That just sounds like a safeguarding nightmare to me.

My friend used to live in a Scandinavian country and she often used the public naked saunas. She said there had been numerous times when she'd been made to feel uncomfortable by men staring at her and following her around the spa.

I just think if you were a raging fucking pervert who got a thrill from looking at naked women and making them feel violated, a public naked sauna is the first place I'd go! Seems like a no-brainer to me.

But pointing out that legitimising and normalising spaces where men, women and children are naked together seems like a situation that's wide open to abuse makes you 'prudish' apparently.

I’m not sure it is prudishness that influences our cultural approach to nudity, I think it’s focus on sex.

From Benny Hill to seaside postcards, to The Sun, to Naked Attraction (which would not be screened in very many countries) we see nakedness and bodies as sex, sex, SEX.

And therefore not suitable for children, no one fat, old or without a Beach Ready Body should ever dare undress in public because only stereotypically attractive, stereotypically sexy bodies, are fit to be seen.

Yes I think this is probably a better description. It’s a shame really, it influences us in many negative ways.

But this happens in non-nude spaces too. And pointing out abuse isn’t prudish, but our attitude towards naked boobs on the beach is. Sorry.

But this happens in non-nude spaces too. And pointing out abuse isn’t prudish, but our attitude towards naked boobs on the beach is. Sorry.

Boobs on a beach is totally different to an enclosed space where a strange naked male can legitimately ogle a naked woman, make her feel uncomfortable but she can't say anything because of the context.

Hence why I said ‘pointing out abuse isn’t prudish but boobs on the beach is’ - you’re agreeing with me.

I wouldn't do anything that makes others around me feel uncomfortable

Hence why I said ‘pointing out abuse isn’t prudish but boobs on the beach is’ - you’re agreeing with me

I'm not saying that pointing out abuse is prudish?

I'm saying that communally nude spaces create opportunities for abuse to happen. And it's not prudish to acknowledge that.

I personally don't see why strangers need to be naked together. What is the benefit? Apart from the obviously sinister motives?

This exactly and I think that that generation associate it with sophisticated continental behaviour because they saw it on holiday (or heard about it) a few decades ago.

In fact, it’s gone out of fashion on the continent more recently. Far fewer young French people sunbathe topless than their parents and grandparents.

I’m not keen on topless sunbathing at any adult age. I think it’s ageist to say there should be a cut off point. IMO public nakedness or toplessness is one of those postwar things that women were persuaded to do in the name of being liberated and sophisticated or ‘natural’. Women’s bodies have been ogled and objectified for far too long to make public toplessness innocent.

And anyway. The sun is far stronger now and we know much more about how damaging it is.

I didn’t say you did say that? I agreed with you that it’s not prudish to acknowledge that? I simply said that breasts on the beach is prudish, in my opinion.

And I’m not a nudist either but if other people
enjoy it and are comfortable then it’s not my place to tell them they can’t engage in that. The benefits for them personally are their business.

I think it was Bulgaria when I ran down a small hill whooping with delight at the beautiful sea view. It was then that spotted the fat old bloke, with the XS dick & shrivelled bollocks. I’m sure he thought I was whooping at him. OK, so I had accidentally wandered on to the nudist beach, but I just didn’t want to see that.

I’m with you OP, there’s no need to put us through this. Our parents bring us up telling us how to behave… then a few years on the mom gets her tits out 😒. I find it far more attractive to see someone in a decent costume.

And I’m not a nudist either but if other people
enjoy it and are comfortable then it’s not my place to tell them they can’t engage in that. The benefits for them personally are their business.

I guess people enjoy and are comfortable with it until they aren't. And then enforcing boundaries is not possible in that context, which is a problem.

As a woman and a mother, I do feel that the reasons why a male stranger might want to be naked around women and children is my business, actually.

Sexual attraction to another (adult, unrelated) person is not creepy. I have never said it is.
I've said you are creepy with your weird description of seeing boobs in the wild. Your last statement in your original post I quoted added nothing other than to undermine any valid points you may have had.

Were you rubbing your thighs and saying "phwaaa" as you typed it? Honestly it's like a caricature of a pervy man (Herb from Family guy springs to mind)

When I visit my mum’s home village in Provence, I love seeing ladies of all ages in their bikinis or sunbathing topless at the local lake beach. Bikinis are de rigeur down there, no one wears a one piece. It’s a lovely thing to do in the sunshine.

I sunbathe topless with my mum every year, she’s 70, I’m 46. DD15 will I probably join us, she’s just bought a super bikini for her visit.

It’s really no big deal. I can’t bear the prudish Anglo Saxon attitudes about this (it was even worse when we lived in Massachusetts when I was often the only bikini wearer on the beach)

“Were you rubbing your thighs and saying "phwaaa" as you typed it?”

I’m the one who’s being honest about having an involuntary reaction to (mostly hypothetical) bare breasts and then feeling uncomfortable. You’re the one imagining a specific woman rubbing her thighs and then posting about it online, in public and directed to that woman.

And I’m supposed to be the creepy one here?

Done with this conversation. Goodbye.

What attitude do you admire, the one where she doesn't have enough regard for her own daughter and grandchildren to prevent them feeling uncomfortable?

@OneTwoTen I find what you write interesting. I'm not sure if you intended your aggressive tone?

Given that I SPECIFICALLY wrote about private saunas, in family homes, it's interesting that you jumped from my post straight into an anecdote about public saunas being problematic.

In the context of this thread and beyond, I think that "prudishness" can often be an innocent-seeming cover for actually quite repressive, obsessive, shaming and ultimately damaging thinking, where normal human bodies are coupled with sexual perversion and things which are taboo.

And looking at this from a population level, that damaging "prudishness" might possibly be part of why so many men in this country are susceptible to following online rabbit-holes that lead to CSA content... Maybe they're following the thrill of the taboo, that starts with something as normal as naked boobs, and ends up with terrible violence and harm?

It's my hunch that if it were more normal to hang out with naked friends, mums, aunties and grannies, and to find naked human bodies no big deal, then possibly we'd be in a much healthier place, sexually, as a culture.

I don’t know much about the nudist world except what one of my close friends tells me.

According to her there are no children. Everyone joins with their consent. You don’t HAVE to be naked. You take your clothes off to whatever degree you like at your own choice. There is nothing sexual. She says she finds a freedom, confidence and community she hasn’t found elsewhere.

No, it is absolutely not my business to tell her that is wrong. I presume the men join for the same reason as she does - for whatever reason, being naked makes them happy. Maybe it is sexual for some? I don’t know. But people choosing to be naked in their own time in private spaces is not my business whatsoever. I suppose in that instance if you are no longer comfortable then you leave but I have never asked about safety - I would hope they have things in place.

I did not post about the nude saunas and spas and I have never been to one. I would attend one out of curiosity but I would never take my kids, that’s my personal feelings on it.

We live in Scandinavia and have a sauna, they’re a very social thing here, so it isn’t unusual for my husband to invite his mates round for football, beer and sauna. But yeah, always budgies not allowed, but people can keep their towel on if they want to, no naked bums on our benches apart from our own thank you very much.

I don't think whether you visit a sauna, an enclosed space, with or without swimwear, has an equivalence to topless sunbathing. Other maybe than comfort.

What is it about breasts you find offensive?

I couldn’t stand burnt nipples, ouch

Can you not but suncream where you live?