To think bums should be covered in a public pool?

[Whatkatyforgottodo]

I may be being unreasonable and I’m just old and out of touch… took my kids swimming today at our local public pool and there was a lady wearing one of those swimming costumes that is basically a thong at the back? I saw lots of them in the beach during the summer which I kind of understand as it helps you get a very high cut tan/eliminates tan lines but I felt a bit weird seeing one in an indoor pool? Not sure where boundaries lie…? Happy to be told IABU but wondered what others think?

@Mapandthermos I have never felt pressured into wearing fashionable clothes.

The young women I know have generally had enough confidence and support from confident women in their lives to make their own choices.

It's quite infantalising to suggest young women can't make their own clothing choices.

Is this also true for men?

Attention-seeking?

No.

We a know that people don’t always make completely free choices in life. Feeling you have to wear either porny outfits or cover your head to fit in with male-pleasing socially dominant ideas of what women should be are no different from each other.

We all know that — barring the few posters who always pop up on this kind of thread to swear that thongs are the most comfortable thing ever and they would never wear them themselves (hardly representative of most women) — that thong bottoms are hideously uncomfortable and unhygienic. Thong swimwear - all polyester plastic - is not what the vast majority of women would choose to wear for practicality or comfort. You can literally see the discomfort when young women are wearing them by the pool! Restrictive, designed for posing, porny and liable to pop off at a moment’s notice. There’s a reason why women who aren’t susceptible to youth fashion trends don’t wear them.

Let’s be real and dial down on the unconvincing “choice feminism” for a moment - young women in particular would not be wearing these porny looks if there wasn’t a porn culture more widely in society. And women wouldn’t be covering their heads if they weren’t mandated to by male religious cultures. Every culture in the world where women have become legally and socially more emancipated, and religion has declined as a social force, has stopped mandating head coverings for women. Women don’t actually want to cover themselves when they have the option not to.

That doesn’t mean that women don’t feel they have to conform to different forms of the male gaze and the expectations of male sexuality.

So unsightly in your opinion. Does everyone need to look not “unsightly” to you at all times? How will we know if you find us to be unsightly? Is it just thong swimwear you find to be unsightly? What about gym wear, mini skirts, crop tops? What do you think about male clothing? Is any of that unsightly?

I think you need to look at yourself a little deeper. Just responding - it looks unsightly doesn’t really get to the root of the issue. The only person I know who would share your opinions has a huge amount of shame about their own body that they project onto others. I’m not really “into full nudity” but wouldn’t be averse in the correct context. I don’t feel ashamed of my body, it’s just a body.

And thongs might cross the public decency line for you in all(?) contexts but they don’t for a lot of people in certain situations. So you have to live with it as I’m sure you do, but wouldn’t it be nice to live without all of that disgust and loathing inside if you. The only person it hurts is you.

Yes. They are much more conformist than women when it comes to dress (on the whole). There choices very much reflect social convention.

I clicked yabu in horror, and in error, at the unreasonableness of that kind of cossie in a public pool. You are definitely not being unreasonable.

Okay, some do, quite a lot don’t you know.

If it were okay to make any choice why do you think they dress so similarly so much of the time? Same goes for haircuts etc. I haven’t seen a teen girl in a pixie cut in an age. It’s the fashion I know, but you are mistaken if you think there is no pressure to follow it.

Yes, obviously so. But women are the more oppressed sex class, and so social expectations of the sexes tend to be in the greater service of men. HTH x

Modelling behaviour to young people that it’s perfectly normal and fashionable to publicly display parts of women’s bodies that are normally only seen by sexual partners or their gynaecologist is part of porn culture and is harmful. If you don’t understand that I can’t help.

Except recently, there was somebody at my local pool in the sauna with very brief briefs and a massive stiffie.

No - either the point here is whizzing right over your head, or you too are saturated in porn culture and the need to defend it.

These are negative SOCIAL judgments. Clearly none of us have been marching up to personal individuals in the pool ordering them to cover up. What we are discussing here on an anonymous (impersonal) forum are SOCIAL trends (and harms). HTH.

was it at least something worth looking and getting upset about LOL

@Mapandthermos Oh there is definitely pressure. I know that. I've felt that.

I just don't think every single woman responds to it. Some accept it, some reject it.

I'm okay with either choice - and I agree that few choices are entirely free from influence - but those influences are very wide - not just porn influences, but also societally influenced, family influenced, peer influenced.

I actually dislike thongs by the way. But I will argue to the death (which it feels like I have done on this thread by the way) for a woman's right to wear what she chooses.

I also hate fashion, especially high fashion which might not emulate porn, but certainly doesn't seem to put women's comfort first.

I don't find the human body or skin disgusting. I don't think skin on the bum is different to skin on the arm. It's just skin.

I bid you all good night. It is an interesting topic to discuss.

Perhaps it's their only swimming costume?

I have fashionable & imo beautiful young female relatives. There is one in particular with stunning looks & figure who said there is nothing that would persuade her to wear a thong bikini & have men of all ages ogling her bare bum. She has a steady boyfriend & is admittedly quite modest with her dress sense in general. It doesn't stop her getting male attention, in fact from what Ive heard she gets far more unwanred attention than her scantily clad contemporaries 🤦‍♀️

So I guess what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter what you wear as a women, men (and women - especially the women of mumsnet!) will be objectifying you and judging you anyway. Nothing has changed. Just another stick to beat women with. Too modest too slutty too bad.

Obviously I don't think the issue is incontinence or I would have said so. After someone's been to the toilet in the middle of the day, though, I doubt the area around their anus is as clean as it was at the start of the day. So I'm sorry, but I just can't help seeing thongs as grubby, because of what and where they are. It's not something I'm wilfully choosing to feel because I want to be judgmental.

I actually have a great deal of respect for my body, so much so I don’t feel the need to share it with the whole world. I have self respect.

I do not want to be masquerading as a porn star at the public pool at family swim time, I have daughters, and it’s taken me a long time to instil in them that their bodies do not exist for the male gaze. That they can be free, and swimwear is worn to swim, to throw themselves in the water, to dive etc without worrying about whether their string thong bikini will survive. It would be counter intuitive.

Would you dress your seven year old in a skimpy thong? And if not, why not? If all of this is just harmless. Social services might be called if you did. It would certainly be seen as a safe guarding issue. Why? Why aren’t we all dressing our children like you?

Over sexualisation has become insidious. Your faux wide eyed claims that it’s just a body and no big deal is very regressive because unless you can categorically say you are happy for your pre teen child to expose her arse crack in public in the same way you do, you really can’t pretend it’s harmless can you. It’s just peddling more porn culture, let’s call it out for what it is.

In reality it’s bloody grim for those around you, and a very poor example to your dc.

We've been to a local pool today. Absolutey loads of little kids and was really surprised how many early 20s had thong bikinis on. One also had very little coverage of the front part either.

I wouldn't say I'm prudish and wouldn't think anything of it on the beach but a local pool seemed a bit much.

There is a very fit and lifted/no extra fat bottom at my gym , such is the pertness that the up your bum leggings seem to cling to her actual bum hole.. It's really odd, there is an indent where her bum hole is. I do not think I have ever typed bum hole before! It's not apparent on other more fuller bottoms. I think it is because her bum cheeks are very separate, not squished like most peoples..

I don't find the human body or skin disgusting. I don't think skin on the bum is different to skin on the arm. It's just skin.

Hmm, you could just as easily say skin on the penis or vulva is just skin though @user1471538275.

The bum area is seen in Western culture as a private part of the body. That’s what we teach young children in the staying safe lessons. It’s really not seen as the same as an arm in our culture at least.

Of course it’s not disgusting, that’s not it at all, but it’s an area that is usually kept more private. I think the change in that, especially as it’s primarily for one sex only, is exploitative.

Comparing fgm with your right to expose your arse, is a bit of a fucking leap, to quote a pp, as well as offensive

YANBU.