Beach Weather

Update: Reader PietB has pointed out that this could very likely be satire, which I suspect is the case -- at least, I hope so. In that case, my remarks about the writer's psychology obviously don't pertain. My reaction to the attitudes, however, remains the same. With that in mind, read on:

This rather bizarre article by Paula Marantz Cohen came my way via The Daily Dish, thanks to Conor Friedersdorf. Although I try very hard not to psychoanalyze people on the basis of what they've written (unlike some Freudians I've known), here it's almost impossible to avoid the temptation.

Even as a child, I understood this. As I ran under the sprinkler in my electric orange two-piece, I knew that it was one thing for me, with my hairless legs and flat chest, to wear such a scanty, silly thing, and quite another for my neighbor with her gargantuan boobs, my piano teacher with her varicose veins, and my dentist with his protuberant beer belly to do the same. Even my own parents — relatively attractive, fit people — were an embarrassment. I could see that while some grownups looked really bad in bathing suits, all grownups looked unseemly. Here, I vaguely intuited, was another example of adult hypocrisy. Breasts and penises, subject to so much discretion under normal circumstances, were somehow allowed to be baldly delineated in the vicinity of sand and sun.

Offhand, I'd say this woman has some real body issues. And not just about her body -- you have to wonder if she insists her partner dress in a "seemly" fashion when having sex.

Full disclosure: I don't particularly like wearing clothes to begin with, but I'm really sensitive to cold, so living in Chicago, I'm sort of stuck with it. (And please don't ask me why I have more clothes than God -- I really don't have an answer, except that variety is the spice of life.) It's sort of indicative of my attitude, though, that my wardrobe until quite recently was about 80% tank tops and skimpy little shorts.

It's not only beachwear that Ms. Cohen considers "unseemly" (such a delicious, antique sort of word):

I should note that swimming is not the only activity whose outfits I find unseemly. I feel the same way about football and ballet. Different as these two activities are, they share an X-rated taste in costume. When I go to the ballet do I really want to see the bulging codpieces of all those Nureyev wannabes? When I watch the Super Bowl, do I want to stare at so many well-muscled butts? It’s not that I’m a prude (well, maybe I am), it’s just that when I watch ballet and football, I don’t want to be schooled in the fine points of male anatomy. It’s distracting.

Frankly, a bulging package and a tight ass are not what I'd consider "fine points" -- that's just a glimpse of the possibilities. "Distracting"? Maybe Ms. Cohen should be focusing on the game or the performance, rather than concentrating on male anatomy.

And maybe that's part of Ms. Cohen's problem: she, like so many Americans, seems unable to separate nudity from sex. Granted, it's a fuzzy boundary, but any adult should be able to pull that one off: not every revealing image is prurient. In fact, some are downright anti-erotic.

As for the aging naked on Europe's beaches, that's where Ms. Cohen gets totally offensive -- added into her mix of prudery and outrage is some good old-fashioned American exceptionalism. This is choice:

I acknowledge that as Americans we’re ahead of Europeans, who have reduced the bathing suit to a jock strap, for men and women alike. But just because Europeans act like damn fools doesn’t excuse us from being a few inches of spandex less foolish. Haven’t we learned anything about the Euro-capacity for knuckleheaded behavior after two world wars?

Who on earth has the gall to claim that America is ahead of anyone on healthy attitudes towards sex and the body? We're not quite as bad as the Saudis, although we'd probably be closer to them if we didn't take such delight in guilt. As far as I can see, the Europeans (and, believe it or not, the Japanese, as modest as they tend to be) have much healthier attitudes in those areas than we do. (And do I need to point out that Europeans hardly have a hammerlock on starting wars?)

As one who habitually wears something that is little more than a jock strap to the beach (actually, in terms of actual fabric used, it's probably somewhat less than a jockstrap -- although very elegant, if I do say so myself), I find her objections somewhat ludicrous. As for the age/physical condition factor, can I hazard the guess that Ms. Cohen has been watching too many commercials -- or maybe spending too much time looking at the ads in Vogue. It's not until you're willing to take people as they are that you begin to see the beauty in them.

Friedersdorf mentions one point that I take as central:

Oh please. If by "unseemly" the author means that adults in bathing suits are transgressing against accepted standards, she is obviously wrong, and if she means something more -- that the human body is inherently shameful, and needs to be more thoroughly covered -- her argument is scarcely better.

First off, her "argument" is largely incoherent -- to be perfectly frank, it strikes me as little more than spoiled, self-centered posturing. I take it as a tantrum, and nothing more. But the issue noted is the Judaeo-Christian idea that somehow having a body is cause for shame, which seems to grow out of the idea that being human is somehow awful. (Yes, I'm talking about "original sin" and all that other Old Testament crap -- which is nothing more than manipulation -- none of which I believe in.)

I'm hardly young any more, but if I've ever been reluctant to appear nude, it's been a matter of vanity, nothing else. (I've been an actor, a dancer, and a photographer's model. "Modesty" no longer really occupies a place in my vocabulary, at least as one of my own personal attributes. And I do have a couple of nude self-portraits of me at my heaviest -- which for most people would be maybe a little beefier than normal -- because there was something to say about that.)

There is one legitimate point to Cohen's concerns, which she doesn't voice and I doubt she's even aware of: observing someone naked is, ultimately, an invasion of their privacy. If they give permission by wearing scanty clothing or appearing nude, then no invasion. And if you're worried about the flip side of that -- appearing scantily clad is invading others' privacy -- well, don't look. It's really very easy not to be offended in this world.

Bottom line: this is an incredibly vapid, petulant piece of writing. Why am I spending so much energy writing about it?

(PS -- there is a picture that goes with this piece that somehow got lost in the editing process, and I can't reattach it from this computer. So you'll have to wait for that one.)

As promised: