New trend on Danish beaches: Women drop the bikini top

Personer i solen på Kalvebod Bølge over for Islands Brygge i København, torsdag den 6. august 2020. DMI har varslet landsdækkende hedebølge fra torsdag og hen over weekenden.. (Foto: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix)

Source: BT

Toplessness is gaining ground on Danish beaches and in harbor baths. It seems that while masks are now required in more and more places in the public space, and while we should avoid hugging, and other personal restrictions, at least you can free your breasts from restriction.

In an article in the Danish daily Berlingske, Niels Ulrik Sørensen, head of research at the Center for Youth Research at Aalborg University, explains why there is an increase in 'topless women' in his Facebook feed and on the beach.

This trend is substantiated in the article, where both younger and older, topless women themselves tell why they have thrown away the bra.

The youth researcher's bid is that it is an expression of a "increasing feminism". Women want to have the right to be who they are and look the way they do. And that no matter how others - especially men - see and judge them.

That it is especially this summer of 2020 that we see that more women let their breast enjoy some freedom is linked to several other trends, the researcher believes. He mentions the #metoo hashtag trend and a discussion in Denmark related to a new law governing consensus vs rape and finally the coronavirus pandemic which has turned all norms and beliefs upside down.

“This summer we have seen a huge focus on nature and a search for the natural, which we have not seen for many years. At the same time, there has long been a greater trend in society to criticize the ideal that there is something called a "perfect body" and that we should strive to appear flawless,« says Niels Ulrik Sørensen to Berlingske.

For some it may also be about wanting to show off their perfect body, but the youth researchers believe this is a less significant part of the explanation.

A large part of the mothers of the young women who today take off their bikintops will remember how, in the 60s and 70s - as the most natural thing in the world - they walked around the beaches topless.

This toplessness disappeared somewhere in the 80s.

Niels Ulrik Sørensen thinks that we are now beginning to see a growing awareness that we ourselves are also a part of the nature we are included in. A trend that is linked to the climate awareness that young people in particular are joining.

The tabloid newspaper BT added to surveys to the article.

The first question was "should people be allowed to be topless on the beach?" The respondents said:

56% - yes, as far as I am concerned they could be fully naked (the choice of almost 60.000 respondents)

27% - yes, as long as they take off only the top

7% - no, naked breasts do not belong on public beaches

The second questions was "have you as a woman been topless on the beach this year?" The respondents said:

16% - yes, I always do that (the choice of almost 7000 respondents)

6% - yes, it was something new for me

9% - no, but I want to try it

17% - no, and I don't want to

51% - no, I am a man

 

 

 

 

 

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