For decades, The French have relished any opportunity to mock Americans for their Yankee puritanism when it comes to matters of sex. These days, though, France is experiencing its own blush of prudishness as an entire generation of young French women says “Non, merci” to the summer tradition of topless sunbathing.
Since France’s summer-vacation season kicked off in early July, the French press has repeatedly sounded the alarm over the shrinking number of topless women on the nation’s beaches. As eagle-eyed reporters have made quite clear, the prevailing trend among sun-loving women these days is to use both pieces of their bikini. “Le Monokini, C’est Fini!” shouted Le Parisien in its report from a Mediterranean beach. “Nude Breasts Are Less Trendy,” concurred free daily Metro France. “The practice has become common and therefore less compelling as a fashion,” says sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann. “When the local baker takes off her top despite her 60 years and sagging breasts, the gesture loses its social distinction as one of youthful beauty.” Some note that the return to more modest swimwear is in part a response to rising concerns about skin cancer.
But the trend is also part of a wider social movement by young French women, who are shunning the less-inhibited habits of previous generations. If burning bras and going topless were the ways French women of the 1970s and ’80s demonstrated their freedom, their daughters and granddaughters seem less comfortable with exposed flesh. “The values of our time are more conservative, traditional and familial,” says Kaufmann. “Modesty and discretion are in fashion now.”
A survey titled Women and Nudity by polling agency Ifop captures the mood. It found that young French women not only have a problem with nudity but actually consider themselves prudish. Fully 88% of the women questioned qualified themselves as pudique–a term that can mean anything from modest or prim to priggish. And they aren’t joking. Though 90% said they get naked with their husband or partner, 59% avoid being nude around their children. Sixty-three percent said they refuse to undress around female friends, and 22% said they consider a woman in her underwear to be already naked.
With sensitivities like those, it’s little wonder the poll found French women have strong opinions about public nakedness. Nearly 50% said they are bothered by total nudity on beaches or at naturist camps, and 37% said they are disturbed by publicly exposed breasts or buttocks. Some 45% of respondents would prefer to see a lot less flesh hanging out in full view–male or female. The attitudes were most pronounced among respondents aged 18 to 24–a quarter of whom described themselves as very pudique. And that, sociologists say, explains the changing scenery on French beaches. Younger women, who are disinclined to bare themselves, make up the majority of female sunbathers; those still willing to go topless are usually older women.
“There aren’t any rules, but, yeah, it’s true when you’re at the beach and look around–the only topless women anymore are older,” said Elodie, 19, during a recent visit to Paris Plage, an artificial beach that city authorities create along the Seine each summer. Elodie pointed out that the risk of a fine–and frequently lousy weather–makes going topless at Paris Plage a nonstarter. When she was asked whether she went topless at the beach while on vacation–and what factors made her decide when she did and didn’t–Elodie’s reply was as chilly as it was logical. “All those things,” she said, “are personal concerns.”
The contrast with U.S. practices is hard not to notice. Many American women visiting France these days have few qualms about going topless–and that’s not counting the exhibitionism on display closer to home during Mardi Gras and spring break. In some ways, the puritanical swimsuit now seems to be on the other torso–a new French squeamishness that will doubtless leave some Americans, well, titillated.
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