However, as summer is in full swing, I have noticed that
there is an issue with pools that reaffirms my hesitancy to venture out to the
pool with my vampire-white skin and tubs of sunscreen and stacks of poolside
books.
The bikini.
Please keep reading, despite your feelings on the
subject. Maybe you agree. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you are reading this post by the pool,
wearing a bikini. Read on, dear readers,
read on.
My inner history major is coming out, so I’d like to start
off this discussion with a brief history of the bikini. Louis Reard was a French man who worked in
his mother’s lingerie shop. He went to
work every day and looked at women in their underwear. I’m sure his complaint list was pretty low in
relation to his work environment.
One day he had the idea that women should wear these kinds
of style in public, and the place that made sense to introduce the fashion
trend was the beach. So he made a
swimsuit that was, essentially, water proof lingerie. If you look at the style through the lenses
of the modern era, this swimsuit is now considered “conservative” in
comparison. However, back in the year
1946, it was scandalous.
Time came for the fashion show to introduce the debut of the
new swimwear, and Louis began to recruit his runway models. It was harder than he thought – no model
would have anything to do with waterproof lingerie, poolside wear or not. So who did he have model this fashion?
A Paris stripper named Micheline Bernardini.
So we have water proof lingerie, and now a days it seems
that most swimsuits actually cover less than what is worn under our clothing. Even if modern opinion of the appropriateness
of a swimsuit has changed, the brain has not.
Let’s try this in a different situation with a different
vantage point – this first scenario is from Jason Evert.
As a young woman, you are at your house getting dressed and,
for some unknown reason, your bedroom wall fell down. If a group of people were running by, would
you stand there in your underwear and wave hello? Basically the same coverage as a bikini,
right? NO! In this case, you would dash for cover as soon as possible.
Then why is it socially acceptable to wear this kind of
coverage, if not much less, if there is a body of water around?
What if your dad has his friends over to watch the football
game and you need something from the kitchen? Would you ever walk down there in
just your underwear? No! Yet why if you
were at the pool is it okay to walk around in water proof underwear around
those same people?
Some will say “Well, a guy’s brain is his own responsibility
and if he can’t control himself, it’s his fault.” Others say, “If a woman wants to dress in a
way that will objectify her, it is her fault.”
Grow. Up.
Since when was a problem solved by blaming either side of
the issue? We should be viewing our
interactions with others as a way to help each other to Heaven. It needs to be a mutual endeavor, and finding
ways to place blame and never solve the problem is not going to help the
situation in the least bit.
It is not that bikini shows too much of you – it is that it
reveals too little. This was written about
extensively by Saint Pope John Paul II in his Theology of the Body
discussions. A bikini does not reveal
your talent as a daughter of God. Or
that you have a brilliant mind, beautiful heart, and eternal soul. It only reveals your body – and that is not
near close enough to who you are as a child of God.
How “hot”, fit, or attractive you look in a bikini does not
define who you are as a human being with an immortal soul. Your figure is not your greatest
accomplishment. How sun-kissed (or in my
case, burned) you look at the end of summer and where your tan lines are is not
the sum of your being. You are more than
a body and are so much more than the tone of your skin – despite what society
tells you.
On top of this, you are being reduced to an object when you wear
a bikini – and this is not a stab in the dark guess, either. There have been multiple studies done, but
one of the most convincing is the scans of a male brain while looking at
pictures of women in bikinis. The study was conducted by National Geographic.
Men would look at pictures for a portion of a second, while
their brain was being scanned. In the
rotation of pictures was nature, cities, random events, and, of course,
pictures of women in bikinis.
Without the men consciously willing their brains to do so,
the scans revealed that when showed pictures of women in modest attire, the
part of the brain that uses the terms “She walks, she talks,” and other third
person verbs was activated in a guy. Yet
when shown pictures of women in bikinis, the brain automatically switches to
the part that is used when using tools, objects and first person verbs (“I
move, I walk”)
The reason to wear a modest swimsuit is not because you are
ugly. You are a beautiful daughter of
God. So, if you are beautiful, why cover
your body?
Not because it is horrible.
Not because we don’t want to see you.
But because we veil things that are beautiful. Why are veils encouraged at first communions?
Because those girls are beautiful, and going up to receive the very body and
blood of Christ for the first time. Why does a bride wear a veil on her wedding
day? Because she is a beautiful treasure.
Why do we have a curtain in front of the tabernacle? Because it is beautiful.
No one looks at the first communicant, the bride, or the tabernacle and says “Oh, how ugly. Glad we got that covered up.” The mystery surrounding the girl, the woman, or the Eucharist is amplified because something is left to the imagination.
Do you want people at the pool looking at you and appreciating
you as a child of God, or do you want them looking at you and appreciating what
you would look like without any clothing on?
You are loved. You
are cherished. You are desired by a God
who would rather die than risk spend eternity without you. You deserve more than water proof
lingerie.
Si vis amari ama,
Chloe M.
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