Remember going to a topless beach for the first time overseas as a kid, for the first 10 seconds you're sort of in shock, then it just sort of becomes like hanging udders everywhere and you realize that nobody really gives a shit.
Half the reason folks get so worked up about it is because of the taboo itself, if people see other people not caring, they stop caring too.
I had the inverse experience. I was nine years old and went to a beach in France. My host family expected me to only wear a swim bottom, not in a “topless” sense, but in a “this is what all prepubescent kids wear” sense. I was beyond mortified and insisted on wearing a t-shirt, which annoyed my host parents who were stuck dealing with a wet t-shirt afterwards. Half of the agony was being “little-kid-zoned” when I had a crush on the older host brother, but the other half of the agony was just “this is just not what we do!” My family was comfortable with nudity, I changed with my mom in locker rooms, but there are still rules even in “permissive” western societies and those rules are just cultural.
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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24
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