You’ve seen those real estate ads for condo complexes and apartment buildings that cater to young folks, with swimming pools and funny red drinks with umbrellas. The girls sitting by the pool are always babes – really, really cute.
Sex sells. Even when the economy is sluggish. Couple that with the fact that it’s summer’s end and most of you are lolling around some vacation spot on the Cape, with little interest in more bad news abut commercial real estate, or Freddie or Fannie, or whether Barney Frank is in a good mood.
At times like this, the editor comes to me, as he often does in times of crisis, and says, “Write about sex, with a real estate/financial services kind of an angle.”
Speaking of Pittsfield, that crowd in the Berkshires will do almost anything to snare a few extra tourists. Plopped on the local ballot for a non-binding (literally) referendum of sorts: Shall we encourage our local legislators to go to Boston and fight for a change in the state nudity laws, so that women can sunbathe topless?
Just the thought of it has bumped up occupancy rates at local B&Bs about 40 percent. “Martha, I think I’ll take a walk down to the lake after lunch and watch the birds. Isn’t nature wonderful out here in the Berkshires?”
This “topless” thing has been an issue in many locales – most of them warmer than the Berkshires, where by early September, topless women walking around in 40-degree weather would have quite an impressive presence.
In the part of Florida where I often hang out, German tourist gals occasionally get snared on an “indecent exposure” charge for sunbathing topless. They are surprised, and often ask the presiding judge, “Why didn’t somebody tell me?” I think I know why.
Fashion Fatigue
Back in 2008, a county judge in California ruled that a secluded part of a San Onofre State Beach could continue its long tradition of nude sunbathing – as long as nobody objected. If that sounds like a judge that just wanted to get this stuff out of his courtroom and go home and sit in the back yard, nude, you’re probably right.
Vermont, which has had a long tradition of clothing-optional behavior, witnessed a parade of sorts past the State Capitol last year, featuring 42 nude cyclists. As in many states, Vermont has no law prohibiting public nudity – but you aren’t allowed to actually do the stripping in public.
The fashion conscious might well wonder whether the distinction between no top and a super-skimpy, alluring, sort-of-bikini top, is worth legislating or litigating about. In Grenada, you can wear your skimpy bathing suit while on the beach, but when you toddle on downtown or into residential neighborhoods, put on something a little less distracting. Nudity seems out of the question in such a totalitarian environment.
Compromise would seem the order of the day in all this. Even if the Pittsfield politicians are empowered to march on Boston and seek freedom and liberty for topless women, the legislative hot potato would be referred to the Public Utility and Nudity Committee – and it would take them six months to come back with an alternative: One breast, not two.
In Manatee County (Florida), back in the late 1990s, the politicians passed a carefully balanced ban on women showing off more than 75 percent of their breasts. The fine was $500, with 60 days in jail, if, for instance, 80 percent of a breast popped out for a visit. You see the problem? Enforcement. As a spokesman for the county sheriff put it: “I don’t think we’ll be tape-measuring.”
The appropriate legislative initiative in the Berkshires might be a one-night experiment: the Boston Symphony performs topless for an evening at Tanglewood. The harpist would have to be very careful, but everybody else would be just fine. An evening of weird stuff by, say, composer Philip Glass, would be about right.
As a matter of pure public policy, different cities, counties and principalities in Massachusetts should be empowered to set their own standards for such stuff.
There. I just had to get that off my chest.
Oops.
