Oh, Derbs. Never change.
Culture Watch [John Derbyshire]
Day at the beach, followed by another day at the splash park. (We are entertaining a foreign visitor.) I have a question: What happened to the one-piece female bathing suit?
It’s nothing but bikinis out there in beachland and splashparkland this summer. Every female Homo sap., of every age, shape, and tint is in a bikini, including a great many who should not be — including, indeed, quite a few who should be arrested for it.
For a nation with 47 kinds of breakfast cereal and 293 categories of pop music (anyone care to tell me what “Christian Screamo” sounds like? On second thoughts, never mind . . .), we are very unimaginative about ladies’ beachwear. This is it? Game, set, and match to the bikini?
[Not quite it, perhaps. At the Splish Splash water park out on eastern Long Island yesterday, I spotted a BMO among all the bikinis. Wonder what she was thinking.]
I hate when my trip to the splash park is spoiled by women’s midriffs. I’m with Ann — thank goodness Derbs wears a one-piece.
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I’m with Ann — thank goodness Derbs wears a one-piece.
Derb only wears a one piece because his homophobic self is worried a gay man won’t be able to resist him.
The Corner makes Instapundit read like James Joyce. How can a blog suck so bad.
Sorry about the tag error.
“Miss Manners” (aka Judith Martin, a protocol officer in the Kennedy administration) addressed this topic in her 1979 etiquette book:
* * *
“Dear Miss Manners:
Would you say something, please, about the general appropriateness and attractiveness of one-piece, as opposed to two-piece, bathing suits? I’m no prude, but it does seem to me that aesthetic standards, as well as those of, shall we say, minimal decency, are being violated all the time on our public beaches.
Gentle Reader:
Miss Manners quite agrees with you. If gentlemen realized how much more mysteriously alluring they looked in two-piece bathing suits, instead of the present one-piece models, they would toss fashion aside and return to those modest and becoming fashions of old.”
* * *
Quite a few who should be arrested for it? Yeah, hyperbole and all, but seriously, Republicans who want the government out of their business lose the right to ask for government enforcement of “crimes against fashion”. Plus, I’m guessing there are just as many men as women who are showing some belly at the beach. Guess what, self-absorbed asshole, those people may have gone to the beach for fun! For themselves! Not to put on a show for you! They may not care for your opinion in the slightest!
Also, “age, shape, and tint“? I just don’t get that bit- did he expect bikinis to be a white-girls-only thing or what?
Actually, Derb is one of the saner posters on The Corner. It mostly has to do with his Englishness, lack of religious conviction, anti-creationism, and paleocon tendencies which tend to befuddle the regulars at NR.
Yeah… he believes in evolution insofar as it supports his contention that women reach their “sell-by” date at 20, and that ageing makes you less rape-able.
So sad that you’re right, though, Amanda — he is more sane than the others. Ugh.
I fully concur.
Women who fail to amend their shameful, deviant bodies to make them look as sexually available and attractive to het men as they can, should most certainly be outlawed! It debases all humanity, and the very foundations of democracy, that we allow these women to exist in any way that incidentally denys het men their basic entitlement to the free oogling of all women wherever those women are. Don’t these bitches know wars have been faught over this! Ink spilled by our greatest thinkers!?
Can’t they SEE I’m entertaining foreigners!? Disgusting.
Now where did I put my gin?
Also, “age, shape, and tint“? I just don’t get that bit- did he expect bikinis to be a white-girls-only thing or what?
What I thought was that it was a dig at those who are “too white” as in, not tan enough. Where I am, folk are always joking they will “blind” each other if they show too much skin and aren’t tan.
This is why old farts like Derbyshire shouldn’t talk about women’s fashion. All bikinis are two-pieces, but not all two-pieces are bikinis. I would argue that many of today’s two-pieces are more covered than some of today’s one-pieces. I like two-pieces with boy shorts because they offer more coverage than a one-piece where it matters more: on my bottom. If I don’t have to shave down there, it’s all good.
I know it is not John Derbyshire’s job to educate me or do a 101 on bathing suit etiquette. And I don’t want to derail this thread or let my female privelege go unchecked. I know that only 98% of the internet is “safe” for people like John Derbyshire. But I have googled and bing-ed and yahoo-ed, and I cannot figure out what a BMO is. Can anyone help me out here?
Can’t speak with any authority since I’ve never heard of it myself, but assuming from the context that it (BMO) is something uncomplimentary/offensive that someone in his demographic would think was amusing, this pops up:
Urban DIctionary definitions of BMO
BMO = “Black Moving Object.” It’s apparently military slang for women in abayyas or chadors.
His whole post boils down to one thing: How dare these women be near naked and not boner-worthy.
Newsflash, Derbsy, women have no obligation to either make your manbits sit up and say hey, or cover up entirely. Deal with it.
Ah, thank you. BMO. It is so refreshing when racism is packaged in a convenient little acronym.
When I go to the beach I really really enjoy looking at pretty women wearing teenie-weenie bikinis. But I can’t imagine that the reason women go to the beach is for my girl-watching pleasure. They come for their own regalement, and what entertainment I get from ogling them is an accidental free benefit to me. And since it’s free, the principle “beggars can’t be choosers” applies. Besides that, if the rule “you must be beautiful to walk this shoreline” were actually enforced, I myself would never get to see the ocean at all.
Wow. What an ironic digression from a rant about women who aren’t covered to his liking — some women are TOO modest! Luckily I keep a handy list of the exact things I’m allowed to wear for John Derbyshire to consider me a human being.
@ThickRedGlasses – Yeah, this guy doesn’t seem to understand what “two piece” means, because he’s so busy mourning one specific item that’s gone out of fashion. I love cute tankinis myself, since I’m relatively thin but still uncomfortable about exposing my stomach.
I hope I have the confidence one day to wear a true bikini to the beach like my friends of all sizes have, if only as a fuck you to people who think they should be “arrested” for it.
That Miss Manners post made my day.
@ThickRedGlasses: So true. I think most boy short long tankini combos are more modest than one pieces
And I am sooo sick of women who are not a certain size being shamed for weaing two pieces that expose the midrift (or bathing suits at all) and for wearing clothes that do not “flatter” them (in the cases I’m referring too, it means they are too revealing). Jackasses: The purpose is not to make YOU feel comfortable, but the wearer. If a woman who is size 22 feel comfortable in a bikini exposing her midriff then it is flattering b/c she feels comfortabe in it and does not have to dress to your aesthetic likenings. (Someone actually complained on youtube about a woman in a burlesque video not wearing “flattering” clothes b/c she was a larger size).
Flattering is too often code for cover up your damn rolls.
As far as I’m concerned, women are either too covered up, or not covered up enough.
Or something.
But seriously… taking women’s choices aside. There IS a pressure to always be exposed to show you are legally sexual. I mean, if an alien came to our planet, it would assume that women’s temperature is 10 degrees higher than a man’s. I mean, what other reason would it be that a man can wear a shirt that covers his arms on a date or when “dressing up” a woman must have arms exposed, while a guy can wear a suit? Otherwise you can’t be sexually desirable. The same thing for bikinis – sure they are a “free” choice, but it seems the mandatory to show you can be legally sexually active, otherwise, the one piece means you have closed shop and could be becoming the fat, which means that, legally, you can’t be sexually active. What choice is there in that?
hmm. don’t support derbs’ viewpoint, here, but i DO want to know what happened to the one-piece female bathing suit. honestly, try to find one in a store: in my experience, they’re either boring (and expensive!) one-color suits for serious swimmers, or oddly embellished with belts, skirts, beads, and all manner of other trappings, including weird slits up the side or back. i really wish the one-piece felt like an acceptable alternative for summer wear. it’s both way more practical for actual swimming (vs. beach-sitting), and offers more coverage for those of us who might like that–for reasons that include modesty OR safety (skin cancer and all that). but sometimes it feels like wearing a one-piece is an admission that you are boring or unattractive–and of course the cutest suits on the shelves at the store are bikinis. i guess this comes back to the same perception (of bikinis as being for attractive women only / attractive women wearing only bikinis, not one-pieces) needing to be changed, and the fact that a woman should be able to wear the type of suit she prefers without being judged. but it would help if there were a larger number of one-piece options!
You know, I do have to agree with Kerry on this one. When I went swimsuit shopping this year, all I could find were skimpy little bikinis or one pieces with . . . yeah, skirts, beads, belts, etc. I couldn’t even find tankinis that had any kind of bust support whatsoever. After several attempts failed, I ended up buying one online.
So yeah, it’d be nice to have some more options available. Yay, bikinis! But boo, few alternatives.
I had a hell of a time finding a swimsuit that covered my tattoos last summer. Considering they’re on my hip and my lower back, it really shouldn’t have been difficult, but one pieces with boy legs are impossible to find.
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