Women can now go topless in any Berlin Pool

[NakedShadow]

A article regarding a recent ruling that states that any women can legally go topless in any pool in the German city of Berlin. A good development for what is probably the most pro-nudism country in the world but I will guess that it will be like New York City's ruling on that women can be topless anywhere legally, where it will be legal but no woman will actually do it everyday/recreational

Link: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/berlin-public-swimming-pools-intl




Women can now swim topless in Berlin's swimming pools. The move reflects Germany's tradition of nudity

Sophie Tanno, CNN • Updated 12th March 2023

(CNN) — Women in Berlin can now swim topless in the city's public pools if they choose to -- just as men can.

As well as being hailed as a step forward for gender equality in the German capital, the measure introduced this week is symptomatic of Germany's love of Freikoerperkulturliterally https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/naked-germany/index.html translated as 'free body culture' -- which has its roots in the late 19th century.

Berlin's authorities took action after a female swimmer said she was prevented from attending one of the city's pools without covering in December 2022. The woman lodged a complaint with the city's ombudsman's office at the Senate Department for Justice, Diversity and Anti-Discrimination.

Authorities agreed that the woman had been a victim of discrimination and this week said that all visitors to Berlin's pools, including women and those who identify as non-binary, are permitted to go topless.

It follows a similar incident at a Berlin water park in the summer of 2021. French woman Gabrielle Lebreton sought financial compensation from the city after security guards ordered her to leave the premise when she refused to cover up her breasts.

She was with her five-year-old son when the incident happened. Speaking to German newspaper Die Zeit https://www.zeit.de/2022/26/oben-ohne-gabrielle-lebreton-berlin at the time about why she believed it was gender discrimination, she said: "For me — and I teach this to my son — no, there is no such difference. For both men and women, the breast is a secondary sexual characteristic but men have the freedom to remove their clothes when it is hot and women do not."

Berlin's state government confirmed the move in a press release Thursday. "As a result of a successful discrimination complaint, the Berlin bathing establishments will in future apply their house and bathing regulations in a gender-equitable manner," the statement reads.


The head of the ombudsman's office, Dr. Doris Liebscher, hailed the move as a step forward for gender equality in the city.

"The ombudsman very much welcomes the decision of the bathing establishments because it creates equal rights for all Berliners, whether male, female or non-binary and because it also creates legal certainty for the staff in the bathing establishments," she said.

Berlin resident Ida -- who asked not to give her surname -- welcomed the loosening of restrictions while questioning what it would really do for gender equality.
"It is certainly great that a simple complaint has made this 'topless' development a reality in Berlin. However, I am not exactly sure how this serves gender equality," she told CNN.

"Women, if comfortable with their own bodies and sometimes gawking strangers, won't have a problem displaying their torsos in any case. It is great that there are no penalties for an accidental nip-slip so all in all, this is a beautiful thing."
Ida also remained skeptical at how widely women would make use of the new rule. "I was once at a swimming pool in the Pankow district and remembering the audience, I would not go topless there. Germans, as a rule, are very neutral in that regard and won't mind, but whether that translates well, we have to wait and see."

The move is not unprecedented for Germany, with Goettingen in central Germany becoming the first city in the country to allow women to swim topless in public pools last summer.

City authorities made the decision following a gender identity row which saw a swimmer asked to cover up at a local pool. The swimmer refused on the grounds that he identified as male, and was subsequently banned from the premise, according to a report by Germany's public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/german-city-of-g%C3%B6ttingens-pools-to-allow-topless-weekend-swimming/a-61627478


'Another way of being'
As well as gender equality, the move also speaks to Germany's love of Freikoerperkultur or FKK -- which has its origins in the German Empire.

Rather than sexualizing the naked human body, the movement places emphasis on the health benefits of communal open-air nudity while exercising or being in nature.

Keon West, a professor of social psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, has investigated attitudes towards nudity in various countries in Europe as well as further afield.

"Most people understand that Germans are much more relaxed about nudity than Britons or Americans," he told CNN.
"The major contrast in attitudes towards nudity in Germany compared with the UK and America is that naked people in Germany are not kept separate from others.

"Instead, nudity is simply accepted as another way of being."
He explained that this is because, in Germany, people who are "nude in public spaces are not automatically seen as dangerous or deviant."
"They tend to let people do it and be very comfortable with it."

Germany's passion for nudity finds its origins in late-19th-century health drives. The country's first FKK organization was established in 1898 and the concept quickly spread around the country, according to Deutsche Welle.https://www.dw.com/en/why-germanys-nudist-culture-remains-refreshing/a-43917929

In 1920, Germany established its first nude beach on the island of Sylt. Barely a decade later, the Berlin School of Nudism, founded to encourage mixed sex open-air exercises, hosted the first international nudity congress.

The nudist movement was initially banned by the Nazis in a moral clampdown. However, it continued to gain popularity and had support among members of the paramilitary SS.

After World War II, nudism remained prominent in both East and West German states but was particularly prevalent in East Germany, becoming a form of escape from the uniforms, marches and conformity of the communist state.

The cultural movement remains popular in modern Germany. Today, there are about 600,000 Germans registered in more than 300 private nudist or FKK clubs and a further 14 affiliated clubs in Austria.

[Jen]

If only Instagram wasn't so afraid of a female nipple.

[Wesley]

If only Instagram wasn't so afraid of a female nipple.

A couple weeks ago I read an article stating Facebook and Instagram were likely to change their policy on this within the coming year, although there is a chance that will only apply to specific regions (i.e. not the united states)

[Fishandchips]

If only Instagram wasn't so afraid of a female nipple.

A couple weeks ago I read an article stating Facebook and Instagram were likely to change their policy on this within the coming year, although there is a chance that will only apply to specific regions (i.e. not the united states)

Ah they’ve been blathering about it for a while now but no change.

[NakedShadow]

If only Instagram wasn't so afraid of a female nipple.

A couple weeks ago I read an article stating Facebook and Instagram were likely to change their policy on this within the coming year, although there is a chance that will only apply to specific regions (i.e. not the united states)

I heard that too but I took it as simple P.R. talk. Maybe they won't ban art works like statues or classical paintings but I don't bet that they will 'free the nipple' to any degree

[Moses]

That’s a small step forward. I am hopeful that will start to change in the states

[swede]

Thats good, i think not all swimming pools in sweden has this policy, but at least ost have :)

[NakedShadow]

CNN Opinion piece regarding this:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/opinions/berlin-topless-swimming-free-the-nipple-thomas-ctrp/index.html





Opinion: This is about far more than swimming topless
Opinion by Holly Thomas
Updated 7:20 AM EDT, Thu March 16, 2023

Topless participants demonstrate for equal gender rights at a demonstration held on bicycles in Berlin, July 2021.


Editor’s Note: Holly Thomas is a writer and editor based in London. She is morning editor at Katie Couric Media. She tweets @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.
CNN  —

Last week, Berlin freed the nipple — sort of.

Following a complaint from a female swimmer who hadn’t been allowed into one of the city’s pools without covering her chest, Berlin’s state government declared Thursday that all visitors, regardless of gender, are allowed to enjoy public pools topless: “As a result of a successful discrimination complaint, the Berlin bathing establishments will in future apply their house and bathing regulations in a gender-equitable manner.”

 Such a straightforward, logical response implies a straightforward issue. Female breasts, like body hair and Adam’s apples, are a secondary sex characteristic. Why not treat them equally? Yet concerns and fears around what constitutes an “appropriate” context in which people of all genders should be allowed to show their bare chests — and whether everyone should be afforded the same latitude to do so — continue to plague us. The problem, it seems, is how we approach nudity in the first place.

Take a famous recent example. Last July, actress Florence Pugh wore a hot pink, completely sheer tulle dress to Valentino’s Haute Couture fashion show in Rome. The photos, which showed her breasts fully visible through the gown, went viral. Trolls flooded the comment section under Pugh’s own post on Instagram, making cruel remarks about their size and shape, and accusing her of immodesty.

The next day, she posted another picture, with a long caption addressing the backlash. “Why are you so scared of breasts?” she asked. “Small? Large? Left? Right? Only one? Maybe none? What. Is. So. Terrifying.”

 These questions have been asked so many times, by so many people, in so many situations. Yet across the board, institutions keep failing to come up with satisfactory answers. Meta — Facebook and Instagram’s parent company — has been a particular focal point of the #FreetheNipple campaign, which advocates for removing the stigma around bare chests for everyone, ever since Facebook removed images from a documentary of that name by director Lina Esco.

Esco filmed “Free The Nipple” in 2012 in New York City, where it’s legal for women to go topless. She later said that there “were three cars of cops ready to chase me” and some of the semi-naked women who staged protests during its production.

There certainly seems to have been some confusion among the city’s finest around that time — in February 2013, an official memo reminded the force that bare-breasted women shouldn’t be cited for public lewdness or indecent exposure. Perhaps the message registered, in New York City at least. In 2014, after Instagram suspended her account for posting a photo featuring two women with bare chests, Scout Willis — Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter — documented herself shopping topless (and unbothered by the authorities) in the city. She posted the images to Twitter with the caption “Legal in New York but not on Instagram.”


Florence Pugh at the Valentino Haute Couture Fall/Winter 22/23 fashion show in Rome last year.


 As of now, Pugh’s photos remain on Instagram, but the platform’s relationship with female nudity is hardly on solid ground. Until 2020, it was against community guidelines for women to post photos of themselves breastfeeding, even though breastfeeding in public is legal in all 50 states.

The same year, Celeste Barber, an Australian comedian who replicates photos of models and actresses, posted a picture of herself semi-covered by a taupe blazer, with one hand covering one of her breasts. It was a near-identical copy of a similar photo by Victoria’s Secret model Candice Swanepoel, except while Swanepoel appeared to be naked on her lower half, Barber wore a thong. Instagram restricted access to Barber’s photo, but left Swanepoel’s free to share. The platform later apologized and said there’d been an error, but the incident reflects a pattern that’s seen thin, conventionally beautiful women allowed far more freedom to bare their skin than those in larger bodies.

Following a January review by Meta’s oversight board, it looks as though the nipple may soon win its freedom on its social media platforms. Nevertheless, the collective mindset around naked breasts in America still seems so fraught. There’s no federal law for or against nudity in the US, but states have varying laws against related offenses, called things like “indecent exposure,” “public lewdness” and “public indecency,” and these are classified differently depending on where you live. In Indiana and Tennessee, just showing women’s breasts in public is illegal. The rationale informing what constitutes indecency appears far from clear-cut.

Perhaps Germany is closer to an answer. Though Berlin’s movement toward gender equity in swimming pools hardly constitutes a revolution, it does reflect a more relaxed mindset around nudity in general. Freikoerperkultur, (or FKK), which translates to “free body culture,” is a national movement that dates back to the late 19th century. The idea is simple: treat all naked bodies just like clothed ones. Nudism flourished in Germany in the early 20th century, and post-World War II it became especially popular in East Germany.

 According to Gregor Gysi, an East Berlin-born politician, the “pornographic gaze” of the West has spoiled what was once a treasured pastime. That’s a sweeping statement, but a common thread across all this breast-related strife in America is an assumed lack of neutrality in the eye of the beholder, which translates to inequality in the way that female-presenting bodies are treated.

Breasts are not inherently about sex. Their primary function is to feed babies. Not all women have babies, or breasts, and some men do. Yet what everyone with breasts still has in common is that their bodies are afforded fewer freedoms than everyone else’s. The top half of their body has the potential to offend, because an observer might infer something that has nothing to do with the breasts themselves, and everything to do with their own ideas about the right type of body, or the “correct” use of breasts.

But what if breasts aren’t the problem, and are not, therefore, the issue in need of a remedy? The solution, as the city of Berlin so neatly demonstrated, would be simple. In order for all bodies to be equal, we have to treat them so.

[Jman071]

This is a good direction. Reading that CNN piece I just learned that it’s legal in a lot of states outside of businesses.