BODY POLITICS
Get Comfortable
In Your Own Skin
By Sala Elise Patterson
 
To this day, I can remember the first time I went topless on the beach. It was 13 years ago in the South of France. I was 17 and visiting French friends of my parents, alone - thank God. In my naiveté and American cluelessness, I never imagined that a whole nation of civilized people would voluntarily participate in public nudity. But when we got to the beach on the first morning, every woman was topless. I tried to act as if being surrounded by hundreds of bare breasts was completely normal for me, but inside I was freaking out. Would my hosts follow suit? Would they expect me to? Spot chosen, beach blanket unfurled, the mother of the family took off her sundress to reveal a one-piece. Phew, I thought. She can't go topless in a one-piece. Then she proceeded to draw the straps down over achshoulder and roll the suit to her waist. I made a split second decision. You don't know anyone here, I told myself as I drew my bikini top over my head.
 
I spent that whole day looking down at my own breasts. They were just so...there. Of course everyone else around me ignored my semi-nudity - and their own for that matter. By the end of the day, I had gotten over it and looking at myself in the mirror that night, I loved not having a tan line and glow-in-the-dark boobs. So when I went to Italy a few years later, I assumed the same rules applied. It was, after all, still Europe, and essentially the same stretch of coast. But when I got to the Italian seaside, everyone was neatly tucked into swimsuits. I had so looked forward to tanning topless (by then I was a spokesperson) but I realized that if I did, I'd create the same level of discomfort for myself that I would have felt in France by wearing a top. And besides, I liked the way Italian women worked that fine line between sexy and lewd. By covering up suggestively, they had all the sex appeal of the Playmate of the Month, but none of the vulgarity.
 
I couldn't make sense of it though. Why didn't Italy and France, cultural and geographic "relatives," share the same attitudes about nudity? Italy has a big-breast culture. Men love breasts - women wear plunging necklines to flaunt theirs. Hello!? Sophia Loren. Then one day an Italian friend explained that it's the Catholic Church, which makes its home in Italy and has an undue influence over daily life. It doesn't matter that no one goes to mass anymore. At this point, the conservativeness permeates the culture. However, some years later in Brazil, a Catholic stronghold, I learned that it isn't about the church, or at least not exclusively.
 
It was my first time traveling to Brazil, and for the journey I wore my favorite knee-length wrap skirt, a colorful fitted tee and flip-flops. On the plane I imagined myself, a paragon of sexy bohemia, holding court on Copacabana with a flower tucked behind my ear, fielding flirtations from local men. When I stepped off the plane, though, I felt like an escapee from the convent. Almost all Brazilian women, regardless of age, weight, and social standing, were sporting super-miniskirts or butt-hugging short-shorts, spike heels and minuscule tops. To me they looked like hookers. To Brazilian men they looked like lunch and I looked like, well, communion.
 
And if that's what they wear on the streets, you can imagine what I found on the beach. No one wears a one-piece. I spent weeks in the country and never saw one, not even in a store. The bikinis are made of microscopic triangular swatches of fabric strung together with dental floss. Going topless was out of the question - again, the nod to the Church - but at these proportions there was no need. I had to throw out all of my suits (they called the bottoms, "apple catchers") and buy local ones. I spent my first few days on the beach fidgeting with the back triangle of my bikini bottom to keep it perfectly centered. It was a nightmare.

But the liberating tradeoff was that in Brazil everyone wears a thong and struts around in it like they are the second coming. And I, too, got used to looking down and seeing all of that booty and well, liking this fiercer, bolder version of myself. Of course it's the same butt that I tuck away at home, but in Brazil, surrounded by my sisters-in-flesh, I felt self-assured, empowered. Who would have thought that showing off my body in Brazil and France, but seductively and suggestively covering it in Italy would have the same effect? I discovered that my body, and my relationship with it, is not static but a composite, shifting reality depending as much upon my self-esteem as geography, sexual politics and religion. It took uncovering and covering it and feeling truly me all the while, to make those critical connections.