The Empowerment Of Bikinis

After generations of being expected to conform to asinine, non-obligatory social constructs about modesty, Western women are able to don the bikini without offending almost every person in sight.  Yes, this form of swimwear still has its fallacy-bound opponents, but many women are now permitted, in a social sense, to wear it.  There are empowering elements to this freedom that even anti-legalists often neglect.  Every point about the human body that follows applies to both men and women.  However, the male body, while usually not recognized as an object of beauty [1], is not a regular target of ascetics who demand that it be covered, when the same is not true of the female body [2].

Every time a woman wears a bikini, she has the opportunity to celebrate the nonsexual nature of her body while she enjoys an innocent freedom that has been opposed by ascetic and legalistic ideas for centuries.  In social settings, this allows her to perhaps enjoy the admiration of others.  As reason and experience can reveal, having one's body receive admiration from others in either a platonic or sexual sense can be exciting for men and women alike, and it has the potential to solidify someone's comfort with their bodily appearance.

After all, the voluntary display of one's body can facilitate or signify the acceptance of one's body.  Christianity (and Judaism by logical extension) is thoroughly pro-body, yet there are relatively few Christians who actually embrace this.  Christians are often more likely to pay lip service to the notion that the Bible regards the human body very highly, since it is the pinnacle of God's physical creation, than they are to live as if it is a metaphysically good product of God's craftsmanship.  Christian subcultures are often immersed in prudery, particularly with regard to the female body, though the teaching of prudery actually contradicts the Bible's position on the status of the human body.

Prudery fosters shame, and shame can lead to the internalization of damaging attitudes towards one's own body and the bodies of others.  The solution to body dysphoria of women and men (of course, Western culture largely ignores male issues with such things) is not brought about merely by encouraging words.  When people become familiar with their bodies, they might be more willing and likely to accept them and even love them--and the quickest way to become familiar with one's body is to allow it to be seen.

Displays of the human body can have a deeply empowering effect on observers and the one(s) being displayed, which is exactly what ascetic Christians need to experience.  Familiarity with something can lead to its acceptance, and when there are practical benefits to accepting a thing that is metaphysically good, the only people who oppose it are those drowning in their own fallacies.  Legalistic Christians could ironically benefit from the bikinis they despise.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-male-body.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/bikinis-are-not-sinful.html