The politics of topless sunbathing

I’m pretty certain that what I’m about to say is essentially unsayable. So here goes: we need to have a frank conversation about boobs. Bare boobs. Because on my recent holiday to Majorca, I have to confess to being a little astonished to see quite so many topless women on the beach.

But what a simple joy it was; old, young, lithe, voluminous, ponderous – there they were in all their glory, glistening or wilting in the sun, or simply splashing about in the sparkling water. Boobs.

I know, I know… as a straight, white, privately educated man in the raw good health of middle age this is not territory that I’m completely comfortable venturing into. And perhaps I shouldn’t. But I feel this needs to be said.

You see, I had assumed in our new age of Puritanism that something as old-fashioned as topless beach-going was now borderline verboten.