Beach Attire

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 90, 10 January 1935, Page 11

Beach Attire

Sir, —There was a letter signed “A visitor to Wellington” in your issue of Saturday last, with reference to the matter of beach attire. That a visitor should be so annoyed, and his sense of modesty offended by .the sight of healthy, normal humanity enjoying the inestimable benefits of God’s good sunshine direct upon their uncovered bodies is sad, but of no importance otherwise. That he should advertise to the world .that he is ashamed of his own body is mildly interesting, nothing more. That he should invite (doubtless feeling the lack of company), the general public to share his jaundiced view of “the noblest work of the Creator,” is merely absurd. When, however, in grading the beach, he finds it hard for one to believe one is among Christians, and not savages, exception must be taken to his vapourings, for his statement is insulting to genuine Christians and savages alike, ail of whom, the Bible tells us, are made in the image of their Maker. “A Visitor to Wellington” must learn, to realise that, in. tliis year of grace, there is a large and steadily-growing volume of public opinion that strongly objects to his early Victorian beastliness of outlook with respect to the human body, substituting for prudery and false modesty a sturdy belief in the unassailable beauty and dignity of the human form, while retaining a full sense of Christian principles and ethics. But why proceed to insult the savages? Have they not paid heavily enough for the doubtful blessings of civilisation; —unnecessary clothing, consumption, liquor, venereal disease. As to what children think of their parents, it is a thousand times more to be desired that children should see those parents innoctently enjoying the sunshine and sea-air, and to follow their lead, than that they should grow up ignorant victims of the conspiracy of silence so papular in fusty Victorian days. As “Kickshaws,” in his entertaining column, recently pointed out, clothes do not make us moral, being first adopted as a means to added warmth, not as an aid to modesty- The human form is above reproach. It is our mental attitude toward our bodies which makes for decency or indecency, and one likes to think that the det'ent folk are in preponderating ratio. lam etc., C. ROY AYLING. Greytown, January 8.