What do you want to bet that Edmonton’s diverting mid-winter topless swimming story becomes the surprise big issue of the coming 2023 Alberta provincial election?
Earlier this week social media noticed that the City of Edmonton has changed its rules for public swimming pools to allow anyone to swim topless.
Professional news media soon followed with their typically humourless reports. Topless swimmers of all genders? Oh dear!
This seemingly modest rule change was actually quietly implemented back in the spring of last year on the reasonable grounds that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose.
Nobody seems to have noticed at the time, probably because no one took the city up on its liberal new swimwear policy.
It’s not yet spring in Edmonton and won’t be for a while, but obviously the thoughts of the city’s residents are turning to summer recreation and outdoor pools, and so someone spotted the newish rules while scanning a City of Edmonton recreation page.
Buried under the usual verbiage about hair hygiene and the need to take a cleansing shower before getting into a city pool were the following provocative words: “All patrons are permitted to go topless in City operated pools if they so wish.”
Just to be completely transparent about its intentions, the city now says, “All patrons are required to wear bathing suit bottoms, tops are a patron’s choice. This swim attire guideline ensures that City of Edmonton pools are aligned with the Alberta Human Rights Act which does not allow for discrimination based on gender, gender identity or gender expression.”
Now think about this:
This is the perfect issue for the United Conservative Party. It’s mildly titillating, if you’ll pardon the expression, and so bound to generate much more talk than a boring old plan to give $20 billion to already profitable oil and gas companies to clean up the tens of thousands of filthy abandoned wells they’ve already agreed to pay to clean up.
Even the utter chaos in the health care system is unlikely to be able to hold a candle to the thought that Edmonton, the godless socialist capital of Alberta also known as Redmonton (and not in a good Republican way), is about to turn public bathing pools into fleshpots!
If that doesn’t shore up the UCP vote in Alberta’s extensive rural Bible Belt, what will? (Answer: ineffective gun laws. But let’s leave that for another day.)
I mean, face it folks, nothing gets the Conversative base out like the thought that if those woke liberal snowflakes in the cities have their way, Civilization as We Know It Will End.
Just look what happened when Trudeau legalized pot! (Wait, it smells like most of the heavy pot smokers live in rural and suburban Alberta. There actually seems to be less weed being smoked in supposedly socially disorderly downtown Edmonton than there used to be back in the old days of illegal marijuana. So never mind that one.)
But once you can persuade righteous people of the land, the common clay of the West, that civilization is starting downhill, it’ll be easier than ever to stir up hate and fear of Alberta cities, especially Edmonton, which is obviously a core UCP strategy.
So when the UCP sees it has a chance to throw Edmonton under the wheels of Premier Danielle Smith’s bus, it’s just not going to be able to resist. At that point, most of the UCP’s social conservative supporters everywhere else in Alberta are going to lose their heads.
Towns like Cochrane and Balzac can be counted on to pass civic ordnances that there will be no damned (and I use that term advisedly) toplessness allowed in their pools by people whose nipples have an actual purpose beyond mere masculine decoration!
Indeed, it may not have yet occurred to the good folks in the Alberta Bible Belt who are going to go wild about this that the drag queens they so fear, for the most part, have been allowed to swim topless wherever they please for years.
No, this is an issue that will get Alberta’s social conservatives to go right off the deep end.
We’ll be hearing about it every day at least until May 29.
NOTE: My apologies to the late Vincent Musetto of the New York Post, author of the justly famous headline: HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR. It is widely thought among former newspaper copy editors to be the greatest headline ever written.
Yes, this will likely add some fuel to the culture wars that Conservatives sometimes unconvincingly claim they are not inflaming. It also provides them with a most useful distraction in case people start talking about important things the UCP would prefer to avoid, like health care.
I am wondering how Smith and crew will manage to put the blame for this one on Trudeau, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow try. I expect they will totally throw Edmonton under the bus which won’t help their UCP candidates in the area, but hey their chances were already fairly bleak. The best these candidates can probably hope for is an appointment to a public board or communications job if Smith gets reelected.
Given that pool season in Alberta doesn’t usually get going until it is warmer in June, maybe the timing won’t quite work out for the UCP. If supposedly libertarian Smith doesn’t put a heavy handed end to this, perhaps there will be quite an uptick in tourism to Edmonton this summer from rural areas. So this could actually turn out quite good for Edmonton business. After all, a certain Vancouver beach where one can get by with nothing at all has been attracting lots of out of town visitors for years.
Outraged by this flagrant display against all standards of community morality and decency, I will now be carrying out investigatory visits to city pools.
There aren’t enough eye rolls in the world. What, you’ll be creeping around in the bushes with binoculars? You know you can find way more boobs on the internet with way less effort if that’s your angle, right?
What are you going to do if your “investigations” find people engaging in legal behaviour? Call the cops? “Uh, sir, we only bust people who break laws. …Have you considered getting a hobby?” Call the media? “Uh, we kinda already covered this story, and we sort of have jobs, please don’t call this line unless you have something important.” Call Postmedia? “Hey, that’s a great way to distract the local yokels from the role we play in plundering their economy! To the Staplemobile!”
Neil Lore – Pretty sure ronmac’s tongue was planted firmly in the cheek when his comment was posted.
A pre-election headline from the Mason County Times the UCP might forward to its aging rural base.
Breathing Oxygen Linked to Staying Alive
Another to the same demographic from Pinterest.
Students Cook & Serve Grandparents
Don’t panic Seniors, it was only a pancake breakfast.
I think the UCP would be aghast to discover what is on display in Germany’s kunstmuseums.
I’m sure premier Dani will milk this issue for all it’s worth.
Cool: You’ve made me regret I ever posted that blog. DJC
Everyone ought to be free to do whatever they want to, as long as it does not harm someone else. For me, it seems like kind of a stretch to say that breasts cause harm.
If you want to claim that some men will see breasts and behave in harmful ways, we have a criminal justice system for that. Men don’t become drooling morons who can’t control themselves at the sight of breasts because they’re men. Some men become that way because they were taught they are supposed to when they were boys. We don’t actually have to teach boys that if we don’t want to.
Sadly, I remember a lot of those lessons happening in the schoolyard, not the classroom or dinner table.
When are the ‘Anti-drag time’ story protestors going to seize on the opportunity to picket Edmonton City pools to prevent children being expose to the hedonistic display of bare flesh that will now certainly be happening?
When are the 15 minute city crybabies going to start complaining about pools making topless swimming mandatory?
Having experienced the attitudes to nudity in two cultures, I can conclude that maybe going topless in Edmonton, let alone Alberta, at a public pool may really be a bridge too far.
I was in Germany years ago for about two months. It’s a culture very different from Canada’s, in the sense that it’s a very orderly and rational society. That strange period during the 1930s and 40s notwithstanding, it’s a very clean, tolerant, and polite society. People don’t engage in small-talk (at first) because it’s considered rude and annoying, which I consider a very enlightened approach to social interactions. On that matter of nudity, Germans are equally polite and orderly. Nudity is omnipresent in their culture and it’s not the sort of thing that causes sensation. It rarely gets risque, because that would be impolite; however, I was struck by how much the Germans do accept and tolerate with the state of being el fresco. Nudity is common in public parks (in designated areas) and public pools are comfortable with the patrons being in various states of nudity.
Having experienced this very liberal attitude toward nudity in Germany, and other parts of Europe, I was wondering how this would go over in Canada. I recall someone telling me that in Japan communal bathing was common and culturally accepted in Japan for centuries. Bathing was a common social activity for men and women and it wasn’t seen as anything more than that. However, at the end of the war, when the Americans showed up, everything went wrong. Hypersexualized American G.I.s from the Excited States jumped into the communal bathing experience like a bunch of frat boys and ruined it for everyone. Coming from a culture that was prudish and enbued with the fire & brimstone notions from paleo-Christianity, attitudes towards nudity always eroticized the state of being naked, regardless if the setting was sexual or not.
Applying this to the issue of nudity at public pools in Edmonton, I foresee a lot of trouble coming. For one thing, the mindsets concerning public nudity in Edmonton, and Alberta in general, are not as uniformly progressive as believed. While there will be the polite crowd, who are inclined to be polite with nudity in a public setting, you’re always going to the Yah-hoo segment who are going to ruin everything because they just can’t keep it in the pants. Alberta is a society that can’t handle alcohol without getting pissed and blind drunk — how’s the handling of public nudity going to turn out?
Alberta is a lot like certain parts of the US, where attitudes on pretty much everything hasn’t evolved beyond those of adolescent males. Not unusual, considering Alberta thinks itself as being all about the FreeDUMB to be an idiot at all times. Much of this is tied to aspiring to be a hyper-masculine culture. Hence, the obsession with ginormous Pick-up Trucks, drinking, guns, and being Good-Ole Boys 24/7. It should also be noted that those same parts of the US obsess over male-enhancement, or the lack there of, which is why there’s an abundance of products consumed for the purpose of getting it up higher and longer. It should also be noted that societies where the obsession with male-enhancement exists, there will also be considerable efforts applied to limit women’s reproductive rights. If women were inclined to do the right thing for themselves and just “Free the Nipple” in public, they would be considered immediate outcasts and subject to ridicule, just as the “Bewb-Bus Lady”. Just saying the obvious.
So, with the arrival of the dog days of summer, and the high potential for nudity at the public pools, I suspect there will be protesters aplenty, fighting vigorously the showing of the sinful skin other the nether regions. Because the banning of nudity is all in the defence of FreeDUMB.
I thought this was in play….
In Canada, women have the legal right to be topless in public in all provinces and territories. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to equality, and as such, it is considered discriminatory to prevent women from being topless in public when men are allowed to do so. However, it’s important to note that the right to be topless doesn’t mean that women are required to be topless in any specific public place, and cultural attitudes and expectations may still influence whether or not women choose to do so.
Finally. Another person with sense. There’s lots of things that are legal for women to do, like walk down the streets at night, for example. In my experience this is generally limited to whether or not they feel safe to do so. Plebs can riot and protest all they want but I suspect anyone checking city pools this summer is going to see a lot of tops.
Social conservatives complain (well about everything) but about Pride celebrations every year. Somehow they haven’t managed to leverage this into anything at all, other than maybe some fundraising.
The world is going to continue to move one way, conservatives will continue to be outraged by that, whatever it is.
Also so very like conservatives to make their hay on the backs of oppressing women, real classic move from team patriarchy.
“Requirement” is irrelevant; men go topless anywhere in a public space and thus women may do so, too, certainly in Ontario since the mid-1990s (Gwen Jacobs, Guelph).
Given that, as my cousin the nurse put it, “90% of people look better with their clothes on,” I’m not gonna get excited. And no, I’m NOT in the fortunate 10%.
As I recall, BC premier Christy Clark’s campaign-bus portrait also looked like her breasts were covered by two big, shiny hubcaps. With reference to Danielle Smith’s similarly striking bus, they got away with it as long as they could, both joshing that the paint-jobs were simply an innocent mistake. And who could disprove them— or the fact that they might have enjoyed the exposure—while it lasted?
Otherwise the two neo-right caretaker premiers are a study in contrasts: Christy hadn’t a policy bone in her body but was, for all that, a natural politician in the fitted-coverall sense when photo-opping at resource industry campaign stops, and in the sharp-hoof-to-the-groin sense as she kicked a 20-point lead out of her pacifist NDP rival to win a surprise mandate of her own. Indeed, nobody would put it past Christy if she showed up topless at a public swimming pool campaign stop if she thought it would get her re-elected—and that’s probably why she didn’t: too predictable, unlikely to top her last stunt and, possibly worse, be equated with her dough-headed “Om on the Bridge” gimmick.
Danielle Smith, in contrast, has the reverse: a surfeit of overly imaginative policies but not a political bone in her head to tell her how— or even if—her policy proposals can or should be done. Recall that her own spinning-spigot bus wheels did not produce a win like Christy’s did. Virtually everything Danielle’s done so far has been distinctively impolitic—heck, she’s almost an exhibitionist in this regard. But trust her to bobble this issue, too: ‘ As your UCP premier I am issuing an order in council to immediately prohibit toplessness at our public swimming pools and, if re-elected, I will pass legislation in cabinet that all lifeguards must report any members of Grey-Straightened Alliances to their house wives back on the farm, under pain of penalty in Adam-and-Eve-not-Steve terms.’ Watch out, Danielle: as Women’s Temperance Leagues discovered during Prohibition, not all patrons of ubiquitous speak-easies were shiftless bachelors.
Expect her NDP rival to quickly respond—whether blamed for this civic liberation or not—that she has more important issues to talk about, like the UCP record on healthcare and what the NDP will do to fix this ongoing and growing crisis. After all, nobody is suggesting nurses go topless (even if fewer old geezers would roll outta bed at night if they did).
I expect Smith will find the topless issue as disappointing as the novice’s first visit to a nude beach: it ain’t really Hooters but, rather, an unabashed display of human anatomy at every age, shape and size, warts, cellulite, stretch-marks and all—as appalling to the green-horn as that ancient epitaph: As you are/ I once was/ As I am/ You will be. There’s nothing quite as unforgettable as one’s first glimpse of an octogenarian enthusiastically stripping down to show off her outdoorsy liberality —the creased and wrinkled cling-wrap bag of melted chocolate from UV overdoses, and monkey-butt callouses from her 50 km mountain bike-ride to the beach. Notwithstanding. Or, from the mouth of babes: “Mommy, why does that fat old lady have a beard?”
Just be glad, Danielle, that it’s only topless: at the true nude beach with its Mr Natural imitations and saucily-placed sunglasses, and Mrs Natural with none, one, two, or even three-hung-low, the novice can really get lost in the woods.
Anecdotally I recall a mid-teenaged son of a friend of mine asking me: “Who was that naked old lady at the New Years Dance?” (We live on a Gulf Island, after all…)
“OMG! You SAW that?!”
“Yeah…” he confessed, the very first worry-lines forlornly wrinkling his youthful brow.
“Don’t worry, my young friend,” I reassured him,” you’ll get it back—in about six months or so…” I didn’t have to elaborate (he seemed to understand that I was young once, too—an exceptional young lad, now the father of a bouncing topless baby boy).
“Really?” He almost looked relieved.
But, seriously, this topless swimming pool thing is no laughing matter. I mean, if this is allowed, then what next?—stripper malls and topless pool halls? (Talking ‘bout “pool,” and that starts with “P” and that rhymes with “T” and that spells TI—TSshhhhaving cream, see what I mean, shave every day and you’ll always be clean! Right here in Redmonton!!)
Besides, you’re likely gonna get your Freedumbites’ nipple-rings in a twist, what with the Constitutional guarantee forbidding inequality in swimwear terms—but with the obviously necessity that mirrored sunglasses, cellphone cams and burqas should not be allowed into the wet-T-shirtless Zone —for men only—, it looks like you’re gonna hafta get out that notwithstanding clause!
And that’s only Edmonton—what about Calgary? I’ve lived in both, been down to Okatoks after work with the boys—where the dancers slide outta sight down the pole into a sea of Stetsons—,seen the busty cowgirl-escorts at The Cecil and Ranchman’s where they start out riding the Bucking Bronco and spend the rest of the night working their way up the alphabet. I reckon you ban topless public swimming in Cowtown, you’ll lose the whole darn city.
Good luck! (This ougtta be good and interesting!)
Had the UCP brought in this policy, it would have been done under the mantra of “freedom”.
Of course, women’s bodies being treated equally as men (i.e., requirement to cover genitalia) is certainly an issue about freedom, not only fairness & equality; freedom doesn’t need quotation marks here.
I’m more traditional than any given “conservative”; I have a pre-Christian Classical view of nudity and fully welcome these new rules in Edmonton that allow women to also be freely topless. Genitalia is between the legs, not above them, and it’s that simple. I think what both the “conservatives” and the crazy lefties have to brace for is the reaction; what might sadly happen as an unforeseen (& undesired) consequence is ethnocultural-designated swim times being reserved, which would be inherently exclusionary. Multiculturalism ideology has never worked and it must be completely undone.
After all, sadly, many men have larger breasts than a lot of women!
This will NOT be an Election issue. If it does become an Election issue, Notley and Smith should go Topless at a City Pool !