Women sunbathing topless is still a taboo in the UK – we need to stop being prudish

As another heatwave hits the country, Olivia Petter writes about why she loves sunbathing topless, and why more women should embrace it

Men can do it, so why can’t we? (Getty Images)

My first time was on a remote beach in Thailand. After some gentle encouragement from my best friend, who repeatedly assured me how much better I’d feel afterwards, we both decided the moment had come. It would mark a major transition in my life, from girl to adult. I was 18; it was vital. Necessary. Monumental. I looked around at the nearby strangers and felt my insides fizzing with nerves. Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I whispered, “I’m ready.” And then I did it: I took off my bikini top.

Topless sunbathing for women is, in many ways, one of our last taboos. For whatever reason, we remain incredibly prudish about it in the UK, where our fear of breasts is apparently so visceral that whenever a famous woman dares to ditch the bikini top on holiday, it warrants headline news – and the latest is Heidi Klum on a beach in St Barts. It happens a lot at this time of year: one quick scan of the celebrity gossip rags and I can see three women being spotlighted for having this exact audacity.

The most notable example of this was in 2012, when photographs of the Princess of Wales sunbathing topless were published in French magazine, Closer. The photos were taken of Kate and the Prince of Wales while on a private holiday at a villa in France, and the violation led to the couple winning damages over the magazine’s publication of the photo.

Besides the fact that this was an outright invasion of privacy, and no one was ever supposed to see those images in the first place, the ensuing scandal looms large on how society views women who forgo bikini tops. Back then, Kate was vilified and s***-shamed for the photos coming to light. It was seen as some sort of salacious act that painted the then 30-year-old as a wily seductress intent on wreaking havoc by way of her bare breasts. At the time, Donald Trump tweeted: “Kate Middleton is great – but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude – only herself to blame.”

I’m the same age Kate was back then and, having regularly sunbathed topless ever since that first time at the age of 18, I can safely say it has nothing to do with sex. I’ve done it almost every time I go away with friends, even when the friends I’m travelling with are male. It doesn’t bother me or them. And even in the case where there are a few flinches of discomfort at first, they quickly dissipate as the days go on and people start to acclimatise to the fact that a body really is just a body – and my decision to showcase mine has nothing to do with anyone else but me.

Why do I enjoy it? Well, firstly there’s the fact that women are consistently told that their bodies aren’t good enough as they are. We must spend thousands of pounds on products and treatments that pinch and plump our faces. We have to squash ourselves into smaller dress sizes in order to be considered beautiful by society’s increasingly limited standards. It’s not hard, then, to see the appeal of subverting all this by embracing our bodies as they are to the extent that we can bare parts of it in front of other people.

Then there’s the entirely superficial fact of not wanting to have tan lines on my upper body – it’s so much nicer, and better for my body confidence, to have an even tan. Plus you don’t have to worry about what necklines you can and cannot wear. But mostly, I just feel more comfortable in the heat when my breasts aren’t being squashed and hoisted up by some flimsy fabric. Men don’t have to abide by such constraints, so why should we?

It's great to have celebrities like Florence Pugh and Maggie Rogers, who frequently make a case for us all to #FreeTheNipple by wearing sheer clothing on red carpets. But the fact that whenever they do so it causes such online outrage (Google it) shows just how far we have to go when it comes to truly accepting and celebrating women's bodies.

Florence Pugh responded to criticism of one sheer outfit, saying: ‘What’s more concerning is… why are you so scared of breasts?’ (Instagram @florencepugh)

I understand that some people might not feel comfortable baring all – and sometimes, in groups of girls, I am the only one sunbathing topless from the beginning. But that is only a result of strict social conditioning that has warped perceptions around the female body, turning it into an object for male desire as opposed to something we own and have autonomy over. Generally speaking, whenever I am the only one topless sunbathing at the start of a holiday, by the end, other women will have followed suit, taking my own decision as an invitation for them to do the same. And they always feel so much better for doing so.

We lose so much by oversexualising women’s bodies

Other countries are far ahead of the curve (pun intended) when it comes to nudity. Consider Scandinavian sauna culture, where it's normal for men and women to be naked together. Go to any beach in Spain or Italy, and chances are you'll find that the majority of local women are sunbathing topless there to no fanfare. In France, the practice is so normalised that in 2020, when a group of topless women were clumsily told to “cover up” by local beach patrollers, the story escalated to the point that France's interior minister defended the woman's right to bare her chest on the beach.

We lose so much by oversexualising women’s bodies. But there’s something so joyful about removing all that noise and simply celebrating how different all of us can look, regardless of age and body shape. I often think this whenever I visit the Hampstead Ladies Ponds in north London. On the meadows there, women regularly sunbathe topless together. And there’s nothing more heartening, and dare I say empowering, than the sight of them being free from society’s shackles, having a gossip and a giggle while enjoying each other’s company, and paying zero attention to the fact that they’re half naked because it’s totally irrelevant.

None of us is doing it to impress anyone else, or even necessarily to make a political point. I can only speak for myself, and personally, I feel more comfortable without a bikini top. I think a lot of other women would too, if they gave themselves permission to do so.