Non-scientific Section:

Anecdotal Observations, Discussion and Suggestions for further research:

            The US Supreme Court, ruling in Miller v. California, defines obscenity as a violation of the community standards in the location where it is viewed. From my discussions with people on the beach, it is not at all clear that the public agrees with the Court. From my discussions, I get the impression that the public do not want Community Standards to be enforced by the law, rather, they appear to want there to be room for social change, personal choice and the practice of ‘tolerance’. This question desperately needs to be studied.

Upset Voters:

            Three middle-aged women were very upset with my questions on the vote. Two even called me a pervert and child stalker. I chose the best course and agreed with their accusations, after all name-calling is merely social status posturing. I replied, “Well, I very well might be a pervert, after all, I’m a man and aren’t all men slightly perverted? And I’m an artist too. I draw portraits and I draw naked people too. Aren’t all artist slightly perverted?, after all, if your artwork is not slightly perverted, no one wants to look at it.” This approach appears to work quite well. Its important to smile and keep your eyebrows very high in sort of an ‘innocent’ pose. Another thing to remember is that in dealing with women, endeavor not to make a statement but, rather, form all your communication in the form of a question. They appear to find questions less threatening.

            To my surprise, I actually succeeded in convincing one of the upset women to participate in the vote.

            Three upset persons out of the approximately 450 persons I approached on the beach is less than one percent. I realized that I was working in an area of taboo under the English Social Value System, and I did hold back when I was creating my voting ballot. I left out some questions suspecting that if I put them on the ballot, I would be run off the beach. Now that the vote is finished, I think I could have gotten away with asking the more provocative questions and I would encourage future researchers to do so. Just expect a doubling or tripling in the rate of upset persons on the beach, and remember, smile and keep your eyebrows high and agree with everything they accuse you of. The customer is always right. This approach seems to appease those who practice the English Social Value System.

            The question I left out is about whether or not a female has to wear swimwear that is of a thickness or design to conceal a clitoris erection. An equivalent question could be asked about penis erections, although, this was alluded to in proposition number ten, about Speedos. These questions might become more important in the future as swimwear becomes smaller and smaller.

Man-boobs vs. Woman-boobs:

            From my life experience and my discussion with people on the beach, some people believe the men do not have mammary glands. I have heard reported that men do not check their mammary glands for lumps and end up dying of Breast Cancer, and those men reported that they didn’t know that they had breasts. One wonders, if people knew that men have the same mammary gland tissue that women possess, they would change their view about a woman’s breast being sexual.

            The results for proposition number two, (P2:man-boobs), may be revisited in light of the above discussion. Is the difference between the rules for bare woman-boobs and bare man-boobs a result of misinformation about the human body? Do people vote this way because they believe that a man’s body is different from a woman’s body when it comes to boobs? Would they chance their vote if they came to know that men (physiologically) have boobs like a woman?

            I overheard two couples: it was: a man and his: wife?/girlfriend?/partner? – I didn’t ask about the nature of their relationship. It was obvious, though, that they were together. These couples were doing the vote together – meaning: they each voted on their proposition, waited until the other had finished that particular proposition, then they compared results and discussed it before moving on to the next proposition. Each couple had the same response to proposition number four (a topless boobless woman). In each case the female was very shocked at the male’s response. In each case the female had voted to allow a boobless woman to be topless on a beach and in each case the man had voted strongly against it. In each case the female demanded the male justify his vote and tried to justify her own vote. In both cases, the male responded that she (i.e. boobless woman referred to in the proposition) had to wear a top on the beach, “because she was a woman”.

            In the final result, 39% of eligible males voted that a boobless woman must wear a top while 61% voted they don’t have to.

            I intended the four propositions (P4: boobless women, P2: man-boobs, P12: topless female child, P15: topless woman) together to tease out the reason why breasts must be covered. The results show that only female breasts must be covered, but voters were split on the question of the boobless woman. The justification of the two men I overheard shows that some men consider it to be a question of womanhood and not breasts. These responses tickles another question: Do many men consider the bikini top to be a Christian Hijab?

            In the Islamic Social Value System, the Hijab serves the purpose to honour men by preserving the sight of the woman for ‘her man only’. In the same manner, in Canada, before about 1920, the predominant value was that women practiced the same value but with their hair. Canadian (and British) women put their hair up in a bun during the day and only ‘let their hair down’ in the evening and at home for the enjoyment and for the honour of ‘her man only’. I remember my grandmother religiously practicing this value. She was born in the late 1800s, died in the early 1960s and I only saw her with her hair down once in my life. Hers, appears to be the last generation that practiced this particular social value, but perhaps, other forms of this social value continue to exist.

            As a man, I propose the hypothesis that men’s thinking and views about female mammary glands has more to do with male honour and status that anyone would, at first, suppose. Mix in a heaping spoonful of ignorance about the human body, and you have a confusing mix of ideas and attitudes.

Age Effect:

            In proposition 15 (topless woman) and proposition 17f (chances in getting laid) and proposition 17e (pride in ones community), there appears to be an age effect. From the data, the age effect appears to show that females around the age of thirty appear to have: 1. the least opposition to topless women, 2. the smallest percent who believe that the presence of topless women would increase one chances of getting laid, and 3. the smallest percentage who believe that ones community pride would be diminished if the town had a tops-optional policy. Currently, I am at a loss to explain these data. In proposition 17f (chances of getting laid), the age effect appears to apply to males also. Of course, we must consider that this ‘age effect’ may not be real. It may only be a consequence of separating the voters by age which produces low numbers in each category.

            This would be an interesting line of discovery for a future researcher.

Other miscellaneous questions:

Related to the results Proposition 17f:

1.         Why do females and young men believe that the presence of topless women will increase their chances of getting laid.

2.         Why does the percentage of voters who voted ‘improved chances of getting laid’ decrease with age: from being very high at age 15 to much lower at age 50? [note; the number of voters in the age 60s and 70s category are small, so the increase in those categories may not be significant.]

Relating to proposition 15: topless woman:

1.         Why does the percentage of voters who voted against topless women at the beach decrease with the age of the voter: from being high for 15 year-old voters to much lower for thirty-year-old voters?

Female Opposition to tops-optional:

1.         Why do women vote that there would be less pride in their community if their town had a tops-optional policy in all public swimming places? Do women in Ontario, where such a policy is province-wide and in all public places, feel the same? I would dearly like to know the reasons behind this near-universal opinion among women. What is it about the presence of other topless women that would make them feel less pride in their community? Could it have anything to do with competition among women?

            I would like to throw out a hypothesis on this question, risking that many women will be offended (but feeling don’t count in science, so I’ll push forward).

            It is my observation that the further West one goes in North America, the more ignorant women are about men. Ask a western-born women to list three ways a female can attract the attention of a man – let alone inspire his love and adoration – and she cannot answer. She knows one: “I know, I’ll wear something skimpy.” – and that is it, the total extent of her knowledge. In my opinion, this situation is a consequence of the English Social Value System.

             God has given women a whole tool-chest full of tools to be used to inspire the love and adoration of men and Western North-American women can, generally, only name one – and the least effective tool at that. French-Canadian Females commonly use two and Eastern European Women actually use three or more tools. I can only conclude that it is a woeful failure of proper education and because of the North American tendency to segregate people according to age, such as in our school systems. A sixteen-year-old is not going to learn anything about men from another sixteen-year-old. This ignorance on the part of North American Women culminates in Holly Wood California, and manifests itself by extremely high rates of plastic surgery. They are merely taking to extreme, the one tool they know.

            So my hypothesis is this: women oppose a tops-optional policy because they are afraid that bare breasts will greatly diminish their ability to compete with other women for the attention, love and adoration of men. Its all about competition.

            I propose several ways to test this hypothesis. The extent and quality of women’s knowledge about men should be directly proportional to their support for tops-optional policies. I propose that ‘extent and quality’ of a woman’s knowledge about men could be tested by grading the quality and absolute quantity of women’s answers to the following question: ‘If you found yourself at a nudist colony, and you notice a man there who you would like to attract to you, describe how you would go about it.’ A researcher might only need to count the number of unique answers which do not involve clothing. I would predict that Californians would score lowest, English females next, New York females, higher, French Heritage North Americans, higher still, French women, higher, and Hungarian Women, as an example of Eastern European women, for example, still higher. I would also predict that the amount of makeup and ‘slutty cloths’ a women normalls wears would be inversely proportional to their knowledge about men. Further, I would predict that the more closely that a women adheres to the English Social Value System, the more ignorant she would be about men and her tools – her ‘powers over men’, so to speak. Generally speaking, I believe the following would hold true: the more a woman relies on physical beauty to attract a man (or to compete with other women), the less she knows about men.

Reduced Family Life:

            Many people at the beach say that “this is a family Beach” and “we need to keep this a family beach.” This is part of the reason why I initiated this vote; to find out exactly what they meant by ‘family beach’.

            As this researcher was talking to people on the beach and trying to coax them into voting, one young father in his early twenties, had this to say:

 “Well, when I was single, I was all for topless women and nudity at the beach, but now that I am a father, that changes everything. If some boy (referring to proposition 3) were changing his clothes over there”, the young father said, as he was pointed a short distance away, “my daughter might see it, and she might see something dangling between his legs, and she might point and say “HEY! What’s that!”. Oh...h...h..h  we don’t want that!”

            Small conversations like this one were repeated many times over the period I was collecting votes. It appeared to be the majority view, that the reason why adults do not want tops-optional or revealing swim wear or adult nudity on the beach is that they don’t want to have to answer the inevitable questions from their children.

            This reluctance to teach children about these topics is one of the greatest weaknesses in our English Social Value System and with the coming of HIV, it could end up killing most of us. I wonder if this isn’t an issue where Politicians and School Boards etc. need to push ahead against the wishes of the people, for the good of our civilization as a whole. A researcher would do well to mine our social reluctance to teach children about the birds and bees. In another study, I discovered that 30% of Fundamentalist Christian Female Students at my old school believed that Oral Sex was not even Sex. We could be in real trouble here folks. I also discovered that parents say they talk to their children about sex, but their children say they never talk about sex. After giving this much thought, I have concluded that parents are using old, outdated euphemisms, illusions and metaphors when they talk about sex and their children have no idea what their parents are talking about. Personally, I am all for parents getting the shock treatment at the beach since parents are, generally, highly irresponsible and are in need of being shocked.

            Another women in her mid-fifties said:

            “Pretty soon they are going to be walking right down there naked”, and she pointed with an index finger, sweeping her hand along as if following the progress of an offender who had walked within two feet of her chair and on down the beach. “Well, if they want to do that, let them do it down there”, and she extended her arm in the direction of the pier a few hundred feet away and made a back-handed motion with her hand as if shooing away an annoying fly or as if sweeping some dander of one’s shoulder.

            This little conversation, also was repeated many times during my vote-getting days. Even though this vote was not intended to dredge up solutions to any perceived problems, people offered their problems and solutions anyway. Even though people had very strong feeling on some issues, that did not necessarily mean that they wished that offending practice to be permanently stamped out via the law. It appeared to be the majority opinion that people wished that there be a designated area of the beach for those who wanted to practice more liberal values. They appeared to wish that there were a place to shoo those who offended the majority value system.

            I really don’t think that the normal person on the street of Sylvan Lake know what is coming in the area of bathing suit styles. There is a lot more ways to shock than you imagine – and perhaps, this is the whole purpose behind it. If your are interested, type the words ‘mini bikini’ and ‘micro bikini’ into your favorite internet search engine and prepare for an eye-full.

Pubic Hair:

            A few voters commented that pubic hair occurred all over the body, and these were not teenagers either. It was 40-something: men and women. It appears like there is a need for some teaching on basic anatomy and the proper scientific names for body parts in schools – but this is an English Social Value System taboo so I don’t think it will happen any time soon. For the record: Pubic Hair occurs on the human Pubis, not in armpits or on legs nor on any other parts of the human body.

            I can only comment: Oh, God!. Is this the real reason women shave their arm pits and legs: because they believe that there is a social rule against showing pubic hair in  public and they also believe that arm-pit hair and leg hair is pubic hair? (And I though they shaved those parts to please and impress men). Are they doing it just to compete with other women? If this is the real reason, all I can say, as a man, is: I don’t think I can stand another big disappointment in regards to women, so, if it is true, please don’t tell us. Please leave us to our happy self-delusions. I’ll leave this topic for another researcher – I don’t want to know.

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For those with an interest in this area, the following will get you started:

[from:  http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/1797.html]

Dear Alice,

I'm a young woman (virgin, too) and I'm just wondering... exactly what am I supposed to do with pubic hair? Am I supposed to shave it all off, or do nothing, or I dunno, trim it? Do guys have preferences with trimmed and shaved or none? Help!

 Dear Reader,

Your pubic hairstyle is up to you. And just as each of us may favor a particular head hairdo on ourselves and our partners, so, too, might we like a certain look below the belt.

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            I suppose some might argue, that seeing the changes at the beach over the last fifty years, perhaps Pubic Hairdos might me the wave of the future and a source of greatly increased economic activity – perhaps even a Permanent Wave.

Enforcement:

[ Photo caption: A bathing beach policeman measuring distance between knee and bathing suit on woman, Washington, D.C. In 1922, bathing suits on Washington bathing beaches must not be over six inches above the knee.]

    In the above photograph, the woman on the right has an older (ca. 1915) style of bathing-suit. Maybe she is the mother of the female being measured. Also, from her hands and the fact that she has her finger in her mouth, it appears like the female being measured is a teenager. Is this an example of age discrimination? Notice how the woman being measured is leaning forward slightly. Shouldn't the by-law officer be making her stand up straight? If she leans forward, it makes her bathing-suit go down in the front and it will appear longer than it really is? You don't suppose she is cheating do you?

            As I talked to people on the beach, I didn’t get even one comment that the rules voted on should be enforced by law. If fact, some people specifically said that the rules ought to be ‘guidelines’ only.

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- end of non-scientific section; Anecdotal Observations, Discussion and Suggestions for further research -

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