7/02

A couple of years ago my wife and I spent a holiday in Cape Town during February. For most of the time we spent there the weather was perfect, warm with a gentle breeze. We visited Camps Bay Beach, which must be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, most days that we were on holiday.

The beach is in the popular up-market suburb of Camps Bay and was busy though not over crowded. There appeared to be a number of foreign tourists visiting at the time as we heard many different accents and languages being spoken.

We noticed that at least 20% of the women on the beach were topless. Most were sitting or lying soaking up the sun whilst a number were strolling along the beach or swimming in the sea. A couple were playing games with bat and ball. What impressed us most was that nobody seemed to be hassled about topless women. We also visited the nearby Clifton Beaches where there were also a number of topless women and again nobody seemed to mind.

On our last day couple of women near us had removed their tops and were lying tanning on their backs. My wife is rather conservative and while she is happy to wear a bikini will not wear a thong to the beach. She had never gone topless in public before and would not even consider the idea. I was therefore very surprised when she asked me whether she should remove her top or not. My answer was that it was her decision but that I would be happy if she did. With that she did remove her top and felt comfortable doing so. She said that seeing that so many other women were topless and nobody was bothered about it she did not feel conspicuous or shy. She has since tanned topless a number of times on other less populated beaches.

--Kevin