http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23648414-5007146,00.html
Blinkered thinkers in dangle tangle
KEVIN Rudd. ****. I want you to picture that for a moment.
You're innocently walking along a beach when you come across our Prime
Minister lying on his back, stark bollock ****d, limbs stretched out
like a starfish, with all his Cabinet secrets on display.
Knowing Kevin, the first thing he'd do is leap to his feet and try to
engage you at close quarters and shake your hand. Worse, you can't
even look him in the eye because you've just realised he's more like a
Kevin04 than a Kevin07 (but perhaps that's just because the water's
cold).
Anyway, your average upstanding citizen would need years of
counselling to deal with the post-traumatic stress caused by such an
encounter.
But this is no laughing matter. ****ity is the new black.
Soon Queensland's coastline will be awash with beached specimens of
humanity that have decided to forsake all rectitude and sense of
decency in their pursuit of a perfect tan.
There'll be dangly bits, wiggly bits, hairy bits and saggy bits
everywhere you look.
Well, OK, granted, there are plenty of those already, but before you
can say "Brazilian" there'll be a veritable pandemic of exhibitionists
parading around in nothing more than the suit God gave them at birth,
following a recent brain snap in one of our courts.
For those of you not yet up on this seismic ****ft in common law, let's
recap.
Veteran Sun****ne Coast ****ist Ken Wenzel has recently had indecency
charges dismissed in an appeal because of Queensland's double
standards.
The Sun****ne Coast Daily re****ted that:
"Magistrate Barry Barrett questioned whether Queensland was a state
that, on one hand, allowed large numbers of people on Alexandria Bay
for the **** Olympics without challenge and, on the other hand, sought
out older males hidden by vegetation on other secluded beaches 'for
alleged criminal conduct'. 'This court shall not be a party to such
victimisation and double standards,' he said."
This has opened the floodgates for the sup****ters of exposed dangly
bits to campaign for legalised clothing optional beaches in this once
decent state.
Just listen to what Wenzel's lawyer had to say after this miscarriage
of justice:
"It means people who take reasonable steps to prevent exposure, who do
so in secluded beaches . . . that are hard to get to, who do not
expose themselves other than to other ****ists . . . have not committed
an offence."
The moral rot began in the early 20th century when (I kid you not)
Australia started to repeal laws that made it illegal for people to
bathe in daylight hours.
Mixed bathing was totally out of bounds, an act of immorality
unthinkable in the times.
Prior to that, women were allowed to take the waters only at secluded
baths. Even there it would have been a fairly proper affair (and here
I am indebted to James Cockington's excellent book Banned: Tales from
the Bizarre History of Australian Obscenity).
Cockington quotes Australian etiquette on dress sense for women
bathers: "Flannel is the best material for a bathing costume, and grey
is regarded as the most suitable colour. It may be trimmed with bright
worsted braid. The best form is the loose sacque, or the yoke waist,
both of them to be belted in, and falling midway between the knee and
ankle."
That would be about as much fun as standing under the shower in a
dinner suit.
We've had it all.
We've had people arrested for breaking the daylight bathing curfew,
men arrested for bathing topless in the 1930s, women arrested for
wearing a bikini in the '40s, police raids on a secluded **** beach in
Sydney in the '70s - this, mind you, at around the same time we were
screening television shows like Number 96 and Alvin Purple.
Police Minister Judy Spence, perhaps disturbed at the thought of
meeting some of her Cabinet colleagues sans apparel, already appears
to have a slight case of the vapours over the issue, saying she would
read the judgment with interest.
She quickly added that Queensland's Summary Offences Act prohibits
**** beaches in the state.
What's the big fuss?
We're all **** underneath, and, unless I'm mistaken, our skin was the
only bit of clothing God gave us when we came into the world.
Nor are sup****ters of freestyle sunbaking advocating a ****d free-for-
all on the likes of Mermaid or Kings beaches, but rather the right to
shed an extra few square centimetres of already skimpy clothing at
certain secluded spots.
It's a bit like ****ity on television and magazines. If you don't like
it, don't look, simple as that.
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