Sex on The Beach

I had only been in the city a short time, when I went to the far north end of Mumbai, to a slightly touristy seaside resort called Uttan. After a late afternoon shack-meal, I went to rest on the beach where lots of local people were also milling about, enjoying the waves, at the end of their working day.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but I realised that there was something unusual (unusual for me, anyway) going on. And then I realised – although lots of women were in the water, none over the age of ten was wearing a swimsuit or bikini. Nearly all of them were “swimming” in their ordinary clothes. This was new to me.

Later a European girl came to the beach, pulled off her sarong (revealing a bikini) and plunged into the sea. This sight so pleased a group of men that they stood in a clump near her clothes waiting for her to come out again: a diverting way to pass the time for them, with a sort of show to come, I suppose. Sadly for them, she must have been a fitness freak, for she hadn’t come out after fifteen minutes, at which point they got bored and wandered away.

So… I first came to learn – bikinis and swimsuits are not a common sight even in hip Mumbai. Modern and modernising it may be, a huge tourist destination too, but the city has not yet embraced the female swimsuit.

But questions remained.
I suppose the thinking is that bikinis invite unwanted male attention/lust, so are women on the beach, in fact, much less lusted after if they wear clothes? (It’s not such a daft question – see further down).
What happens at public swimming pools? What do women wear? The same thing?
And, where are Indian women at in the evolution of swimming-as-fun? In many countries, sea-swimming is just seen as plain stupid (what, they ask, is the point of it anyway?), while in the Far East, a woman, fully clothed or not, who went swimming would be very badly regarded. Mumbai is very feminist compared to many places – so how do women here feel about swimming?

(Of course, this is not to forget the Big Question – are swimsuits so great anyway? Looked at objectively after all, they are mostly designed purely for the Male Gaze, and not much else. Having said that, all the girlfriends I’ve ever had say they like the sense of freedom and the tan possibilities that bikinis provide.

But it’s also as well to remember that it’s not just Europeans that have revealing clothes. Women’s ordinary clothes in India can be provocative to a European, even if Indians are not aware of it. A woman in a sari or chaniya choli – a combination of a skirt and a very tight breast & shoulder-hugging blouse, that leaves much of the trunk naked – may not be aware of it, but to a Western man her body can be eye-poppingly sexy, even when she is thinking she is being modest. It’s all about what you are … not ... used to! Ironic, isn’t it?
Women from minority religions like Christianity or Islam are much less likely to wear stomach-revealing clothes of course.)

Onwards!

Now, the swimming pool test is fairly easy to answer, as there are two huge water-parks in Mumbai – Water Kingdom in Gorai and Suraj Water Park in Thane. At these both, the rule is simple – “Woman Must Wear Swimwear….”
In other words, whereas in England you would have a rule against wearing swimsuits that are too skimpy, here women have to be ordered out of day-clothes and into swimwear! For an Englishman like me, this was a surprising and curious reversal of the usual instruction.
This rule however can still cause confusion and embarrassment, so the parks go even further – and say the “swimwear” must be composed of nylon or lycra fabric. This has now stopped all the women who wanted to turn up in cut-off jeans.

So, what (say all the non-Indians) are women wearing then?
The answer is that they wear a compromise - an outfit of sleeved T-shirt and cycling shorts (or what look like cycling shorts), which in essence efficiently covers up much of the body.
Both the main water parks do quite nicely out of this confusion, as they sell a “designer” version of this combination for a nice price to anyone who turns up with the incorrect apparel. If you are keen on buying a similar outfit yourself, they have hit the high street, and you can buy them on Mumbai's so-called “Fashion Street” (near Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus).
Now, I never quite got the bottom of this (ho ho), but it’s unclear if bikinis are frowned upon or not. What is clear is that all the women I spoke to would never wear one anyway in a such a “public” place as a water park – first and foremost because of the unwanted leers of the young men, who, they say, would gather round them in numbers and maybe start to display that kind of behaviour known here as "Eve teasing".
However, in hotel pools – both luxury and family ones – I have seen bikinis. I presume that this is because there are less likely to be leers, and a greater sense of “protection”, in hotels.

Which leaves us… where….?

Well, the T-shirt & lycra shorts combination is: clearly the most efficient swimming gear (a similar outfit is worn by professional swimmers after all); is obviously better protection against the sun; and serves quite well to ward off too much staring. Some women I spoke to have also remarked that in bikinis, they feel they are being “marked down” if they have less than perfectly fashionable bodies, so they opt for the shirt&shorts as a way to escape all that nonsense.
In other words, the combo makes sense. It makes special sense in India, even if it has not got to the beach yet.

The bikini, on the other hand, is not meant to be sensible anyway. It is really a kind of personal statement, and, as I’ve remarked elsewhere, has – in an obscure way – become tied in with women’s equality, in that woman can now feel they can wear what they want, be as sexual as they want and behave as they want. The bikini says “I can be as sexual as a man”. However, it is an odd way to have to say it. The bikini is at the end of an odd and slightly random evolutionary strain in the women’s personal freedom movement in the West. It may or may not ever be “needed” in that way in Mumbai.


What do you think?

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Just a Final Thought…
One of the main reasons for all this discussion is the presence of testosterone-driven young men who can make life so difficult for the women who are the objects of their desire.
But, sadly, you can’t seem to stop testosterone.
It almost doesn’t matter what women wear or don’t wear, because the beach or waterside is a fun place, and young men’s lust-levels will always soar in such a place.
Bikinis, head-to-toe one-pieces, burkhas – they only makes degrees of difference in warding off the male gaze.

A friend of mine wrote the piece below after going to Goa – where he too observed young women bathing in full clothes in the sea. As you’ll see though, it did not stop him “appreciating” what he saw.

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The Beach
The older sisters, dressed in full shalwar kameez, stand out in the ocean – up to their thighs – stiffly monitoring their excitable young siblings, who rush near them and
back to them in the playing waves. To my foreign eyes, it’s a surprise: only those who wish to secretly commit suicide, or those who are absent-minded to the point of eccentricity, would want to walk into the sea fully clothed.
Even from this distance, their clothes shine electric blue and dazzling red against the grey-ish water.

Sometimes though, the yank of the sea’s undertow pulls these dignified young ladies with it, and these women feel their knees being twisted by the force and their bodies sucked sideways, and, resist the water as they will, they are still toppled down into the spume, are lost to sight a moment, and then re-appear - shock and embarrassment and pleasure alike on their dripping, emerging faces, not sure if their position has been offended or just joked with.

But they have undergone a sea change. Their hair, previously in dry, untidy strands, is transformed - now sleek and sable-shiny-black and pasted to their glistening, salty skin. Their blouses, before shapeless and billowing, now stick to them like seaweed to a nude rock; and their white teeth shine from damp, excited smiles as their little brothers and sisters tease them.

But do these decorous young women know how each curve and run of their nubile bodies is now revealed by the clinging wet-tight material they wear?
What was a concealing cover, hiding what should be hidden (bare shoulders and the shapes of breasts and the firmness of her belly), now seems suddenly over-stretched, straining to hold in the breathing bodily forms beneath. Her new appearance belies her.It says: this is no shy modest young woman, but one abandoned to pleasure.
The sticky wisps of hair that fall coquettishly in her confusion further betray her.

This is also the Bollywood transformation... from virgin to seductress, instantly, in a shower of rain, yet not requiring an inch of nakedness.
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Links: Suraj Water Park


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