Topless Bathing Wars in Italy

Image by 生哥 via FlickrIt didn’t take long. In fact it took two minutes for a judge in Rome, Italy, to throw out of court a complaint by a mother, that a 26-year old bathing beauty was “committing obscene acts in a public place.”
The mother claimed the busty bathing beauty’s bare breasts “troubled” her two sons, ages 12 and 14, especially when the topless bather was in the act of rubbing suntan lotion on her bosoms.
The Telegraph.co.uk reported that a row between the two women broke out at a beach near Anzio, south of Rome.
The offending woman’s attorney, in typical Italian logic, defended his client by saying, "Let's be clear, my client is a tall brunette and has ample breasts and is therefore going to naturally be sensuous when she applies cream to her chest.”
He agreed that his client (known only as Luisa, an assistant in a fashion store) would doubtless attract the attention of the two boys, but she wasn’t breaking any laws, and to be arrested for topless bathing in 2010, he said, “was absurd.”
Arrested Luisa was after the mother confronted her and demanded that she cover up; when she didn’t, mom scooped up her kids and called the cops who took Luisa into custody, apparently much to the amusement of other beach goers since she argued with the police, still topless.
Being summer and all, the incident set of a bit of a debate in Italy on the virtues and legality of going topless.
The La Repubblica newspaper argued that Summer is the season where everything happens...but it is also the time of pathological mentalities, it said. It asked “Where was she supposed to apply the cream, on her clothes?"
Italian etiquette experts weighed in by noting fewer and fewer people were actually topless on Italy’s beaches because people get their tans in salons or beach bars where being half clothed is apparently more acceptable.
Luisa was reportedly happy at the court’s “exercise of common sense,” but miffed her vacation was ruined by the incident.
She told a local newspaper she’s heading to Greece where she says she won’t have to undergo a “similar horrible experience.”