Dear Author of To Girls Wearing "Cheeky" Bathing Suit Bottoms, Please Stop,
I recently came across your article and it caught my eye. However, the farther into it I got, I felt that your approach was a little more than questionable. In fact, it came off to be a "slut-shame."
While I do not wear cheeky bathing suit bottoms, I believe that anyone should be able to wear what they want. I also believe that as women, and humans on this planet in general, we should not shame people for wearing what they want. While this trend may not be your forte, it is obviously someone's forte and you shouldn't be given the right to slut-shame them over it.
One of the biggest problems I have with this article is that you said my dignity, amount of self-love, and self-respect is diminished by what is covering my ass.
This assumption is just flat out wrong. My, and my fellow population of women's, worth and quality should not be defined by what is on our bodies. We are in the age of 2017 where women have come a long way from being told what to wear and what not to wear. We have not come as far as we have to still be told what we can and cannot wear.
You also said that women are just wearing these cheeky bottoms for attention. I guess you didn't get the memo. Women who wear cheeky bottoms have many different reasons for it. Some women may wear these because it is something they feel confident in and something that they think is cute (and I do not disagree, these bottoms are cute as heck). However, other women wear them to tan. I don't know if you have heard of tan lines but some people, including myself, hate them. A good way to keep your tan lines from showing despite wearing underwear is to wear a cheeky suit.
You said, "Have bathing suit companies forgotten that often times, women are around young children and family members when sporting a bathing suit? More importantly, what does it teach the younger generation who see women wearing these types of bathing suits? It surely doesn't teach them about having self-respect or dignity in themselves."
Hold up, take a step back and please reevaluate this statement. Do our families and other's families not also have a pair of cheeks on their bodies? I think they do.
Butts are just butts and everyone has them. What does it teach our younger generation? Well, it teaches them to wear whatever the heck they want to. It doesn't include anything about dignity and self-respect. You know why? Because these things are not determined by what is on someone's body. A woman can respect herself and have dignity but walk around naked, all it means is that they are comfortable with their bodies. I didn't know that comfortability was a bad thing these days.
Yet another interesting part of your article is this statement, "BUT do you often see men roaming around in a speedo to attract attention? The answer to that question is obviously no." Have you ever been to a beach before? You must not have been to a beach before because if you had, you would not have included this statement. Being that I lived in Hawaii, I saw this many times. Heck, one of these instances was my sixty-year-old Great Uncle. Even living back on the East Coast I have seen men wearing speedos. But hey, men don't wear speedos, right?
While I understand that this is your opinion, you still shouldn't have publicly slut-shamed women for what is on their body.
You shouldn't shame people for wearing cheeky bottoms, just as we shouldn't shame you for not wearing them. Instead of sitting here shaming and reprimanding women, we should applaud each other for doing the things that make us feel good.
If you're looking for me, I'll be out wearing whatever bathing suit bottom I want, as should every woman.
