Draggingtree Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 The Bikini Syndrome Jeffrey Earl Warren July 10, 2014 It’s summer: time for all teenage boys — and old men like me — to thank the good lord for inventing the bikini. In 1909, Australian Annette Kellerman was arrested on a Boston beach. Her crime? A polio victim, she’d taken up swimming to strengthen her legs. One day she wore a tight-fitting, black, wool one-piece suit that did away with the traditional skirts and sleeves that were hitherto de rigueur for women’s bathing costumes. “I can’t swim wearing more stuff than you hang on a clothesline,” the Diving Venus complained. The women’s one-piece swimsuit had arrived. Western civilization was headed towards perdition. Call it the Bikini Syndrome, even though it came 37 years before the actual bikini. A Frenchman, Louis Reard, invented the bikini in 1946. He created a bathing costume so skimpy that it was first called Atome — in reference to the Atom Bomb that had just been exploded on Bikini Atoll. Though his design was a “bombshell,” he named it after the island, not the device http://ricochet.com/bikini-syndrome/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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