Since there’s nothing else going on in the world that could possibly concern anyone, today’s top story involves a British woman who was arrested for wearing a bikini in a shopping mall in Dubai. So now at least one rightie blogger is expressing contempt for Muslim puritanism, and also getting in some digs at liberals, although what liberals have to do with this story is a bit murky.
The story is that the British woman was shopping in the mall wearing a low-cut top and a skirt that showed some leg, and a local woman accosted her and told her she was dressed indecently. Whereupon the British woman “stripped out of her clothes” and walked around the mall wearing “only her bikini.”
However, having read the news stories, I’m not so sure “bikini” refers to the famous skimpy two-piece swimsuit. I suppose it’s possible the woman could have been wearing a swimsuit under her clothes to go shopping — nice beaches in Dubai, I hear — but in context of the story I suspect the word “bikini” refers to a style of pantie, not to a swimsuit. If that’s the case, she was walking around in the mall wearing only her underpants. That would get you arrested in the U.S. as well.
Whatever she had on, the British Foreign Office says the charges have been dropped. Even so, some anger management classes are in order, I think.
In other bikini scandal news, R.S. McCain rails at Democrats for trying to make a scandal out of a photograph of Marcela Hoeven in a bikini. Marcela Hoeven is the daughter of North Dakota Governor John Hoeven, who is running for Senate on the Republican ticket.
However, RSM provides no direct evidence that anyone is trying to make a scandal out of the photo. I certainly never heard of Marcela Hoeven and don’t much care what she wears to get photographed. I suspect the whole story is just an excuse to publish a photo of a pretty girl in a bikini.
Further, displaying all the good sense of used kitty litter, RSM tells his readers where Ms. Hoeven works. Oh, yes, let’s just hang a sign on the girl saying “Attention Stalkers!” Although, considering only about three dozen people live in North Dakota, it’s possible they all know where she works anyway.
Update: I suppose I could have made some point about the objectification of women’s bodies. Some other time, maybe.
Update: Paleolithic bikini, ca. 1910-1920.
