My wife and I visited Miami Beach over the July 4, 2005 holiday weekend. Below is our trip report from that event.

Topless bathing is permitted in South Beach from about Twenty First Street down to about the First Street Pier. My wife and two other young women were topless in the third street area where topless sunbathing is discouraged (but still legal). She was also topless all the way up to about Tenth Street. My wife and I spent four days in Miami Beach and we spent several hours on the beach each day. She was topless nearly 100% of the time while she was on the beach including walking to and from the water during peak times when the beach was very crowded. I saw the police remove someone from the beach for drinking alcohol. They did not have a problem with topless women or girls.

Most of the topless women looked like they were about 18 to 30 years old with a few much older or younger. During the four days I was there I noticed that for some reason most of the topless young ladies were there some time after 12:00 pm. Additionally I noticed since my wife was the first one to remove her top on three out of the four days we were there in our part of the beach a few hours latter suddenly several other young women nearby decide to remove their tops. A few of the more daring young women would walk to and from the water or along the beach topless. You may not be topless in the park or anywhere else that I know of.

I have read that topless bathing is permitted in other beaches near Miami but I have never visited those beaches. There is a "clothing optional" beach at Haulover State Park and also a beach where topless bathing, but not nudity, is permitted on the other side of the beach at the same park.

Some people in this world are uninformed and may not know that topless bathing is permitted in Miami Beach. In the four days we spent on the beach I only noticed one women giving my wife a mean look. It looked like she was going to come over to us and say something but she never did. I guess she doesn't have a computer. Nearly all of the hotels in Miami Beach have a warning on their web sites that topless bathing is permitted on the beach. It seems to me that if someone isn't smart enough to research the area that they are going to visit then it is their problem if they get any surprises. They should simply go to one of the many beaches that don't allow any women to be topless.

My wife and I both had a great time and look forward to returning next summer.

I would like to post a link with pictures of my wife on this trip if Nat will allow it. I tried to send him an e-mail to ask for permission but I got an error message along with my returned e-mail.

Here is a link with information about Miami area beaches.

http://www.vidaamericana.com/miami_guide/beaches.html

Yes Chris, you are quite welcome to post the link. Sorry about the problem with my email. My phayze.com mail service recently died and I have just switch to Gmail ([email protected]) but my older postings still have the phayze.com address.

Glad you and your wife enjoyed your visit to Miami. Unfortunately the topfreedom there is not typical of other areas in Florida. It was a business concession to the large number of European tourists who visit Miami. I live on the west coast of FL and we have no topfree beaches here. And even the couple times I have been to Miami I saw few American women going topfree.

Click on the link below to see my pictures from Miami Beach. If you like the pictures please vote at the bottom of the page.

http://ww3.voyeurweb.com/main/fsg30/fs20050713-146302/index.html

Very nice pixs Chris. Both the subject and the photography.

Glad to hear the trip report. My wife and I had a similiar experience at South Beach last year. I will always remember being out in the water and seeing a boy and his girl friend holding hands and running out into the surf. She was topless and had a huge smile on her face like she was enjoying every minute of her freedom. We actually visited 4 different beach areas around Miami. South beach was by far the one with the most topless girls but we actually saw at least one woman topless on each beach we visited. In fact the whole Miami experience was very refreshing because of their acceptance of the body.
For example, We stayed at a nice Hotel in North Miami and while my wife and I were waiting on our car to be brought to us We observed two young European couples who were traveling together. The one lady was nursing her baby while she was waiting on their car and yes you could see her nipple. She wasn't carrying a blanket in order to cover her breast while nursing like so many women do. In fact covering a baby's head in 80 plus temperatures in order to maintaing modesty would be in my opinion child abuse. Happily, not one of the many people around this couple complained about her lack of modesty while nursing.

The scenes you describe sound delightful, but I think using the word 'modesty' to describe bodily shyness buys into the world view of those who find something wrong with bodily exposure. Modesty in its literal meaning is a virtue; the word is used to imply that there is something immoral about women who do not compulsively conceal their bodies in public.

Interesting that you should bring that up. While, as Meridith pointed out, the word modest, when applied to what is being worn, typically means "I am hiding everything and nobody can remotely be offended."

If you look the word up on Dictionary.com, you see 2 entries with a total of 5 meanings.

1. The state or quality of being modest.
2. Reserve or propriety in speech, dress, or behavior.
3. Lack of pretentiousness; simplicity.

and
1. freedom from vanity or conceit
2. formality and propriety of manner

Neither specifically imply that wearing lots of clothes, such as a Burkah is particularly modest in itself. The biblical form of dressing modestly in 1 Timothy 2:9 is actually talking about definition 3, lack of pretentiousness.

"I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,"

One could argue that wearing a bra is not following this command.

I read that when the bra was first introduced it was considered a rather risque garment- worn by women of questionable character since it hoisted the breasts up and made them stick out conspicuously. At the time, having mature breasts hang down flat against the chest was considered natural and proper. Amazing how things change huh?

And we should not forget the Flapper influence of the 1920's where flat chest was desirable. Breast binding was aimed to diminish, not enhance. This was a counterpoint to the brassiere making it's own appearance in the fashion world at the time.

I still don't understand the hats of the era, though. A bit like the Grunge wooly hats pulled down to the eyebrows, only felt with a small brim.

I always love watching those old silent flicks from the 1920s and before. They are an amazing "time machine" that lets you go back and see how life was almost a century ago. One thing I've notice is the women almost always appear to be braless. It's not so obvious with the younger women since they wore loose-fitting garments back then, but when they show older "more matronly" women their "breast-bulge" is very low in their dresses, as if they were just hanging. I don't notice much movement so they must be wearing an undergarment to prevent that, but they clearly are not wearing a bra to elevate them to the "proper position" as we would expect today.

In Celebrity Sleuth, an entry on Mousketeers Annette Funicello and co-star Doreen Tracey, it was revealed that back during the show's run, as the pair(and their pair) were maturing, wardrobe had the girls compress their 'girls' under men's T-shirts.

With long days on the set, those shirts were like cotton straitackets. Finally, when they'd had enough, A&D cut holes in the shirts, letting their breasts 'breathe'. Mamie Van Doren's or Lili St.Cyr bras wouldn't do, on such a family show.