In Göttingen swimming pools, women are now allowed to swim shirtless at the weekend.
However, the topless fun is only valid up to and including August.
Göttingen/Hanover – Göttingen is swimming ahead: Since Sunday (May 1st, 2022) all people have been allowed to drop their covers in the municipal swimming pools, i.e. the outdoor pools and the Eiswiese bathing paradise.
This ensures discussions far beyond the tradition-steeped university town.
However, the new openness is limited in time: According to the decision of the sports committee, the Göttingen swimming pool culture only applies on weekends, Saturdays and Sundays - and on a test basis until August.
So far, what has been the rule almost everywhere in Germany's swimming pools - in contrast to outside - has also applied in progressive Göttingen: the primary sexual characteristics - penis and vulva - and the secondary sexual characteristics - the female breast - must be covered, as reported by hna.de.
In Göttingen, women are allowed to swim shirtless in swimming pools at the weekend
Ultimately, it was all about the all too understandable question: Why is it allowed to see the male breast but not the female one?
This is a question that many in Germany are asking themselves, where more and more movements are being formed that demand a topless right for all people - at least for places where men are allowed to show themselves bare-chested.
They demand gender equality and the de-sexualization of the female body.
In Berlin, too, there were protests against bans in parks in 2021.
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When the covers fall off in swimming pools: In Göttingen, new bathing regulations have been in effect since May - women can go topless there - but only on weekends.
(icon picture)
© Annette Riedl/dpa
Clothing regulations have a long tradition: in the last century, women were prescribed by regulation how they should dress when bathing.
The 1932 "Zwickeldecree" stipulated that women could only bathe in public if they wore a bathing suit that fully covered the chest and abdomen at the front of the torso and fitted snugly under the arms.
In the 1950s and 1960s there were bikini bans in pools or on beaches, which were only lifted in the 1960s as part of the student movement and the associated sexual liberation.
90 years later, at least in Goettingen swimming pools, almost all covers fall off on weekends.
Topless bathing in Göttingen: A question of equality
The women fought for this in Göttingen.
“Mina Berger”, the name stands for an activist who remains anonymous, and the feminist Göttingen alliance “Equal Breasts for All” went first.
The trigger was that Berger took off his bikini top in August 2021 in the Eiswiese bathing paradise.
"It felt good to realize: I just feel more comfortable when I don't have this top glued to my body."
Berger describes himself as non-binary, identifying himself as neither a woman nor a man.
However, the employees in the swimming pool saw her as a woman and issued a reprimand and a house ban for topless bathing.
This went through the media, caused a stir, heated debates in social networks - including the usual insults - but also for serious discussions that were productive in the end.
But how is the new regulation in Göttingen?
Already on the first day of validity he had the impression that "an unusually large number of bathers" came to the pools, said Andreas Gruber, Managing Director of Göttinger Sport und Freizeit GmbH (GöSF), on Sunday.
There is a lot of positive feedback and, according to his information, use is made of the possibility of topless bathing.
"Understandably, but rather reluctantly," said Gruber, with a view to the great public interest in the development in Göttingen.
A question of principle: counteracting the sexualization of the breast
There is a lot of approval from the outside: "In the long term, we think it makes sense for several swimming pools to adopt similar regulations to counteract the sexualization of non-flat breasts," says Nico Kerski, Managing Director of the Lower Saxony Queer Network.
"There is no good reason why breasts, understood as female, are highly sexualized and need to be covered accordingly."
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Place of decision: An "incident" in the Göttingen bathing paradise Eiswiese 2021 was the decisive factor for the new regulation of the bathing regulations.
© Thomas Copytz
But there are also critical voices on social media.
A user speaks of the "Gendergaga final stage".
One commenter cynically asks whether men now have to wear bathing suits or bikini tops during the week.
In the sports committee of the city council, which decided on the new rule, according to the Equal Opportunities Officer Christine Müller, there were voices that said: "We have to take our people with a migration background into account."
Topless bathing is initially planned as a test run in Göttingen from May to August
Mina Berger, on the other hand, believes that seeing bare breasts in public could be considered normal for all people, regardless of gender, age or origin.
The problem is the gaze of others, not the nudity itself.
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New from May 1st: The addition to the bathing regulations at the entrance to the Eiswiese bathing paradise in Göttingen.
© Swen Pförtner/dpa
The new regulation will initially apply until the end of August.
However, the change in bathing regulations does not go far enough for the Göttingen alliance “Equal breasts for all”.
"We are not satisfied with the fact that there should only be equality at the weekend," said a spokeswoman who had been banned from the "Eiswiese" swimming pool in Göttingen in August 2021 because she had refused to cover her chest.
Nevertheless, the alliance hopes that the new regulation will have a supra-regional signal effect.
PS: Nude bathing also had and has a tradition in Germany - also in the former GDR.
Whether on Sylt, in Rostock or on Lake Chiemsee - as soon as the weather permits, people drop their covers on nudist beaches.
(tko/epd/lni)
List of rubrics: © Annette Riedl/dpa
