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Citizen complaint of the day: Can you believe the nerve of some people, wearing swimsuits to the beach?
By adamg on Sun, 05/23/2021 - 8:51pm
An outraged citizen files a 311 complaint to demand the city do something about all these women wearing swimsuits to M Street Beach in South Boston:
Tied [sic] of the trash my children, 3 boys ages 6-10, are exposed to every time I take them to the beach. These girls must really make their parents proud. Do they really think they look good! OMG They obviously don't have mirrors or their vision is really bad They should be ashamed of themselves! Strutting up and down the street like they were something to look at . FYI girls most people look and laugh
Perhaps the complainer then fainted before finishing the form with similar words about all the barely Spandexed fleshy fellows strutting the sand, or maybe the kvetcher just prefers dad bods.
The city closed the case as "noted."
H/t Shamus and DK.
Free tagging:
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Comments
Nothing is more disturbing
Nothing is more disturbing than the human body. Why won't anyone protect the children from the human body?
That’s funny but....
Why is that even allowed past a public filter. Gotta be someone working for the city that goes through these complaints that has that trash can icon next to the actual complaint right....?
I'd rather transparency
I'd rather transparency than a sanitized list, tbh. Otherwise you could end up with low level staff deleting completely valid complaints simply because they disagree with them (or, potentially, to avoid work).
That message seems like douchey cyberbullying
The city should figure out criteria for abusive messages, and what to do with them, including reconciling that with whatever public records regulations.
In the meantime, we shouldn't amplify it.
the system doesn’t allow for
the system doesn’t allow for filtering messages, invalid cases get ‘noted’ and closed and repeat offenders can get banned but the system is very junky
It's good to be reminded
It's good to be reminded just how judgemental and superficial some of our fellow citizens are. If we didn't know that such attitudes exist, then we would be the ones having our sensibilities shocked, when those attitudes are displayed.
I'd gladly pay you thursday for a hamburger today
I find your comment judgmental & superficial and I'm offended.
You owe me an apology.
TBH, I don't think many "younger" one will get the reference. Prove me wrong.
Say 10 Hail Marys and have a
Say 10 Hail Marys and have a good rest
I thought...
I thought where you were going was something like "Say 10 Hail Marys and have a Mai Tai". There's probably a more appropriate cocktail but that's all that's coming to mind.
Virgin Mary
I would think a Virgin Mary or some other mocktail.
Did the complainer's great-grandfather work for a postcard co.?
A postcard from sometime between 1930 and 1945 from the BPL postcard collection.
I saw a guy flexing in front
I saw a guy flexing in front of a mirror he had dragged out and propped up on M street beach. Two signs you are not a local, you use "M Street beach" and you aren't aware S.Boston is not the MTV Beach house.
I lived in City Point for years and called it
M Street Beach, though I infrequently heard "Southie Beach", an ironic reference to Miami. What do you call it?
The men used to go naked on L
The men used to go naked on L St beach. Maybe they still do?
Why is 311 allowing this
Why is 311 allowing this photo to stay up?
Legally if you are in public anyone can take a picture of you but as a society we have a non spoken pact that we allow things on beaches and pools that we do not generally want on a main street. Taking the image and putting it online goes against that pact. People should be able to be open and free without having to worry about a government site letting an image of their backside stay on it
Now this is a good point.
Cases should remain for transparency... no need for the photo to remain.
I completely disagree
A photo taken at the beach of a person who's wearing what he or she meant to wear (no malfunction, no up-skirting or other funny angle, etc) is completely fair game. The government has no business filtering on that photo.
[and yes, I'm with the majority -- this didn't warrant a 311 complaint in the first place]
This woman needs a bigger
This woman needs a bigger suit or a smaller body, this is sad. She is at urban family beach in a costume fail for even Carnival.
I’m sure the next time she
I’m sure the next time she wants some random person on the internet to give her advice she’ll let you know
No
You need a bigger brain or a smaller keyboard.
She is there to SWIM for her own reasons. She is not there for you to comment on.
Not everything people around you do is about you.
I'm going to assume you're
I'm going to assume you're the person who made the initial complaint, because there just can't be that many people in the city of Boston who care about a stranger wearing a swimsuit.
If you're a mother, I urge you to consider your sons more fully as you move forward in the world. I am sure you love them, I am sure you want the best for them, and I am sure that you genuinely believe your actions are helping them.
But this kind of behavior in a parent is exactly the sort of thing that leads to eating disorders in their children, and boys (contrary to increasingly-less-popular belief) are extremely vulnerable to eating disorders. My own father used to make comments like this at dinner — fortunately, he never shared them with even more strangers on the internet — and I ended up with an eating disorder and body dysmorphia so severe that I'm frequently housebound and can only leave my door at night when I'm sure people can't see my body. (Also, it nearly destroyed my relationship with my father. I can't imagine you'd want that to happen to your relationship with your children.)
Please, please reconsider the way you interact with people and their bodies. Your sons will appreciate it.
Also important
This is the kind of parental bs that leads males to believe that females are required to dress according to what they want/like. Worse yet, it also leads young males to believe that it isn't their job to control their own behavior if a female is wearing "provocative" clothing.
I wish my butt looked that good
That's a good cut of bottoms for that bottom, looks good, and the 311 person was just being a jerk.
Good work, lady
In perpetuating the patriarchy by cutting down other women.
There’s something to be said in limiting your boys’ access to sexualized imagery lest they ruin sex and relationships for themselves...but a woman in swimwear during the maybe four months that spans in Boston ain’t it.
I agree but...”lady”?
I don’t see where is it indicated that the 311 complaint was submitted by a woman.
I sure as (expletive) hope so
Because those words are far more odious out of a man's mouth. If so, congrats on parlaying your game into breeding three children, Romeo hardo. Try to suck a little less at parenting in the form of keeping the body shaming to yourself.
HOW DO I GET TO M STREET?
HOW DO I GET TO M STREET?
Practice.
Practice.
At least they are wearing
At least they are wearing suits. I hear they do things differently in Europe.
Yup
I don't swim topless because it doesn't quite work for me, but the city beach in Barcelona is very popular for women who like to sun their mammaries - and age/shape is not a reason to defer!
People strip naked in the open showers to get all the sand off. I have to say that I found that to be a grand idea before tossing my sundress on and heading back to my hotel.
Thankfully the complainer wasn't at Nantasket
I was at Nantasket yesterday and woman were letting it all hang out. It is entertaing how small woman's bathing suits have gotten again while mens suits provide very full coverage as my wife noted.
Clearly
You have not been to the beach in P-town.
Magoo sez
Magoo only wears men’s bikinis. Canary smugglers if one will. Magoo.
Magoo sez
Magoo only wears men’s bikinis. Canary smugglers if one will. Magoo.
Canaries have small beaks.
Canaries have small beaks. Ergo . . .
This never would have
This never would have happened in "Old Southie".
At least Whitey kept the bare
At least Whitey kept the bare asses out of Southie.
annette kellerman ?:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/07/history-of-the-bikini-how-it-ca...
Revere Beach story may be false
From Wikipedia
as a male...
who was once all ages from 6 - 10, I can assure you your boys are "looking," but I don't know about the "laughing" part.. unless they're laughing at your reaction! lol.
What the actual f**k?
This makes the 311 report about the birds nest seem reasonable.
What did this person think the city of Boston would do with this complaint, send the clothing police?
People unclear on the 311 system
People unclear on the difference between a ticket system to request city government services and social media.
Outraged should teach their boys manners
I suppose it's easier to file a 311 complaint about perfectly legal behavior than to teach your sons not to comment on strangers' bodies or clothing.
I assume Outraged and their sons are wearing clothes that cover them from their necks to knees--no, I don't, not really. But even if they are, they can look elsewhere, like at each other or at the sand or sky, if "oh my god, women are wearing bathing suits to the beach!" upsets them. Or, you know, not go to the beach, and also not comment on the bodies of strangers who have the audacity to be female in public.
M Street Beach
If you don’t like what you see at M St Beach then stay home. Looks like the people who go there are having a blast.
Trash?
"Trash" regarding human beings is usually part of the term "white trash." Our language is so rich to include precise terms for putting down people based on their body type and/or skin color.
What would the complainer write if they saw a black or brown skin woman of similar shape, size and outfit? Probably nothing realizing that the comment might be perceived as racist, assuming the complainer is white skinned.
Reminds me of the time I heard the term "riff-raff" used by a middle class fellow working at Gillette. Always assumed riff-raff was used by people such as Charles Koch and Donald Trump; never imagined that a person earning merely a few 10s of Ks in dollars would see himself as superior to that class of people he called riff-raff.
That's what it comes down to though. One person believing that they possess some inherent superiority over another. As though "God" or some other highest power designated them a divine superiority.
Not even the Queen of England is Queen because God made her so. What does a middle class person teach her small children when she uses language such as trash in describing other human beings? Hopefully this mom will one day realize that she harms her children far more with her belligerence and disgust of others than the sight of a woman of any body type in a bikini will do.
Off topic
But the legitimacy of the monarchy in the U.K. is based on divine right; i.e. the "Queen of England is Queen because God made her so." That is pretty much the single underpinning principle of why she has the right to be sovereign. If you don't believe that, then she is illegitimate.
Posted Twice
Seems the complainant posted a second time. Now with more body-negative commentary. I note the original complaint spoke of "girls" (plural). So maybe this is a complaint about brief beach wear? Banned in Boston, indeed. Don't go to parts of the Cape.
https://311.boston.gov/reports/101003766923
https://311.boston.gov/reports/101003766802
Time for a counter complaint
"Why are misogynist gits allowed to spew their hatred of women's bodies" would be a good start.
Two things
First - i am sure her boys have seen much more skin than this on non-cable TV
Second - this woman needs some pills. Talk about angry and middle aged!!!
Bathing suits 43: Inner city young men 0
Amazing. 43 comments on bathing suits. Yet just after that Universal Hub posted a story about three men in Mattapan shot, one fatally. Not one comment.
Good that you have now rectified that
Perhaps, like you, none of us felt we had anything worth saying about it.
I mean
Were you expecting "Huh huh, that was cool, Beavis?"
I can't post the final verse of Skynyrd's Saturday Night Special every time a gun dip(expletive) mows somebody down, because it will become meaningless noise if I do.