Ibiza Without a Bra

Bonnie Strange, a German model and DJ, posted a topless photo on Instagram. Caption was something about daydreaming of wandering through Ibiza without a bra. Reasonable aspiration. The comments, predictably, collapsed into exactly the kind of moral outrage that seems to live permanently on standby, waiting for a nipple to activate it.

What kind of mother are you?! was one. I think I’m going to be sick! was another. The argument, insofar as there is one, being that Bonnie Strange has a child now, and therefore her body has passed into some kind of community ownership—a public resource to be managed according to the preferences of strangers who go to bed early and wake up angry.

I’ve never understood this particular strain of self-righteousness. Her body existed before the child, it exists now, it remains her own throughout. Becoming a parent doesn’t convert you into a permanent lesson plan. You don’t owe your kid, your family, the internet, or the vague specter of society a single square centimeter of your skin.

And beyond the principle of it: she looks good. She looked good before the baby and she looks good now, and posting a topless photo is not a moral event, it’s just a decision about what to share. The people in the comments aren’t worried about her child. They’re bothered by their own reaction to the photo and outsourcing their discomfort onto her as a character failing.

I look forward to more. The prudes can keep scrolling.