Link. Excerpt:
Some argue that the key to the bikini's re-found popularity is the ageing baby boomers who signed up to the fitness-obsessed culture. Kathy Peiss, a professor of women's history at the University of Massachusetts argues that this baby boomer group is "inculcated with the idea that they won't ever grow old".
For some, however, it is the other end of the market that causes concern.
Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, argues that the bikini is able to exert a noose-like grip on the psyche and physical health of girls and women.
"American girls and women have been stripped bare by a sexually expressive culture whose beauty dictates have exerted a major toll on their physical and emotional health," she writes.
I tend to agree with that last part, but why no concern about the major toll on men's emotional health that occurs when they can't avert their eyes fast enough to avoid the attractive 20-something on the beach or, for that matter, the unattractive 200-something?
