In Sex and the City II Samantha Jones was arrested for having sex on the beach in Dubai. It takes a lot less than that to get arrested there-such as wearing a bikini to the mall, or kissing in public. The Daily Mail reports:
A British holidaymaker has been charged with indecency in Dubai after walking through the world’s largest shopping centre in a bikini.
The woman was buying clothes and gifts in the Dubai Mall, fully dressed but in a low-cut top, when she was accosted by an Arabic woman and criticised for wearing ‘revealing clothing’.
The pair then became embroiled in a heated row in front of hundreds of bemused shoppers.
Incensed by the Arabic woman’s comments, the British woman told her to ‘mind her own business’ before stripping out of her clothes and ‘taunting’ the locals by walking around in only her bikini, it is alleged.
Fortunately the charges have been dropped. There are signs up warning about dress in the malls, and other offenses have also led to arrests:
There are numerous signs around the Dubai Mall urging women to ‘wear respectful clothing-Similar messages are flashed up on LCD screens in most shopping malls across the United Arab Emirates.
Dubai, which attracts more than one million British tourists a year, tends to operate a more lenient policy than other Arab states.
However, officials in the Gulf state have prosecuted several British tourists for indecent behaviour over the past two years.
Earlier this year estate agent Charlotte Adams, 26, and Ayman Najafi, 24, were jailed for a month by a Dubai court for kissing and fondling each other in a restaurant.
The pair, from North London, always maintained that the embrace was nothing but a ‘peck on the cheek’.
They were arrested in November last year at a busy burger restaurant after a 38-year-old local woman claimed she spotted them kissing on the lips and stroking each other’s backs.
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Over the last hundred years, we have had, “The public undressing of the western world.”. What was illegal in clothing 100 years ago, and would cause your arrest, is now popular and accepted everywhere — even in churches.
1890’s: Swimwear was modified street clothing 1910: Arms were exposed
1920: You would be arrested if you appeared in a modest 21st century bathing suit
1920’s: Legs and backs were exposed
1930’s: Cleavage was exposed and men began to swim bare chested
1935: Two piece bathing suits appeared with a small break between upper and lower half
1940’s: New fabrics appeared which hugged the body
1960’s: Navels were exposedToday: Anything goes… One piece suits with fabrics like skin that really leaves nothing to the imagination and bikinis of various categories prevail as normal.
Today, the fashions are so pervasively broadcast over every media outlet that everyone dresses the same when they swim. Movies and TV have so popularized nakedness, that if you challenge it, you are not thought of as being very accepting. In fact, if you do cover your body it seems odd.
“Fashion designers have used swimwear to undress people.” Who can deny this? It is as obvious as a fly on your nose.
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