Shout To The Top (less)

There is a body called the "Instituto de Política Familiar" (institute of family policy). Family and policy - sounds like a euphemism for something of the right. And right is not wrong. This body is making a thing about the body. The female body. On the beach and by the pool. The president of the Balearics wing of the institute, Agustín Buades, would most unlikely be one to shout "get your tits out for the lads". (And do excuse me for this lapse of taste.) Quite the contrary. He wants them covered up.

The institute reckons that topless sunbathing by women exceeds norms of decorum and that beaches and pools should be places for family use in conditions of "respect and protection of childhood". The institute wants a ban on toplessness but is most unlikely to get its way. Thank God for that, albeit that God must surely play a role in its thinking. Not that it says it is a religious or indeed a politically-aligned body. Well, it would do.

Go for a trawl through Google and you will unearth a number of references to this institute. Unsurprisingly, the references crop up alongside themes such as homosexuality, abortion and the pill. It seems less than well-disposed to any of them. It may deny religious and political associations, but the words "Catholic" and "right" come swiftly to mind. Comments accompanying the article about the institute's call for a ban in "The Diario" are revealing. They are invariably hostile and some invoke Opus Dei in connection with Buades.

Among the references in Google, you will come across one to an interview with the institute's national president in a publication called "Arbil", the name also of a pressure group for Catholic values, Spanishness and of course the family. The president says, in this interview, that he is in total agreement with the aims of the Arbil forum. On the home page of its website is a black bow under a photo of the dead president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski. Why would that be, do you suppose? Nothing to do with Kaczynski's opposition to homosexuality presumably.

Topless sunbathing is commonplace. In the interests of research, I assessed the level of toplessness on the local beach yesterday afternoon. Commonplace but in the minority. What there was not was total kit-off. The institute may or may not be aware that, according to the Spanish naturist federation at any rate, kit-off is legal on any beach. (Not that I recommend you try putting this into practice.) I mention this, though, because some local councils have sought to outlaw nudism and have had to rescind any ban. Nudity, partial or total, is a question of personal liberty, a concept that doesn't always sit easily with those of an outlook at the farther ends of the political spectrum - right and left.

The worry with this institute is that, as with other movements or politics that make the "family" its focus, the family is hijacked as a camouflage for an agenda that, while it may well be sincere in its promotion of family values (and there's no reason to question this), may well have other aims. It, the institute, is clearly at odds with the liberalism of Spain under Zapatero, and bare breasts expose it - as it were - as being so. If it wants women to cover up, then maybe it should support the wearing of a burka. But it wouldn't. You don't get many burkas in Spanish families.


QUIZ:
Back for a guest appearance. "Shout To The Top". Brilliant. Who was it?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.