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One thing I like about Coral Bay is all the bodies on the beach. Bodies of all shapes and sizes. I like the fit looking ladies with their golden tans and bright bikinis. I like the rudie toddlers, the wrinkly grannies with their leathery skin and the mums like me, with all our battle scars. Lean bodies, lumpy bodies, really overweight bodies. I like them all.

Is that super weird? Am I some kind of pervert? I’m not looking lustfully. The most ripped looking guy I’ve ever seen just walked past and I averted my eyes. Actually,  I’m not really noticing the men.

What catches my eye are the women who are confident in their skin. No matter their shape or size, I just like to see it. My whole life I’ve been too self conscious to swim without a shirt and boardies. But the older I get, the less I care what people think.

I’m cheering these wonderful women. “You go, girl! You shake what your mumma gave ya!” That’s what I’m thinking about them all. They are all beautiful.

THAT was the article I started writing- nerdy lady sitting on the beach with my iPad, t-shirt over my head and the screen so I can see, delighting in how mature I’ve become, when *scratch the needle across the record* the following happens…

I look up to see a woman running down the beach as fast as her legs can take her. She is the most amazing looking woman I’ve ever actually seen in the flesh. Imagine Jennifer Hawkins, or that sweet chick from Gero who was on the Bachelor. (The one who was too lovely for Richie and his odourless hothouse rose.)

I look up because she is screaming with joy, but then the next thing I see is her teeny, weeny, tiny black thong. Beautiful butt cheeks on display for the whole beach to see. I am confronted. I had believed that such perfection was only attainable with photoshop.

Screaming semi-naked lady flops herself down prostrate on top of an older woman and says in a very excited way, “Mum, mum, I got it! I got it! I got it!”

She hugs her mum tight, lying on top of her on the beach.

“What did you get, sweetheart?” asks the Mum’s friend.

She sits up, straddling her mum. “Prefect! I’m going to be a prefect! I just got the email to say I’ve been chosen. Ooh, Mum, I’m so exited I can’t stop shaking!”

She is a child. A delightful, sweet child in a teeny tiny thong. Jenn Hawkins Jnr. No more than 16. Her mum hugs her tight and tells her she is so proud. Jenn Jnr is beaming and chatting away. From my observation, she seems like a beautiful young lady- on the inside, I mean.

She stands up, takes her mobile phone and walks into the water. Only a few people are swimming. Most are lying on the beach. The beautiful girl stands in the water chatting on the phone. I can see a stand up paddle boarder through her thigh gap, under her perfect butt cheeks. Suddenly I am more aware of how many boys, dads and middle aged men there are on the beach.

Three senior citizens; two old ladies and a gentleman, sit on deck chairs under an umbrella in front of me, sensibly dressed in cheesecloth and straw hats. They see the girl and grumble about how inappropriate her bathers are. “Maybe that’s okay in her own back yard, but this is a family place,” says one of the ladies. The man agrees but I notice a little smile dancing across his face when the old ladies aren’t looking.

Beautiful girl walks back to shore, “Okay, Grandma. I love you too!”

Aww, she called her Nanna.

I get the sense that the beautiful girl has a lot of innocence about her. I feel worried that she is wearing a thong. Should her mum be steering her toward better choices? Though her mum has clearly done a good job with raising her.

What if she has a modelling contract and has to avoid tan lines? And what of my previous statement, “you go girl, shake what your mumma gave ya!”?

What do you think?

Later that day I over heard my kids in the shower block, “did you see that girl’s bum at the beach today? So gross…”

Image credit- http://www.gorenm.com/