Samantha Motion: It's time to get past undies, undies, togs

Gemma-Elaine Duggan says she was kicked out of Tauranga's Bayfair mall by a security guard because she was wearing a bikini top. Photo / Supplied

COMMENT: First, it was g-strings and nudity at public swimming spots, then breastfeeding at playgrounds and now it's bikinis at the mall.

The body police have been out in force this summer in the Bay of Plenty and beyond and, as usual, it's mostly women in their sights.

Whether these watchers take the form of horrified onlookers or mall cops following apparently unwritten rules, they're out there, eyes sizzling with judgement.

In these situations, I always wonder what harm is being done by those supposedly inappropriately clothed people.

I respect the right of establishments to make their own rules, but where none exist, what harm is done when a couple of teenagers walk in a mall in bikini tops? Or if a kid gets an eyeful of a g-string-clad bottom at the beach? If nana sees a nipple feeding a baby in public?

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There's no harm, just judgy people working themselves into a lather over their own offence.

I see things every day that I wish I didn't have to. Tacky lawn ornaments in my neighbourhood, for example.

But they do no one any harm so I put them out of mind.

I apply the same policy wherever I see people making - in my view - questionable fashion choices.

I might not want to see it but no harm done.

Now if someone were to wander through the mall in dripping wet togs, that would be a different matter - that's a hazard.

The classic Tip Top "undies, undies, togs" TV commercial has been invoked a lot in all of this ballyhoo.

It asked Kiwis what distance from the beach togs become undies and suggested the unwritten rule is that if you can't see the water you're in underwear.

That ad came out in 2006. Fourteen years ago, it set the societal beachwear/underwear context rules for a generation.

Things have moved on since then, and there's much less room for ideology-driven unwritten rules about how people - women especially - dress today.

It's time to let the "undies, undies, togs" judgments go and keep our offence for situations where actual harm is a possibility.