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TOPS ON!
Topless men are the scourge of Britain – hairy backs, man boobs and fat rolls should be banned in public
Britain would be wise to adopt the approach of France, where some towns have a strict policy of covering up
AH, you can’t beat Britain in the summertime – long, lazy days, fish & chips at the beach, cool refreshing pints in the beer garden . . . men parading around with their tops off.
Yep, with the temperatures topping 34C this week the Great British Belly has been back out in force.
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From the park bench to the petrol station, pasty flesh has been on display from Newcastle to Newquay.
Mad dogs and Englishmen letting it all out in the midday sun.
But this nod to nudity, confined to the footie terraces in the colder months, is becoming one of our uglier traits, according to a new poll.
Three quarters of those surveyed this week agreed it was “completely unacceptable” for blokes to remove their tops in public unless they’re on the beach or by a pool.
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A third went even further and called for a BAN on men going topless, with a fifth saying anyone who defied it should be fined.
Harriet Scott, CEO of Perspectus Global, which commissioned the national study of 2,000 people, revealed: “Britain has spoken and it seems, as a nation, we have voted strongly against the notion of men with their tops off in summer.”
No shirt, Sherlock!
Topless twits are becoming the scourge of Britain. Man boobs which haven’t seen sunlight since they were burnt to a crisp on that two-weeker in Faliraki last year compete with bloated guts that would make Jimmy Five Bellies look anorexic.
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Dinner-plate nipples jostle for room with hideously hairy backs and fat rolls that look like a concertina of cookie dough.
And they’re everywhere.
I'm a proud topless sunbather - put as many threatening signs up in the Costa del Sol as you want, I'll still bare my boobs
One woman on Mumsnet posted that she’d taken her “darling son” to the barbers, only to see a grown man having his barnet chopped while wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.
But it’s not just the unsightly flab that we’re all sick of seeing in public — it’s the chiselled Adonis look, too. The pumped up posers make up the, ahem, bulk of these naked numpties.
Gormless gym bros, souped on protein shakes, Dubai holidays and Instagram likes, are turning our town centres into the Love Island Villa. Well here’s a text for you, lads: Pec it in!
‘Half-naked halfwits are unwanted intrusion’
There is a time and a place for peeling off — and standing in a queue with your “totes protes” Tesco meal deal is not it.
What is it about the British psyche that makes certain men think they’re Michelangelo’s David?
And, yes, before you ask, if the world’s most famous naked man suddenly came to life, popped off his perch and started cruising the streets of Florence in all his hairless hench, I’d bollock him too.
There is a time and a place for peeling off
Some of the blame for this body bravado is down to Britain’s obsession with working out.
Gym goers are on the increase, with a four per cent rise between 2022 and 2023, according to the UK Fitness Industry Report.
That’s more iron and more pumpers.
Love Island and its endless parade of perfectly formed imbeciles must take a lot of the blame for these crimes of confidence.
But I also charge Simon Cowell, who went from “X Factor to Pecs Factor” when he took a stroll in Miami stripped down to only a pair of those ludicrous jeans he uses to hide his elevator shoes.
"Many applauded his “bravery”, peeling off to his sunburnt chest in a city with more hot bodies than a Magic Mike convention.
But for others it represented the acme of male narcissism.
Because that’s what all this public flesh baring is about — a selfish belief that the world needs to see you in all your imagined glory.
For these shirtaphobics, the Diet Coke break commercial in 1994 wasn’t a tacky ad for a fizzy drink. It was a design for life.
The soundtrack? Etta James’s I Just Want To Make Love To You.
So . . . peel off — get laid.
Yet for every woman — or man — perving over a tasty topless geezer (and 46 per cent of the survey said they might make an exception for someone who was attractive), there will be one reaching for the Mace.
These half-naked halfwits are an unwanted intrusion, not least on public transport.
These half-naked halfwits are an unwanted intrusion
Getting from A to B is miserable enough in the summer without the additional threat of being coated with Lynx Africa-laced perspiration from some T-shirtless tit with only a bum bag round his neck.
Britain would be wise to adopt the approach of France, where some towns have a strict policy of covering up.
I’d go further — making it a criminal offence.
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Every man caught without a shirt outside a changing room, park, pool or beach in the summer months should be sentenced to 12 weeks in Wormwood Scrubs.
Let’s see how quickly they strip off in there.
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FLASH OF PECS IS FINE
FORMER Towie star and celebrity personal trainer Charlie King, 39, thinks we should all be showing some skin this summer...
I SPENT a couple of days down on Southend High Street this week, when it was over 30C, and there were a hell of a lot of men, of all walks of life, walking down the street with their tops off.
There were guys in good nick, slightly out-of-shape blokes, some older men and even girls in bikini tops and very short shorts, leaving little to the imagination.
And it did get me thinking about how once upon a time, seeing men walking around topless would have absolutely cringed me out. I would have thought to myself it’s not really necessary.
But as I’ve got older and gone through my own struggles with body image, I actually admire a man who can take his top off, walk down the high street loud and proud about his body without any body image issues, and have enough confidence that he doesn’t seem to care what people might think of him if he’s not in the best of shape.
We were all born naked and didn’t wear clothes back in the caveman days, so it doesn’t offend me any more.
If anything, I applaud it and think, good luck to you. If you feel confident doing that, then spread that body positivity, that’s my attitude.
And you know what? We don’t get a lot of sun in the UK, and our bodies need that Vitamin D.
So let it all hang out and bask in those rays!
Charlie's clothing range is available to buy online.
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