Earlier this month I visited the visitor-hating city of Barcelona. I wasn’t too worried. Sure, I had my valuables in a bumbag and was sporting scarlet sunburn around my neck, but did I obviously stand out from the locals? At which point I noticed a Spanish man striding down the street with his top off.
He didn’t look like I do with my top off. In fact, it didn’t seem like he had his top off at all; his heavy musculature and deep, mahogany tan were a kind of clothing. Or rather, the way he carried them gave no indication he was partially nude, with none of the shrinking from view that I associated with such a display.
As I noticed more of these men around the city, I began to realise that despite my commitment to drinking local “cervezas” — “Uno Madri por favor, garçon” — I would never blend in. I longed for London, where men keep their tops on, usually several at a time. Or so I thought.
Upon my return, on a glorious day in Shoreditch I saw to my horror that there were more than a few blokes walking about shirtless. I even saw a topless man on the Overground, one of the air-conditioned Tube lines where there’s no excuse for hairy nipples. It felt wrong, almost apocalyptic.
One thing all these men had in common, of course, was they were stacked. Meaning, this was not a practical adjustment for the weather, it was a little display for us all. You could say the same about the men in Barcelona, but there’s something in their climate and culture, in the Catalan spirit, that made it acceptable. This London lot were just gym bros seizing the chance to justify all the protein farts.
A recent poll by research agency Perspectus Global found that 72 per cent of men and 76 per cent of women frown upon London men going topless outside the beach or pool. But 46 per cent of both sexes agreed that toplessness might be OK if the man was in good physical condition.
This qualification annoyed me. So if you’re fit, it might be allowable? A quick poll of some of my more gym-literate associates frowned upon this too. “I wouldn’t do it just for the sake of it,” said one. “Not walking down the street like that. Even when you’re in peak condition, it’s just a bit of an ego move to share it with the entire world.”
Going topless in London is a taboo and a taboo it must remain
No excuses were permitted for bare-chested exercise either, according to one keen runner: “I’m one of those annoying people who runs a lot, but I never, ever, take my top off. You just look like a t**t.”
Another friend said, “The only public place in London I’ll take my shirt off is in a park on a hot day. But this is largely a moot point, isn’t it? It’s so rarely decent weather that you rarely see it.”
Yet I’d argue that you shouldn’t see it at all, not even during the rare heat waves. With no allowances for body beautifuls. It has to be no one or everyone. Women too. Either we all get the chance to get over our Victorian squeamishness and bare our chests, or none of us do. I vote for none of us. We’re just not ready as a nation to handle the sight with any maturity, or indeed to commit to it with any grace.
Put simply, it remains a taboo not through any moral or religious fervour but because a) we’re infants, and b) people who do it are dicks.
I include myself in that. Last year, I was working in the garden on a very hot day. We had a holiday coming up, and I was conscious of my corpse-like pallor, so I thought, “why not, in the privacy of my own property, take my T-shirt off?” So I did. The problem was, when you live in London terraces, there’s no such thing as privacy. About six minutes into my bare-chested digging, my neighbour popped up over the fence and quipped, “You look like you’re in a chain gang.”
This struck me as a perfect put-down. Soon after, I put my shirt back on. I had been put in my place and quite right too. Going topless in London is a taboo and a taboo it must remain.
And that goes for everyone except builders. I spoke to one of the men working on a neighbouring property, who wasn’t topless at the time, and he said, “When you’re labouring outdoors, what are you supposed to do? Some of the younger lads, any excuse, but for the rest of it’s just avoiding heatstroke. No one cares if builders do it anyway.”
Indeed. To the inventors of the builder’s bum, then, anything goes. The rest of us? Cover up, chaps.
