THE REASON WHY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19682, 27 December 1933, Page 10

THE REASON WHY

ADOPTION OF SCANTY DRESS. Throughout the summer in England “Miss Modern’s” daring sun-bathing costumes aroused fierce controversy. Religious leaders, town councillors and “watch committees” nearly came to blows over the subject and hundreds of people wrote fiery letters to the newspapers. Now the medical profession has entered the arena. In an issue of “The Practitioner,” Dr E. A. Barton says that the almost universal adoption of scanty dress by younger women is caused by the scarcity of men. “We are apt to forget,” he writes, “that a million of young prospective fathers of the best of our race were killed or maimed in the war. The loss of males is responsible for the sex competition of the females in their natural desire for marriage. Such competition is manifested by the ostentations display of legs and lumbar spines. “The paint, pyjamas, sun-bathing, skin-tight swimming costumes, all point one way—in short, that sex appeal consists in being as naked as possible without infringing the very elastic canons of the more recent notions of decency.”