“One of the things you check is whether the body can prove itself in another element like water, for example through swimming techniques.”
Image: dpa
Some cities also specifically allow women to swim shirtless. The sociologist Tilman Allert evaluates the debate as a classic contrast between convention and authenticity – and praises the cleverness of the lifeguards.
Tilman Allert taught at Frankfurt’s Goethe University from 2000 until he completed his senior professorship last summer. Born in 1947, the sociologist spent his academic career dealing with everyday phenomena and the “sociology of small things”, as a small series of his works is called. These, as well as texts that he wrote as a guest author for the FAZ, have made him popular beyond the university world. In Frankfurt he also reached a non-university public with a series of lectures “for the city population” in the city library. In his so-called retirement he is writing an autobiographical novel.
At the opening of the outdoor pool season, there is a lot of discussion about explicitly allowing top-down swimming for women. Can sociology settle the dispute? Does the naked truth exist?
