Well, I won't be going to Alton Towers now....

And why wouldn't I go to Alton Towers, one of the biggest (and some would say best) of Sunny England's amusement parks?

And why would I suggest you don't go either?

I'm glad you asked...

It's this. Quoting the important bit, without the paragraphs of blather relating this to semi-famous people....

The company said today that a number of men had been sporting tight trunks in its waterpark during the recent hot weather.

It went on: “To prevent embarrassment among fellow members of the public and to maintain the family friendly atmosphere at the resort, bosses have taken the extreme measure of banning these tight trunks from their popular waterpark located within the Splash Landings Hotel.

“While women may hail the return of the skimpy bathers, the style itself is not deemed public or family friendly, and therefore we are requesting that male swimmers wear more appropriate styles such as boardshorts.

"The resort is also considering introducing mandatory bikini waxing for men, in a bid to prevent unsightly hair from being on display.”

I've got a few issues with this.

But to start the balls rolling, lets do some homework. Go to google and do an image search on the terms "bikini" and "speedos". Study the images for a few seconds...

...that's long enough...

The first issue is very simple. A very basic thing in the UK is that, by and large, you are free to wear what you wish. Your employer probably has a dress code, but in most places you can wear what you like.

In swimming pools and water parks (and basically anywhere you're likely to get really wet) people wear...well...nothing really. But being a liberal democracy we accept if you get embarrassed by the fact other people aren't sexless automatons we give you a right - the right not to look.

We don't even tell them to grow up.

I have great objections to modern fashion - but I would never *dream* of enforcing my fashion views on others in a "you must wear this" fashion. The most coercive I'll get is that I'll only buy clothes for people that I think they'll look good in.

Which seems fair enough to me.

But the idea of banning men from wearing swimming trunks is madness. Would you prevent women wearing bikinis that consist of more then string? How about we enforce minimum standards. Women should be fully veiled at all times and- nope, sorry, wrong misogynistic fundamentalist religion.

The very concept of "fashion police" strikes a chilling chord. Which leads me to my second point.

Within certain VERY limited exceptions within a civilised society pain is pretty much an optional experience.

Ok, ok, fine, we haven't found any really good ways around childbirth, period pain and some medical conditions. But these are broadly speaking biologically unavoidable - and as such outside the scope of this rant.

If you don't want body piercings you don't have to have them. Don't want to wax? Fine - don't. Giving blood is a trivial amount of pain which saves lives - but we don't even have to say no. Pain is entirely voluntary.

Inflicting pain on another has names. Assault, battery, rape, murder - I'm sure you can see the theme. Do so accidentally (say, a car crash) and your insurance company pays out large sums to compensate for pain and injury.

Or to look at it another way, it pays off the victim so they won't sue you.

But then we have... "The resort is also considering introducing mandatory bikini waxing for men".

Inflicting pain so others live up to your standards of beauty. Have they noticed that body hair is a secondary sexual charactoristic of HALF the population?

Causing pain on half the population because they don't live up to your standards.

Stalin wants a word - something about copyright...?