Topless in Barcelona
I recently spent a week in Barcelona, Spain. I throughly enjoyed myself, It felt good to experience a culture that only spoke spanish as it gave me a glimpse of what it would be like in Cuba where my parents are from. Although, I prefer smaller cities with less people, I love the energy & vibe of Barcelona.
There’s just something about spanish culture that’s just warm, affectionate and very lively. Hispanics in general I feel have a lot of spice to them and I love that.
I noticed so many attractive people in Barcelona both locals and tourist alike. Barcelona was filled with so many good looking men and to be honest I surprised myself, because usually I’m not one to notice men much in terms of attractiveness… You know every once in a while I’ll notice someone, but in Barcelona it was a different story. (Jaja) I found myself quite often noticing and taking pleasure in all the attractiveness I saw around me…
A friend of mine who I know from Atlanta happened to be staying in Barcelona with some of his friends for a few months. I was already planning to be in Barcelona at some point during my trip but it so happened that I ended up there at the same time they were there. And they were so kind as to let me room with them for the week, it was a great experience. It was also a nice break from the hostel life of sharing rooms with six or ten other people. Which don’t get me wrong I throughly enjoy the experience of traveling as a backpacker because it’s how i meet those I’m meant to meet. But Barcelona was a nice break from that, I felt that time just stopped while I was there.
I ended up meeting this lovely girl name Maddie who is also from Atlanta but currently she is working as an au pair in Barcelona for the summer. Though we had never met before in Atlanta, I met her now through my friend. She ended up staying with us for the weekend and it was great to have another girl around especially one that you vibe with because we ended up sharing a great experience together… Maddie and I ended spending saturday and sunday at the beach for most of the day and by far it was one of the best experiences personally for me.
Saturday as we were arriving to the beach, I was speaking to Maddie about going topless and asked if she had done it before, I shared with her how I wanted to truly experience what that was like. I did it in Croatia for the first time ever thanks to my girl Marina but we were in a private area where there was no one around so it was easy to do. Yet in a crowded ass beach, to be topless… eh… now thats the actual experience and where the uncomfortableness lies simply because it’s not a cultural norm in the U.S. usually when you see people topless they are foreigners. It’s still a taboo in the US and Brazil alike.
But if you know anything about me you know I love to challenge myself and step into those things in which I fear yet know that will add value to me. And besides, part of traveling should be for one to emerge yourself in the way of life of the places one visits…. (Otherwise what’s the point?)
Maddie wanted to experience it as well but was unsure if she could do it. We ended up having a nice brunch by the beach then made our way unto the sand. When we laid our towels down and we contemplated for a few minutes. We looked around to see how many women were topless, as to make ourselves feel okay in the act of going topless.
(Humans… we are always looking for that confirmation or comfort outside to tell us what’s okay… grr! )
Both Maddie and I begin to look around and we notice a lot of topless women, girls, and kids and that was so cool. As we continued to look around another thing started to happen, for a moment insecurities kicked in and Maddie and I are started talking about how small our breasts were or how they aren’t full enough etc…We started to compare ourselves to others in hopes to make ourselves feel better or worse. I quickly gained awareness as to what we were both doing. I laughed and said fuck it, I’m going topless. We’re not going to sit here making ourselves feel insecure about the way our breast look or will look to others…
As I laid on my stomach I took my top off after a few minutes Maddie became comfortable and off comes her top. Although my top was off I was not actually ‘exposed’ yet since I was laying on my towel. Maddie on the other hand the one who was the most hesitant was just sitting there completely exposed, it was awesome! I decide to embrace it all. I sat up, grabbed my phone put on some music and just chilled topless as I sunbathed, jamming to good beats and looking around.
At first it felt weird, here I am so exposed to everyone both men and women all around. But the beautiful thing about the unknown, about being uncomfortable is that sooner rather than later the ‘uncomfortable’ feeling you have becomes comfortable. For example I loved feeling the cool rush of air hitting my breasts as the sun heated my body it was the perfect combination. We both felt so comfortable that I ended up walking around topless, I walked to the shoreline and swam in the cold ass water topless (which by the way was so refreshing) and I even had a conversation while topless.
I loved it all, it was the most liberating experience ever. I can’t even described it. I wish I could just give you my feelings in that moment. But to use words, it was complete freedom; I didn’t think I could feel more free than I already feel. But I did… I felt liberated, powerful and beautiful and after a while it started to feel normal, very normal. I do feel the environment plays a major factor because being ‘topless’ or just nudity as a whole in Europe is the norm, it’s nothing new, so there is no perversion in it.
It’s interesting when I think about it, sex has been a mainstream media topic dating back to 1920s. In the U.S. the mantra is “sex sells” and we live in a culture that is based on image, sex and money. Yet overall most parts of the world are pretty repressed in what I call our natural sexuality. We use sex & nudity as a way to make money especially the U.S. and still a lot taboo and unnaturalness surrounds this topic. I’m not saying the U.S. is so repressed as there are many other places in the world that are far more repressed than the U.S. But I just find it a bit of a paradox how much our culture is derived from the use of ‘selling an image, a product or an idea’ using sex and nudity; especially in the our pop cultural as the vehicle to sell and sell. Yet at the same time we’ve created a lot of taboos around the subject that causes shame…
If you think about it also most oppressed countries in terms of sexuality and women as a whole have some of the most low key perversion and violence towards women.
Another example I know many parents who have a hard time talking to kids about sex. (Shit my parents never spoke to me about sex) Most parents don’t allow their kids to run around naked or if they see their child touching themselves they react by saying “don’t do that”….
When you think about it these are all natural things but it is in our reactions, in our thinking that we make these things wrong from an early age and therefore we end up suppressing our true nature hence creating a place for a lot of perversion. A culture obsessed with sex & nudity yet at the same time shaming it, It’s a pretty vicious cycle. And it’s happening all over the world. Look what a huge problem we have with sex trafficking; how messed up that shit is, how many people have disorders when it comes to sex. We have to ask ourselves what the fuck, where is this stemming from?
I don’t know…
But It’s the same thing with the analogy of money there are many people who deep down like money, want money but at the same time shame money and make it a bad thing. Therefore they start to creating all these unnecessary inner conflicts that manifest in unhealthy ways. You can’t want something and shame it at the same time because then you make it dirty, bad and i feel this is where a lot of disorders and perversion derives from… Anyways I went on a tangent here but I guess talking about being topless brought on these thoughts.
In the end the moral of my story telling is that I throughly enjoyed being topless at the beach it feels so natural to me and I loved it. Now I’m not saying I’m going to run around topless everywhere but I think the beach act is something I will embrace from now even when and if I end up living back in the states 
Much love and light
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