Public Decency: Topless Triumph

PUBLIC DECENCY

Man may insist on being what Carlyle called the only "clothed animal," but defining "public decency" is among the law's most hopeless chores. Thus in Caracas last summer, a clever cop arrested a topless-bathing-suit wearer simply for not carrying identification papers. But in Cannes, another cop could think of no such evasive tactic when he spotted Claudine Durand, 21, on the beach. Barebreasted, the pretty Parisian gym teacher was playing pingpong before fascinated spectators.

Claudine was charged with "an outrage to public decency," which carries a rap of up to two years in jail. The publicity-seeking beach concessionaire, who had paid Claudine $7 to bisect her bikini, was also haled into court. Their lawyer argued that the law defines the "outrage to decency" crime as "exhibiting one's sexual parts or making obscene or lascivious gestures." He called Claudine innocent on both counts. "Bare breasts are not an erotic but an alimentary symbol," he said. As for Claudine's pingpong, was it more "lascivious" than the nightly show at the Folies-Bergere?

Not moved, the court gave the defendants suspended eight-day sentences and $200 fines. Not satisfied, France's top law journals tore the decision apart. Calling the law "most imprecise," Strasbourg University Law Professor Alfred Rieg said that it fails to require crucial proof that "an act has been capable of causing a scandal." At this stage of changing mores, he added, "one cannot seriously claim that the nudity of a feminine bosom on a beach is of a nature to offend the decency of those who see it."

All this so impressed the Appellate Court in Aix-en-Provence that it re versed the convictions. "Inasmuch as the spectacle of the nudity of the human body has nothing intrinsic in it that would outrage normal, even delicate decency, and since Claudine Durand concealed her sexual parts with a sufficiently opaque monokini, we acquit her." As things now stand, this summer's French beachwear is likely to be a lot scantier.