muslim swimwear & everything goes in berlin

After posting about journalist Orianna Fallaci asking Ayatollah Khomeini, “How do you swim in a chador?", it reminded me of an article I'd read on National Geographic News about Muslim swimwear.

The design of most modern sportswear puts many Muslim women athletes in a curious bind: adhere to their faith and have their motions hampered or compromise their beliefs in the name of athletic performance?

The Koran requires women to cover everything except their faces, hands, and feet, says Tayyibah Taylor, editor-in-chief of Azizah Magazine, a publication geared toward Muslim-American women.

"The idea is that your modesty in dress and behavior is a passport to public space," Taylor said. "It makes the statement that a Muslim woman's body is not a part of the public conversation."

Now, I read this article back in April, when I was living in Berlin, the city that revels in its image that it's the place where anything goes. Still, it cracked me up when I looked in the window of a Berlin photo studio, and alongside tame family portraits, there was this photo of a girl playing jail bait, with bare butt and exposed breast. (Click photo for larger version.)

I thought of just making a link to this photo, rather than posting it here, and saying it's not safe for work. But then I thought, in Iran, do they say "not safe for work" for photos showing women's hair, or legs?