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Wet T-shirt contest

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A contestant being hosed with water in a wet T-shirt contest at the Nudes-A-Poppin' pageant (2012)

A wet T-shirt contest is a competition involving exhibitionism, typically featuring young female contestants at a nightclub, bar, or resort. Wet T-shirt contestants generally wear thin white or light-colored T-shirts without bras, bikini tops, or other garments beneath. Water (often ice water) is then sprayed or poured onto the participants' chests, causing their T-shirts to turn translucent and cling to their breasts. The comparatively rarer male equivalent is the wet boxer contest, sometimes held at gay bars.[1][full citation needed][2][3]

Contestants may take turns dancing or posing before the audience, with the outcome decided either by crowd reaction or by judges' vote. In racier contests, participants may tear or crop their T-shirts to expose their midriffs, cleavage, or the undersides of their breasts. Depending on local laws, participants may be allowed to remove their T-shirts or strip completely naked during their performance.

History

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Water is poured from a jug over a contestant's breasts at a wet T-shirt event in Panama City Beach, Florida in 2004.

In the United States, skiing filmmaker Dick Barrymore claims in his memoir Breaking Even to have held the first wet T-shirt contest at Sun Valley, Idaho's Boiler Room Bar in January 1971, as part of a promotion for K2 skis.[4] The contest was promoted as a simple "T-shirt contest" in which airline stewardesses would dance to music wearing K2 promotional T-shirts. However, the first contestant to appear was a professional stripper who danced topless and the amateur contestants responded by drenching their T-shirts before competing. Barrymore held a second "K2 Wet T-Shirt Contest" in the Rusty Nail at Stowe Mountain Resort, Vermont in order to film it, despite the fact that Stowe City Council had passed a resolution banning nudity at the event.[5] He held another promotional contest for K2 on 10 March 1971 at Aspen, Colorado's The Red Onion restaurant and bar,[4][6] and the contests were featured in a pictorial in the March 1972 issue of Playboy.[7]

The first known mention of the term wet T-shirt contest in the press occurred in 1975 in The Palm Beach Post, describing the contest's appearance at New Orleans discotheques. The contest subsequently became established at spring break events in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with some bar owners being fined under public indecency laws for holding one.[8][9] Despite a lack of clarity as to their legal status, contests began to take place elsewhere in the United States. A contest in a Milwaukee tavern in 1976 was subject to a police raid, despite contestants wearing Scotch Tape under their T-shirts as required by the police.[10]

Jacqueline Bisset's appearance in the 1977 film The Deep, where she swam underwater wearing only a T-shirt for a top, helped to bring the wet T-shirt contest to broader public awareness.[11] On Frank Zappa's 1979 album Joe's Garage the track "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt" tells of Mary from Canoga Park who takes part in a wet T-shirt contest in order to raise money to return home after being abandoned by a rock group in Miami.[12]

The 2003 American reality film The Real Cancun included a wet T-shirt contest.[13]

The Spanish festival of La Tomatina, a large public tomato fight where participants become soaked with juice from tomatoes, has been suggested as another possible origin of the wet T-shirt contest, although La Tomatina began in 1945.[11][9]

Examples of inappropriate contests

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Law firm

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In 1983, the King & Spalding law firm in Atlanta asked female summer interns attending that firm's annual picnic to participate in a wet T-shirt contest. The proposed contest was replaced with a swimsuit competition and the winner was promised a permanent job on graduation.[14] Some participants said they felt humiliated but did not protest because they were candidates for jobs with the firm. The Wall Street Journal included details of the event in a front-page article on sex discrimination in large law firms.[15] The fact that a wet T-shirt contest was proposed led to the case being used to demonstrate institutional sexism in law firms.[16]

In-flight contest

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In 1998, teenagers from Portland, Oregon, celebrating the completion of high school held a wet T-shirt contest on a Boeing 727 en route to a Mexican resort, with a flight attendant encouraging the activity. An FAA investigation followed, as pilots supposedly judged the contest on the flight deck, disregarding rules that passengers are not allowed in the cockpit. A video showed contestants emerging from the cockpit wearing wet T-shirts. The FAA disciplined the pilots for sexual misconduct.[17]

Underage contestants

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Lawsuits have been filed on behalf of underaged contestants who lied about their age to participate in wet T-shirt contests.

In 2002, the parents of teenager Monica Pippin brought a federal lawsuit against Playboy Entertainment, Anheuser-Busch, Deslin Hotels, Best Buy, and other companies relating to her appearance the previous year in a Daytona Beach wet T-shirt contest, at which time she had been a 16-year-old high school student. Pippin had danced topless during the contest and had allowed men to pour jugs of water over her bare breasts. After footage of her performance began to appear in videos and on cable television, a neighbor alerted Pippin's parents, who retained a lawyer. Although Pippin admitted in court that she had lied to contest organizers about her age, her attorney claimed that, as a minor, she was unable to give informed consent to perform or be filmed topless. Pippin settled with Anheuser-Busch and Playboy in April 2006.[18][19]

In a similar suit in 2007, two women sued Deslin Hotels, Girls Gone Wild, and various websites that published footage of their appearance in another 2001 Daytona Beach contest. The two girls, who were both sixteen at the time, had been filmed exposing their breasts, buttocks, and pubic areas. Like Pippin, they had lied about their age to gain admission to the contest.[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Low Rider". Low Rider. Vol. 23. Park Avenue Design. 2001. p. 78. Archived from the original on 14 April 2023.
  2. ^ "Business students show off their assets". The Peak. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada: Simon Fraser University. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 21 March 2007.
  3. ^ Wonk, Dalt. "Halo Effect (review of Bar Angel)". Archived from the original on 12 March 2007. Retrieved 21 March 2007.
  4. ^ a b Barrymore, Dick (1997). "Chapter 20: Hot Dogs and Wet T-Shirts". Breaking Even. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories. ISBN 9781575100371. OCLC 39924562. Archived from the original on 25 December 2007. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  5. ^ "Roots of an Olympic sport: freestyle – Part II: Freestyle Comes of Age". Skiing Heritage Journal. Vol. 10, no. 3. International Skiing History Association. September 1998. p. 27. ISSN 1082-2895.
  6. ^ Dunfee, Ryan (3 July 2013). "K2, Sun Valley, Aspen & The First Wet T-Shirt Contest". Curbed Ski. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  7. ^ "The Shirt Off Her Back". Playboy. 19 (2): 151–153. March 1972. Archived from the original on 30 December 2013. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  8. ^ "Wet T-Shirt Contests Pack Pubs". The Palm Beach Post. United Press International. 11 November 1975. p. B20. Archived from the original on 16 February 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
  9. ^ a b Jenny Kutner (25 March 2016). "The Short, Sexist History of the Wet T-Shirt Contest, a Symbol of Spring Break Debauchery". Mic. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  10. ^ Ron Legro (16 September 1976). "Arrests Put a Damper on Wet T-Shirt Contest". The Milwaukee Sentinel.[dead link]
  11. ^ a b Chodin (16 May 2010). "A History of the Wet T-Shirt Contest". Uproxx. Archived from the original on 28 January 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
  12. ^ Lowe, Kelly Fisher (2007). The Words and Music of Frank Zappa. University of Nebraska Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780803260054.
  13. ^ Kammeyer, K. (2008). A Hypersexual Society: Sexual Discourse, Erotica, and Pornography in America Today. Springer. p. 154. ISBN 9780230616608.
  14. ^ "Wet T-Shirt Lawyers". The Washington Post. 23 December 1983. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
  15. ^ Stewart, James B. (1998). Follow the Story: How to Write Successful Nonfiction. Simon and Schuster. p. 242. ISBN 9780684850672.
  16. ^ Wilkins, David B.; Gulati, G. Mitu (May 1996). "Why Are There So Few Black Lawyers in Corporate Law Firms: An Institutional Analysis". California Law Review. 84 (3): 557. doi:10.2307/3480962. JSTOR 3480962.
  17. ^ Wet T-Shirt Blog (24 May 2011). "Flight Scandal – wet t-shirt contest at 25.000 feet". Wet T-Shirt Blog. Archived from the original on 13 August 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
  18. ^ Graham, Kevin (28 April 2006). "Lawsuit says video exploits teen's naivete". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  19. ^ Company, Tampa Publishing. "Suit says video exploits spring break naivete". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 4 May 2021. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  20. ^ Times staff writer (14 March 2007). "Two sue over footage of wet t-shirt contest". St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
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