Priest defends topless beach bathing after awkward encounter

Parish priest Rebecca Aagaard-Poulsen says she will continue bathing topless after local people recognised her on a beach near Nyborg and created what she described as a “totally boundary-crossing” situation, DR reports.

Aagaard-Poulsen, who serves at Tved Church outside Svendborg, drove about 30 kilometres from her parish earlier this summer to avoid meeting parishioners while topless. However, local people recognised her and stopped to speak to her.

“They thought they should stop and say: ‘Oh, isn’t that our little, sweet priest?’” Aagaard-Poulsen said on the P1 Morgen radio programme.

According to the priest, the group stayed and told her how brave she was. One of their grandchildren also appeared; the child had previously been confirmed by Aagaard-Poulsen.

Although Aagaard-Poulsen said the locals meant to be kind, she found the encounter extremely awkward. She said the situation showed how a woman’s body could quickly be viewed as sexual or undignified.

The experience prompted her to write a column in the local weekly newspaper Ugeavisen Svendborg. The column sparked a wider media debate about whether a priest should bathe topless.

Aagaard-Poulsen said she dislikes wearing wet swimwear, which is why she prefers to bathe topless. She said her column was intended to ask where the boundary lies.

Helga Døssing Bendfeldt, a priest in Sindbjerg north of Vejle, said she would not bathe topless herself or advise other priests to do so. She said the encounter sounded somewhat offensive towards Aagaard-Poulsen, but argued that priests have a particular responsibility because of their public role.

“You are a priest to teenage boys who can be very focused on sex, and to the elderly woman who can be very devout and may feel that it is inappropriate for her priest to go topless,” Døssing Bendfeldt said on P1 Morgen.

She said priests hold a special status because they assist people with matters ranging from deaths to confirmations and can help restore dignity when people feel they have done something wrong. In her view, priests risk sacrificing that status by bathing topless in public.

Døssing Bendfeldt said priests are free to do so, but that their freedom can offend or restrict other people’s freedom. Aagaard-Poulsen disagreed that priests should take such considerations into account around the clock.

“What I am standing up for is the right to be a human being,” Aagaard-Poulsen said. She added that being a priest did not mean ceasing to be a human being or a woman when off duty.

The bishop of the Diocese of Funen, Mads Davidsen, has defended Aagaard-Poulsen’s choice, according to Kristeligt Dagblad.