Breast cancer survivor can now swim topless in Seattle's public pools

By Diane Mapes

Jodi Jaecks, the 47-year-old breast cancer survivor who made local headlines this week for wanting to swim topless at a Seattle-area pool, had tried many things to soothe the nerve pain she suffered following a double mastectomy and chemotherapy last year.

Drugs, physical therapy and specific pain treatments all failed to ease the burning caused by chest-wall nerves that are over-stimulated by the trauma of surgery. So when the facilitator of a breast cancer support group suggested she try swimming, Jaecks jumped on the idea.

"Water sounded soothing," she says. (Full disclosure: Writer Diane Mapes is a breast cancer survivor in Seattle who met Jaecks in a support group.)

But the waters of the Medgar Evers Pool in Seattle's Central District were declared off-limits to Jaecks after she informed pool personnel of her plan: to swim without a bathing suit top. Officials said her appearance might disrupt the pool's family-friendly atmosphere and they insisted that Jaecks follow existing policy and wear "gender-appropriate swimwear."

Jaecks, who has neither breasts nor nipples, says she wasn't looking for a fight, simply a way to be active and perhaps get some temporary relief for her chest pain.

"At first, it was just a personal fitness issue," she says. "I wanted to get into shape and once the idea of swimming was presented to me, I was excited about it."

She went searching for a bathing suit, but found they irritated her chest. She came away disheartened.

"I tried one-pieces and two-pieces and looked at swimwear for women who'd had double mastectomies but they were all swimsuits with prostheses," she says. "I'm never going to fake it. I'm not ashamed of my body."

It took pool officials weeks even to respond to Jaecks' request. When they did, Jaecks felt slighted and decided to tell her story to the Seattle alternative weekly, The Stranger, which went public with it this week.

"It started as a personal fitness issue but once they said no to me, it became a far greater overarching political issue," she says. "I'm hoping this will change their policy," she told the paper. "Ultimately, I want to remove the stigma that women with breast cancer have to endure. We should be so far beyond that at this point."

The parks department did try to find alternative solutions before banning Jaecks from swimming topless in the pool, said Dewey Potter, the agency's communications director.

"Then The Stranger ran a full frontal photo of her wearing [only] swimming trunks," Potter says. "Christopher took one look at it and said she should be able to swim without a top. He saw nothing that would alarm or cause affront to parents or children."

Initially, city officials said while Jaecks would be allowed to swim topless, other breast cancer survivors, would have to be reviewed on a "case-by-case" basis. Late Thursday afternoon, however, Seattle Parks and Recreation superintendent Christopher Williams told The Stranger that he was considering that decision, and that he may need to make a "wholesale policy change."

How do other cities handle a hot potato issue like this?

"It wouldn't be an issue for us because any woman can swim topless here," says Jodi Jay, the aquatics division program manager for the Austin, Tex., Parks and Recreation Department. "There's no city ordinance that doesn't allow it, so it falls under the state penal code. And the state penal code does allow it."

Victor Ovalle, public information officer for the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, says breast cancer survivors wouldn't have to go through any vetting.

"It's up to the individual," he says. "We don't make a distinction. Any woman can go topless, regardless."

Jaecks says she doesn't believe breast cancer is anything to be ashamed of and isn't planning on undergoing breast reconstruction. She's hoping her situation will bring more awareness to the disease and its effects on women's bodies.

"By the time I was done with chemo, I felt so strongly about cancer in general," she says. "My own personal awareness has been expanded by this experience. I've realized how prevalent cancer is in our society. It's part of the human experience and it doesn't have to be negative."

Breast cancer survivor can now swim topless in Seattle's public pools - TODAY Health



I am speechless- both with admiration for this woman, and with disgust at our society, which would've prevented her from exposing her breastless, nipple-less torso, due to the utterly irrelevant fact that she does not have a penis.

I'm proud to mention, by the way, that my city allows women to be topless in public anywhere, as mentioned in the article.
I believe it is the only city in the United States to do so; it has been this way since shortly before I was born, and nothing horrible has happened to us yet: no lightning bolts from a wrathful God, no women going crazy with their unprecedented freedom and running nude through the streets, screeching and decapitating men with battle axes. No increase in sexual assault. No problems at all.
Why are men so afraid of us and our bodies? What are they afraid of?

I get so tired of people thinking that they're virtuous because they choose to make a spectacle of themself.

Maybe I should just give in and fight for my right to fart loudly in restaurants.

__________________
“Quod scripsi, scripsi"

"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"

I would have thought that one of the mods would have moved this to the correct forum titled: Health, Wellness, Sex and Body where it belongs.

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And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy January 20th 1960

Is it against the law for you to fart- at any volume- in restaurants?
More to the point, is it legal for females to fart in restaurants but illegal for males to do so?
If this is the case, then I definitely think that you should fight to have the same rights and privileges as citizens of the opposite sex do.

Any time there is a law restricting the behavior of one sex but not the other, it deserves to be challenged. If it is a valid law, it will stand up to the challenge.
The prohibition on women going topless was challenged in my city back in the early 1970s (largely by breastfeeding hippie moms), and found not to be valid, and so it was dispensed with.
Apparently, men aren't as afraid of women here as they are in the rest of this benighted country.

If they required your input on how to do their jobs, I'm sure they'd deign to make you a moderator.

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"A rising tide has lifted all yachts." Warren Buffett

Obama is not a dark skinned, anti-war socialist who gives away free health care; you're thinking of Jesus.

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"A rising tide has lifted all yachts." Warren Buffett

Obama is not a dark skinned, anti-war socialist who gives away free health care; you're thinking of Jesus.

Really. I see guys every day running around displaying big, floppy tits twice the size of mine.
Like I said, laws and restrictions that only apply to one sex need to be challenged. It is 2012. There is no rational justification for them, but this fact only comes to light when they are challenged.
The antiquated notion that men will be unable to control themselves if women enjoy the same rights they do is not my problem; it is the problem of said men. If they won't be able to control themselves, then perhaps they need to be castrated, or locked away somewhere.
It is the same argument other countries use to force women to cover their faces, their heads, their entire bodies: because otherwise, men won't be able to control themselves and can't be held responsible for their own behavior.
It is disproven by the fact that women in Europe frequently go topless, especially to swim or sunbathe, and sexual assault is no more frequent there than it is here (or in the middle east, for that matter). In fact, it is less common. in cultures where women enjoy greater equality under the law, there is less sexual assault, not more.
And other than that stupid argument... what possible justification for such laws?

This whole thing could be solved if she would just grow a penis.

I would have no objection to her swimming topless. In fact, I have no objection to any woman swimming topless or bottomless.

__________________
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people are going to be disappointed they are not it.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron."
--- H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Attaboy.

And, you know, people who do have moral objections are free to leave the pool.
One out of eight women will get breast cancer.
I see this as an act of personal empowerment on her part, but also an attempt to empower and educate other women.
Little children at the pool may ask their mothers about this lady, and their mothers can use it as a teachable moment, to explain the basics of breast cancer (and the fact that life goes on, and breast cancer survivors can be fit, healthy, and active, and enjoy the rest of their lives, even without breasts).
People would stare at her even if she wore a bathing suit; she's disfigured, after all. A breastless woman is a "spectacle", whether or not she wishes to be one. Unless she wore prostheses under her suit, that is, and why should she have to? Do you think that would be convenient or comfortable, to swim while wearing fake breasts?
It feels good to swim without the hinderance of a bunch of straps and elastic. Men already know this. That's why they ditched those 1920s muscle-man bathing costumes and opted to swim in shorts or briefs.
Why should women- any women, disfigured or not- have to do it, when men don't?