New Stripper Law Gets Under Skin

Sun., June 27, 1999

By Susan English susane@spokesman.com

Apparently strip clubs are a problem in Manatee County, Florida. So, in an effort to shut them down, officials there have passed an ordinance making it illegal for a woman to expose 75 percent of her breasts or 66 percent of her behind in public.

Up here in the other corner of the country, we’re wondering just how those percentages will be measured (exactly where does a behind begin and end, for example).

A spokesman for the Manatee County Sheriff’s department says he doesn’t know yet how police will estimate the percentage of exposure.

And, isn’t a law that applies only to women blatant gender discrimination? (From July/August Men’s Health)

* Thanks to Title IX: Number of girls playing high school sports in 1973: 800,000.

Number of girls playing high school sports in 1997: 2.5 million. (From June Health)

* Vanity cuts both ways: The top five cosmetic surgery procedures performed in 1998 on men, the number who had each one done and the average cost:

1. Rhinoplasty (nose job), 37,608 ($5,072)

2. Hair transplant, 31,413 ($3,338 to $10,000, depending on the number of grafts)

3. Liposuction (from jowls and belly), 29,274 ($3,744)

4. Laser hair removal, 29,272 (no cost available, depends on extent of surgery)

5. Blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery to remove bags), 26,171 ($4,336)

Other common plastic surgery requested by men includes lower facelift ($7,017), laser skin resurfacing (chemical peeling to remove scars and wrinkles, $3,744), collagen injections (to remove brow furrows and smile lines, $485), penis enlargement ($3,800), pectoral implants ($4,400) and calf implants ($4,225). (From June/July Men’s Journal)

* Dads, remember the little things: Among the gems in “The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes” we offer this: William Haddad was an associate of President John Kennedy. After Kennedy was assassinated, his young son, John, asked Haddad, “Are you a daddy?”

Haddad told him he was.

Said little John, “Then will you throw me up in the air?” (From June The Sun)

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