Earlier this evening, we noted [4] that the western German town of Bornheim has banned adult male asylum seekers from its indoor public pool after some German women complained of harassment.
"There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool ... by groups of young men, and this has prompted some women to leave (the premises)," the town’s deputy mayor said.
Bornheim, as it turns out, is just a stone’s throw away from Cologne where a wave of sexual assaults allegedly perpetrated by men of “Arab origin” at a New Year’s Eve festival has mushroomed into a bloc-wide scandal.
Now, officials from across Europe are struggling to deflect criticism and devise a way to ensure that women are safe in large crowds.
As we documented on Thursday, Switzerland has adopted an Austrian cartoon flyer [5] for its upcoming Lucerne carnival [6]. The pictogram lays out various instances of accepted behavior such as kissing and praying, while making it clear that flying into a mad rage and open-hand slapping women and small children is frowned upon in polite society.
[7]
Well now, in a story that combines the concern about public pools and the effort to dissuade lewd behavior with cartoons, The Local reports [8] that “in Bavaria, swimming pools have issued leaflets with simple pictorial instructions on behaviour for migrants who may never have swum in public before.”
Officials dreamed up the leaflets in 2013 after witnessing an increasing number of "problems" at the city's 18 public swimming pools.
"The ground rule of respect for women – whatever clothing they're wearing – is unfortunately not respected by all our swimmers. That's why there is an explicit indication about it," a Munich city spokesman said.
The "explicit indication" the spokesman mentions is a slightly creepy first-person view of a hand reaching out to touch the behind of an unsuspecting female swimmer:
That is unacceptable, as is drowing others (#4 below), pushing women into the pool (#3 below), and leaping from the side onto a screaming blonde (#7 below).
Here is the full cartoon which you are encouraged to review in its entirety if you are an asylum seeker that plans on swimming in Bavaria.
[9]
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that this is the same logic employed by Cologne mayor Henriette Reker who, in the wake of the New Year's Eve assaults, suggested that one solution [10] to the "problem" would be to "explain to people from other cultures that the jolly and frisky attitude during our Carnival is not a sign of sexual openness." Neither is wearing a bikini.
We'll close with a modified version of what we said on Thursday with regard to the Austrian pictograph: "...whether the cartoons will be successful in taming the refugees' more base instincts, stop by a Bavarian public pool to find out."