Letters to the Editor
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It's all about fashion...
It's amazing to me how people get sucked into believing that whatever the fashion is today is 'the way things are supposed to be', and look at pictures of people in the styles of ten or fifteen years ago and laugh at how ridiculous people looked then. A few years ago (and still, in some of the hinterlands), it seemed that there was no such thing as clothing that was too big for you, pants had to be falling off, t-shirts hung down to the knees, "short" sleeves to below the elbow, and anyone wearing clothes that actually fit, or, god forbid, were a little tight, was laughed at as impossibly retro. Now clothes that are burstingly tight and even way too small are in style, and giant clothes just look silly.
It's the same with bikinis as swimwear for men; people who are trapped in the fashion vision of the moment think of them as ugly or ridiculous simply because they've unconsciously absorbed current fashion prejudices. In a few more years, some of those same people may well be wearing them without a second thought if the fashion swings back that way... and fashion always seems to come around to the same things, given enough time.
There's nothing inherently more attractive about a lot of cloth around a human male's midsection than a little cloth; only the prejudices brought on by the fashion of the day make it seem so.
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I will only wear a swimsuit like the one worn by
Larry David's therapist. I get quite a few appreciative looks, by the way.
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Wait, not wearing a Speedo to swim laps?!
Who on earth wouldn't wear a Speedo or its analog to swim competitively or for exercise? I've truly never seen such a thing - and I live in the Northeast! While swimming laps, a dude in board shorts is clearly an amateur. I can understand not wearing them to the beach since they're considered treading the line in the United States (for whatever reason), but it's just bizarre to refuse to wear them to swim laps. It would be like refusing to wear a bathing cap.
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Uptight
Only in America would this lame conversation take place. A Speedo, specific or generic, is what swimmers wear. Real swimmers. Lappers. I swam competitively in college (not very well, but I trained like crazy), and all four of our children swam in meets from the time they showed any desire to do so. A swimsuit is not sexual, fer chrissakes. I do admit that there was one young lady on our high school swim team (hi, Alice, whereever you may be) who looked so stunning in her red Speedo that guys who couldn't even float came out for the team. Pardon the digression, however freudian. If you want to paddle around the local Y, or bob for algae in the motel pool, wear whatever you want, or go buck naked. No one cares. But if you want to swim seriously, wear a Speedo. Watch a swim meet on tv and see how many swimmers are wearing baggies. Note the phyiques on the competitors. It's not an accident. It's natural selection, and years of hard word. I am now 60, and would not inflict a Speedo on myself or the innocent public for anything less than five figures. In the meantime, with the world going rapidly to hell, why should anyone give a flying Cheney what anyone wears to swim, eat, crawl, sleep, or parade down the street? How shallow can we be?
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Read into it What You Will
The only sensible functional garment for serious swimming, whether in a pool, a pond or the ocean, is a brief designed to package the package as economically as possible. The intent is to reduce water resistance. Anyone who is a serious swimmer would never swim in anything more, and competitive swimmers, of course, will engage in the new sophisticated suits developed by - surprise - Speedo.
That said, there is now doubt that the speedo leaves little to the imagination, and thus excites the Puritain purient interest in this country, which I view as being that odd combination of homophobia/homoerotica that emerges with oppresive views of sexuality. The frank presentation of the male body encased in nothing more complicated than fabric designed to contain and mildly conceal the genitals and butt seems to be more than we cloistered Americans can possibly handle.
At the age of 57, and still in a reasonably fit state, I wear Speedos while lap swimming. For occassions that represent a social event that happens to casually involve water, I will concede to American convention, and wear something less functional......If someone is apalled by physicality of a serious lap swimmer, then they should just restrict themselves to watching football, where the clothing is desgined to be completely covering whilst exaggerating the male anatomy to the point of caricature (tight butt, broad shoulders, defined groin, etc.....). That, presumably, is less "threatening"..........and certainly not at all "sexual"......
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Speedo Pride
The only sensible garment for functional swimming is a minimal brief; swimming in board shorts or anything more than a "speedo" is silly and counterproductive. That doing so incites that purient quality of american culture that is terrified of the male body is a casual understatement...... and wearing Speedos seems to incite that duality of homophobia and homoerotica that Americans, rather uniquely, choose to live with. Perhaps if someone is offended by speedos, they should take to watching football where the rampant exaggeration of the smale form (tight butt, narrow hips, accentuated groin and broad shoulders) is SAFE because, after all, it is all covered....and the implicit sexual energy is acceptable because it is expressed in violence.
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Speedos
I grew up in Europe where briefs are the usual type of swimwear for men. I was also a lap swimmer for almost 15 years.
I would never have thought of wearing the baggy shorts type outfit, which are quite unsuitable for swimming.
Funnily enough, though, I never thought of wearing a swimsuit as a way of displaying my genitals. It just never occurred to me. Maybe this is more a US thing, as I notice US men are also very, vcry, very concerned about women's breasts, which does not seem to be such a big deal in Europe.