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Old 06-04-2022, 06:42 PM
sebbie sebbie is offline
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Default A Fondness for Speedos Part V

A Fondness for Speedos Part V
A Trip to Waikiki Beach

By the mid 1980s, I had settled into my academic career and had been a lot of places and seen a lot of things that I would never have gotten to see on my own. One of the curious features of an academic career is that the faculty are constantly writing and giving scientific papers. The groups taking in the papers like to go to various parts of the US for their meetings or conclaves, and one of the groups decided that it might be a lot of fun to meet in Hawaii. Flights out there were not THAT expensive. Hotel rooms were not cheap. The typical way this works is that if you present an academic paper, the department will find a way to fund most if not all of the trip costs. IIRC the $93-a-night hotel room looked high in the 1980s given that most hotels at meeting sites charged about $50 a night. The plane fares were only slightly higher that the fares to a major US city on the mainland. I would fly to Chicago, and then from there take a direct flight to Honolulu. The total distance was about 4,250 miles, approximately half of the distance over the US and the remaining half over the Pacific Ocean. It was about an 8-hour flight, but I had taken an early morning flight into Chicago. We left Chicago in the morning, but as we headed west, we gained hours. I arrived at the hotel at about 3 pm Honolulu time.

Given the long flight, I thought I would be dog tired and would want to get some sleep before I ventured off to the beach. But to my surprise, I was full of energy, and the beach was only about 2 blocks away. I was curious as all get out as to what the accepted beach wear would be. Of course, I had my favorite blue ocean wave patterned genuine Speedo along with me—an all-nylon suit. When making a beach trek, the big problem is always what to do with your key and other valuables when you are in the water. Each hotel room had a safe, and this was a good place to stash your wallet, plane ticket home, cash, but also, in those days, traveler’s checks. Credit cards then were not the big deal they are now. But then I needed a way to carry the room key to the beach with me, and maybe a few dollars to buy a drink or snack of some sort.

And I also had a pair of shorts that had pockets where I stashed the key. The idea was to wear the light blue nylon Speedo under the shorts and then remove the shorts and leave them on a reed mat near the water and go into the water wearing only the Speedo. I could keep an eye on my shorts with the key in the pocket from the water.

Basically, in the mid 1980s, that is what all the other guys were doing as well. They would alternate between sunning themselves on the reed mat on the beach, and then periodically go into the ocean. And nearly EVERY guy was wearing a swim brief (or, as I soon discovered, something smaller than a swim brief) but they also carried along a pair of shorts to wear over as well.

My Speedo was quite big by 1980s Hawaiian beach standards. Mine had 3-inch sides, but it was more common for the guys to be wearing briefs with 2-inch, 1-inch sides or even less. What fascinated me even more was this the first time I had seen a guy wearing a thong swimsuit, one with such a narrow band that the band disappeared between the glutes. I had my video camera along and got some short videos showing the suits. Of course, a lot of the women were wearing thongs as well. NO one (except me, maybe) paid any attention. This was just normal beach attire in Hawaii.

I soon decided that I needed to buy a swimsuit (or two) from one of the clothing outlets that catered to tourists along the beach. I did not find any thongs for sale but I did spring for a couple briefs far skimpier than my Speedo. A public right of way exists all along Waikiki and other Hawaiian beaches, even along the area in back of the beachfront hotels. The guys liked to walk the right of way in their tiny swim briefs that were brightly colored in neon green or yellow. It was a fun parade. I did that too, simply carrying my shorts (with the room key in the pocket) in my hand.

In retrospect, I made this trip in an interesting time in men’s swimsuit history. Shortly after I got home they were interviewing a sales clerk at one of the big department stores here (now a Macys) and the subject of men’s swimwear came up. She said “It’s weird, guys going for really big suits (aka board shorts) or really tiny suits.” She didn’t describe the exact nature of the tiny suits, but I knew as I had seen them in Hawaii. And, of course, the department store had a big rack of the new “really tiny” suits. It took some considerable courage on my part to buy one of the “new” suits but somehow I managed. I think I ended up with three of them, all very similar to the ones I had seen the guys wearing in Hawaii.

These were fun times. Sadly, the photos I see of the current Hawaiian beaches suggest to me that the attire the guys are wearing there is no longer significantly different from what we now see most guys wearing on any public beach here in the US. There are a few exceptions on the mainland, but it appears to me that the Hawaiian beaches are no longer as trend-setting as they were back then.

Oh, in case you were wondering, I did get to give my academic research paper while I was there, but at a 4-pm hour and most of the conference participants were already at the beach and not at the hotel meeting room. In contrast to the flight west, the trip back eastward to home was a total pain. I slept for maybe two hours, and then the sun was back up again. It took me a solid week to recover from it all.





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