Missing the "Good Old Days"

[dm106]

Good for him! I prefer up as well. Perhaps he tried up and felt like it was too easy for him to start an erection.

[Swimmboy]

I grew up in the 70s and I just don't remember brief "Speedo" type suits being all that common. I recently watched "Jaws" and its sequels - all from the late 70s - and in those crowded beach scenes I did not see ANY true Speedo-type brief suits and maybe just one or two briefer trunks. In 1980 I took a swimming class in college and got up the nerve to purchase a Navy blue nylon Speedo instead of wearing the uncomfortable trunks the locker room handed out with your towel. But I felt quite uncomfortable and 'out of place' in the sporting goods store buying it because such suits were not that common. I justified it to myself by saying I was enrolled in an actual swimming class so was 'entitled' to wear a Speedo....

[nespeedoguy]

The comfort of gliding through water in brief is terrific. And nice to get tan if you can’t get down to the buff. Wish more guys sported them. Be fun to have a speedo board beach day ! Always enjoy folks speedo stories.
Cheers !

[Speed-Will]

Swimmboy - it may have been a matter of where you were located, etc - as far as the Speedo exposure in the 70's - 90's. I was on a swim team as a youth and we wore Speedos. On the "social front" - our country club hired members of the local college's swim team as lifeguards and they all wore Speedos to the pool, so that helped to open things up there as well, making them more acceptable.

As an adult I was already wearing Speedos as a member of a Masters swim team, so when I started dating my wife she knew what I wore (and as I mentioned earlier - her father was wearing one at the time as well). Her brothers also wore them, and they weren't swimmers.

While I would wear Speedos for swim team practice and meets, I started wearing skimpier suits to lie in the sun at the Beach and whenever we traveled to the Caribbean or Mexico. Granted - these were places that had more Europeans at the resorts and they always wore bikini style suits. I guess I was just lucky with my timing with where I was and what I wore - and I do miss those days.

[Jack Lewis]

About 25 years ago in Europe, something strange happened. Almost overnight it became socially unacceptable for men to self-objectify. Up until that time we could build muscle in the gym, play frisbee on public family beaches wearing string-sided Rios or thongs, and people felt free to comment on your hard-work. We used to wear our jeans skin-tight, and I mean tight around the crotch, not tight around the calves and baggy around the crotch. And some poor fellas feeling under-endowed used to actually stuff socks down there to enhance the bulge.

Then all of a sudden it became the restricted province of the female, who could buy breast enlargements and go topless, show off their pert thong-clad bottoms and say “Aren’t I gorgeous? Don’t you all want me?”. But according to all the online fashion gurus, any clothing that reveals a hint that you actually have a penis, is a cause of public revulsion. And any top that suggests perhaps you go to the gym more than once a week makes you a social douche-bag! Any hint of leg above the knee and it’s assumed you need to visit your trick cyclist!

Business-men in late middle age wear suits because it is the best way to present a body that’s likely to be past its best. But since you can’t play beach volleyball in a suit, everybody hopes you’ll wear something like a tent so they can’t see any hint of masculinity lurking within. And even with a stripper body you can now walk through a London park shirtless on a hot summer day past groups of young ladies who don’t even look up from their mobile phones. And when they’re unavoidably cornered, political correctness forbids them from making any comment or showing a reaction, because you’re no longer supposed to comment on anyone’s appearance, whether it be negative or positive.

I know this because I recently returned from a third world country where, free from our political correctness, people commented on my physique freely – something I’ve not experienced in the UK for many years.

After the new era started in the mid-90s I think a lot of us thought it was a passing fashion or phase, and that what comes around would come around again. But I now believe it won’t, because of other social changes in the Western world that have cemented it in place for a long time to come. But maybe one day, just maybe…

[Fairfax]

I agree with you Jack Lewis in your "view from Europe".
I witnessed the same shift in Australia about a generation ago.
The most visible part is how sunbathing and the nudist culture it is closely linked to is now regarded as a "feminine" activity.
Sure it was more popular with women but the pleasures of sunbathing (either small swimsuit or naked) were seen as something men could enjoy too. As a teenager no one thought my interest in briefs and sunbathing strange, it was just a recreational activity that some people of both sexes enjoyed.
Sunbathing in shorts or jammers just isn't the same, you have to at least "feel naked" so modern men simply don't participate anymore.
There was a popular subculture around minimal swimwear and sunbathing that todays young males have never experienced. It wouldn't appeal to every man (same as for women) but some of todays men would embrace it if given the chance.

[Torchwatch]

On British naturist beaches fathers became concerned with accusations of child sex abuse and stopped taking their families to the beach. This left the naturist beaches used only by older couples and single men. Many of the single men were gay so naturist beaches became associated with being gay, driving out the older couples.

Once longer shorts had become the fashion anyone wearing short shorts or speedos became the targets of homophobes, this was happening especially in our schools. Tom Daley a school boy and international diver was bullied, called gay and had his pencil case and other personal possessions stolen at school when he appeared on television competing in speedos. He was forced to change schools, in my opinion his head teacher should have been sacked.
Levels of homophobic bullying in schools increased and children started committing suicide. Both Cameron and Abama told the victims of bullying to tell someone.

It wasn't actually important whether the victims of homophobic bullying were gay or not, the homophobes were on a power trip and wearing speedos immediately singled you out as a victim.

Swimming in big baggy shorts doesn't work, it's inefficient, slow and hard work. Swimming clubs traditionally provided children's swimming lessons and recruited club members from swimming lessons, boys afraid of wearing competitive swimwear began dropping out instead of joining the clubs, swimming clubs became increasingly female.

In public lane swimming sessions a few older men would wear speedos and swim fast while younger men in big baggy shorts would soon tire and drop out. The public lane swimming sessions became overloaded with older women in shapeless black Lycra one piece suits.

In the sea wearing big baggy shorts rapidly turns a strong swimmer into a weak swimmer and a weak swimmer into a non swimmer. So boys and young men in big baggy shorts were spending less time actually swimming and more time plodding about in the shallows.

After an unfulfilling swim the big baggy shorts wearer is left with wet shorts that will remain damp for hours further spoiling his beach experience. Eventually the only reason he stays on the beach is to hang out with the girls in their tiny bikinis who can all swim better than he can.

Our young man is trapped, if he wears short shorts or speedos that he can swim and sunbathe comfortably in he'll be assumed to be gay and if he keeps his big baggy shorts on he'll have a wasted day at the beach.

Fortunately there is a new generation coming through that are rejecting the old conformity and are enjoying shorter shorts and may experiment with speedos.

[Bede735]

Time to start a campaign - "Male Nudity Matters". And any criticism of that will be deemed as sexist. Sorted.

[Jack Lewis]

I think Fairfax has made some intelligent-expressed observations, which presents an interesting slant on our collective disappointment. As you say, young men today will doubtless never know what they’ve missed.

The Michael Jordan effect had a lot to answer for, but as Torchwood says, there were so many other social changes that fuelled the trajectory. Official acceptance of homosexuality (even if not universally taken to heart), political correctness (which has been a blessing and a curse), etc. Its strange how most people, I think, watch competitive swimmers/divers wearing speedos and say “well he’s a professional so of course he’s wearing those”. But the same guy (unless recognised) would be looked upon with scorn if seen on the beach wearing them. Imagine a male stripper in board-shorts! Actually, I’ve recently seen male fitness parade shows where the guys are on stage in board-shorts. So, forget leg-day – its over! No need! You say a new generation is coming through that are rejecting the old conformity, but I have to say I’ve not seen any evidence of that. But I hope you’re right.

Bede735 – that is brilliant – you sir, are a genius. It makes no sense to go into battle with bows and arrows. One must always use the modern weapons of our time.

[Torchwatch]

Male Nudity Matters is actually quite important, the slavers and the missionaries justified their actions by claiming they were bringing the naked savages into the light of civilisation and Christianity.

In ancient Rome slaves were always auctioned while naked and standing on a block, I suspect that slaves coming off the ships in the US and Caribbean were naked and stripped of all humanity when they were sold.

Native American Indians were dehumanised because of their naked savage image, they could be killed or starved on reservations while treaties made with Indian tribes could be broken because a promise given to a savage need not be honoured.

"Clothes maketh the man" the rich said while wearing their finery, the poor wore pass me down rags displaying their poverty while their priests warned them of the naked savages in the dark uncivilised heathen parts of the world.

In mediaeval Europe if you had no money you lost your home, you sold your clothes to buy food and then were thrown out of town to wander naked and helpless on the blasted heaths outside the law. Public nudity was originally covered by the Vagrancy Act, of having no visible means of support you would be arrested not for indecency but for poverty.

The naked man is a threat to society, to Christianity; if you can be educated, have a home, money in the bank and a smart phone connecting you to everything yet still be naked then the justification for colonising, enslaving and civilising the native peoples of the world collapses.