Why Can’t We Handle the Human Form?

About 10 years ago, at age 50, my family approached me for an "intervention." What could this be about? Sure I drank a little, but certainly not problematically or ostentatiously, so I was perplexed as my son, daughter, and wife surrounded me while we were on a tropical vacation. Nervously, I sat down and my son, then about 20, opened up the conversation with "Dad, the Speedos have to go!" My daughter nodded in agreement, and my wife, already cautioned by the children that she'd better support them, also gave a wry smile and agreed. I had already lost the "tidy whitey" underwear argument years before, so it was clear where this was going.

"What?" I said. "You know I am a swimmer, I swim about a mile four times a week. Do you understand the laws of physics and how those long board shorts would slow me down, not allowing me to get my full cardio exercise?"

Since I come from a family with bad heart conditions and had recently undergone open heart surgery, the family acknowledged my position, but they were stalwart that a man my age, an American, no less, could no longer be seen walking around in public in these skimpy bathing suits. In their view, these did not leave enough to the imagination, and were no more appealing than a diaper. I appealed to some other middle-aged people around the pool, explained the problem, and to a person, they agreed with my family. One said, "Pete, the Speedos are passé, no longer appropriate; they should be burned."

Thinking quickly, I had to hammer out a compromise. My family could see my point that swimming long distances in a pool or the ocean could be a "drag" in shorts that came down below my knees, but they were resolute. Eventually, they agreed that I could exercise in this horrible and embarrassing lycra, but I was subject to the "three-minute" rule: from the time I finished swimming I had only this short amount of time before I had to change into the culturally approved Billabongs (or their equivalent). That I felt like a wet, shaggy dog made no difference.

What is it about these garments, still fashionable in other parts of the world, that make most Americans cringe? People do not want to see the slightest outline of the human form. Men, even in tropical settings, are being chastised as disgusting and inappropriate. Yet, the cultural norm has gotten even stronger in the ten years since my "intervention." A friend of mine who is from France and wears Speedos at American beaches and swimming pools has two daughters who claim that they have been shunned by friends who were embarrassed by their father.

I recently ran across a survey that said that about 1/3 of Americans disapprove of Speedos (except for Olympic athletes or body-building Adonises). I thought that meant that 2/3 of the people did not mind them.

But when I ran this idea by my son he said that wearing Speedos was a "crime against humanity."

I even noticed that Roy Lester, a 61-year-old triathlete and New York lifeguard, recently gave up his job rather than take the annual recertification test in what he called "an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bikini-style swimsuit." "I wore a Speedo when I was in my 20s," Lester said, according to the New York Daily News. "But come on. There should be a law prohibiting anyone over the age of 50 from wearing a Speedo."

Are we becoming more prudish as a nation? Have you seen the bras that women are wearing lately? Whether they're push-up, underwire, the miracle bra, or the water bra, they're shaped on the outside to look like there's no nipple there. They're soft, foam-rubber versions of the metal corset. Women are not allowed to let their "headlights" show through their shirts, lest they be censored by other women. One colleague of ours was asked in her course evaluations to wear band aids, even though she was wearing a bra. What happened to the days when women were burning their bras?

Or what about the newest underwear phenomenon: bodyslimming compression shapewear. Women: say bye, bye to thighs; banish your back fat; mask your muffin top. Even men are getting in on the Spanx act: enhance your gluts; cinch your waist; girdle instead of getting liposuction! The human form, in all of its various incarnations, is being downsized, hidden, and tucked away into a single monolithic look for fear that we don't resemble magazine models. Not only may we be getting primmer, we must fit into expected forms or hide what we have.

I have kept to my swimwear promise for a decade now. My board shorts discreetly cover even my knees and I no longer embarrass my adult children. But secretly, on the inside, I'd still rather be traveling light in my Speedo!

Of course, we are poking a little mirth at ourselves and the relatively minor social norms that people all constantly break, what sociologists call folkways. However, what this all really speaks to is that Americans tend to be ethnocentric, to see, view, and judge the world from only their own cultural perspective. With this blog, we hope to explore other issues of "cultural relativism," behaviors that might be perfectly acceptable at one time and place, but considered inappropriate, immoral, or even evil somewhere else. What might have been unacceptable merely ten years ago now may have gone through some "moral passage" and not be disdained anymore at all, like getting piercing or tattoos. Or, on the other side, a behavior such as smoking cigarettes, seen as cool once, may today get you accosted even in the most open of places. Thus, like the Speedos, deviance is subject to fad and fashion, and although the European beaches are a fine place to don your "crotch-hugger," woe be unto the American man who steps out in one now. Times change, as do our attitudes toward deviant behavior.