Saying goodbye to summer with one last trip to a water park. It wasn't quite the last day of August, but it was the weekend before Labor Day, when the season comes to a close. (To say that my posts are running a little bit behind would be an understatement). Like Persephone descending into the Underworld, on the way home I was lamenting that it would probably be at least another nine months before I got to see another girl in a bikini...
I tell you, it always gets to me - every single time. Pools and beaches and water parks - anywhere there's swimming - are like another world from the one we inhabit day in and day out. Every day, we receive these signals - some explicit, some subliminal - reinforcing the "sinfulness" of what could be considered "the pleasures of the flesh". Even if it's something as passive as people going about their business, their bodies mostly covered up in their clothes. Sure, people like sexiness - they consume it in mass quantities - but you're supposed to feel ashamed about it, and keep it hidden away behind a NSFW filter. A skirt that bares too much thigh invites disapproving looks. But then you go swimming, and it's like a veritable meat market. Butts and boobs are hanging out everywhere and nobody bats an eyelash. It's almost like they don't notice (although I'm certain they do - the fact that everybody still behaves in a civilized manner, as nudists do, demonstrates that it's not a problem having all that flesh on display). Because in that isolated context, for some reason, it's accepted.
And I couldn't be happier. There are so many beautiful girls wearing skimpy clothing with so much skin on display, it's almost blinding - long legs and bare feet, tight butts and flat tummies, collar bones and shoulder blades. It's a veritable feast for the eyes. And although you get a good variety, there are always plenty of fit, attractive specimens on display - and of all ages, not limited by the arbitrary taboos of "civilized" society. What I wouldn't give to be a model scout. I'm telling you, I could die on that boardwalk, and be the happiest soul in the universe haunting it for all eternity, just watching the bodies stroll on by, day after day after day. I appreciate the slightly fuller view you get in nudist situations, but honestly, the demographics can't compare. I've learned over the years that I'm willing to concede a few small strips of clothing for that enormous trade-off.
[description: a man in a swim brief stands in front of a fountain under grey skies]
Not the prettiest weather for a day at the water park, but it
was hot and humid, and the rain stayed away, so no complaints.
Not the prettiest weather for a day at the water park, but it
was hot and humid, and the rain stayed away, so no complaints.
The other thing that gets to me (and by now you're probably bored of hearing me complain about this) is the sheer ridiculousness of the double standard that exists between men and women, in terms of how much (or which) skin it is appropriate to display. I'm aware of the relativity of my perspective - in society, men are expected to fit one role (the appraisers), and women are expected to fit another (the appraised), and most people just fall into line without questioning it. To them, I am certainly an anomaly. I've always been told that I am unique - in the way that all parents tell their children they're unique - but out of the hundreds of people at the water park that day, I was literally one of a kind (from what I could see), as the only man wearing anything remotely akin to a swim brief.
But if you actually sit down and think about it - and as someone who freely crosses the gender divide, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it - it just doesn't make any damn sense that, for example, a girl with her own butt cheeks hanging shamelessly out of her bikini bottoms would physically make the effort to turn her head and cover her eyes to avoid the sight of a man in the same condition.
Now, I get it. Men are, typically, gross. Not all are, by a long shot - but just as the archetype of womanhood is a curvy supermodel, the archetype of manhood is a hairy ape with a beer belly. If I'd have been an average male with a hairy ass jammed into a Speedo, and a belly spilling over the waistband, I could understand. But I'm not. And not all men are. Just because men aren't traditionally held up to the same level of grooming standards that women are, doesn't mean they are incapable of rising to those standards. I think that, to the same extent that it should be acceptable for a woman to not shave her legs consistently (and I actually saw one girl on the lazy river with visible leg hair), men should be subjected to the same pressure as women are to shave theirs. I am an equalist, that's all. A true egalitarian. Not a feminist who calls for equality, but really just wants to prop women up on a pedestal.
I, personally, hold myself up to higher grooming standards than the average male. Indeed, my standards are close (not equivalent - as I don't usually wear makeup - but close) to that of the average female. If you were to isolate a certain part of my body - say, my butt in a tight swim brief - and were then unable to reliably distinguish it from a woman's butt in a bikini bottom, then why should your reaction to either one be different, if the stimulus is close to identical? You don't have to like it or think it's attractive, but how can you shrug off a hundred women's asses, and then have such a visceral reaction to one man, whose butt does not look appreciably different? (Especially if you're sexually attracted to men - that's the part that really bakes my noodle).
Is it just because you're not prepared to think of a guy in that way? It's transphobic is what it is. I want to be able to play the role that females embrace without a second thought. I'm willing to work extra hard for it, because I'm coming from a different starting position. I just want it to be an option, a possibility. Why are people so hard-wired to respond with disgust to something they're not used to? Something that violates certain unspoken rules they've become accustomed to? I get that it's human nature, but it seems to me like an inferior nature. A cloistering, suffocating nature. Why would anyone want to just see the same thing over and over and over again? I mean, if it's what you like, that's great - I never want the parade of beautiful girls in bikinis to end (and I certainly wouldn't enjoy them wearing board shorts, even if they wore them topless - although I would absolutely defend their freedom to do so). But why would you disparage other options from even existing, when you know they could mean happiness for another person? We don't all have to be the same. Indeed, we are not the same. And trying to force us to act like it breeds unhappiness. So don't disparage the outliers, the trend-breakers, the trailblazers, and the nonconformists. You don't have to be one of them. Any more than they have to be one of you.
Afterthought: I don't know why I'm so preoccupied with butts. It occurs to me that the thing other people could be primarily concerned with is the bulge. Still, it's not healthy to live with a traumatic fear of even the vague suggestion of the shape of the male anatomy. Alternatively, perhaps it's because we live in an adolescent culture preoccupied with the size of men's "packages", and most guys want to keep their hand concealed. But I don't understand why it should be so much different than judging women by the size of their chests - something that's hard to hide in any kind of swimsuit. And it's not like the particularly well-endowed are in the habit of wearing so-called "banana hammocks" - reticence for swim briefs is across the board. Maybe I'm wasting my time trying to rationalize the issue - most people in this culture just aren't used to it, and have been programmed to respond with either humor or disgust. All there is to do is re-program - and the only way to do that is with more exposure. See enough plum smugglers, and the novelty is bound to wear off...eventually. Right?
