[Fairfax]

Thanks for sharing your story.

I also grew up in Australia during that same time period when boardies were becoming the chosen style for fashion conscious young men. However despite this briefs remained popular (for a while anyway) as they were still the only sensible choice for water sports and sunbathing.

I grew up wearing briefs 100% of the time, it was just what boys wore back then. However at about age 10 I knew I enjoyed wearing them more than most other boys and at about 13 I realised that some boys really hated them.

So you can imagine the internal turmoil I found myself in.
On one hand briefs were worn exclusively by elite swimmers, were compulsory for school water sports and freely available in every department store yet you also had this messaging from your peers that briefs were bad and men shouldn’t like them.

Well the fact was I loved wearing them and I couldn’t really understand how these other boys weren’t able to. They didn’t just hate wearing them but also wanted to stop other boys from enjoying them.

Like you my enjoyment wasn’t particularly erotic. It was really just the same way that some women loved their bikinis (as I’ve said before a sort of “nudist lite”).

So alas I also developed a bit of an anxiety around wearing them.
My situation was different to yours because my parents didn’t have a back yard pool so most of my swimming was done at school with the occasional trip to the beach or water park and only very rarely in another boys backyard pool.

Most of my school swimming revolved around playing water polo. Despite being a strong swimmer I lacked the ball skills needed to be a good player but I still loved it simply for the time I got to spend in briefs.
We had to wear briefs the whole time we were in the pool area and not just while playing as the coach was sick of disorganised boys not having their togs on when required (if you wanted you could wrap a towel around your waist but I never did).

My fellow team mates were never bothered by this rule, they all just wore briefs without complaint, it was like the whole ‘boardies are best‘ thing didn’t exist. Yet most of them still embraced this new knee length shorts style at the beach.

This caused me a lot of stress as I couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to wear togs all the time like girls do. I started to feel ashamed of myself for enjoying the feeling yet there was no way I could stop.

As a result I reluctantly started wearing shorts over my togs at the beach. I liked knowing they were there even if covered up but it wasn’t the same.

I may have been willing to sell out and wear shorts at the beach but the water park was the only other place I went swimming and I wouldn’t consider wearing anything but briefs there. Water polo may have been the safest environment for wearing briefs but it couldn’t compare with the water park for pleasure.

You could easily justify choosing briefs because you went faster in them.
I had my technique refined and I was quicker than any boy in shorts which gave me the confidence to wear them regardless of others.
As a bonus there were usually other boys in briefs also taking advantage of the reduced friction.

For me though the fun of the water park wasn’t just about going down the slides. To get back to the top you had to walk along these long concrete pathways with a rubber non slip surface. Now obviously you wanted to quickly slide again so you would run back up to the top. You would get competitive with the other boys and girls there and I loved the feeling of running around in just my togs racing them.

The state of fatigue that resulted also eliminated my speedo angst, you and everyone else were simply too stuffed to worry about which way your dick was pointing or if your togs were riding up your bum.

It was easily the best speedo fun I had as a teenager and 30 years later I still enjoy a visit to the water park (but I only do a brisk walk back up to the top now).