Why do older men wear Speedos?

[uktrunks]

This is certainly true of the UK. If you go to a pool where there are a lot of guys swimming lengths, then any speedos on show are likely to be worn by older men in the 50s and 60s. Why is this?

Well, first of all we must dismiss the older guys with failing physical resources who just want to show off what they have left to show. You won't find these guys in swimming pools in the UK but you will find plenty of them around hotel pools and on beaches around the Mediterranean. Most of them are totally overweight, with beer guts flopping over the top of their trunks, and they look extremely unattractive. In truth, these are the guys who have given speedos a bad name. They are not athletes, they are usually foolish sun-worshippers who get lobster red and think that the point of a holiday is to let it all hang out, because that's the macho way to do it. They have their counterparts - usually their real-life partners in fact - in the obese women who flop and sag around in bikinis so small that the side-strings are buried in their flab. Interestingly, there is very little criticism of the womenfolk - or at least it's not tolerated. Women jump to the defence of their sisters, ridiculing men in speedos and invariably using child-bearing as an excuse for themselves ending up like a herd of hippopotamus.

Anyway ... this leaves us with the much more interesting group, the older guys who swim lengths at pools. In my experience, most of these guys are in pretty good shape and they look good in their speedos. They are serious swimmers, and they often do other sports as well. As you may have guessed, I count myself as one of these. Most of us started swimming in royal or navy blue speedos when we were at school, and soon found out they can't be bettered.

Now what you have to remember about the UK is that we could almost be said to be a nation of non-swimmers - particularly our men. A recent survey showed that fewer than half our children come out of school being able to swim - and you can be pretty sure that relatively few of the half that can swim are proper swimmers, with a good technique and the ability to swim 100 metres or more. Therefore, very few UK men carry on swimming regularly in their 20s and 30s, and when they go on holiday, you can often see them splashing around a bit with the kids in the pool, that's the best they can do. If you look around a pool in Mallorca or some place where lots of British families go in August, out of 50 youngish men, you will find fewer than ten who can dive and swim properly. You will also notice that most of the remainder are getting fat and seedy, because they aren't doing any exercise at all.

All this creates the perfect conditions for younger men to wear big baggy shorts - usually, the bigger and baggier the better. After all, isn't this what advertising companies insist is fashionable? What you also have to remember about the UK (and the US, so far as I can see) is that we are basically prudish. A big penis, a healthy pair of testicles, and a muscular rock-hard bum - all in skin-tight speedos - is NOT what we Brits want to see. By some bizarre perversion, which is too horrible for any normal person to contemplate, it's OK for a boy to dress like that - but not a full-grown man. Women refuse to admit that they are in any way attracted to well-equipped men - even though numerous studies have shown they are, for obvious biological reasons - while men are simply terrified of being labelled 'gay'. So men who wear speedos are lumped together with bodybuilders as 'queer', narcissistic and unnatural. The truth is that most of us just enjoy exercising, swimming with the freedom that speedos give you, enjoying the sensual experience of gliding through the water like a fish - and, OK, we are proud of our bodies too. So far as I'm concerned - I'm just on 50 - when I was younger I used to get embarrassed wearing speedos because nobody else did, but now I know the boot's on the other foot (to use a British expression!). I have a smooth muscular body, which I love to exercise, and so I - like the other guys in their 50s and 60s who regularly swim lengths at the pool - can enjoy wearing speedos when many others of our generation simply can't.

Of course it's all very different in Mediterranean countries such as Italy or the south of France. A much higher proportion of men are good swimmers and they don't have the same hang-ups about showing a fit, well-developed physique in public. So many guys follow the 'speedos habit' throughout their lives - and are a great deal healthier for it.