Thoughts on just being a guy

[sebbie]

Part XXXIV

The Speedo® brand would probably like to find a way in which the label would simply be a brand for athletic and performance gear, without getting bogged down in questions related to male sexuality issues (might the guy seen wearing a branded brief be gay or not?), guys wearing swim briefs in gay pride parades, the crazy anger that some women seem to display over the whole issue of should a guy be seen in public wearing a Speedo etc. etc. There are a lot of interesting and complicated questions here, questions that I have thought about for most of my life but never been able to find a satisfactory answer. Speedo makes money selling swimwear, and it doesn’t make any difference if the customer making the purchase is gay or straight.

The Wikipedia article on Speedo says that Speedo claims that only 2 % of their annual sales revenue comes from selling the iconic and much-maligned briefs, and that they would prefer to be known as a company that generally sells athletic clothing and other accessories as opposed to the brief.

The problem with this, of course, is that if someone says “There is a guy in a Speedo” they are not likely to be referring to a guy they see wearing a loose-fitting board short with the Speedo boomerang logo embroidered on one leg! Once a brand name goes generic there is very little a company can do to turn that around.

Besides, some of this is simply product placement. In the year that Christopher Atkins played the young camp counselor love interest of Linda Gray (the wife of J.R. Ewing) on “Dallas” he showed up on several episodes wearing only the classic bright royal blue Speedo with the boomerang logo obvious.

His character’s name on the show was “Peter Richards” and he very obviously had one of those tucked snuggly under the tight Speedo in the “up” position. Linda Gray swooned. So did the viewers. The director and producers had to know what they were doing. This was a great moment in network TV.

So here are some questions to think about:

1. What if I am a guy who gets aroused and maybe erect just thinking about getting my groin into a swim brief (Speedo or another brand). Is this completely normal for all guys or are some guys somehow immune? A related issue is whether or not a treatment exists so that I can just put on a swim brief without having an involuntary “reation” like this. If I wear a swim brief, say once a week, with this soon become so normal that the reaction will no longer occur? What does my involuntary reaction say about my sexual orientation?

2. Do other guys have this “problem” is this something that is uncommon? Is this a fetish of some sort that a psychiatrist could possibly treat?

3. Suppose I consider myself to be straight but I get aroused when I see another handsome guy wearing a swim brief? Does this mean that I am not as straight as I thought I was?

4. Why do some females seem to get very angry and upset whenever the subject of guys wearing a Speedo comes up let alone actually observing a guy wearing a Speedo. The “Dallas” viewers didn’t seem to react that way, but this was in the 1980s. More generally, guys to not have temper tantrums when they see scantily clothed women displaying obvious female body parts even if covered? What is it about women who seem to get upset if a guy appears to have a penis though covered with the cloth of a swim brief?

5. The slick, smooth and snug swim briefs get me erect and are great fun to get off in. Is this a psychiatric “illness” of some sort if I admit to enjoying wearing a Speedo for jerking off, or should this just be considered a normal thing for guys to do? What if my college dorm mate enters the room while I am enjoying myself this way? How do I get myself out of that predicament, anyway?

6. What if I discover that jerking off while wearing a Speedo is such a great pastime that it deters me from forming bonds with other people who could potentially be a real sexual partner? Bonding with another person so close that the other person becomes a sexual partners is complicated stuff, with all sorts of complexities beyond the sex act itself. If I am really into the finding a partner stuff in order to pleasure myself sexually, is all this stuff at the end of the day worth the effort.

7. More generally if sex with a partner is such great stuff why do sexual relationships with partners so regularly come apart? This is not directly a Speedo-related issue but indirectly it is. They situation is not significantly different in the gay or straight worlds of partner bonding (though the gay partner might be more tolerant of the jerking off in a swim brief than the female partner would!). Some sexual relationships come apart because one or both partners have found another person to engage in sex. But in other breakups, the guy goes back to just being single, and the masturbation techniques (including those that make use of a swim brief) may end up being front and center again.

Is having an option like this in such a situation a problem or a solution? There are guys who marry, get divorced and immediately go into a sexual relationship again with another person and then never But then there are other guys who never form sexual bonds or marry again. Is it not a good thing that the solo-sex options that the solo-sex options that were enjoyable before the first relationship such as the jerking off in the swim brief still exist and be readily available once again?

Tough questions to answer, all of these. Let me jerk off in my Speedo while I try and find answers to them!

To be continued…