more is more for men
Yet another reponse to a HuffPo blog entry— blogging about blogging. Anyone see a trend here?
Today’s Kristen-rant is perhaps not surprisingly focused on a gender/style related piece: How Modern Technology Ruined My Favorite Olympic Spectator Sport.
All in the interest of performance, Olympians are now sporting the shudder-inducing space suit to the right, in lieu of the Speedos for which they are so famous. Sure, we all want our boys to be sleeker, faster, better. But as their image strays further and further away from their naked Greek ancestors, I cant help but feel a little sad at the missed opportunity to view the performance of gorgeous men in all the bare skin network TV will allow.
Tanabe points out that this reminds her of the general shift away from tight-fitting mens attire. Modern men have eschewed the speedo for board shorts and briefs for boxers. As she points out, any man left wearing a Speedo is “a competitive swimmer, a card-carrying member of the EU, over sixty and unaware of the changing times, or same-sex oriented.” Ah yes, the ever ubiquitos question: is he Gay or just European? While our European neighbors still have no problem wearing tight swimwear and underwear, American men have strayed as far away as possible.
To delve deeper, Tanabe takes a legit historical approach. First she employs one of my favorite historio-cultual models— the pendulum. Men in the early 20th century wore one-piece torso-covering swim costumes with skirts. Then, in the 1950s and 60s, their swimwear swung to the barest minimum. And now they seem to have swung back into a mass of material meant to obscure the male figure.
But this is where her article goes awry. Her pendulum is accurate, but its application is not. In the first decades of the 20th century, swimwear trends were dictated by a sense of Victorian propriety and governed by local authorities. Likewise, in the 50s and 60s, the change in silhouette accompanied a sexual liberation meant to throw off those old mores about banishing bared flesh. But what about now? The pendulum swung back in the direction of more fabric, but for entirely different reasons, something Tanabe only touches upon. This is no longer an issue of modesty or sexual inhibition. No, it’s much more complex than that. Briefs, Speedos, and short athletic shorts aren’t immoral— they’re femme, worn by the dorky, the homosexual, and the foreign. American masculinity has come to depend on its baggy shorts like it depends on large vehicles. Speedos have become the Miatas of swimwear. And heterosexual American men simply can’t be associated with anything so *gasp* ghey.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hypothesizing how this began or who is to blame for its perpetuation. American women are under the same assumptions. While they gaze at professional swimmers with their waxed chests and glut-hugging spandex, they would cringe if their boyfriends ran around on the beach in the same gear. If we are to believe Cosmo Magazines quizzes, a small percentage of women prefer briefs over boxers. So they embrace ever-shrinking women’s clothing, creating a double standard that Tanabe aptly captures: “For now, on America’s beaches and in her bedrooms less is more for women and more is more for men.”
So what of it? Is there an aspect of the swinging pendulum that I’m missing? Are men’s swimsuits like hemlines, responsive to the economy or other political factors? What made the male upper thigh— a relatively innocuous body part— so taboo?
