Bring Back the Brief!

By: Mike Gustafson, Swimnetwork.com

Growing up as a teenage male swimmer, the overwhelming observation in regards to the sport of swimming amongst teenage circles was the same -- a giggle-whisper combo from gossiping girls and insecure boys in every hallway in every school in America:

"That dude wears Speedos."

The initial stigma of the sport of swimming as effeminate is something most -- if not all -- males must overcome. It’s not a homophobic issue. It’s a “coolness” issue. Has any point in the history of American society has the modern Speedo been deemed as “cool” and “hip”? Doubtful. For pre-pubescent males worrying about braces and growth spurts and awkward haircuts and hyperactive glands, the last desired agenda is publicly expose as much of their bodies as possible – especially in front of peers.

Nevertheless, you can't swim in leggings. Or can you?

These days, there's an odd trend growing amongst young male swimmers: the jammer training suit. An oxymoron by nature, this suit gradually stretches until it's a parachute attached to your waist. It's swimming in board shorts. It's silly and strange. And young men successfully avoid that coming-of-age (re: terrifying) journey of self confidence.

Great men in history have embraced the swim brief. They have embraced them, and their stereotypical effeminate nature. Gary Hall Jr. was perhaps one of the first male swimmers to design his own effeminate swim briefs, eliminating the stigma by addressing it head-on. Others quickly followed. Suddenly, an evolution began: The purple brief. The pink brief. The rainbow-cartoon brief. It was a message as if to say, “Yup, we are men wearing teeny-tiny pieces of fabric, and yup, we are also extremely confident in our bodies and who we are as people.”

When I was a kid, we had no choice. We wore the brief. In front of girls; in front of your crush; in front of your parents and strangers and janitors and everyone else at swim meets. While most my school peers quietly adjusted to their changing bodies with the comfort of baggy and loose-fitting clothes, my swim friends and I had a baptism-by-fire coming-of-age tale. That's just how it was. We were practically forced to wear them. No alternative option existed.

I'm not advocating that teenage males across the country to wear the brief. Wear what you want to wear. But objectively speaking, there's a certain charisma that you develop after years of wearing the brief. A self-confidence. Which is why I'm convinced that so many of my male swim friends are extremely self-confident/look-you-in-the-eye type people. We get over those middle school fears more quickly than the rest of our peers. We put into context the ridiculousness of the "fear of the swim brief" and we embrace it. After all. We’re humans. We’re built the same. And I think the evolution of the practice jammer is not from a comfort or efficiency perspective, but more from the fact that kids don’t want to wear the swim brief because, well, let’s face it -- it’s just not that cool.

I'm sounding like an old man. I'm 27 and scorning the next generation. "Back in my day..." as I sip my coffee, black, with cane and senility. But I do walk the pool deck and see all these kids wearing the parachute/drag-magnet practice jammers, stretched-out and silly-looking, and I wonder if it's all a game to avoid the fear of the swim brief.

Excuse me. Metamucil time.