I did not know male chests and legs had such an impact on women. I always thought it was eyes and personality and sometimes the backside. True. I did!
Anyway, all this got me to thinking about how swimming costumes have developed over the years (or regressed, depending on your point of view). In the 1800s and early 1900s men and women bathed and swam seperately and both sexes wore full length swimming costumes.In 1907 Australian superstar Annette Kellerman was arrested by Boston Police for swimming in a costume that showed her legs and arms. After that, arms and legs became all the rage. Then along came that famous (infamous?) Australian company Speedo, which introduced the very brief men’s brief which has a colloqial name in Australia. They are called ‘Budgy Smugglers’ because they remind us of would be budgerigar smugglers who stuff these small birds down their pants when they wanted to smuggle them abroad. They certainly leave very little to the imagination. They look utterly rediculous on any male who is not of athletic build, believe me.
Early mens’ briefs had a front skirt, but that has dissapeared.
Now, if one goes to a place like Bondi Beach, girls in very brief bikinis are a dime a dozen and so too are men in budgy smugglers, so really, no one of either sex is leaving much to the imagination of the other sex. The thing is, no one is attacking anyone of the opposite sex either, so maybe this immodesty/modesty debate is a red herring.
Flyingfish asks
I am curious what people think about the idea of bare-chested men on the beach.
Is it immodest and should men cover up? Why or why not? Is modesty determined by cultural convention or what women find attractive (chest/arms are pretty attractive to women)?
As I said, a generation or two ago, bare chested men were considered to be immodest. Today, no-one seems to give a hoot. Men even work bare chested outdoors.
Flyingfish also says
In addition, why do nearly all conversations around modesty devolve into a discussion of women’s dress code with no attention given to what men wear. This is not meant to inspire people to proclaim that men can also be immodest, but more of an exploration of the source for this behavior in people (most clearly exhibited in muslim societies, where men have no modesty standards and women are restricted to the extreme).
I’m not sure that nearly all conversations around modesty pertain to women. In Australia men debate the merits of wearing budgy smugglers. A lot of the debate must surely revolve around context. A string bikini on Bondi Beach is one thing, but a string bikini worn down the street whilst shopping is another. Similarly with men. Tradesmen on the job with bare chests is one thing, but your lawyer sitting in his office with his shirt off is another!! Men can be very critical of one another if what they wear is innapropriate to the occasion.
Flyingfish also asks -
Is it because men have historically been in power and have a biological desire to hide “their women” from other men? Is it because the story of modesty has been told from the perspective of male power, and since men are generally “tempted” by women and not other men the focus has been on what women wear?
Remember that not long ago, both men and women had to cover up and swimwear for both sexes was neck to knee and before that segregation was an added extra. This defeats the notion of men using “power” to force women to cover up. Both mens’ and womens’ swimwear has become briefer and briefer.
Flyingfish did raise one point that is worth exploring, which is, that men might have a biological desire to hide their women from other men. If you go far enough back in time, before the rise of nation states, the safety of all depended on the tribe. Now for many millenia, one tribe would be subjected to raids from another and what was one of the main trophy’s? Why, the women. To snatch women away from one tribe to your own was to gaurantee the success of your tribe. So perhaps a major survival strategy was to make it hard for raiders to distinguish females from males and certainly to make it harder to pick out the women of child bearing age in a smash and grab raid. On the flip side, the women would have wanted their men to be clever, brave and strong, so they would be protected from raiding tribes and kept safe from sabre tooth tigers and whatever else threatened existence way back then. As a matter of fact, I sometimes feel today that some of us testosterone filled men were built for standing guard at the cave entrance, or around the perimeters of the tribal campsite while the vulnerable women slept soundly and kept the camfires alight and to die in the process if need be.
What about the inherent vulnerability of women. Women are not as physically strong as men and in ages past this made them vulnerable. Women get pregnant and when they do they are vulnerable. Now perhaps down through the ages men have used their power to ‘protect’ women because they are vulnerable. Perhaps down through the ages women have selected men who can best keep them safe when they are most vulnerable. In todays society, this ‘need to protect’ is still a part of the male psyche, but is mistakenly labelled as ‘power over women’, or ‘controlling behaviour’.
Of course, society is still evolving and maybe, just maybe, the fears held by both men and women during past aeons have washed away and so today we all feel safe wearing next to nothing on a beach.
And finally, Flyingfish asks,
Would a society where women had been “making the rules” have rules for male modesty but not female modesty, or do women just not care if other women see “their men”?
In light of the fact that only a few generations ago men also had to cover up leads me to ask, “did the men really make all the rules?” Could it be that women also did not want other women to see their men near naked?!
).
lol) one who carries himself with class, and the other…well, carries himself with none. Modesty is about how you project yourself to others. It can be closely tied to dress, or lack thereof…but it’s (to me) closely tied to how people behave, and carry themselves. A man could actually be relatively unattractive, but be classy, witty, etc…and might come off appearing more attractive than the physically appealing guy who spends oodles of time in the gym. Just saying. Woody Allen…he appeals to some. (not me, but some) 
. He must be getting on a bit now but for much of my teens and twenties he was my perfect man.
hahaha
