Ah, the Australian summer. That glorious part of the year where – after months of doing nothing but shiver inconsolably, eat soup indoors and spend every morning holding in your pee in for as long as possible under the doona because it’s too fucking cold to even venture to the bathroom – we enjoy the sunshine once more. But with the arrival of Australian beach weather comes the ongoing fashion dilemma every Australian man faces: what are you even supposed to wear swimming, anyway?
If you swim laps for exercise like me, you can’t go past speedos, budgie smugglers, or what my people (Queenslanders) call “dicktogs” – “DTs” for short. Swimming laps in board shorts is impractical and ridiculous. You may as be doing freestyle while wearing an Oscar De La Renta evening gown and fashion cape. Sluggers for lap swimmers is obviously non-negotiable. But here’s the thing: I reckon every dude should wear speedos – whatever their age or body shape – and no matter where they’re swimming.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Two words. Tony Abbott. It’s true: that man almost singlehandedly ruined the garment for generations. Australia’s onion-eater laureate wearing speedos reveals a man who resembles an athletic ape who has asked a barber for an all-over number four clipper. “MY EYES!” we understandably scream inside our minds, as our eyes are drawn horribly to our former prime minister’s visible penis line.
But really, this reeks of faux-puritanism and prudishness. I can’t and won’t defend Tony Abbott’s views on … well, anything really … but god help me, I will defend the right of our former PM to wear whatever he wants while swimming. Body shaming isn’t acceptable when we do it to women, and it’s not acceptable when we do it to men, former prime ministers and/or sinewy primates in a lycra-polyester blend.
Australians! We cast off our Victorian-era British prudishness decades ago. So why haven’t we shaken off that bleak and dark period in the 1990s where every man seemed to wear hideous past-the-knee board shorts like some sort of thigh burqa? What happened to the golden era where every Aussie male unselfconsciously wore speedos with gay (often, literally gay) abandon at the beach? I know they can make you feel self-consciousness in them, but that combination of vulnerability and confidence is absolutely heroic and fucking hot to both women and queer men.
Like the Hills Hoist, polymer note, dual-flush toilet and flat white, Australia invented dick stickers. Be proud. Wave them around as a patriotic symbol and less-aggressive alternative to the Australian flag. Speedos – and with them, the damp, outlines of male genitals resembling offal wrapped in dripping lycra – is our gift to the world. Wearing them is the most Australian thing you can do. Outside of a meat pie, there’s really nothing more Aussie than showing the world how your sausage rolls.