Are Straight Guys Ready for Speedo Summer?
The swim brief is still taboo in most of America, and therefore requires an above-average level of confidence—in both your masculinity and your physique. “There are very conflicting ideals, everyone wants to be this rizzed-up Jim Sigma, but you’re scared to show your thighs and your bulge,” Jurden says, pointing out that water polo players and professional wrestlers often wear Speedos for their sports. “How much material difference is there between 3-inch running shorts and a Speedo,” Jurden continues, “besides the fear that you’re going to be seen as ‘gay’? We give queer men permission to feel sexy, but we kinda strip that away from a lot of cis hetero men.”
Though the stigma surrounding the revealing swim style is starting to subside, it will likely take a while longer for the Speedo to truly take off in this country. Outside of LA, New York, and Miami, people are really not used to seeing these tiny cuts of fabric; in our conservative cultural climate that’s returned to regressive ideals of masculinity and femininity, camping out on the beach in a Speedo next to a group of bros blasting Kid Rock runs a huge risk of getting heckled—or worse.
One common way to sidestep any potential Speedo-related harassment is through humor—think Benson Boone leaving a concert wearing a stars and bars Speedo last year. Shep Rose from Southern Charm, who’s become known on the hit Bravo reality series for stepping out in a swim brief on occasion, admits that he used comedy as an entrée into the trend. His relationship with Speedos began in the first grade when he joined the rec center swim team in Hilton Head. “They made us wear them to swim faster, and I refused to do it! I was bashful, I guess, and I got special permission to wear swim trunks.” It took him a couple of decades to change his tune: He spent some time interning in Dubai, and met a half-American half-Emirati man who had an impressive collection of the style which, of course, he found to be hilarious. “He was a totally cool, fit guy—I decided I want [to get] in the Speedo game. It’s good laughs, it’s a little bit of confidence, it says you’re not shy.”
Though Shep has built a collection and will step out in a swim brief more frequently than his fellow Charlestonians, he sees it as more of a party trick more than anything else. “It’s, like, Will Ferrell-inspired; be the butt of the joke, laugh along with it,” he says. While the style is freeing, men in the South are generally very covered up, and you have to be prepared to be the center of attention and potentially make a scene. “It might cause a riot if you wore a Speedo to a restaurant on Sullivan’s Island,” he continues. His castmate, Rodrigo Reyes, who is gay, adds: “Here in the South, if you’re wearing a Speedo, they’re going to accuse you of taking your sandwich with a pickle, if you know what I mean.”
