“I don’t have to focus much to spot a dad playing with his daughter, a group of elderly walking down the shore, a couple of teenagers playing volleyball in the water. Everyone in swim briefs. Small, skimpy, revealing swim briefs.”
It’s a glorious, sunny day in July, and I’m at the beach. The sky is blue, the sand is warm, a gentle breeze is blowing from the sea–or, rather, “the ocean”, as my friend Kate, who’s visiting from Boston, keeps mistakenly calling the placid waters of the Thyrrenian in front of Santa Marinella.
Probably to prove to herself she’s really committed to spending the whole summer away from home, she hasn’t even booked a return ticket yet. While we’re enjoying the shade cast by our luxurious 12-euro beach umbrella, I tease her about the fact that, being American, she should be visiting every European city in a whirlwind tour instead of idly laying on the beach with me. She takes the hit, smiles, and counterattacks: “And you should be wearing a speedo right now, like every other Italian guy!”
And there it is, one of the many clichés from the Italian starter-pack, which, in this case, might just be rooted in some truth: from the packed beaches of Rimini to the secluded coasts of the Aeolian islands, men in this country really do love their speedos.
A quick look around us proves her right–and immediately. I don’t have to focus much to spot a dad playing with his daughter, a group of elderly walking down the shore, a couple of teenagers playing volleyball in the water. Everyone in swim briefs. Small, skimpy, revealing swim briefs.
I ask Kate if this is an uncommon sight for her, considering the majority of anglophone countries find speedos embarrassing, if not disturbing–with the exception of Australia, of course, which invented them in 1914, over a century ago. YouTube is stuffed with videos of American boys “trying a speedo in public for the first time”, but Italian men have been wearing them to much less fanfare for decades.
In fact, every nation is quite opinionated on the matter. Brazil has its own version, the sunga, and it’s the most popular choice at Ipanema beach. Meanwhile, in France, the strict guidelines on hygiene and public welfare prescribe speedos in municipal pools; the argument being that baggy swim shorts collect dust and dirt. In Italy, they seem to be a pure matter of style.
Although the speedo had long been the swimsuit of choice among competitive swimmers and athletes, it didn’t catch on as a stylistic choice in Italy until the 1960s or so. It was around this time that the swimwear began to gain popularity on European beaches, particularly in countries like Italy, where, as attitudes towards modesty began to change, swimwear designs became more streamlined and body-hugging; beach culture and fashion were becoming increasingly influential here.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, an early proponent of the design, had already endeared the artistic and intellectual community to the garment before this. A series of portraits of the writer by the Tiber–shot by Toti Scialoja in 1950, when you could still swim in the river–are famous, not just for Pasolini’s harmonious body, but for his choice of a certain swimsuit. A few years later, during the La Dolce Vita era, the likes of Marcello Mastroianni and Alain Delon were often seen sporting the speedo on the coasts of glitz and glamor.
Fast forward to 2006, when a Dolce & Gabbana commercial featuring David Gandy flexing in white swim briefs in front of Capri’s faraglioni entered collective consciousness; the commercial is revisited often online, and has reached almost cult-like status. The spot turned Gandy into an overnight sensation and reaffirmed the Italian link between masculinity and speedos, an association that does not translate to Kate’s native U.S.
During summers today, as summers of the last 60 years, the pages of Italian gossip magazines are overcrowded with photos of Italian celebrities wearing swimming briefs, from politicians to actors, from TV hosts to footballers, from singer and fashion-icon Mahmood to taste-maker Giorgio Armani, an incurable speedo-lover who designs his own versions too.
“But why?” Kate throws me an inquisitive look. “Why do you wear them?”
And I immediately know we’re going to be entertained for the whole afternoon.
“I guess they’re good for sunbathing, if you care about that. They’re comfortable, they keep everything in place. And they dry quickly,” I reply.
I myself use speedos to go swimming, as the bulky shorts alternative makes movements in the water pretty awkward. “Anyway, they’re still better than wearing board shorts with underwear like all those teenagers some years ago… But remember: white speedos only if you’re David Gandy!”
Kate giggles. “Well, I find it refreshing to see so much body diversity and positivity,” she remarks, in all her American optimism. Waxed or hairy, with a beer belly or a six-pack, Italian men do seem to be pretty comfortable showing their own bodies, no matter their age or size.
“Now please don’t say anything about the fact that we must be used to exposing our bodies, with all those paintings of naked men in our churches and museums… If you mention Michelangelo, I’m going to scream,” I keep teasing her.
But the current relationship between Italians and speedos is somewhat more problematic than Kate could have known. While it’s true that during the 1980s, and for a good part of the 1990s, they were the most common kind of men’s swimwear, things have changed. Younger Italians don’t wear them as comfortably as their boomer fathers and uncles anymore.
Like everything else, beachwear has been swallowed by the generation wars, and speedos are now looked at suspiciously by Millenials and Gen Zs in particular. If they can be considered a symbol of body positivity, they can also be read as the heritage of the macho-culture that’s all but extinct in the country. And a display of self-confidence can quickly turn into an obnoxious show-off of toxic masculinity–which camp Gandy falls into, it’s hard to say.
Thinking about the concept of “manliness”, I eventually bring up another side to speedos that Kate hasn’t mentioned yet, probably out of politeness: “Then, of course, there is the popularity of the speedo in the gay community… But this is more of a universal matter, not just an Italian thing.” Until my conversation with Kate, I hadn’t realized that the cultural stereotype of Italian men “looking gay” went hand in hand with that of speedos.
Across many parts of the world, the gay community has embraced speedos as a symbol of self-affirmation since the 1960s. And the fact that they were considered scandalous and immoral when they first made their appearance makes them even more dear to us. Swim briefs serve us well, combining pride, freedom, and a high degree of sexyness all into a tiny piece of cloth.
Returning to the idea of toxic masculinity, the section of the Italian male population that’s possibly the most hom*ophobic hangs out in the same kind of swimwear that we gay men use to get laid, or at least noticed–it’s an ironic dichotomy. Then, of course, it must be said that there are also those–especially of the older generations–who wear them just out of habit, happily unaware of the cultural/political implications of their beach wear.
Invariably, an over-display of masculinity is destined to blur some boundaries–like those sculptures of muscled athletes commissioned under Fascism, meant to instill the cult of a “healthy life” in the male population, which today look more like the camp-style decor of a gay sauna.
The sun is slowing setting. It’s happy hour, and the bar nearby is playing the summer hit “Mon Amour” by Italian pop singer Annalisa.
“I saw her kissing him / Who kisses her, who kisses me / My love, my love / Who are you kissing?” the music blasts. “Sexy boy, sexy boy, I’m in…”
There couldn’t be a better song to end my chat with Kate.
As we collect our things to go home, I secretly laugh; I’ve been wearing my red speedo all this time, concealed under my less showy swimming trunks. I just didn’t want to give Kate the satisfaction.
But she certainly does have a point, for in Italy, the less we wear at the beach, the more we reveal–not just of our bodies, but our culture too.
