I’m a momma and I was planning on driving my son down to the beach with some family/friends. I haven’t worn a bikini since my younger days since I’m super busy nowadays as a single mom working 2 jobs. As I was trying on some of my older bikinis, I couldn’t help but wonder how my younger self was confident enough to be this exposed. I’m not insecure about my body or anything, actually I’m pretty confident since I go to the gym often, so genuinely how do other women have the confidence to rock a bikini?
I just read your other post, which was deleted. The one with the photos. Here is my response to that one:
I have to say, i thought this was a bot account. I then read your history.
My advice would be to delete the photo, so you’re not leaving a personally identifiable trail online.
My short answer to your question, as I am low on time, is you are just fine. More than that, and must be feeling a bit low, to feel like asking.
My longer answer would revolve around self worth, not requiring other’s approval, etc
I think you’ve got this. I hope you have a great time, with whatever is coming up!
cognitive dissonance
And the version of that meme is also censored of course.
sorry i tried to find this meme, but after 15 minutes i gave up trying to find a higher-quality one, and settled for this one.
IMHO it’s really all about you being worried about how others react. Speaking as a 50 year old guy, I would walk around naked if it was normal in society. Put the bikini on and stand in front of a mirror. Make sure you’re confident that it looks normal (no tags still showing, nothing that is too revealing or pinching in the wrong spot or whatever… then put it on and go out in public and don’t think about it. It’ll be fine and nobody will think twice about it other than maybe saying “damn she’s keeping herself in shape!”
It’ll be fine. Don’t let others get in your head so much that it determines what you’re going to do or wear.
Ehm, not the same… but I think that how everybody is dressed affects how we perseive our nakedness. Once i went in a trip to Brazil, and felt a little ridicule by how long my swimming shorts were. I ended up buying a swimsuit there… that I can only wear if i ever go back to Brazil.
The same way that pigs are food and dogs are not. Cognitive dissonance.
what the fuck. HOW DARE YOU. Ive been eating dogs my whole life and they are beautiful creatures and we give them a good life on our family farm. We never waste anything and even drink their blood. Implying that its wrong to eat dogs goes against human nature. We have literally been hunting and eating dogs for hundreds of thousands of years and you could seriously mess up your health by not eating them.
It’s not just Bikinis. It’s all swim wear, saunas in Europe, baths in Japan. It’s just socially acceptable and expected in the right context, and that expectation plays a huge role in comfort. The context seems to flip a switch in people’s brain.
It’s definitely a part of socialization. When I went to an all nude Chinese spa I was intensely uncomfortable and decided to wear shorts. I figured they were all gonna stare at me either way so I might as well not have to think about my dick.
People are right in saying it’s context and consent, and it’s not completely gendered. Men’s swimsuits are basically just boxer shorts. Normally I’m not self-conscious about that, but a few months ago I signed up for a toddler swimming class with my son where I wound up being the only Dad, and suddenly I felt a bit exposed. I think the normalcy of walking around in nothing but a small pair of shorts kinda evaporated once I was the only man in the room.
Yeah, and if you get out of the water and have a “flattering” outline in your shorts, its suddenly becomes a much larger issue being the only adult male, and with children around… eesh.
Well, I wasn’t even thinking about that, but now I’ve got a whole new thing to be self-conscious about.
Don’t be self conscious, be self aware .
If your wedding tackle has shifted at all during your swim, may be try to get out away from the others a bit, not a creepy amount, but like… Be on one end of the group, turn away slightly when transitioning from water to land, place your hands “casually” in a way to cover yourself without drawing attention, all sorts of little tricks you’ll internalize before you know it, but it starts with being self aware.
Speedo under the trunks should help I would think.
It does feel like going out in underwear, to a place where everyone is in underwear, and the people wearing full clothing look out of place. I don’t even have a perfect body but grew up near the beach, saw every possible body type in swimwear. So I am comfortable enough looking near naked in public, since everyone is. It’s nice.
I can’t speak from a women’s perspective, but wearing swimming trunks in public feels very different than wearing boxer shorts in public.
It’s the mesh briefs they sew into swim trunks for some reason.
Honestly I can’t feel the difference between swimming shorts and normal shorts, maybe except those nets inside
Boxers reveal a bulge and that is a no-no
This is especially the case if you don’t wear underwear with your short
Why is a bulge showing a no-no?
gives too much detail…? that’s the best way I can reason why I don’t like it
social conditioning
We are on vacation right now and my SO actually wears only the bottom of the bikini and goes bra less to the beach, because she says it’s unfair I can free my nipples and she can not. Well that’s pretty fair I would say?
We are European though and probably a bit less prude than US Americans.my SO actually wears only the bottom of the bikini and goes bra less to the beach, because she says it’s unfair I can free my nipples and she can not
Doesn’t sound like she can’t.
Society and shit. I say boobs should be free.
If boobs had guns like in Austin Power, our heads would explode trying to figure out if we cared about the 2nd amendment more or being prudes.
and my SO actually wears only the bottom of the bikini and goes bra less to the beach
There actually is a drawing challenge (called MensSwimsuitChallenge) that tries to depict this.
example:
Well considering I’m going to be around my son and other family members that’s not really possible lmao.
Social conditioning, once again. We’re French, and it’s totally possible for us.
Yesterday, among strangers, at the local lake, my 42 year old friend was topless, playing with her 7 year old son and her 5 year old (naked) step-daughter. A 36 yo pregnant friend was wearing a string bikini around her husband, 6 yo daughter, and in-laws. It was a non-issue.
Not saying all rules can always be broken, but they’re heavily context- and culture-dependant.You should reflect back on that “less prude than Americans” part of his statement. It’s only “not really possible” because of widespread American taboos about nudity. If boobs were visible in everyday life - on TV shows and at a typical day to the beach - in a non-sexual way, your son wouldn’t give a crap.
It’s interesting that in many US cities, there’s no law against women going topless, but if a woman does it, it’s outrageous. Hell, some women get chastised for breastfeeding in public. We’re a messed up society.
To be fair, if your son cares it’s only because you/society taught him to care.
Why? Does your son not understand human anatomy or is he afraid of boobs?
We all grew up seeing our moms boobs at some point.
Yes comrade, we all grew up seeing your mom’s boobs. 🫡
Ol’ Pancho and Lefty
My mom raised us to be comfortable with our bodies, so we wouldn’t even have the door closed when we were bathing.
I can’t contribute much except that I’ve asked myself this question many times. I guess some underwear is see-through but other than that it’s kind of the same attire.
People here saying consent (fair enough) but let me tell you, clothes are suggestive. There is more to suggestion and context than the actual content. Is anybody shocked to see a nude statue in a museum or something? Or in a painting? Now how about somebody wearing nothing but a g-string and a harness? You can argue the harnessed person in a gstring is less exposed than any nude. I say no. Clothing adds to the exposure sometimes. Underwear isn’t meant to be seen, so when it’s seen, it prompts judgement.
This makes zero sense to me. It’s all just cloth. The person in a g-string & harness is, literally, less exposed. You’re conflating the context of “being exposed” and “adds to the exposure”. Those two phrases mean different things. The first is referencing how much skin is visible while the second is referring to how noticable and attention-grabbing the individual is. You would be arguing an entirely irrelevant point to what was being discussed in your own hypothetical
Clothing being “suggestive” is entirely a subjective concept. What is “suggestive” to you might just be something the other person finds comfortable. It is also the same general logic behind “look at what she is wearing, she was asking for it” and I find that really problematic.
The underwear example is also just dumb to me. It’s just cloth. It isn’t “meant to not be seen”, it’s just there to avoid regular clothes chafing sensitive areas of the body. It being seen is irrelevant and simply a coincidence of being worn under other articles of clothing. There are no inherent, underlying implications except for what you put on them through your own bias.
This just reaffirms for me that people like to add arbitrary, subjective aspects to things and then try to assert these as intrinsic facts instead of personal biases.
I go to a nudist resort fairly frequently. Most of it is clothing optional except for the pools, so you see people walking around in various states of undress depending on the weather and what they’re doing (watched a guy weedwacking naked last time I was there, seemed ill-advised IMO)
You pretty quickly stop seeing nudity as being sexy there . It certainly doesn’t help that the average nudist is middle aged or older and often not in the best shape.
This resort also attracts a decent amount of swingers. While the nudists aren’t particularly trying to impress anyone, that’s pretty much the whole reason the swingers are there. So how do you make yourself look sexier than just walking around naked? You wear something. Bathing suits, pasties, big flashy jewelry, crazy hats, see-through dresses, ropes, etc.
And though many of them aren’t much more attractive than the nudists, they turn some heads.
watched a guy weedwacking naked last time I was there
In case you were wondering, this is a weedwacker
I shall choose to go with my initial interpretation of the term.
Hell no I won’t use a weed whacker without jeans, and boots are preferable. Had one kick a pebble though my car window.
There was an old Piers Anthony series about a society where the masses, mostly slaves, went naked and only the owner class could wear clothes. The more clothes, the sexier.
See also: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheissTitillationTheory : “The sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the perceived possibility that a vital piece of it might fall off.”
Exactly. I see a bikini every time I see people swimming. Underwear though, that implies some form of intimacy
Is anybody shocked to see a nude statue in a museum or something?
Sadly, some are. I remember as a teen visiting my aunt and uncle who had a giant Catholic family. We were sitting around watching one of the Pink Panther movies, where the main character is in a museum at night. As he scans his flashlight across the room, it passes over some nude Greek statues. My aunt took the remote and switched the channel, saying “We don’t need to watch this smut.”
🤦 Well yes there’s always the fringe cases
I don’t think that attitude is as fringe as you seem to be thinking. There seem to be an awful lot of people who are horrified at any kind of nudity.
To summarize your statement, social conditioning
Swimming apparel is explicitly made from slightly thicker and very different material, keeping you from looking like you entered a wet-tshirt-contest. That alone is a big subconscious help. Or are you talking about the amount (or rather lack) of clothing?
The counterpoint is that, for many women I know, their swimwear exposes way more skin than their underwear.
It’s more of the general exposure of my midriff, cleavage, and cheeks. But I’ll probably just say fuck it and rock it anyways lol.
I’ve never in my life been comfortable with anyone seeing me on a bikini, no matter how good I feel about my body. The “difference” between that and underwear or virtual nudity never permeated my brain 😂
Basically I think it’s weird that they’re treated so culturally different and don’t feel comfortable in them myself, but also support the choice of whatever bathing suits people prefer or nudity in designated areas
