Bathingsuit Blues not just for Women

I love that the NY Times printed an article about a man having drama with picking a bathing suit. I think sometimes we women forget (or don't realize) we're not the only one's out there with body issues struggling to find the perfect fit.

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Does This Swimsuit Make Me Look Fat?

By Henry Alford

IN its Platonic ideal, a bathing suit removes you momentarily from yourself, and perhaps unleashes heretofore dormant aspects of your personality. Wriggle into a great-looking suit that’s black and snug and tailored, and suddenly you’re ready for an underwater cocktail party; rock a pair of floral Hawaiian board shorts and suddenly you’re convinced that the only way to spell “dude” is with two o’s.

My annual quest for such a garment got its kick-start in late May when a friend e-mailed me a link to a site called Socialite Life, which featured a folio of 23 photos breathlessly headlined “Jude Law: Shirtless in Cannes!” Squinting rakishly in the brilliant Mediterranean light, Jude looked worldly, post-coital, regnant.

When you clicked on the upper left hand of the first photo, you learned (incorrectly, I found out too late) that Jude’s fetching canary-yellow bathing suit was from Dsquared2 and cost $268. I downloaded the image, and hied myself to Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue, where I showed it to a smiley salesman in his 20s named Beau.

I told Beau, “I want to be mistaken for Jude Law.”

I explained, “My looks are kind of preppy and innocent, so I need a suit that will take me to ‘wayward English schoolboy’ rather than ‘toffee-nosed prat.’ ” Beau said, “I understand.”

I did not tell Beau about how I recently dropped my Scrabble board and tiles onto the sidewalk in the middle of Sheridan Square, creating a clattering hailstorm of nerddom; I did not tell Beau that I recently had a heated discussion about the use of the semicolon.

The store, alas, could not find the fetching canary yellow suit, but Beau whisked me through the men’s department, showing me other options. We hit Etro, Michael Bastian, Thom Browne. When we saw six black, slinky suits coiled like snakes in the Dolce & Gabbana section, I said, “Ooh, these might be too Jude Law.”

Once in the dressing room with Beau’s and my three picks, I came face to face with a thorny verity: It is the curse of the middle-aged male body simultaneously to shrink and enlarge. Your belly pooches out, ever more parabolic, while your legs dwindle down to mere sticks, two knobby rods with the surface tension of plucked poultry. One day you look down at your half-sphere atop its two spindly rods and realize, “I’ve turned into a Weber grill.”

The suit most flattering to my Weber grill was a pair of belted, snug-fitting, mid-thigh $230 Orlebar Brown trunks. “These are Jude-like,” I told Beau as we gazed into the fitting rooms’ mirror. “Jude would accessorize them with designer shades, a shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and a whisper of Drakkar Noir masking a base of animal ripeness.” Beau’s eyes widened, and I sensed that he wanted to introduce me to a licensed professional who could tell me all about lithium.

Alas, the color of the Orlebar Brown trunks (fiery tomato) was too bracing for my Pepperidge Farm brand of wholesome. I headed on to Saks, where I showed my Jude photo to three salesmen. But they also couldn’t find the yellow trunks. A thin, expressionless young Michael York look-alike showed me other possibilities, but I demurred. I apologized and said, “I think I’m hung up on looking like ...”

“... Yeah, yeah, yeah: Jude Law.”

Eager not to beat a dead horse, I left my photo of Jude at home for my next two bouts of shopping. During the course of two days, I would visit eight more stores and try on 26 more suits. I loved the festive, Lilly Pulitzer-esque prints at Vilebrequin (which, as I now know, made the Jude Law swimsuit), but the suits’ puffy, bustle-like silhouettes vaulted my pear shape from Bosc to Bartlett; I loved the contained but non-packagey look of one pair of Marc Jacobs’s trunks, but wondered if I wanted to pay $345 for something that would be riding shotgun with a lot of cocoa butter and PABA.

A perfect fit kept eluding me, and kept me from being the best Jude I could be. A pair of knee-length board shorts in a floral print at Osklen in SoHo looked great except for a strange gap they created between their waistband and my spine.

“These make me look like I have a little storage area,” I said to the salesclerk, a sly brunette in her 20s. “A place for pencils or filberts.” (Her: “Yeah.”)

In another instance, it was equally the fit and the fit’s attendant implications that slowed me in my tracks. “I can’t tell what the look is,” I said to an H & M salesclerk referring to a pair of $17.95 tight navy square-cut nylon trunks with a red, white and blue rope belt. I asked, “Is it randy French sailor, or is it Fourth of July picnic on the town green?” Harried, she told me: “They’re Swedish, that’s all I know. They’re from Sweden.”

My favorite salesclerk was a middle-aged woman who was eating a salad when I walked into her tiny, messy boutique, Pesca, on East 60th.

“I like the elastic waistband,” I said of one of her suits, all made by a company called Sauvage; she explained, “they use a very good Lycra.” She left her desk to come look at me standing in front of the mirror in a sky-blue mid-thigh number. “I’m 49 years old,” I told her, “but in these I look 48.” She said I looked sexy. I thought of my Jude fixation and confessed to her, “I probably want the world to think I’m sauvage, but in reality I’m more domestique. In reality, I’m more médecin de campagne.” She asked if I was a doctor.

I finally hit pay dirt at Parke & Ronen, a Chelsea boutique that sells many scanty men’s clothes hammered in the forge of brazen confidence. The store’s fitting mirror, unlike the ones at all the other stores I visited, faces out onto the street. The mirror’s daunting amount of requisite exhibitionism rattled me when I skittishly looked at myself in the first suit, but by suit No. 5, calmed by the store’s friendly staff, I was shirtless, unfazed and furtively bopping to the Lady Gaga throbbing over the sound system.

I loved a pair of fitted $95 Parke & Ronen four-inch trunks in a blue, green and purple floral paisley on a white background; they had a two-grommet tie waist that cinched away all Weber-based impurity. The suit’s overall effect was slightly ... swinging London. Slightly ... Jude Law dirty weekend. Kuh-ching.

I first wore the suit to the N.Y.U. pool, where its comparative jauntiness, against a backdrop of collegiate Speedos and board shorts, was galvanizing. I can’t say I swam any faster, but I certainly swam with more verve.

I wore it one sunny afternoon on my building’s roof deck, where I didn’t need to sip at a Pimm’s Cup or a Campari; both were implied. I wore it to my office one hot day. Indeed, so comfortable and unbosomed was I in it that I decided to wear it for a trip I’ve happily made four times before: out to Amagansett, where I like to spend the night on the beach.

I made a reservation on the jitney. Doubting that any changing room would be open by the time I reached the beach at 7 p.m., I wore the suit under my pants to make the trip out to Long Island; as I boarded the bus, I found myself smiling slightly, and thought, “I am wearing very exciting underpants!”

I spent a lovely, contemplative evening picnicking and walking around a deserted beach in the suit (though it was, alas, too cold to swim); I crawled into my sleeping bag at 10 p.m. The suit’s smoothness felt satiny and delightful against the sleeping bag’s slippery insides: a hot dog in a bun. The surf raged, the stars twinkled. I felt new and brimming. Jude at last.

But then, just after midnight: blindingly bright car headlights aimed at my head. “Hey! Hey!” yelled a male voice from inside an East Hampton Marine Patrol vehicle. The officer then asked, with some irritation, “Why are you sleeping on the beach?” Groggily, I explained, “I just bought a new bathing suit.” He snorted and said: “You just bought a new bathing suit! What kind of reason is that?” I mumbled an incoherent answer. He wrote me a summons.

It was too late to call anyone. Back up in Amagansett, I sat on a bench on Route 27 and waited for a 4:20 a.m. jitney back home. “Jude, Jude, Jude,” I thought, “Where have you taken me?” Many inebriated 20-something revelers sauntered by, including a young woman skittering in high heels who, on hearing that I was waiting for a 4:20 bus, gushed: “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Moments later, I took my summons out of my pocket and gazed at it. I contemplated the embarrassment of a forthcoming appearance at the East Hampton Town Justice Court. I thought, I’ll definitely need to be at my most confident and cool for that. I thought, I’ll definitely need to be at the top of my game. I thought, I’ll definitely need to wear the suit.

Weight = Life Burden?

So my first thought when reading this article was they need to do way more research and study various generations as well. I'm not denying that being an "over weight" teenager is hard (on both girls and boys) and that studies have shown women make less then there male counterparts. But this study is all over the place (in my opinion) - from women who are heavier are less likely to graduate college, to they are less likely to be hired for a position (with of course fostering the stigmas and stereotypes of "fat people are lazy"), to plus size girls aren't active in sports in high school, etc. 

Maybe it's just me and my personal story not connecting AT ALL with what they're "findings" are showing. I was on the "heavier" side in HS and not only graduated HS with a 3.75 but went on to be accepted into a highly rigorous academic college program (which I finished in the normal 4 years) and then went on to a (mostly) satisfying (female dominated) career (making 15.50/hour). Thank you very much.

Like I said, an interesting read nonetheless but perhaps a bit early to publish their "findings"

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Heavy in School, Burdened for Life

By Christy M Glass, Steven A Haas and Eric N Reither

Published: June 2, 2011

MUCH of the debate about the nation’s obesity epidemic has focused, not surprisingly, on food: labeling requirements, taxes on sugary beverages and snacks, junk food advertisements aimed at children and the nutritional quality of school lunches.

But obesity affects not only health but also economic outcomes: overweight people have less success in the job market and make less money over the course of their careers than slimmer people. The problem is particularly acute for overweight women, because they are significantly less likely to complete college.

We arrived at this conclusion after examining data from a project that tracks more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. From career entry to retirement, overweight men experienced no barriers to getting hired and promoted. But heavier women worked in jobs that had lower earnings and social status and required less education than their thinner female peers.

At first glance this difference might appear to reflect bias on the part of employers, and male supervisors in particular. After all, studies find that employers tend to view overweight workers as less capable, less hard-working and lacking in self-control.

But the real reason was that overweight women were less likely to earn college degrees — regardless of their ability, professional goals or socioeconomic status. In other words, it didn’t matter how talented or ambitious they were, or how well they had done in high school. Nor did it matter whether their parents were rich or poor, well educated or high school dropouts.

Our study, published last year in the journal Social Forces, was the first to show that decreased education was the key mechanism that reduced the career achievement of overweight women — an impact that persisted even among those who lost weight later in life. We found no similar gap in educational attainment for overweight men.

Why doesn’t body size affect men’s attainment as much as women’s? One explanation is that overweight girls are more stigmatized and isolated in high school compared with overweight boys. Other studies have shown that body size is one of the primary ways Americans judge female — but not male — attractiveness. We also know that the social stigma associated with obesity is strongest during adolescence. So perhaps teachers and peers judge overweight girls more harshly. In addition, evidence suggests that, relative to overweight girls, overweight boys are more active in extracurricular activities, like sports, which may lead to stronger friendships and social ties. (Of course our study followed a particular group from career entry to retirement, and more study is needed to determine whether overweight girls finishing high school today face the same barriers, though these social factors suggest they do.)

That overweight women continue to trail men — including overweight men — in educational attainment in America is remarkable, given that women in general are outpacing men in college completion and in earning advanced degrees.

What does this mean for policy? Previous studies have shown that overweight adolescents feel stigmatized by their peers and their teachers, have fewer friends and often feel socially isolated. Teenagers who feel less connected to teachers, school and peers are less likely to graduate and go on to college. So policies to help overweight girls need to work on two levels: promoting healthful behaviors and shifting attitudes.

Obesity is occurring in children at younger and younger ages, so prevention needs to start as early as primary school. While early intervention has obvious potential health benefits, it is also critical from a career perspective. In addition, overweight girls should be encouraged to participate in college preparation courses and extracurricular activities. Health education that focuses on diet and exercise but does not stigmatize overweight teenagers is critical.

Teachers and principals need to be aggressive in limiting bullying and looking for signs of depression in overweight girls. Teenage girls, regardless of body size, struggle with self-esteem and are at higher risk of depression than boys, so expanding health education to include psychological as well as physical health could help all girls. Public health campaigns should reframe the problem of obesity from one of individual failure to one of public concern.

The economic harm to overweight women is more than a series of personal troubles; it may contribute to the rising disparities between rich and poor, and it is a drain on the human capital and economic productivity of our nation.

Christy M. Glass and Eric N. Reither are associate professors of sociology at Utah State University. Steven A. Haas is an assistant professor of sociology at Arizona State University.

What's Best for Me.

 

This is sort of how I've been feeling the past few days. 

Down with the world falling on my head but knowing that things...
Life...could be worse. 

In March my boyfriend and I had our first huge fight. It resulted in a 24-hour "break up" but by the end of the next day we were back together - realizing words were said in the heat of the moment and not truly meant. We patched things up and tried to make things better. 

Without going into it things too much, this past weekend I told him I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep coming in last behind his job and the rest of his life....I felt like an afterthought. 

He still is the love of my life and it's hard to imagine him not being there ten...twenty...thirty years down the line. And (without being disillusioned or getting my hopes up) he might be. I don't know. For now though it just isn't meant to be. 

I haven't really told people (expect one friend) mostly because we "broke-up" not that long ago and the last thing I need right now is a "I told you so"..."See?" or the even worse "You deserve better". What I need is for understanding that this is a hard time right now. 

I haven't cried. 

Not really. 

I suppose part of me is still in shock.
Waiting to wake up and have in next to me and this all be a bad dream. 

I love him. 

What can I say? 

It hurts but I need to survive. 

I need to do what's best for me.

Love Me Like a Man

Mercy