On Bastille Day, All Hail the Speedo
In France, the maillot de bain sportif is mandatory
The sign over the pool attendant’s window depicted two men. The message was plain, irrefutable but unacceptable. The first wore normal bathing trunks. The second wore underwear. The normal man had an X through his crotch. The underwear man did not. My girlfriend squeezed my hand, and a bellow came out of my chest.
“No!”
“Oui! Oui!” the attendant answered. “For health reasons.”
“You mean — ”
“Yes. It is obligatory. For health reasons you cannot wear your American bathing suit here. You must wear the maillot de bain sportif.”
A maillot de bain sportif. Translated, a “bathing suit for sport.” In other words, a f*cking Speedo.
I had been cooperative with the French. I tolerated the common protest bof! and I learned to pronounce my oui on a breathy, Parisian inhale. When a local I had hired told me, “I will not do what you ask because it is not a part of my mission,” I just smiled. But the Speedo was my Maginot Line. No “health reason” would ever persuade me to wear a Lycra fig leaf in public.
The French didn’t care about germs. What the French cared about was sexiness. And one…
