It’s Swimsuitphobia Season!

Living in Texas means accepting that Summer isn’t the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day. It spans 10 months out of the year and only ends when it is damn well in the mood to. In the rest of the world, the summer solstice marks the beginning and with it’s approach, I get alerts in my news feed about swim wear, and what celebrities are wearing to the beach.

One particular garment announced me has triggered me and left me feeling inept as a female. The suspect: a floss bikini. Let’s explore why I suddenly feel like I’m failing at life if I can’t command the objectifying male gaze this summer season…

The Swimsuit Incidents

The First Swimsuit Incident

I have never been truly comfortable in my own skin. I was hyper aware, even as a child, that my body shape and the size and musculature of my limbs was not like that of the other girls growing up. 

When one thinks of children raised in third world countries, you don’t picture rotund or chunky little kids. Not unless they are distended with the signs of malnutrition. Until recently, poverty meant thin, and not the obesity that comes with a bad diet and overabundance of cheap junk food. I was born in Guatemala. The poorest of the poor countries. Famous for ending up on the front covers of mission pamphlets and requests for donations to feed the hungry. 

Hence, my dismay growing up when I could compare my body size with those of my peers, and tell that my skeleton was more beefy. That I was not like the other girls. They were delicate, slender and petite. I was thick, sturdy, and built for famine apparently. I was not petite. I was a linebacker among ballerinas. I didn’t even have long hair, I don’t know if this was because my hair wouldn’t grow, or because my mother kept it short. I suspect the latter.(I asked my mother this question via text as I was initially writing this post. It’s telling that she has not replied to this particular question.)

My boyish appearance distressed me because even though I couldn’t name the mysogyny that was all around me, I could tell I was not valued in general. I didn’t understand why, but I knew it was so, and I knew that I would not change anyone’s mind. Like the ugly duckling, maybe it would be something I could overcome when I got older. 

My mother, delusional, or not understanding that sometimes you can’t fight every battle, thought she would brow beat my self-worth into me. I don’t know why, she insisted on placing me in a beauty pageant. I did not want to be in it. I knew I was going to lose. I didn’t have any delusions that I was considered beautiful. I was not, and still am not, the ideal Spanish beauty.

There was another girl in my class who ticked off all those boxes with her long straight hair, her petite figure and facial features. I knew she was going to win. I begged my mother not to enter me. Especially because there was a part where I would have to wear a bathing suit and parade in front of a crowd. The bathing suit was yellow. Mustard yellow. That is not, and has not ever been a flattering color on me. It also might as well have been a bikini. It was the style where the bandeau top was joined by a thin strip of fabric to the bottom which was just enough fabric to cover my ass. Gross. 

So I wore this humiliating outfit, looking like a liver transplant gone wrong. Paraded around the auditorium in front of the crowd, and having to hear the volume of the applause dim as I crossed their view, and then get loud again when that other girl walked across in her sky blue simple one piece. 

The Second Swimsuit Incident

The second time was another swimsuit incident. This time it was the summer after 2nd grade I believe. We attended a day camp at the Boys and Girls club. It’s what you do when you are poor and living in the inner city. You go to these camps where you don’t actually camp, there is no grass, and most of your activities are indoors. Basically its babysitting for older kids because single parents still have to work. 

This time, they were organizing a water day, which consisted of playing in the sprinklers set up in the parking lot. Which, is a lot of fun, and I highly recommend. The unique sensation of the blazing hot asphalt juxtaposed against the cold water shooting out of the sprinkler is unique to the urban experience. 

As a result of this water day, we had to come to camp wearing a bathing suit because their facility was not equipped with locker rooms or changing areas. So if I wanted to play in the water, I had to wear my suit under my shorts and T-shirt. The exact details of why this bathing suit was the one I had to wear, but once again there was another yellow bathing suit. This one was a better color than the mustard monstrosity, but it was again, not a one piece. It had a huge hole cut out of the middle exposing my entire belly. I did not want to wear this thing, not in front of those boys, not to play in the sprinklers. So my mother spanked me. She spanked me and forced me to wear this bathing suit.

As if that was not traumatic enough, once she forced the suit on me and I was dropped off to the camp, within five minutes of running through the sprinkler, I stepped on a piece of broken glass. The counselors managed to get it out and I had to sit out the rest of the sprinkler time. Spoiler alert: A little piece of glass remained and had to be surgically removed when I was in middle school.

To say I have a negative association with swimsuits is an understatement.

Mental Floss Bikini

So back to the string bikini. It started out looking at an article about trends of celebrity women wearing expensive pieces with Birkenstocks. I like Birkenstocks. I bought my first pair with my very first paycheck from my first job. So am I a fan? Yes.

I was not expecting that reading through the style column led me to a couple of screenshots of women wearing these complicated pieces of string and fabric and it just triggered all of my hangups about swimwear and how inadequate I feel when I wear one.

I don’t think I have ever had a period of my life where I wore a swimsuit and felt attractive. In my not-quite-twenties, I had an unfortunate moment with a neon number which was not a good look on me. I had not figured out yet that flattering colors are more important than how much skin is exposed. In my late twenties I wore another unfortunate swimsuit, this time a polka-dotted tankini I bought from the trademark of feminine delusion otherwise known as Victoria’s Secret.

The only time I recall being comfortable in a swimsuit was the all black one piece that I was required to wear in the military during boot camp as part of my Navy issued attire. 

My logical mind knows it is unreasonable to expect that at my age, with the ravages of childbirth, weight gain, depression, and the nutritional impact of living paycheck to paycheck, I shouldn’t expect to ever have the ageless beauty of a celebrity who basically gets paid to look good. Feel free to explain that to my twisted brain that just doesn’t understand.