I'm doing a bit of psychological research on what factors affect our choice in clothing, and an idea occurred to me. Because people tend to wear less clothing in the water, I wonder whether people who swim often tend to feel more comfortable wearing less clothing on land, too. If you frequently swim shirtless (if male, obviously) and barefoot, do you think this has caused you to feel more comfortable being shirtless or barefoot outside the water, too?
As an example, let's take a male swimmer who wears standard swim trunks when swimming. This leaves almost his entire body exposed while also boosting its strength, agility, and toughness. If he swims like this regularly, I can imagine several possible changes in his behavior that he might not even be consciously aware of.
1) He might feel less self-conscious being shirtless and barefoot in public. Lots of people see him shirtless and barefoot when swimming, but do not have any unusual reaction, so this might make him feel more confident out of the water, too.
2) He might feel more comfortable doing activities while barefoot. His feet have been strengthened not just from the swimming itself, but also by walking barefoot on the hard surfaces near the water. As a result, his feet might be tough enough that he would go barefoot when feeling the ground or gripping with toes could be beneficial, or even just because he likes being barefoot.
3) He might feel more comfortable doing activities shirtless. Swimming would have considerably strengthened and toughened his torso, and made him accustomed to working with it exposed. As a result, he might be more likely to go shirtless when it is hot or when wet or muddy conditions would just cause the shirt to get in the way, or even just because he likes being shirtless.
4) He might feel less vulnerable when shirtless or barefoot. Research shows that generally, when people wear less clothing, they feel more anxious and apprehensive about possible danger, even if the clothing would barely protect them at all. Because our example swimmer is very accustomed to being shirtless and barefoot, he might feel less anxious about exploring an unfamiliar or possibly dangerous place with his torso and feet exposed.
5) He might be more aware of how much punishment his torso and feet can take and what their weaknesses are. Doing frequent activity while shirtless and barefoot would lead him to understand better how much pressure can be put on his body before it actually starts being hurt. For instance, he might be able to tell what kinds of surfaces he could walk across barefoot, and what surfaces would actually hurt his feet. Likewise, he might be better at telling whether something hitting him in the bare chest would hurt him or if it would harmlessly bounce off.
Have you noticed any of these sorts of changes in your behavior since you started swimming? Thank you for helping with my research!
....so you like looking at shirtless, barefoot men, in skimpy clothing. Questions such as these, posed by an individual such as yourself, say more about you than they do about us. Your looking for confirmation that's OK to admire men, in skimpy clothing, in aquatic settings.
Thank you for your honesty! You may have just saved me from making a fool of myself in public, because I had no idea that this topic of study could come off as fetish-charged. I'm...kind of oblivious to that sort of thing. ^^;
You see, I'm going to be doing a small-scale psychological study in the near future as a project, and I've been mulling over several possible topics to research. Before I commit to one of them, I'm asking people about the topics, so I can see which of my hypotheses are likely to be supported. That way, if a study won't yield any interesting results, I can find out in advance so that I can go with a different topic instead. This is especially helpful because I prefer topics that few people have thought about before, which in turn means that there's little prior research on them to use as a resource.
One of these potential topics, as you can guess, is an attempt to pinpoint major factors that cause people to prefer different kinds of clothing, even when they are both in the same environment. One of the hypotheses related to this involves whether people who go without an article of clothing in some circumstances (like swimming) will tend to feel more comfortable going without it in other situations than people who are used to wearing it almost all the time. Obviously, the hypothesis doesn't expect huge and glaring differences, but subtle ones that could nonetheless be identified in a study. Because people tend to wear the least amount of clothing in public when swimming, it seemed like asking people who regularly swim would be a good way to determine whether the hypothesis is likely to be true or false.
That said, it didn't occur to me that people might see the whole "with less clothing on" aspect and think that it must be fetish-based. As a result, it probably isn't a good idea for me to pursue this topic, even if my hypotheses might be supported, because people would be unlikely to separate it from fetishism and view it in an academic context. Because of this, I'm very grateful that you made me aware of this now, so that I didn't end up becoming aware of it after I had already committed to the study. Thank you!
....so you like looking at shirtless, barefoot men, in skimpy clothing. Questions such as these, posed by an individual such as yourself, say more about you than they do about us. Your looking for confirmation that's OK to admire men, in skimpy clothing, in aquatic settings.
Thank you for your honesty! You may have just saved me from making a fool of myself in public, because I had no idea that this topic of study could come off as fetish-charged. I'm...kind of oblivious to that sort of thing. ^^;
You see, I'm going to be doing a small-scale psychological study in the near future as a project, and I've been mulling over several possible topics to research. Before I commit to one of them, I'm asking people about the topics, so I can see which of my hypotheses are likely to be supported. That way, if a study won't yield any interesting results, I can find out in advance so that I can go with a different topic instead. This is especially helpful because I prefer topics that few people have thought about before, which in turn means that there's little prior research on them to use as a resource.
One of these potential topics, as you can guess, is an attempt to pinpoint major factors that cause people to prefer different kinds of clothing, even when they are both in the same environment. One of the hypotheses related to this involves whether people who go without an article of clothing in some circumstances (like swimming) will tend to feel more comfortable going without it in other situations than people who are used to wearing it almost all the time. Obviously, the hypothesis doesn't expect huge and glaring differences, but subtle ones that could nonetheless be identified in a study. Because people tend to wear the least amount of clothing in public when swimming, it seemed like asking people who regularly swim would be a good way to determine whether the hypothesis is likely to be true or false.
That said, it didn't occur to me that people might see the whole "with less clothing on" aspect and think that it must be fetish-based. As a result, it probably isn't a good idea for me to pursue this topic, even if my hypotheses might be supported, because people would be unlikely to separate it from fetishism and view it in an academic context. Because of this, I'm very grateful that you made me aware of this now, so that I didn't end up becoming aware of it after I had already committed to the study. Thank you!
