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!
Speaking from a female perspective, I find that I am the opposite of what you propose. I began competive swimming when I was 7 yrs old, but have always been a conservative dresser. Although I do enjoy being barefoot, I otherwise do not like the feeling of being "exposed."
I can answer in the affirmative that, yes, I feel neither vulnerable nor self-conscious when shirtless or shoe-less in settings outside of the pool. I do attribute my comfort to having spent some much time in nothing but a Speedo in public. I will also say that shirts often feel binding and unnecessary. However, I rarely go shirtless in public as I am conscious of how it can make others feel uncomfortable to have me so.
I think in my case it has nothing to do with swimming. I am always too warm or hot, so I tend to wear shorts and tank-tops to stay cool. I also wear flip-flops when not at work to keep my feet cooler. I might walk around the house without a shirt because I will be less warm. Also I have allergies and have found that they are worst when I am warm or hot. I try to stay slightly on the border of being cold at all times and that helps control my hay fever symptoms. That is why I like swimming - I can usually stay cool in the pools I swim in. No YMCA pools for me! I am more worried about controlling my allergies and staying cold rather than being "exposed".
....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.
You did not define swim trunks. There are swim briefs, swim trunks (square cuts), jammers, and board shorts (boardies). At the multiple pools that I swim, there are fewer men wearing briefs, a smaller number wearing square cuts, with the most wearing jammers, and the few odd ducks wearing boardies. Almost all the youth swimmers are wearing jammers, the few that do wear swim briefs are most likely involved in water polo, or have been swimming for a number of years already.
I attend a number of pool parties in fashionable Hollywood, CA a few times during the summer and, even in accepting Hollywood swim briefs are few in number.
Generally speaking when out of the pool I believe we all dress rather normally. When you see a person outside of a aquatic facility wearing a competitive type swimsuit, in my experience, its in a community, such as where I live, that has huge aquatic programs in place, triathlons, and open water swimming, and no one really cares because its the norm in these areas. If I am approached by anyone its more like "Do you swim Masters?", or "You swim Masters don't you".
Swimming in a swim brief, for men, is not about vulnerability, its empowering, when outside of a swimming venue, especially in the U.S.A.
I believe you need to review your questions and look at what you are really asking the Masters swimming community.
Doing a study of any type involves a great deal of work. Did you pose the questions yourself, or was it by group effort? The questions, any question, needs to be reviewed to draw out the information you want, without directing to a particular response. Just sounds like you need some additional assistance here with your methodology. Try again I am sure you can do it successfully. That how we learn. Its how you pose the question that you want to work on.
Never thought about it until I read this, and now I realize I don't wear much. Right now I'm taking a break from doing doing chores around the yard and I'm just wearing speedo board shorts and flip-flops
The action of physically training your body on a regular basis tends to keep it at the appropriate weight, toned, flexible, and generally more youthful in appearance. It's no accident that a 50, 60, or even 70 year old athlete might dress in a younger spirit than their non-exercising peers.
I'd have to say I find it liberating to be on a pool deck with my swim buddies all wearing speedos and having fun working hard and staying strong! It takes me back to my youth days and puts a happy feeling in my soul. Long live Speedos and Master's Swimming!!
....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!
No, swimming does not have an affect on my clothing choices in the way you propose. I don't like wearing bikinis no matter what. And I not only can't walk around barefoot but have no desire to. I pretty much look like I've jumped out an Old Navy/Eddie Bauer catalog, so I'd call that reasonably conservative. Swimming does have an affect on me wanting to wear sweats/lounge clothing more than when I don't swim. Because cozy. When not in the pool I am tired and want to be cozy.
However, growing up as a swimmer, I have noticed that I have much greater body confidence than many people. I have no problems changing in a locker room out in the open but when I see casual rec swimmers come through, it's a far more awkward dance to try to keep themselves covered and changed that doesn't seem to happen with the regular swimmers. I am more confident than my other mommy friends at the beach. I didn't care that there were about 6 or 8 people in the room when I birthed my children and was not at all uncomfortable or concerned about moving as I pleased half naked in that situation. And it's only through other non-swimmer friends posting about female body image concepts on facebook that has made me aware that I have not grown up thinking in the same way as my non-swimmer friends most likely because of swimming. From swimming I know that you can work your butt off and still come in last, you can not work very hard and be exceptionally talented, and weight is not an indicator of ones work ethic, commitment or speed. So, I do believe swimming makes you more confident but I don't think it has an impact on being more exposed with ones daily clothing choices.
