Here is a question for the lawyers out there.
Do FINA regulations supersede US federal anti-sex discrimination laws?
Granted, I am not sure I know what the latter are. However, if I were to show up at a USMS swimming meet, wearing a perfectly legal women's swimming suit, one of the zipper-free kneeskin type models that also covered my ample boobage, and the officials rightly disqualified me for wearing this get-up because it is against the FINA/USMS agreed upon New Order, could I then turn around and sue under some federal statute prohibiting discrimination because gender?
In my mind, the new FINA rules are going to end up making swimming even more of a dying sport for boys in the US than the unintended consequences of Title IX, etc. Girls, especially in the younger age groups, can often beat boys in swimming, and in fact our own Mr. Qbrain got a top 10 time in the men's 30-34 LCM 1500 this summer. His wife, if I am remembering correctly, beat his time but failed to make the top 10 in the women's category.
If anything, it is we men who are now at a disadvantage. I say make the dystaff gender wear thongs and let us wear body suits fashioned to look like very streamlined tuxedos.
Suits for women now remain pretty much unchanged by the new FINA ruling, with the exception, that is, of getting rid of zippers and getting rid of non textiles. But that means women can continue to swim in what are still arguably very fast suits--FS1's, for example, that are very close to the short john types that helped loads of people get their best times. Men are prohibited from wearing anything but jammers.
Chicks, in other words, get 2004 technology; guys are back to the 60s. Why not let us go back to the 20s instead, when Johnny Weismuller wore a full body suit, albeit of wool?
So, in the spirit of Larry David, who recently concluded an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with the line, "I'm Larry David, and I am comfortable in women's underwear"--I propose that any men who want to join me in the latest civil rights battle of our time show up at nationals this summer in women's suits and accompanied by our class action lawyer, and join me in echoing in a collective voice that rings out in natatoriums all across the fruited plain:
"I am a male USMS swimmer, and I am comfortable wearing women's suits."
Provided I can find an esquire who will agree to take the case on a contingency basis, I say this to the USMS sexist powers that be:
See you in court! Suckers!
Jim makes a convincing argument and in fact I have a women's aquablade(when the aquablade came out there wasn't a full length for the men so many master's guys bought the women's suit.)I voted no however as I think the women should have an advantage to mitigate the decades when their suits were a handicap.
The poll is maybe a little misleading from my original question, which is the legality of this whole business.
Leaving right and wrong out of it, as our legal system is wont to do, and probably for good reason, but anyhow, independent of morality and ethics and the like, do you think it is legal to prevent men from wearing women's suits?
I suppose this whole business may come under provisions that allow Hooters to discriminate against hiring men as barmaids and the like.
But still, it strikes me as an interesting question. Are women "protected" from exposing their upper torsos because of the allegedly provocative and prurient nature of this? Are men disallowed from chestal coverage because our nipples are not capable of lactating and thus are not considered in some way lasciviously incendiary "naughty bits" in need of hiding away from prying eyes? Or is the whole idea a kind of separate but equal business--that since men compete against men, and women compete against women, the rules can be legally different based on gender, the way the tees, for instance, are set up closer to the holes in LPGA events compared to PGA events?
Besides the poll itself, which I concede was added almost as an after thought to drive a bit of traffic to this posting, I am actually quite interested in legal theories of this case.
Surely we have some sexual discrimination litigators in our swimming ranks, or even just garden variety jack of all trades ambulance chasers willing to propose how he or she would argue my case.
Your Honor, there is a long precedent of body covering suits in men going back to the days when Tarzan himself dazzled the world at the Olympic Games somewhere over there and back then...
or maybe:
Your Honor, I am not saying that what is good for the goose is always necessarily equally good for the gander. But in the case of my poor slow and obviously pathetic swimming client, Mr. Jim Thornton, Pauper, I ask that you consider--just consider, Your Honor!--that once in a while, what is good for the goose may be okay, at the very least, for the capon!
Hmm. I wonder if Speedo's in-house litigation team might be willing to consider my case pro bono...
Um.... is the OP serious, or a joke?
No joke, though proposed jokingly. I hope the difference is clear.
I really do want to know what lawyers think!
Slightly less interested in what red meat steroid abusers from the South think, but only because I already know what they think. At least I think I do.
"We don't take kindly to men in women's swimming suits in these parts."
"Now, Skeeter, he ain't harmin' no one."
Are you referring to "mwaaa?!" :confused:
Now, Lump. He ain't harmin' no one. Them Northern folk, thems jes differnt, tha's all. Now chick at all unner the hood n put inna pint iffn its low, the sinthetic kine, then gimme y'alls ink pin, i be signin yer chit n onna way down yonder holler. OhandLump? Give mah best yur unca Skeeter, y'hear? The ol' boy's temper didint dun do him any favors, nosir. He still got hisself the aphasia? Well, you tell him cat gotcher tongue from his ol bud Jimma. And leave that ol' women-suit-wearing Yankee boy lone, now, hear!
I voted "yes" because I thought you meant the suits with the skirts. Can I unvote?
I did mean the suits with the skirts, plus the detachable lacy froofroo modesty and mystery enhancement gauze "jackets" that so often seem to require an lifeguard's assistance in removing back in the cabanna.
All of these things.
I want to wear all of them, and I want a legal theory that allows me to.
Stat!
Jesus! Where are the lawyers when you need them? Why do they always find you when you really don't need them and in fact have an exceptional need to lose them when they are tailing you in your car, horrible little documents clenched between their greedy blanched knuckles?
I did mean the suits with the skirts, plus the detachable lacy froofroo modesty and mystery enhancement gauze "jackets" that so often seem to require an lifeguard's assistance in removing back in the cabanna.
All of these things.
I want to wear all of them, and I want a legal theory that allows me to.
Stat!
Jesus!
During the transition period, as the hormones kick in, you may expect to feel unaccountable fits of irritability. Reading many past issues of Vogue seems to help.
Are you also prepared to enter wet t-shirt contests, mud-wrestle XX opponents, and work at Hooters for less pay than the guys get?
If so, then go for it!
