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!
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...
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...
