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!
Hard to say where I'm "from" any more specifically than Florida and Georgia.
Born on the panhandle (before there was anything there), raised in a Georgia textile mill town, educated at Stetson, UF, and UGA, now living outside of a tiny town in N/Central GA. (If you've seen Zombieland, the rural scenes were filmed right down the road from my house, and the yellow Hummer scene in another small town nearby.)
All my family live in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and N. Carolina.
When I was an age-group swimmer I swam for the team they put together for Steve Lundquist. Excellent coaches. That area used to be horse country, but now it's pretty much part of Atlanta.
I truly do apologize for my earlier slight of your zone of the country, Mr. Sharpsburger. My beloved twin brother John is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, where he invented the sport of John Ball that was played in the elevator banks of Granville Towers for about 36 hours by the members of the UNC Tarheels basketball team during the George Karl Mitch Kupchak playing era.
The authorities shut the sport down when too much damage was racked up.
Anyhow, my great grandmother was from Memphis, and we have a portrait of her hanging in our dining room, a prominent bayonet mark where some yankee *** tried to spear the poor woman.
I hate us yankees with a vengeance for what they did to great granny's portrait!
For what it's worth, I should add that I didn't realize you were from the South. I actually thought you were a Harvard trained lawyer with offices in Boston, New York, Paris, and Papua, New Guinea.
We also have one other thing in common. I was a zombie extra in George Romaro's classic film, Dawn of the Dead, which was filmed in the 70s in the Monroeville Mall.
On a somewhat different note, this poll has had more lead changes than a Duke-UNC bball game. I am confident that cross dressing, like a UNC victory, will emerge victorious in the end!
Hard to say where I'm "from" any more specifically than Florida and Georgia.
Born on the panhandle (before there was anything there), raised in a Georgia textile mill town, educated at Stetson, UF, and UGA, now living outside of a tiny town in N/Central GA. (If you've seen Zombieland, the rural scenes were filmed right down the road from my house, and the yellow Hummer scene in another small town nearby.)
All my family live in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and N. Carolina.
When I was an age-group swimmer I swam for the team they put together for Steve Lundquist. Excellent coaches. That area used to be horse country, but now it's pretty much part of Atlanta.
I truly do apologize for my earlier slight of your zone of the country, Mr. Sharpsburger. My beloved twin brother John is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, where he invented the sport of John Ball that was played in the elevator banks of Granville Towers for about 36 hours by the members of the UNC Tarheels basketball team during the George Karl Mitch Kupchak playing era.
The authorities shut the sport down when too much damage was racked up.
Anyhow, my great grandmother was from Memphis, and we have a portrait of her hanging in our dining room, a prominent bayonet mark where some yankee *** tried to spear the poor woman.
I hate us yankees with a vengeance for what they did to great granny's portrait!
For what it's worth, I should add that I didn't realize you were from the South. I actually thought you were a Harvard trained lawyer with offices in Boston, New York, Paris, and Papua, New Guinea.
We also have one other thing in common. I was a zombie extra in George Romaro's classic film, Dawn of the Dead, which was filmed in the 70s in the Monroeville Mall.
On a somewhat different note, this poll has had more lead changes than a Duke-UNC bball game. I am confident that cross dressing, like a UNC victory, will emerge victorious in the end!
