Before moving over to the States, we met our landlords – themselves French expats off on their next assignment – so that they could brief us about the house and give us some tips about where to buy what. As we were saying our goodbyes, the man turned to me and said with some urgency: "Have I already warned you about beachwear?"
Believe it or not, there is a strict code of conduct about what you should and should not wear at a swimming pool or down at the beach, and bizarrely enough it's almost the opposite of what is the norm in Europe. Since we live 300 yards from a lake with its own bathing beach, this is of not insignificant importance to us.
For those as yet unaquainted with US standard-issue beachwear, it is as follows:
Whereas those of the child-bearing persuasion are permitted to squeeze themselves into the skimpiest of bikinis – provided that even pre-pubescent girls don't omit to wear the top half – all males over about the age of 2 (i.e. those no longer requiring nappies) must wear what we in Britain would term "Bermuda shorts"; a baggy, knee-length cross between common-or-garden trousers and sports shorts that gives you two-tone legs (brown below the knee, white above) and almost drowns you if you are foolish enough to go swimming.
This left me wondering: what is the logic behind this disparity? Are American women so nymphomanic that the sight of a penile bulge or bare male thighs would cause them to do unspeakable things to the holders of such anatomy? Is it perhaps a religious thing; a sort of WASP burka? Or is this just another one of those strange allergies that everyone seems to have this side of the Pond yet doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet? (I can see it now: "Do you suffer from Upper Leg Sun Allergy? Lite-Stop is clinically proven to provide effective relief from ULSA").
Believe it or not, there is a strict code of conduct about what you should and should not wear at a swimming pool or down at the beach, and bizarrely enough it's almost the opposite of what is the norm in Europe. Since we live 300 yards from a lake with its own bathing beach, this is of not insignificant importance to us.
For those as yet unaquainted with US standard-issue beachwear, it is as follows:
Whereas those of the child-bearing persuasion are permitted to squeeze themselves into the skimpiest of bikinis – provided that even pre-pubescent girls don't omit to wear the top half – all males over about the age of 2 (i.e. those no longer requiring nappies) must wear what we in Britain would term "Bermuda shorts"; a baggy, knee-length cross between common-or-garden trousers and sports shorts that gives you two-tone legs (brown below the knee, white above) and almost drowns you if you are foolish enough to go swimming.
This left me wondering: what is the logic behind this disparity? Are American women so nymphomanic that the sight of a penile bulge or bare male thighs would cause them to do unspeakable things to the holders of such anatomy? Is it perhaps a religious thing; a sort of WASP burka? Or is this just another one of those strange allergies that everyone seems to have this side of the Pond yet doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet? (I can see it now: "Do you suffer from Upper Leg Sun Allergy? Lite-Stop is clinically proven to provide effective relief from ULSA").
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