The De-Evolution of Female Swimwear

For those of you that have not been watching this season of the reality show “The Bachelor” (shame, shame), you missed out on seeing the photo shoots of three outrageously sexy, scantily clad women in tight red bikinis.

            The women rolled in the sand, splashed themselves and let the water trace over their curves, and were easily persuaded to remove their tops.

            Instead of featuring these provocative photos in a fashion or celebrity gossip magazine, the shots were done for this year’s issue of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition.

Swim-suits: check. Sand: check. Water:…ummmm

            Funny, I didn’t see any of the women doing any actual swimming in those suits. Then again, I suppose it would be difficult to do serious swimming while holding seashells in place over your chest. The butterfly would be more difficult if you had to focus not only on your kick, but also on making sure that nothing pops out.

             Imagine a Sports Illustrated cover featuring a woman in a racing suit. The suit would smush anything that might drag in tightly, cover thighs, and allow the woman to reach her full, athletic potential.  Yet, it would be the cause of several (hundred? thousand?) nasty letters to the editor from men who look forward to their yearly dose of porn in a sport’s wrapper.

            Why have women let their swimwear de-evolve in order to please men?

            Way back when, women were arrested for wearing far less insufficiently- covering swimwear. Annette Kellerman, the first women to attempt to swim the English Channel, was arrested in 1909 for indecency while wearing a one-piece fitted swimsuit. She wore this suit not to seduce the men on the beach, but in an attempt to swim unhindered by the flabs of extra fabric found in the typical woman’s swimsuit of her day. Annette went on to become not only a fashion icon, but an inspiration to women who admired her guts.

Oh, Annette! You skanky devil, you!

            Way back when, women took off their tops, not just to show Brad Womack that they were fun, open- minded, or willing to go to extreme lengths to please him. They took off their tops at soccer games. They burnt their bras in protests for Women’s rights. They did these things to show their equality with the “superior gender.”

Brandi Chastain: the girl looked up to for taking it off

            Why have we let the respect and gender-equality our foremothers fought for slip so easily through our fingers? Why have modern women come to the point in which they would rather wear an ineffective two-piece that makes them more self-conscious than just put on a modest suit that will actually allow them to swim more effectively?

Chantal O’Brien struggled with personal insecurities about her body during her photo shoot.

One of the biggest controversies on the male side of the world of swimsuits is over Michael Phelp’s World and Olympic records and whether or not he should replace the records of his predecessor who did not have his advantage of specially designed swimwear.

Fair or not, Michael is looking HAWT.

Imagine if the biggest controversy surrounding female swimsuits was over whether or not they made the gals too darn fast.

Maybe the shrinking of the female swimsuits is a sign that girls are free from being repressed into unwillingly covering up their beautiful, God-made bodies. Maybe. More than likely, it’s a sad sign that women are being more and more influenced by men to be eye-candy, and to wear less and less.