I’m not gonna act like this is a monumental declaration, a “coming out” on the level of my actual coming out, but this is something I want to/should share because of our culture’s expectation of how men should present masculinity and how that intersects with me, my own body image and the slight – slight – anxiety it causes.

I wear swim briefs every time I swim laps, that includes the gym pool I visit and the public hotel pool I stayed at in San Diego. I also prefer wearing Speedos at the beach, and I’ve done that a couple of times either alone or with Seb. I do this for three reasons – and I’ll get to why this is something worth even discussing in a bit:

1. I like Speedos.

2. I like how I look in Speedos.

3. I legitimately find Speedos to be the most practical and comfortable swimwear for me to do laps in and, on occasion, bum around on the beach in.

Those sound like valid reasons, right? And it’s your body, you get one lifetime, do what you want, right? That’s how it should be, and in the grand scheme of things, who the hell cares what kind of swimwear I wear? The problem is, our homophobic and misogynist culture beats it into mens’ brains that we can’t wear Speedos and that we have to wear long swim trunks.

Speedos are viewed as something that only athletic men should wear, and even then they should only wear them because they are practical and not because they enjoy them. Even Speedo proponents almost always add the caveat when endorsing them, saying, “If you’ve got the body, wear it.” If you’ve got the body. Average or larger men who wear Speedos are viewed as a joke. They are treated as disgusting in comedies, they have their pictures taken without consent to be laughed at online and that shames men that aren’t athletic into wearing the 21″ long board shorts they bought at Target.

Growing up, I can remember two distinct moments from two of my favorite sitcoms where men of totally average body types were laughed at for showing a preference for Speedos:

1. In “NewsRadio” when the crew is trying to organize a group vacation, and no one wants to go because Bill (Phil Hartman) wears a Speedo.

2. In “Friends” when Monica and Chandler are packing for their honeymoon and Monica says, in front of others, “I packed your Speedo.” This, of course, causes panic and humiliation for Chandler.

Bill’s a rather nasty character and any other excuse could have been used by the writers, but, because it’s so ingrained in our culture, they went with the “Of course no one wants to see Phil Hartman in a Speedo.” Uh, yeah writers, yeah there are some people that would have loved that. Chandler’s is more egregious, because it plays up the panic and fear and embarrassment that men are apparently supposed to feel when they put on a Speedo.

This is a double standard.

Women are expected to wear revealing swimsuits. Even modest one pieces still show most of a woman’s legs. Women don’t have many options if they want to stay covered while in the water. Men have the reverse problem, most likely because revealing swimsuits have been gendered as feminine and – thanks patriarchy – lesser than.

On top of that there’s the whole added homophobia of Speedo shame. Yeah, surprise, men who find men attractive like seeing men in revealing clothing. This goes back to reason #1 on my list up there; when I was a preteen, I discovered “Baywatch” – not because of Yasmine Bleeth, but because of the men wearing Speedos. I would watch episodes hoping it was one where they trained new lifeguards, because that meant Speedos everywhere. Take note: I somehow thought I was straight for eight more years after that.

But cutting against what our culture has gendered as “masculine” is not what “real” men are supposed to do. They’re supposed to go to red carpets looking like Adam Sandler and Kevin James – that’s totally fine. Men that actually care about how they look had to be given a whole other term – “metrosexual” – to clarify that no no no, they like women and they also care about how they look. If a man goes against the tradition of wearing swim trunks, then he must be gay!

But for me, I am gay, and I’ve had to deal with a lot of the “I can’t wear X because people will think I’m gay” panic that was shoved into my brain for the first few decades of my life. Shorts that go above the knee, invisible socks, the color pink, bow ties, shirts with loud colors or prints – all things that I have incorporated into my wardrobe and said “who cares if people think I’m gay, I am gay.” The same goes for Speedos.

I feel a bit of panic when people ask me where I swim in the morning, and the overwhelming supportive and positive response from people means this happens a lot. I’m afraid because I don’t want people I know to start showing up at this pool where I walk around, you know, revealing my upper thighs. I was a little concerned at the beach a few weeks ago that someone else would be at the gay area of Riis Park. At Comic-Con I was convinced that someone I know could see me from their hotel window. I’ve self-diagnosed myself with a little bit of an anxiety disorder (see the reasons I just listed) and all of this comes into play when I’m wearing something that I just want to wear.

It shouldn’t be like that. Because who cares? Why do I care? Why should only super fit men be allowed to wear Speedos? Why are swimsuit options for men – for everyone – policed by the eyes of others? Why is this a thing? For some reason I actually feel incredibly comfortable in my own body. I’m super aware that that is not a universal feeling; I don’t know how I got this way, because I was not a confident kid or teen. But now, as an adult, I love my body, I love how it looks, and it’s something I’m proud of. I hate that there’s this one thing that gives me a slight bit of anxiety.

So I want to not feel anxious anymore. If you see me swimming laps or at the beach, odds are I’ll be wearing a Speedo. You’ve seen me in spandex body suits on Halloween and rather short shorts before – this most likely won’t shock you. I don’t foresee me shoving a bunch of pics of me in Aussie Bums in my social media feed because, like, I still see a difference between me wearing one in public and having a pic of me preserved forever on the internet. And the internet is creepy.

Men, wear what you want to wear, and if you’ve never tried swimming laps in a Speedo, try it. You might like it, you might not, and we can talk about it. I obviously have way too many thoughts on the subject.