“Look,” he said with trumped-up Gallic indignity, “an American swimsuit is simply shorts. A person could wear one all over the city — on a filthy bus, a park bench. And then he could just jump in the pool, covered in germs!”

Germs? Bof! The more I thought about it, the more my xenophobe-in-exile logic crystallized around the central point: The French didn’t care about germs. What the French cared about was sexiness. And one proven way of being officially sexy in France was to be in a uniform. The garbage men wore bright green uniforms; the phone company, bright blue. If you went jogging, you wore a jogging uniform. And so the Speedo law made perfect, if humiliating, sense. It satisfied the French uniform jones while at the same time institutionally mandating sexiness. The Speedo was in fact the official sexy uniform of the swimming pool.

As for me, I refused to enlist.

Six months of protest did not change pool policy. Moreover, my girlfriend, who normally answered no to the question “Am I fat?” observed one day that my strategy of replacing morning exercise with double croissants had generated a dimple below my right shoulder blade. Straining before the mirror to catch a glimpse, I lifted my head and stared in horror. Staring back was a man in early middle age, his gut rolling generously over his Jockey briefs. The resemblance was uncanny. It was my father circa 1979.

I bought my own maillot the next day. To my surprise, I felt quite free. Furthermore, I moved through the water at great speed. And over the weeks my Francophobia diminished as my gut shrank to a sleeker, more hydrodynamic plane. “The cheese maker is in great shape!” I thought, watching my neighborhood fromager slip out of the pool. Looking good in a Speedo takes some work, and perhaps this is the “health reason” the pool attendant was talking about.

My back dimple vanished. My Paris assignment ended. The taxi coming down the street the morning of my departure put a sad pinch in my chest. I took one last look at my Speedo, drying on the balcony. A penis cast on Long Island beaches would lead to many assumptions, and it seemed best just to leave it there.

But times change. America might someday regret its spurning of certain French positions. The taxi honked. The green-uniformed garbage men down below swept and hosed. Furtively, I stuffed my Speedo in my suitcase, wondering when I’d wear it next.