Never in my life have I seen so many men in such tiny little triangles of neon lyrcra than when I spent August in Southern Italy.
Over the course of the three weeks spent "studying" in Lecce, we went to nine different beaches scattered across the coast of Puglia. Nine beaches, some on the Ionic and some on the Adriatic; some pristine and beautiful, some with more cigarette butts than sand. All had one thing in common: dongs. Dongs everywhere you look, only somewhat concealed behind very shiny and very tight speedos. And this wasn't just the latest trend of swimwear for the brave of heart -- this was everyone, every Italian boy and man between the ages of five and nintety-five, scrawny or fat, married or single, hairy or waxed. If you had boy parts, you donned one of these babies with pride.
At first, this made these otherwise gorgeous trips to the Mediterranean uncomfortable at best. 95% of my time was spent attempting to avert my sheltered little eyes, the other 5% spent failing at aversion and pretending to be suddenly very interested in my chipping nail polish after the confrontational "we both know you just blatently looked at my penis" eye contact. It's not even that you want to look, it's just that there's really no avoiding it. In fact, and I concluded this after the fourth or fifth beach excursion, the Italians actually want you to want to look. Why on earth else would you wear a 12 square-inch piece of bright yellow spandex to cover your privates? Not to be discreet, that's for sure. Perhaps the men donning the more basic black, navy, and browns deserve some respect for their attempted modesty, but the bright yellows, greens, reds, and purples are there to be seen. The way I see it, it's almost more insulting not to look. Just like Gaga would be nothing without her bewildered public, Italian men in speedos would be nothing without their seaside admirers. Or, rather, horrified foreigners.
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