String Bikinis For Men

A glimpse of the tarty male future

This light-hearted segment from ABC's This Day Tonight from 1977, on the 'racy new style of beachwear for men: the male string bikini', makes for provoking viewing, nearly half a century on. Thought provoking.

Presenter Sue Faulkner - whom we never see, only hear - takes an attractive, nameless young blond man - who isn't allowed to speak, only smile - with what used to be called a 'swimmers build' (i.e. pre-gym culture) to the beach (barely) clad in a string bikini. There she vox pops men and women of different ages, asking them what they think of the 'racy' beachwear he's modelling, showing off his abs and obliques.

Most are in favour, in an understated (and now obsolete) Oz way:

Bloke in Beard & Hat: 'Ah, not too bad.'

SF: 'Would you wear it yourself?'

'I haven't got the figure for it.'

Elderly Man in Trilby: 'I think it's alright.'

SF: 'Would you wear it yourself?'

'Yes!' [smiles].

Middle-aged lady: 'I think it's alright. If you have a good figure! Not if you've got a huge tummy!'

The two naysayers are a flustered mother with infant - 'I'd rather think about what's underneath than see it' - and an attractive young woman in a (similar-sized) bikini who seems slightly miffed at being upstaged: 'I just rather them longer on guys'.

Towards the end (2:15), in a saucy scene which probably wouldn’t have made it onto UK TV in 1977, the camera pans in extreme close-up along the young blond chap, recumbent on the sand, starting at his feet and sliding slow-ly along his smooth legs, barely covered groin (pubic hairline showing - before 'Brazilians' were compulsory for men), his smooth abs, chest, and head, eyes surveying the beach. In other words, treating him in the ‘objectifying’ way that ‘dolly birds’ were back then.

Ms Faulkner opines: 'The female of the species has traditionally been the vain one. But with this new fashion trend will the day dawn when men parade along the beaches displaying their body beautiful?' 

Despite the best efforts of the slightly camp middle-aged menswear guy in a fish-tie - 'there's nothing indecent about the male thigh' - I'm not sure that the male string bikini ever took off, even in Australia, home of the 'form-hugging' but rather larger Speedo. 

But the emergence of exhibitionistic male vanity, and the (endless) parade of the male body beautiful definitely did.

Even if it took thirty years or so for the spornosexual day to dawn. And on which the sun never sets - the ‘beach’ is nowadays mostly online, those obliques and more on perma-display on Instagram and Only Fans.

The segment ends with an ironic juxtaposition of the menswear man’s assertion that 'there's nothing indecent about the male thigh' with a grinning young woman on a beach towel (and what seems to be her male partner) openly ogling the blond lad as he twirls in front of them in his stringer. 'Pity that more men aren't wearing it!'

She represents of course the active, assertive sexuality of the women of the next century - and the gay men who are never mentioned in this piece, but who suffuse it.