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SMNTY Classics: The Not-So-Skimpy History of the Bikini · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny Hand Samantha, and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told you a production of I Heart Radio. Samantha,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: do you remember, Okay, first of all, were you more
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of a bikini or one piece or T shirt person?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: And secondly, do you remember the first time you like
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: wore a bikini. So of course as a child, I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: would wear the two piece because my mom bought those
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: for me, and they're really cute. I really liked them.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: That would probably be my first bikini, even though it's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: not technically I guess in that same level, but it
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is a two piece, and I loved it because it
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: was bright pink and bright yellow and bright orange, which
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: surprisingly I love those colors. I don't know why. I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: When I as a kid and then as an adult,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it took me a long time to wear aating suit
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and I absolutely was the shorts and T shirts person,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and I made sure it was extra large. I made
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: sure that I, like I would wear sports brab but
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I would rarely get in the water around people because
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I was so self conscious of my body. After a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: little while, I finally just kind of like, you know what,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: screw this, and I bought a really cute like the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: high waisted bikini because I really liked them, and I've
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: now graduated to tank Kinne's m hmm, because I really
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: really adore that. But I just recently bought a pair
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of that, the little swim shorts that's not Actually it's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: shorter than what the Norwegian handball team wore. I know,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I'm referencing current events right now. It's actually shorter than that,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: but I really love it and it's really comfortable. And
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: then I have a larger, like a second piece the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: top where it kind of billows out like a T shirt,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: but it's still the back is open everything, and I'm like, yeah,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that this is up my alley. So it took me
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a while to get there to finally not care what
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing. But yeah, I took a long time. Yeah,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I think you referenced the Norwegian handball team, which is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the reason I wanted to bring this up, because I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: have been thinking about it for a while. I was
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: generally I wore one pieces or like two pieces, but
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the torso was completely covered until I got into high
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: school and it was like there's almost a judgment if
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you did that, of you weren't comfortable enough with your body. Um,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: so I started wearing bikinis, but I hated it, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: like I cried the first time I tried one on
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: because I was so self conscious and I just felt
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: like gross in my body and I felt like everyone
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: was judging me, which they probably weren't, but I felt
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: like they were. And then I continue to do it
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: because I felt like not doing it was cowardly. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I say that in heavy quotes because that's a messed
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: up thought, but that's how I felt, right. But then
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: like I got to a point where I felt comfortable enough,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: but it it did still feel like a sexual thing
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: where it shouldn't have been a sexual thing, but it
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: felt like you were like showing off your body, which
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: can be fine, like if you're totally into that, but
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: if you're just I wasn't doing it for the right reasons.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: That's not what I was into. But now I've become
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: like a T shirt person, like just a long T shirt,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: but in general, that's just become my outfit since the pandemic.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It's just a long T shirt. Fair, But I have
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: become I think a lot of us and we've talked
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: about that before because I have gained weight during the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: pandemic and I have become like less confident then I
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: was prior to it. So I just like T shirts
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and I won't even have to deal with it. Which
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: all of this is there's a lot of unhealthy stuff
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: to impact there, because I think many of us experienced this,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and as we are going through this controversy in the Olympics,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the sexualization of outfits where these professional athletes are like
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: by rule, supposed to wear essentially bikini bottoms if they're
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: women for no real athletic reason, and I was reading
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the accounts of women saying like, can you imagine having
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: your professional outfit being sexualized and how it's turned people away,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, this is I don't I
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: don't know why I've just accepted this for so long.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: It's like a normal thing, but yeah, it is weird,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and like it would make me feel uncomfortable if I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: was playing a sport on international television and I was
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: wearing something that I was uncomfortable in and felt sexualized in.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that they would train in that, but for me,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that would distract me and make me feel it would
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: take me out of it at least a little bit.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Chi's ridiculously absolutely so, we wanted to look into the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: history of the bikini and this classic episode and we
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy. Welcome to Stump Mom Never Told You.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: From housetop works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: This is Kristen, This is Molly. Molly. This is something
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: that I don't really like to say, even though it's fact,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: It just sounds so cheesy when you say it out loud.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to tear what you're gonna say, Molly. Yes,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: it's swimsuits season. Oh, I know, and I groaned automatically.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: It was just ingrained to me to start groaning. I know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: because a lot of times it swimsuit season is followed
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: by some kind of thing telling women about how they
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: need to shape up and get rid of all that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: their cellulites, and they don't discuss people when they reveal
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: their pale bodies to the world. Yeah, there's all sort
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: of somebody issues inherent in saying that in swimsuit season.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: But we're not going to talk about body issues today.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: We're just gonna focus on those pieces of cloth that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: stir up both men and women alike every summer. Not
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: bacchini KINI and I just want to give you a
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: sneak peek of this podcast where we're going with this.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: By the end of it, Christmas is going to point
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: out that the bikini is the ultimate feminist icon. WHOA,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I know, is your mind blown. I didn't see that coming.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't know either. I didn't know I was going
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to do that. I've got some work to do then
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in the next twenty minutes. All right, Molly, let's get started,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: because the history of the bikini, as the title of
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: this podcast implies, ain't so skimpy. Yes, more coverage than
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you had thought possible with the bikini, so many puns
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to be had. In this episode, we need to go
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: back in time, Molly, we need to go back BC.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I did not realize this, Molly, but the first recorded
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: use of a form of bathing costume was in Greece
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and three fifty BC. And there's actually a fourth century
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: mosaic wall in the piazza on Marina probably saying that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I wish I could do an Italian accent in sicily
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: depicting women wearing bikinis. It's amazing. Yeah, but as ancient
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Rome Falls and the Greeks and all the ancient civilizations
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: die out, there comes the rise of prudishness and shame
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: regarding one's body, and no one went swimming. Yeah, they
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: would go bathing, you know, but not recreationally swimming like
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: we think of swimming today. During the eighteenth century, we'd
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: they'd have spas where men and women would go, you know,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to the public bath houses, maybe go take a steam.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: It was very therapeutic. It was medicinal. It was not like,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: let's go splash around in the water. So it may
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: seem like we made a huge jump from like BC
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to the eighteenth century, but I mean for a long time,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: swimming was frowned upon. Yeah, it just wasn't something. It
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: was not the quintessential summer activity as it is today.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: But by the mid eight hundreds we have the rise
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of bathing as a recreational activity. And then in the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: early eight hundreds, with the rise of bathing or swimming,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: we can now call it. I guess we have the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: emergence of swimwear because you need you can't just walk
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: into the water with a full suit on and and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I expect to have a good swim canny moally, Well
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that's what they expected. The ladies to do. That's right,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: because first swimsuits from when were essentially just like ball gowns. Mean,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: not really, but it was a lot of cloth. And
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to avoid the poofy ballooning of a skirt that could
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: happen as you get in the water, they would weigh down.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: They put weights in the hymns of the skirt to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: make sure that you know, you weren't gonna show any shin.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: You know, the shin is the most erotic part of
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the leg, so you must hide it at all times.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, Christim, but swimming with
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: weights on doesn't sound like much fun. No, it doesn't.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a recipe for disaster and fun. Side side
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: note to all of this, we actually have the railroad
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to thank for all of this when we're being invented,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: because it was with the railroad that people could actually
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: flock to the sea sides to go to the beach,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: thus popularizing the beach activities, thus necessitating of the bathing suit. Now,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in addition to waiting down the swimming dress, uh, they
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: just went to all sorts of links to make sure
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that women never had to be seen in a bathing costume.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: There was this one cool thing that Slate pointed out
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: where it was like a dressing room on wheels, and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: you'd put the woman in the dressing room on wheels,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: she'd put on her bathing dress and they would wheel
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: her in the little room like down to the ocean
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: so she could get in the ocean without anyone seeing her,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and she could have a dip. And when she was
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: ready to get out, they'd wheel the thing up and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: pick her up and take her back so she could
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: put her clothes on. And this was actually called a
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: bathing machine. Yeah, and it's you know, women just could
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: not be seen on a each Yeah. It was a
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: very it was very private thing, which makes sense. This
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: was a Victorian era, the height of prudishness. But then
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: we have some some women who are really tired of
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: being weighted down in the water because first of all,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: it was probably dangerous and probably really hard to tread water,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: whilst they pointed out some women died um. But then
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in nine seven we have Australian swimmer and silent film
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: star Annett Kellerman who has had enough well she needed
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to swim for for therapeutic reasons because she had had
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: polio and rickets and so she started swimming to make
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: her legs strong, and she was like, hey, by the way,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to make my leg strong when I
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: can't move them with all these like pantaloons and weighted
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: down skirts and the like that you're making me wear.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: So she shows up in America on a Boston beach
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and wears what we would think of today is a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: pretty modest swimsuit. It was like a tank top that
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you know, had no cutouts, so she's not showing any chest,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: she's showing their arms, but you know, she's pretty much
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: covered from neck to thigh essentially. Yeah, and this is
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: a nineteen o seven and she is arrested for her
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: swimsuit at a public beach beach in Boston for indecent exposure.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine, no, I mean, if that's indecent exposure,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: just imagine if those seven policemen could travel through time
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to a two thousand and ten beach, if only they
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: had our time traveling capabilities that we have on this
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: podcast technology these days now only we would be remiss
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in this discussion if we didn't mention Agnes Beckwith and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: a Neck Kellerman, because there were two other women who
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: really helped pave the way for allowing women to go
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: swimming in public without having to worry about revealing their bodies,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: you know, and being arrested for indecent exposure and all
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: this stuff. Um and back With for instance, raced in
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the water. She swam against other guys. She raised four
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: miles from one bridge to Greenwich, and she did that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: while wearing the full skirted dress, petticoats, pantaloons and stockings,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: kind of demonstrating that even with all of that swimming
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: costume on, she could still keep up with the guys.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: She was just as strong as one of the guys.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And then we also have American Amelia Bloomer, who instituted
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: uh the Bloomers. We are aware of the clothing Bloomers
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: named after her that she started wearing to replace having
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to wear the full skirt when she swam. So now
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: we're in the early nine president, and I think that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the contribution of someone like back with it.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: She shows that swimming is a sport, it needs a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: sports like costume. And so yes, those full bathing dresses
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: gradually faded away. Eventually, those huge Bloomer pants eventually faded away,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and you could wear, respectively, a one piece thing that covered,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you know, from you from your your neck basically to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: your mid thigh. Yeah. And and a lot of that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: had to do with uh a killer men's arrest because
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: that's set off kind of a whole controversy of well,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: should she have been arrested for that isn't really indecent exposure?
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And so that opened the door for you know, saying, no,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. Women are drowning in weighted down dresses. So
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that brings the rise of wois known as the mayo. Yeah,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and by nineteen fifteen, this was what American women were
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: commonly wearing. Now, let me just spell myo four you
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: in case you want to like google images of them,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: because there's so many types of them. It's m A
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I L l O T. It's the French word for
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: swaddling clothes because when I think of bathing suits, I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: think of swaddling clothes. Um. But you know they were
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: they kind of buried in size and style, so you
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: could wear one that really covered you up, you could
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: wear one that was a little bit more risque. And
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: one pieces. The term one pieces pretty much replaced mayo,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: but essential if you're wearing a one piece. It's my own. Yes.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Now into the twenties and thirties, we do have the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: emergence of the two piece, not the bikini though. People
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: two pieces a separate thing from the bikini because these
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: two pieces covered up the navel. They would they would
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: come up and sit pretty high up on on your
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: natural waist and then you would have a pretty pretty covered,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: pretty solid covering for the top to to make this
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: this two piece and uh and I love this. By
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the end of the nineteen twenties, we had a lot
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of different novelty suits that were associated with two pieces.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So you'd have like a sailor themed suit or maybe
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a leopard printed suit. Like they really went wild with
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this with with these new this new swimwhere provided you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: didn't see the navel. And that's what I think. It
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: is so funny. I mean, everyone has a belly button,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you know. But largely Hollywood influenced this because the Hollywood
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Hayze Code prohibited actresses from showing their navel. Yeah, and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: so I mean you think about all those starletts who
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: are wearing those two pieces. They you know, we're they
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: seem so sexy, but they're not showing their belly button
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of all things. Now, I should mention that in the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: thirties we do have the arrival of the bowhouse. But
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the bow house is probably not something that you have
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: ever really seen on many beaches because the bow house
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: style was basically a pair of swim trunks with suspenders
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: for the top. Very naughty. It's Kristen's favorite bathing sees style,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the bowhouse style. Shall you be sporting it this summer?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I shall not? All right, you know what, it's the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: history of the bikini we need to jump ahead to.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: We need to do it, Kristen Small. In order to
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: make the leap to bikini, we've got to leap across
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean and go to France. Great and in France,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: two men, independently of each other, came up with the
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: idea for the bikini. We've got Jacque Coim and Louis Reared.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to give that a French a
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: French twist now, according to Kelly ben Simone, and that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: name might ring a bell to any other fans of
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the Real Housewives of New York City. But according to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Kelly ben Simone, who wrote the book, actually a good book,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: called the Bikini book that traces the history of the bikini. Um.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: She says that attractive women back then were known as bombshells.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: We know this, and anything intense was atomic, so the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: bombshell atomic lingo of the day. So the two frenchmen,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: while they're deciding what to call their new skimpy swimwear,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: they decided to give them nuclear nicknames. So Jacque him
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: called his swimsuit the atom a T O M E
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: like Adam bomb. And then Louis reared introduced on July four,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Le biki me. And that's because the United States had
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: started atomic testing on the Bikini Atoll, right, So essentially
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the bikini is named after bomb testing. Yeah, so it
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is really odd there's a connection between bikinis and bombs. Bombs,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Adam bombs. But he's pepa. His invention was going to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be as revolutionary as the bomb. Now. I think we
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: should say though, that when Reard wanted to introduce his
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: bikini to the public, he couldn't get models to put
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: it on. It was too risque, so instead he had
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to hire stripper Micheline Bernardini. That's my terrible French accent.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Micheline Bernardini was a stripper who was enlisted to model it,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and photos of her in this bikini just circulated throughout
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the world and the bikini became sensation. First of all,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of course, it was totally scandalized in the US, and personally,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I would have scandalized it too because no fence, micheline,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: but it kind of looks like you're wearing a string diaper. Yes,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Christa was not a fan of the first pekinia. It
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was not the most flattering thing, and uh so, yeah,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it was very scandalous. Scars and said no miles aware.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: And in the US, wine the swimsuit designers said that
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: this was only for frenchwoman because they were so short.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: It was just the only thing they could do to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: even make it look like they had any sort of
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: body at all. But then in the fifties, early fifties,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: we have the arrival of Bridget Bardo. Embardo looks fantastic
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: in a bikini and she has very long legs, and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: uh so there goes that argument out the window, and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: gradually they just become more and more popular. Well, there's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the rise of the private pool. Yeah, so you don't
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: have to go, you know, the swimsuit comes into boat
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: because we can all take the railroads and go to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the beach. Now you can sim in your own backyard.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: No one needs to see that you were wearing something
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that's considered vulgar and only worn by crude, you know,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: European types. But even in nineteen fifties seven, and this
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is according to an article that we found in Slate,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: there was an issue of the magazine Modern Girl that said,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: it's hardly necessary to raise words over the so called
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: bikini since it's inconceivable that any girl with techt indecency
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: would ever wear such a thing. So even though you
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: know seven, no girl would wear such a thing. By
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, in Time magazine, everyone reports writing them.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So it's a very quick adoption. They go from being
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: very vulgar two very accepted, extremely quickly. Yeah. Nineteen sixty seven,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Time Magazine features a survey claiming that sixty of young
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: women had already gone over to bikini's. And part of that,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: again was Hollywood's influence. Once those codes were relaxed, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: one could you know, gas show enable on the movies.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Think about like the James Bomb movie where she comes
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: out of the water that gold bikini. I mean there
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: are very uh strong image images associated with bathing suits
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: in the nine Oh yeah, Raquel Welsh one million years BC. Yeah,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that's that's quite a bikini bod. But with all this
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: talk about bikini's molly, there's one thing that we haven't
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: talked about yet, and that's Sports Illustrated. Now, as I
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: said at the beginning, you could make the argument as
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Kristen did, that the bikini is a pretty empowering piece
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: of clothing because it allows you to be free and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: go swimming and you're not hindered by you know, your
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: bloomers or your bathing machine. I do think that body
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: issues aside that you can tie into it, it is
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a pretty cool thing that finally women were allowed to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: just swim unencumbered. Yeah, Because, once again, as this often
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: happens in my podcast research, the notion that I had
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: going into learning about bikinis was different than the notion
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that I had coming out of it, Because when we
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: think of bikinis today, I feel like it's so loaded
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: with body issues and fulfilling the male gaze and things
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: like Sports Illustrated and over emphasis on breast size, all
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of this stuff without really appreciating this history and the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: struggle for women to literally cast off all of this
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: extra clothing so that they could swim right alongside men
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and not be literally and metaphorically molly weighted down by
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the constraints of heteronormative society. Yeah, you get to go
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to the beach and actually enjoy your vacation because you're
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: not stuck in your bathing machine that's rolling you to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the water. You can play on the sand, you can swim.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: As christ And said, without being metaphorically weighed down, I
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was pretty impressed with like the history of the bikini.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: But then, as christ And just said, we got our
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: brain Sports Illustrated into it. The first quote unquote Sports
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Illustrated Swimsuit edition came out in nineteen sixty four. But
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: it didn't have anything to do with a bunch of
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: sports editors wanting to publish photos of scantily clad women.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: It really had to do with a lack of sports
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: news to cover. So they're like, hey, we got some
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: extra editorial space to fill. I've got an idea, let's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: put in a picture of a woman in a bikini. Yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: It was all about like going diving in the Caribbean
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you know, there was almost even you know, a little
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: bit of a story. They'd even call it the swimsuit issue.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just like, hey, here's some there's something's
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: gonna wear the next time you're in the Caribbean sporting.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It didn't actually become a standalone product until nineven, when
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a very young, very buxom Tyra Banks and a very
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: iconic photo graced the cover of the very four first
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: actual standalone sports Illustrated Swimsuit. Addition, No, I think the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: reason that people get so worked up about the swimsuit
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: issue is that very quickly they abandoned traditional ideas of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: what a swimsuit is like night Cheryl Tigus wears a
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: see through fishnet one piece, so at that point, you're like,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: this is not really illustrating something I can wear while
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I'm being sporting on the beach. This is just you're
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: trying to see through. And then we have Heidi Klum
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: standing there in a quote unquote painted swimsuit, which is
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: actually Clum just standing naked with some ti tyed paint
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: all over her torso. So I think that that's part
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: of why it's so controversial, is like, you know, if
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: you can separate all the body issues from the bikini
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and then just think, oh, this is something I wear
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: while I'm on the beach. Like Gabriel Reese, the volleyball player,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: competes in a bikini. And so if you can take
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this thing that was like, hey, here's something, here's a
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: healthy woman, perfectly happy in the surf. Let's have her
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: hold her boobs and paint a bikini on her. Then yeah,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the bikini comes like this objectification of women. Yeah. I
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: was really surprised also when I was researching this subject
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: because I and maybe it was just because I wasn't
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: looking hard enough, but I did not come across any
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: academic papers as I was expecting to really dissecting, you know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the feminism and the bikini and kind of this idea
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: of you know, women being objectified as sex objects when
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they put on these bikini Like what kind of messages
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: are we sending out to people? Is it healthy for
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: us to wear these things all of all of the stuff,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you know. But then I came to the conclusion that
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: maybe that's because it should be an empowering thing, and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: it's actually I largely blame uh Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: for attaching all these body issues to bikinis, because I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: feel like it wasn't until Sports Illustrated that you have
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: this cultural idea of what a woman should look like
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: in a bikini. Not to say that, you know, Sports
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Illustrated is responsible for body issues that women have probably
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: had throughout time, um, but I do think that it
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: probably had a lot to do with, um, feeling inadequate
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: when you put one on, even if you're perfectly healthy
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and fit right. And I liked this quote from Slate
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: by Brian Curtis. He wrote, Sports Illustrated editors have always
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: thought obliged to pretend that the swimsuit issue is a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: source of massive national controversy. This is best observed in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: their insistence two weeks after the annual issue on printing
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: correspondence from outraged parents and smirched librarians. So here you
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: have this magazine that you know, fifty one weeks out
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of the year, it's just football, basketball, baseball, et cetera.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And then when week at the year, they're like half
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: naked women. This is so crazy. We're getting banned in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the supermarkets because people aren't don't know what to do.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And I think that they know themselves fed that sort
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: of spectacle of hey, this is this is crazy that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: we do this, Well, look how radical we are. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: it also overly sexualizes the bikini what started out as
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: basically a uniform for a recreational activity, just like you
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: put on jogging shorts when you're gonna go for a run.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It turns it into, um, something totally eroticized. I mean,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: when Molly and I were talking about this earlier, kind
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: of um coming to terms with I guess the message
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that it sends when you are walking down the beach
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: in a bikini kind of bearing all. Um. It's kind
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: of hard because I don't think that you can ever
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: remove the erotic from a naked woman's body. And I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. I think
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that that's part of it. But I think it is
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: unfortunate that the bikini has become such a source of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: angst for women, um, whereas it should be I think
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a source of empowerment. Yeah. Well, on that note, I mean,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I can't say any better myself. We want your thoughts
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: on the bikini. Our email addresses mom stuff at house
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com. Is the bikini empowering? Is it the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: worst thing that ever happened. Are you excited about summer?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Are you excited the vintage one piece Maya's are coming
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: back into style? I know they are. You can find
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: some really cute Maya's this season, very flattering. Well, send
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: us your thoughts. Our email is mom stuff at house
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or if you would like to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: share your thoughts with other listeners, you should head over
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to our Facebook page. It is Facebook dot com backslash
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never told you, or you can just search
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never told you in your handy Facebook search bar,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: as you probably know. And now we'll do a little
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: bit of listener mail. We're gonna summarize a little bit
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: today and not read line by line just because we've
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: got a lot of email on our Japanese Condom Sales podcast,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: very mixed reactions. Um, so let's get into some of them.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So first, let's start with a pretty pretty good correction.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I think we got that we may not have defined
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: all the terms related to manga and autaka culture as
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: narrowly as you might, and so we might have painted
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: all people who read manga as people who's love with
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: body pillows, and that is definitely not true. You can.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: You can obviously make there are tons of genres and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: we might have just sort of grouped them all together
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: for use of our own podcast, which is never the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: way we should do things here. Yeah, and uh, speaking
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: of the Otaku moa and sleeping with body pillows, we
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: were called out for jumping on a media trend that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: paints an unfair portrait of a very small group of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: men in Japan and extrapolates set to the entire population,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and that wasn't what Molly and I were trying to do. Admittedly,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: there were not that many articles that we found specifically
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: about the moe associated with the pillow thing, okay um,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: but there were a lot of articles going back to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the mid nineties about this idea of Japanese men um
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: some Japanese men as herbivores versus carnivores, which we talked about.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And if you want more info and that, of course,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the podcast. But
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I would like to clarify that our research did go
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: back more than uh the episode of thirty Rock with
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: James Franco in an article in the New York Times magazine, right,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you know, people thought it was just once one weird
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: story we had gotten out of Japan, and we weren't
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: taking japan culture as a whole. But as you said,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: they go back many years now. Let's also point out
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that the title was a little bit tongue in cheek, yes,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: because we've got many emails that tried to explain to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: us all the reasons why Japanese condom sales might be dropping,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and these included things like the aging of the Japanese population,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the Japanese attitude towards work. One woman wrote in and
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: she had a Japanese boyfriend. He has to work, you know,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: sixt hours a week, and so she's like, of course,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you know you sleep when you get home after that
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: kind of work week, you may not be having as
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: much sex um. One person pointed out that the age
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: at which Japanese youth lose theirporginity is actually not that
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: different than in the US, So obviously, you know, it's
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it's a complex as you and the and the point
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: we were trying to make with the title was admittedly
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: to get your attention, which it did, but it wasn't
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to try to the answer to that question in the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: podcast was not, uh, Japanese condom sales have dropped because
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: people read manga. That wasn't the point at all. So
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: thanks to all of you though, who wrote in response
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to it, whether you had criticisms or praise. Molly and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I need to hear it all um. So again, our
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: email is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: You can also follow us during the week on our
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Twitter it is mom Stuff podcast. Join us on there,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and then you can finally head over to our brand
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: new blog it's called stuff Mom Never told You Surprise,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and you can find that blog at how stuff works
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: is that how stuff works dot com. Want more how
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff
• 30:42
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• 30:49
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