Can somebody please tell me why you HAVE to wear budgie smugglers when swimming in french swimming pools?

So that the women there can give you a score out of ten.

more to the point why do you have to wear them to run beside riders on the Tour de France and shout encouragement?

The French, apparently, regard baggies as ‘normal clothing’ and believe it’s more hygienic to have specific swimming clothing, rather than swimming in shorts you would wear anywhere.

Nope, I’m French and I’m right 😉

Swimming – Short of one of the hi-tech skin suits they are the most efficient thing to wear. A bit like lycra on a bike not to everyones taste.

Just arsing about in the water – wear what you like.

That phrase ‘budgie smugglers’ always makes me laugh….I remember it from the fosters advert…..good call… 😉

Its a form of ritual humiliation for the feeelthy English bed-wetting types. A sweet vengeance for Waterloo.

Look at the bald fat, lobster red bloke. How can we make him look even more ridiculous? Hmmmmmmm. Excuse me sir, I’m afraid you’re going to have wear these.

I was mortified when i was forced into them. I considered going home. But at least it put paid to this ridiculous idea that some people have of regarding the French as a ‘stylish’ race. 😀

Always puzzled me too this. Year before last I went to the pool local to where we were staying in sud de France wearing my Speedo swimming shorts. Great big Speedo logo right across the arse. Dived in and surfaced to find apoplectic life guard shouting “pas de bermudas” at me.

I’m mean cut off jeans, fine, but outlawing swimming specific shorts is pretty baffling. I’m going to an event hosted by the French version of the CTC next week, and am half expecting a similar reaction by the commissar de roadies to my MTB kit “pas de baggies, et le peak sur le casque”

Like many things French, there is no rhyme or reason to it. See also pooing in holes and Priorité a Droite

I was told by a frenchman last week that this was introduced as many of the outdoor public pools were getting filthy due to the local youth riding down there on their scooters and going swimming with dusty and oily shorts on.

i was told that they hold in errant pubic hair better!

I like em. to be rocked with a medal for greatest effect.

What’s wrong with them?
Should be a rule here in the UK as well.

I think if you have to question the logic, you must be worried about something 😉

I love the french and their madness… Missing not going to sample it this summer. Got next year booked already though!

Right, so budgie smugglers = bad, but I assume bikinis = good ?

Thats a double standard and I demand this thread be closed immediately, or a counter thread started on how french women should not be allowed to wear bikinis in public….

hels, I think the difference is that women are allowed to choose whether to wear a bikini or something with a little more cloth involved in it’s manufacture.

Men appear to be forced to wear a skimpy garment regardless of its appropriatness for their physiques?

I was wearing my speedo branded swimming shorts and was told to change. What’s wrong with that? Seeing some fat bloke (not me) in said smugglers is not to everyones taste and should be outlawed if you ask me. I think I might take to the european court of human rights.

The Italians also make you wear a swimming hat

I love my speedos.

Some people (myself included) should definitely NOT be seen in figure-hugging clothes of any variety

If that means I cannot swim in a public pool in France, that’s fine by me, I don’t do swimming anyway! AFAIC the first fish to crawl out of the water had good reason to do so 😉
I mean, if we were meant to be IN the water, wouldn’t we have flippers instead of fingers & toes?

The French also make you wear a swimming hat everytime I’ve been. Not a massive issue but more troublesome is having to answer the question ‘do you have a swimming hat?’ in French before you’re allowed entry.

It doesnt really matter, just wear them with pride! Everyone else does.

I dont look too bad in them, although I go for a bit of a halfway house and wear trunks rather than full on budgie smugglers

PSA.

When you are refused entry to the piscine, despite having a perfectly good pair of Speedo swimming shorts, the budgie smugglers you’ll need to buy are called “slip de bain”.

John_drummer – haven’t you noticed how humans are adapted to water?
Slight webbing between our digits, tendency to fat covering like all water mammals of our size, nostrils that flare / close, babies that can swim á la Nirvana cover, lack of hair on our bodies, etc etc ?

Was that photo taken in the toilets of a gay bar? 😯

hughjayteens – Member

I was told by a frenchman last week that this was introduced as many of the outdoor public pools were getting filthy due to the local youth riding down there on their scooters and going swimming with dusty and oily shorts on.

This is the reason

When you are refused entry to the piscine, despite having a perfectly good pair of Speedo swimming shorts, they can FRO, I’m going to ride my bike.

davidtaylforth who are you kidding.

should always keep flesh-coloured speedos on underneath

when M le lifeguard shouts at you, don’t get out – just take the shorts off, throw them to him and swim on