WSJ

[rmf]

Here is an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. It made me chuckle.

"Locals Are Showing Off Their Sungas on Rio’s Beaches"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/locals-are- ... 1470670582

[chicagoswim]

Lol, I went to Rio several years ago and that's all you see on the beach! If you're wearing anything else, you're immediately a tourist. I bought a few while there and they are a hybrid of a speedo and a square cut brief. Definitely not my definition of skimpy but ok! You also don't see towels. They use sarongs/pareaos to lay out on and dry off with. Vendors walk the beach selling them. I bought one as well and it's far more practical. Keeps the sand off of you, dries you off completely but is very thin so it dries in a fraction of the time! We have so much to learn here in the US.


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[diveguy]

Here is an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. It made me chuckle.

"Locals Are Showing Off Their Sungas on Rio’s Beaches"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/locals-are- ... 1470670582

They're not letting non-subscribers see the article. Would you be willing to copy/paste the full text of the article into a follow-up post here?

[Red^^Speedo]

Chicagoswim, check this out for laying out on the beach.

http://tinyurl.com/jfokcc5

[rmf]

Here you go in plain text for those who don't have access:


Wall Street Journal

RIO DE JANEIRO—The Olympics are only a few days old, but some viewers have already seen more than they wanted.

Tiny bathing suits are invading television broadcasts of Rio’s beaches and raising eyebrows among some foreigners visiting for the Games.

In a nation that is famously comfortable in its own skin, sultry Rio has long been the capital of sun worship. But the city has never found itself so illuminated by the global spotlight, and with up to 5 billion viewers expected to watch the Olympics worldwide, few are likely to be left in the dark about locals’ fondness for scanty beach attire.

It is a trait that has been traced to everything from a tropical climate to the loincloths worn by indigenous Brazilians prior to Portuguese colonization.

The men’s swim brief—also known as the man-kini, banana hammock or marble bag—is rarely used in the U.S. outside competitive swimming circuits, as its predominant nickname in English, the speedo, suggests. But in Brazil, the so-called sunga is a favorite for male beachgoers of all sizes, shapes and ages.

“People wear them who probably wouldn’t in the U.S.,” Heather Stone, an operations consultant from Connecticut, said while surveying the scene on Ipanema Beach Sunday.

Likewise for bikinis, which in Rio would be perfectly acceptable attire for The Golden Girls. Women’s swimsuits here also run smaller than in the U.S. and tend to reveal more of the buttocks, a key component in the Brazilian standard of beauty.

But skimpiness isn’t the only thing that matters in a Brazilian bathing suit. The web is awash in Portuguese-language advice for settling on the right swimwear.

A few guidelines, courtesy of local entertainment portal Vírgula:

Skinny guys should wear striped speedos to make their legs look longer.

Short guys should wear dark sungas to make the cloth area look smaller.

Pale-skinned guys should wear light sungas to avoid creating a contrast that will make them look too white. Dark-skinned guys can pull off inkier tones.

Brazil isn’t the only country where swimmers and sunbathers keep clothing to a minimum. Speedos and thongs are acceptable beachwear elsewhere in Latin America, Europe, and even pockets of the U.S. (read: Miami).

But with more than 200 million people, Brazil is almost certainly the biggest market for the littlest bathing suits.

Sungas and bikinis alike have been popular beachwear here since at least the 1960s. They shrank to their tiniest in the 1980s, when Brazilians were striving to express themselves during the twilight years of the military dictatorship and a style known as “dental floss” was en vogue for women.

Twitter Pic
Geoff Shackelford ✔@GeoffShac tweets:
Neat that @miketirico talking Furyk 58 on@NBCOlympics broadcast. Though not sure how many heard what he was saying.
2:49 PM - 7 Aug 2016 3737 Retweets 146146 likes

Nowadays, men in Rio wear sungas not just for sunbathing and swimming, but while playing beach volleyball, spearfishing, stand-up paddleboarding, surfing, cycling, skateboarding, rollerblading or playing soccer on the sand. While some men cover up with trunks until they reach the beach, others are unafraid to strut the streets on full display.

Until now, Americans had to journey to Brazil to witness such phenomena. (Although a 2002 episode of The Simpsons depicted Homer donning a speedo in Rio at the behest of a lifeguard who blew his whistle and said, “There is a dress code on this beach”).

But thanks to the Olympics, prime-time television audiences are likely to get an eyeful of skin any time broadcasters use Rio’s beaches as a backdrop.

On Saturday morning, hours after the Games had begun, NBC commentator Mike Tirico was photobombed by a silver-haired man in a turquoise sunga who spent at least 25 seconds slathering sunscreen onto his belly in the background.

Such scenes have delighted viewers.

“I think my very favorite part of the Rio Olympics so far is watching Mike Tirico in a sport coat valiantly trying to conduct interviews with a straight face while swarthy hairy randos in tiny hot-pink speedos gesticulate wildly behind him,” Facebook user Rachel Gonzales said in a post Sunday.

An NBC spokesperson described the shots as “another great element of live TV.”

Not everybody is a fan of Rio beach attire, though. Twitter user Kyle T. Ingels, whose profile identifies him as a Catholic priest in Colorado Springs, tweeted that, “I could never live in Brazil ‘cause I wouldn’t wear a speedo even if I was alone in my house.”

Might the Olympics usher in a new swimwear fad in the U.S.? “No,” Stone says with a shudder.

But Rio locals aren’t the only ones showing off their sungas during the Games.

When asked his opinion of Brazilian male swimwear en route to Ipanema Beach with a friend, 21-year-old Brandon Rosolowski, of Toledo, Ohio, stopped to reveal a star-spangled speedo lurking underneath his shorts. A former diver, Rosolowski said he owns “like 10” of the bathing suits and has grown to appreciate their upsides.

“We feel more free,” Rosolowski said.

[diveguy]

Yeah, Brazil and especially Rio have their problems, but for this and this alone, god bless the Brazilians!