A brief note to all ladies reading: I apologize in advance for any fainting or swooning that may result from reading this column.

While this has been an unseasonably cold and rainy week, meteorologists are calling for sunshine and warm weather all weekend. This gets me excited because it means I will have an excellent opportunity to work on my Speedo tan.

Yes, you read correctly. All this weekend I will be sunning myself wearing a Speedo and possibly sunglasses. (Cue fainting and swooning from the gals; looks of disgust from the guys.)

Perhaps I should clarify: My weekend plans aren’t centered on tanning myself in skimpy garb; having tan lines that start around my hip joints is a mere side effect of my weekend.

This weekend the 10th Annual Dogwood Invitational Water Polo Tournament will be held at the outdoor pool of UT’s Student Aquatic Center. As tournament director I will be there all day; as a starter on the polo team I will be wearing a Speedo.

Wearing a Speedo around the pool of a university 26,000 students strong might make some people uncomfortable; just reading about a guy wearing a Speedo might make some uncomfortable. Writing a column which will be read by dozens of my classmates about me in a Speedo does not make me uncomfortable, but perhaps it should.

Speedo is the largest manufacturer of competitive swim wear. Their suits are available in a wide variety of styles and cuts, but the most identifiable feature of the Speedo is their economy: They cover just enough of a man to keep him from being arrested for indecent exposure.

If Speedo cut any corners, their suits would be sold in Victoria’s Secret. Babies have even been born in less revealing outfits than a Speedo.

And yet none of this bothers me. When it comes to struttin’ my stuff around the pool in nothing more than a few square inches of nylon, I have no shame – but, again, perhaps I should.

Perhaps my years of competitive swimming have numbed me to the look of a Speedo. I have owned at least one Speedo since I joined my neighborhood swim team at 6 years old. Every year I needed certain items to make it through the summer: shorts, flip-flops, T-shirts, sunscreen lotion and Speedos.

As a little kid who didn’t know any better, I thought it was OK to run around my neighborhood pool all day in a Speedo. I wasn’t alone. All day, every day of summer was spent at the pool for the kids of Gulf Park neighborhood, and our day at the pool started with swim practice in the morning. As fierce 8-year-old swimmers, we wore our Speedos to practice, and since the rest of our day would be spent at the pool we saw no need to change.

(An embarrassing note: My oft-mentioned roommate Hammett was one of the Speedo kids mentioned above.)

I eventually realized that wearing a Speedo all day wasn’t necessarily the coolest thing a third grader could do, so I began wearing actual swim trunks. But I continued to swim and I continued to add to my collection of Speedos every summer.

I currently own three Speedos, and although I don’t enjoy having my goods shrink wrapped on a regular basis, I have grown accustomed to it. My many years of being exposed to (and exposed by) the Speedo have helped me to embrace the suit and its many benefits.

The first benefit, mentioned earlier, is the tan. After a summer spent in a Speedo in the sun, my body gains a deep golden color everywhere except for one glaringly pale, white stripe that wraps around my rear and groin. Like a runner at night, this stripe serves as reflector while I am in the shower, alerting anyone who might be driving through my bathroom of my presence.

Another advantage of wearing a Speedo is the kinship formed between me and my fellow Speedo wearers. While the Spanish guy at the beach who looks like he is smuggling Don King through the front of his purple Speedo will never see me wear mine at the beach, we share an unspoken and unacknowledged bond nonetheless.

Speedos also make talking with females easier, assuming of course that a woman would talk to someone wearing a Speedo. While some men don’t like having their stuff so readily on display, it makes things less complicated later.

Thanks to the revealing nature of the suits, women know exactly what they are getting into when they pass out their phone number at the pool. This avoids any uncomfortable laughter or awkward disappointment later in the relationship.

(Note to save embarrassment: I am saying that this is a hypothetical situation that might happen; this hasn’t actually happened to me.)

I hope I have helped erase some of the prejudice surrounding these useful, if uncomfortable, swimsuits.

If anyone wants to see some athletic guys in Speedos, they should stop by the pool around 2:45 when UT plays Indiana. Of course, I’ll be there in my orange Speedo that cuts too high in the crotch and has VOLS stitched across the tail. And possibly sunglasses.

– Trevor Higgins is a junior in journalism and wears the number 15; he can be reached at [email protected].