Beach etiquette for men: buy trunks that fit, manage body hair …

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We are now deep into summer, which means holidays, which means, for many people, beaches. Sand. Sun. Sea. Sounds like fun, right? Well, think again. I have just come back from two weeks in Greece and I can confirm that, for men in particular, these places can be absolute minefields, packed with unexpected physical and psychological hazards. You think I’m exaggerating? I only wish I were. I made it back. But barely.
On the plus side, as a man, there are things you can do — approaches you can take, tactics you can employ — to make a trip to the beach something not just to survive, but to actively enjoy. I am not saying that this list is comprehensive, but it’s a start. So…
I am not going to tell other men how to gird themselves for the beach. It is a deeply personal decision with which I have no right to meddle. What I will say, though, is that you need to be honest with yourself about your body. Convinced I was definitely still a “medium”, I recently bought some swimming shorts so tight they shamed me, my family and all my ancestors. Viewed from the front, they simply helped to confirm that I was not a member of at least two of the major Abrahamic religions; viewed from the back, they rode far too low and, well, have you ever seen Cheddar Gorge from the air? It was crushing, metaphorically and literally. The only solution was to make sure I was submerged in the sea from the waist down the whole time. When the tide started going out, I got very tired trying to swim back to shore and could have drowned. All because of male vanity.
Men know it is fine to pee in the sea — it is a natural and underappreciated part of the water cycle — but the trick is subtlety. I have tried to explain to my son that he has to stop standing on the beach holding his crotch and hopping from one foot to the other before finally charging into the surf and then allowing a huge smile to spread across his face, while everyone around him starts to frown, wondering if global warming can cause sea temperatures to rise by 10C over the space of 30 seconds.
For years, I struggled with long days spent on Mediterranean beaches. The restless urge to be constantly doing something meant I would arrive, have a quick swim, build a respectable sandcastle, throw a ball around with my kids, read a chapter of my Terry Pratchett novel and then, after 42 minutes, realise I was hot, bored and uncomfortable. I didn’t understand it. What was I doing wrong? Then, on a recent trip to Zakynthos, I noticed the man next to me on the beach. He was Greek, looked like Demis Roussos and he had, I gradually realised, a system. He would spend 25 minutes under his parasol having an angry, animated phone conversation with someone. Then he would lie down for 25 minutes, entering what looked like a state of suspended animation, ignoring everything around him, his heart rate reducing to approximately 3bpm. Then he would pass a couple of minutes cooling off in the sea. Then he would spend 7 seconds shouting at some kids it took me a while to understand were his. And then he would repeat. For hour after hour after hour. I was entranced. I felt like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves, observing a far more noble and naturalistic rhythm of existence, only with an obese Greek divorcee in place of the Lakota Sioux. I have now gone native. It just works.
You absolutely have to resist the temptation to bring one to the beach or to hire one there. I don’t know how they have become so ubiquitous. They’re not even fun. They are the opposite, the anti-pedalo of the 21st century. Ever seen someone on a paddleboard laughing? No, you have not. They just stand there primly, brows furrowed, arse out, pretending they’re having a good time, because they once saw a long-lens paparazzi snap of a celebrity doing it in Malibu. Grow up.
I am not saying men have it worse than women on this front. We don’t. I once had a bikini wax for a women’s magazine and all I will say is that I now know I wouldn’t last long under torture. I was screaming out state secrets just to get the startled beautician to stop. That said, a little pre-beach personal grooming doesn’t go amiss. I, for example, have a hairless torso but these incredibly repellent rings of nipple hair which, when wet, look like a pair of dark tassels that I should be able to spin in opposite directions as part of an after-hours Vegas floor show. And nobody should have to see that. At least, not without paying first.
The one time our children got sunburnt on the beach, it was my fault. I had been half-arsed with the spray. Never again. Now I pin them down and smear them in so much SPF50 they look like a pair of ghosts playing along the shoreline and people run off screaming.
I genuinely don’t go to the beach because there will be lots of attractive women in bikinis. But, unless you’re having a coastal British staycation, you can guarantee they will be there en masse. So how do you stop yourself looking like a sweaty-palmed pervert when you and your family plonk down your towels, only to glance around and feel your heart sink as you realise you are surrounded by women who have all had their swimwear picked for them by a 14-year-old boy? You have three options: the medical (blind yourself by looking directly at the sun, thus leaving you absolutely in the clear), the military (spend the entire time staring dead ahead like a royal guardsman in a bearskin) or the manipulative (wait until a beach hunk crosses your wife’s eyeline and then make a big thing of huffing and tutting and rolling your eyes). You can’t win. This is why I like going to museums.
Sometimes, when you’re abroad, you will see groups of daring local lads doing backflips off rocks into the sea. Your ego will tempt you to try to join them, to impress them with a clifftop cannonball. But you are forgetting one thing: continental teenage boys are functionally immortal. Middle-aged male holidaymakers three beers deep and with something to prove, on the other hand, are what keep travel insurance company CEOs awake at night.
The beach should be a place of male unity, rather than macho competition. I once saw a father and his son do 68 consecutive headers to each other with a beach ball. They inadvertently stomped all over our towels and picnic in the process, but I just told them to ignore it, to forget about it, to keep focused and to keep going, even though the rest of my family were a bit upset about it, to be honest. When they finally finished, there was a collective cheer from every man and boy there. They had achieved something beautiful and that deserved recognition.
I have seen better men than me slowly succumb to this. It begins innocuously enough. You glance over your paperback and see that your children are merrily playing with their buckets and spades. But you know that their feeble little citadel will fail to withstand the tide. So you heave a sigh and get up and say that you’ll help them. You make them dig deeper moats. You make them build higher ramparts. Hours pass. You get frustrated with their pink plastic tools and so quickly take the hire car to the Spanish equivalent of Wickes to buy a proper shovel. You explain to your now weary and badly dehydrated children that you are aiming to recreate the famous Theodosian triple walls of Constantinople. And all the while, you keep glancing at the encroaching tide. “Must defeat the sea,” you mutter to yourself as you dig. “Must defeat the sea.” Then you look up and realise that the beach is deserted and everyone has gone home, including your family. And then you look down at your wet feet and realise the tide has breached your walls and laid your fortress low. So you fall to your knees and let out a wordless cry of despair, even though, deep down, you know you’ve had the best day ever.
Chosen by Hannah Skelley
Best under £30
£15, Next
Best under £50
£49.95, Massimo Dutti
Best statement style
£295, Orlebar Brown
Best designer collab
£220, Vilebrequin x Bape Black
Best staple swimmers
£85, Mr P
£100, Paul Smith
£110, Polo Ralph Lauren (mrporter.com)
Best brands to know
£125, Altea (mrporter.com)
£89, Mr Marvis
£80, OAS