Wetlook World Forum

Message # 91615.1.2.1

Subject: Re:Public Pool, Clothes and Me - A Personal Journey

Date: Mon 07/11/22 00:25:31 GMT

Name: Malvineous

Email: mrnemesis@ntlworld.com

Website:

By Mark - jtsmark@yahoo.com Sun 06/11/22 06:10:16 GMT

Website:

On top of that I definitely like seeing others in wet clothes. I really like it when people get wet voluntarily - people, who have fun with wetlook the way I do. Now I don't think I have ever met anybody who it truly into wetlook, but I have seen people who have fun with it for a while given the right circumstances. Their enjoyment and willingness to fight judgement is very attractive to me. In addition I do enjoy seeing people in wet clothes even when it was not their choice (like if they get pushed into the water). Simply seeing it reminds me of the feeling that I myself like so much. I would love it if somebody followed my example one day at the public pool!

By Malvineous - mrnemesis@ntlworld.com Sat 05/11/22 11:19:42 GMT

Website:

Does seeing other people in wet clothes interest you, or is this entirely a personal experience?

I wish I had a decent story to share, but I can’t say that I have ever had any successes of any kind.

By Mark - jtsmark@yahoo.com Sat 05/11/22 06:24:29 GMT

Website:

Earlier this year I randomly remembered a forum post from a guy who asked his local pool for permission to swim clothed. I didn’t remember the outcome. All I remembered was my own feeling of terror when I read the post. Asking a local pool? They would call the insane asylum right away! How could anybody be so careless? As I recalled the post I experienced the same terror again, but this time a faint touch of curiosity popped up as well. What would really happen if I did ask a facility? I quickly realized that I had an interesting option: I could safely try via email. Just to be on the safe side I decided not to contact pools in the US where I live, but in Germany where I grew up. After all, calling asylums across international borders seemed unlikely, right? At the same time I decided to use my real email and name - it was very important to me not to hide behind a fake name - no more costumes. Also no lies or made up stories why I asked to swim in clothes - I simply prefer it. Only compromise I settled on was to mention that I am training for a triathlon to offer at least some context for my request.

Soon afterwards two emails went out to two random pools in Germany. The gist being: I am a triathlete and prefer to train in jeans and T-shirt. Would they be able to accommodate that? I didn’t have to wait long for the answers. Something along the lines of: “We wish we could support your request but unfortunately we can’t allow any street clothes in the pool. Best wishes for your training.” Wow, not even a hint of insane asylum. Just a friendly response that made total sense. Could I have possibly been wrong about the inevitable insanity diagnosis? Now I really wanted to find out and sent out some more email batches. “While jeans can’t be worn in the pool we are happy to get you in touch with the local rescue swim club which has special suits to simulate clothed swimming. You are welcome to use those suits in our pool.” Wow again! Not only did they not judge my request as absurd - they went out of their way to help me. For sure I also received a number of firm no’s: “We won’t make any exceptions to our pool rules. Thank you for asking” or “Of course we can’t allow swimming in clothes. How would we explain that to other guests?”. Firm, but still entirely polite. One aquatics director told me that he would be happy to accommodate, but he had done so once in the past and got complaints from other guests and by the way he is really pissed about the lack of guests’ tolerance. What a kind note.

And then came answer number 9: “We have reviewed internally and decided to allow you to train in clean street clothes”. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It felt like a dream. It felt like a totally different world. Why would they support this crazy guy - me? I caught myself planning a trip to Germany in my mind to take them up on their offer and it was hard to admit that the overhead of such a trip would just be too much. But I wanted to know: Was this pool just a freaky one off or would there be others this open minded? As I sent more inquiries I got more approvals: “We can make an exception. That is not a problem” or “You can join us during any scheduled lap swim times.” Unreal! Overall I saw roughly a 10% success rate.

But one response literally changed my life. This pool’s aquatics director I guess didn’t want to go on record with a written response and instead asked me to call her back. Call her? So she could yell at me how insane I was? My asylum fear came back in full gear. But we all know that curiosity kills the guy who wants to swim in clothes, right?. And I really wanted to find out what she had to say. So I called her. With my heart beating through my chest I fumbled my little prepared blurb until she put me out of my misery: “Oh yeah, I remember your request. Sure, that’s fine.” Huh, well that wasn’t too hard after all. She proceeded to walk me through some logistics - only to end with the killer statement that made me speechless: “When you arrive please give the staff a heads up so they are not surprised. Just tell them that you are the guy who swims in clothes.” I almost choked. There it was. My diagnosis uttered out loud. I am the guy who swims in clothes. Not just the guy who would like to swim in clothes - as if that wasn’t insane enough already, but the guy who swims in clothes. A brutally absolute statement. An unchangeable characteristic like my eyes are green. Immutable, eternally damning, cast in iron (or wet clothes if you wish…). And then it dawned on me that she had just turned my worst fear into a supportive statement. She was helping me without judging me. For her it was just a practical detail. She couldn’t have been more right: I am the guy who swims in clothes. It blew me away and it took me days to digest this. I noticed I was holding my head ten inches higher and I couldn’t help but smile every time I reflected on our conversation.

At this point I wanted to know how country specific the responses I had received were. It was time to continue my experiment in the US. So I sent out some email batches across the US from West coast to East coast and in-between. First obvious insight was that Germany is definitely more organized. All German pools clearly list their rules and contacts. US pools are much more informal with many not posting any rules at all. I noticed that my response rate dropped significantly - an unanswered email could of course mean “hell no - I am not answering that you freak”, but I honestly think many of my emails truly got lost due to outdated contacts. But out of the returned emails responses were amazing. Around one third gave a thumbs up. “It is fine for you to wear non standard swim attire”, “We are happy to help with your request”, “We are ok with you wearing jeans and a t-shirt in the pool”, ”Sure, you are good to go”. Pretty interesting that the US is about three times more open than Germany when it comes to swimming in clothes in public pools - at least according to my non-representative sampling. Encouraged by those results I knew I really wanted to turn this experiment into an actual experience, not just a virtual experience. That meant as my final step I now had to find a pool that I could actually visit. The stakes all of a sudden got much higher.

I came up with a list of five pools within reasonable driving distance to my home. Using my advanced statistical knowledge I figured the expected value of approving pools would be 5 x ⅓ = 1⅔. Since I only needed to find one approving pool the odds were definitely in my favor. So I sent my standard email to the closest pool. I found myself eagerly checking my email, but three days later still no answer - shit. With some googling I realized that the aquatics director listed on the pool’s site had recently quit - ok, that explained why I didn’t get a response. Bit more googling and out went another email to the new aquatics director. Again no answer - what is going on? Time to use the phone - no answer - so I left a voicemail. Another three days and still nothing. One more phone call and finally I am lucky to catch him at his desk. “Swimming in jeans? Sorry, we can’t allow any cotton in the pool.” Alright, one off the list, four to go. Email to the next pool on the list and this time the answer came promptly. I was super excited to open the message hoping for the jackpot. What if they said yes and my longtime dream would finally become reality? “Unfortunately we can’t accommodate street clothes like jeans and shirts due to the negative impact on filters”. Understood - onward to pool #3. Without any email contact I went straight to the pool’s main phone line. “Swimming in clothes? That is a good question. Let me get you in touch with our aquatics director”. So I left my - by now perfected - request on her answering machine. But will she call back? Just a couple of hours later I see her number flashing on my phone and with my heartbeat doubled I answered. She got right to the point: “I got your request. Yeah, my staff won’t have a problem with that at all.” Oh my gosh - this is it! This is becoming very real all of a sudden! I felt like the little boy who just got invited to another costume swim - but without having to hide behind a costume. This time I had to actually pay attention when she explained logistics to me as this was now happening. I had the hardest time containing my excitement and focusing on her information. We chatted a bit more and she never questioned why I had requested to swim in clothes in the first place. I thanked her for her support and the deal was done! The next lap swim was five days out, which suddenly - even though I had waited my entire life - seemed like an eternity. I was super distracted for days and kept thinking back to this amazing phone conversation.

Then the big day finally arrived. I had set a countdown timer and literally counted the seconds. It is safe to say that I wasn’t too productive at work until finally my alarm told me that it was time to go (not that I really needed an alarm). When I arrived at the pool I was impressed by the beautiful facility and noticed a couple of swim classes wrapping up in the pool. I purchased my lap swim ticket and - as I had been instructed by the aquatics director - asked for the pool manager to give them a heads up. I was super nervous - what if something went wrong now that I was so close to the finish line? What if the manager said no? I walked over to her and explained that I planned to swim in clothes. She was busy and briefly acknowledged with an “Ok”. Same procedure with the lifeguards. Alright - this is really happening! I wobbled over to the changing room like walking in a dream. I undressed and then - got dressed again. My heart was racing as I vividly recalled the same experience from my childhood costume swims. But there was nothing to be nervous about, right? After all, I am the guy who swims in clothes. Then I headed over to the showers to rinse off. Very nice. Dripping wet I then made my way over to the pool. I walked past a couple swimmers and visitors, while others were waiting for the lap swim start next to the pool. In the back of my head I was still worried about somebody calling the insane asylum. But the response was pretty much always the same: there is a split second of strong surprise - something very unexpected and unusual, but literally within a second people process the surprise and go back to what they were doing. I was having a blast. Here I was soaking wet walking around the pool. When we got the green light for lap swimming I picked my lane and sat down at the edge of the pool with my legs in the water - as I had anticipated a million times in the days before - while putting on my goggles and ear plugs. A couple goggle adjustments and then the push off into the pool. Another swimmer sharing the lane with me, people around the pool, lifeguard at the side and I am in the water with all my clothes. I was completely overwhelmed - in a positive way. Now swimming freestyle with clothes is actually really hard because of all the extra drag, so I had my hands full finding my rhythm. In the beginning I was still prepared for somebody to pull me out, but after a few laps it started to sink in that this was really working out. I always particularly enjoy the moment of getting out of the water so I hopped out to briefly grab some drinking water. So much fun strolling over to the water fountain. And even better sliding back into the pool afterwards. After an hour I had to admit to myself that it was time to leave as my arms were about to fall off. Just one more quick lap. And one more. Eventually I headed back over to the showers where things slowed down a bit and I could start processing what just happened. A few more seconds of enjoying my wet clothes on the way to my locker until I finally did have to change. I couldn’t believe that my life-long dream had just become reality.

Since this first adventure I have gone back every week. Each time has been a wonderful experience. The first few times I was still worried a new staffer might throw a wrench into my clothed workouts, but soon I learned that everybody was just fine with what I was doing. By now they all know me. I definitely enjoy interacting with other swimmers - most commonly when we share a lane. During one of the earlier swims one swimmer stopped after a few laps and then mentioned “So, you swim in jeans…”. I thought I was prepared for questions, but I was still caught off guard and  just responded “Yep”. To my surprise she seemed entirely fine with that response, said “That must be really difficult - I couldn’t do that” and continued with her routine. An older lady asked me if I was training for a race and I told her about my upcoming triathlon. After that she asked me every week for status updates and congratulated me when I completed the race. One time a guy asked me if I forgot my swimsuit. We ended up chatting for quite a while as he was doing triathlons as well. Recently my lane partner asked me straight up: “Why are you swimming in clothes?”. For the first time in my life I answered “Because I prefer it”. She told me that she used to do clothed swim drills with her swim team and that she always hated it. But she didn’t judge me and we talked for a bit longer.

As you can see my first spontaneous experiment turned into an important journey that taught me a lot about myself. Most importantly I learned that I am the guy who swims in clothes. Who knew? If you are willing to share I would love to hear about  your journey!

Mark