Obviously, any invitation that allows one to enjoy women wearing nothing but four triangles held together by thin straps parading on a stage without fear of an impending raid is always a welcome one. But more importantly, being chosen as a bikini contest judge has finally vindicated all those pubescent years hiding in my dad’s closet leafing through his dog-eared copies of early ’70s girlie mags along with those sleepless nights watching Baywatch re-runs in spite of David Hasslehoff.
However, little did the organizers know that my knowledge of the bikini was as scant as the cellulite on the contestants. All that I was really sure of was that we were not judging the bikini per se, but rather we were judging how little of the bikini the contestants had on. In fact, I was so ignorant about bikinis prior to the competition that I actually thought that a bikini wax was a wax imported from Brazil that females rubbed on themselves for tanning. Sigh, unfortunately not even my photographic memory of the bikini styles of the ‘70s would be of much use.
I bikini briefed myself online and discovered that the bikini is defined as a very brief, close-fitting bathing suit worn by women. Much to my dismay, it is also defined as a brief, close-fitting bathing suit worn by men. There is a special circle in hell for the person that conceived of bikinis for men. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the late Louis Reard, the French engineer (bless them French and their liberal ideas) who developed the modern-day bikini, came down from one of the upper rungs of hell and gave this person a good bitch-slapping.
Incidentally, Reard named his invention after the Bikini Atoll, the site of American peacetime nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands, reasoning that the burst of excitement that the bikini would cause would be similar to the atomic bomb. Reard couldn’t have been more right: The bikini has since been the cause of thousands of peacetime explosions. A lot of these explosions occur regularly during Holy Week in Boracay.
Similar to the talent managers of pito-pito movie starlets, bikini contest judges have professional standards to maintain. Among these standards is to ensure that the female contestant’s waist-to-hip ratios conform to international beauty contest and male magazine measurements. Dr. Devendra Singh of the University of Texas studied the hourglass figures of Miss America contestants and Playboy models and discovered that a majority of these women boasted a waist-to-hip ratio of 70 percent. Apparently, a 70 percent waist-to-hip ratio – which indicates a waist significantly narrower than the hip – is the waistline that often leads to peacetime explosions among men.
(For aspiring bikini contestants out there, whip out some tape measure and a calculator. Measure the broad side of your hips, then multiply that measurement by 70 percent. If your waistline falls within that range, please e-mail me your full body shot. If your waistline is above that, then you may want to forego that fourth Gonut Donut. But before bulimia becomes an option for you, Dr. Singh notes that a waist-to-hip (WHR) ratio between 0.67 and 1.18 will continue to elicit bursts of male excitement.)
What exactly is the big deal over the waist to hip ratio? According to Dr. Singh, women in the ideal hip-ratio range, regardless of their weight, are less susceptible to diseases such as cardiovascular disorders, cancer, and diabetes. Studies have also shown that women in this range also have less difficulty conceiving. If this was the case, then female bikini contestants should be invulnerable, fertile and immortal.
The site www.bikiniscience.com (yes, there is an actual site) has developed a lowering swimsuit waistline graph, which plots the location of the bikini bottom in inches below the navel over time. From the period of 1940 to 1970, the bikini gleefully retreated six inches from the waistline (or an average of slightly less than 1Ú4 inch per year) until its natural progression was arrested in the ’70s. Thus, we need to solicit the assistance of forward-thinking bikini contestants who will allow the bikini to finally cross the threshold and reach its full potential. In the meantime, I don’t mind being cryogenically frozen and revived as a judge when bikinis resemble dental floss.
After much confusion, one of the event hosts clarified the matter for us. "Projection," proclaimed the host, "means fierceness." (I kid you not). I was worried that this projection equals fierceness definition especially when judging the male contestants. Since these men were sporting bikinis and the only other shows where I can safely watch fierce men in bikinis are wrestling, I was worried they would lunge at the judges from the stage. Alternatively, fierceness could also be defined as anatomically improbable poses held by the male participants for over five minutes, which requires six months of chiropractic therapy. However, as far as I was concerned, if these men are able to pose in bikinis in an air-conditioned environment without fear of ridicule, then they are fierce enough for me.
While impatiently waiting for the pits to hell to open up, my fellow male judges and I endured 12 men throwing us their ersatz come hither/Blue Steel/Mr. Pogi looks while flaunting their skimpies. As these men posed in front of the judges panel, the first thought that came to my mind was outrage: Given the skyrocketing price of oil, why are we lathering it all over these men? Weighty issues such as these hung over my head so that I wouldn’t notice how these men fiddled with their bikinis.
This unenviable situation begs the question: How were my co-judges and I able to ogle the men detachedly? Beer helps. An ungodly amount, a lot of beer. Not only because it blurs the vision and impairs judgment, but also because it contributes to memory loss the next morning. But despite already having beer in my system, the image of a male candidate executing a particular pose has been crispy-fried into my head: He stood in front of the judges, pivoted his right foot to the side, raised up his left arm, then dropped his left hand behind his head and, in a move that still gives me bangungot, turned his head to the left in a move that looked like he was taking a whiff of his armpit.
To my dear congressmen, if there any more amendments to be made to the anti-terrorism bill, please ban male bikinis from public view so that we can safely tread among the beaches without fearing for our masculinity.
Moving on.
OK, OK, there was one answer that continues to repeat to me like a bean burrito. When one of the male contestants was asked what made him different from the other candidates, neither did he offer his solution to world peace, nor did he offer to serve in the Red Cross, nor did he even offer to solve the Fibonaci sequence. His answer was more encompassing than that.
"I’m a complete package."
Yes, my friend, you are.