Modesty is overrated....

When I began dating the man who is my husband, he was on the bicycle for 12-15 hours a week. I'll never forget seeing him in cycling shorts for the first time, and looking everywhere but 'there'. I blushed ridiculously. He was oblivious. One day, I asked him if he was embarrassed to wear 'that stuff' in public. He looked at me through his confusion. He explained that he had spent half his life in lycra and around others wearing it. He told me about changing clothes at races where there were no bathrooms; changing on the street, with white behinds glaring at those passing by. He told me that he felt no modesty, ever. It was ok. I was embarrassed enough for both of us. Not that he didn't look great in his clothes; he did! I think that was the issue.
After years of marriage and watching, then obsessing about the sport of cycling, I did finally relax around the men in lycra and think little of it now (well, you know that's not exactly true...#cyclingeyecandy, aside). I don't flinch at seeing the 'pale moonlight' of a young crit racer just trying to avoid saddlesores from a sweat-soaked chamois. I don't blush when I see a guy looking like he has two pairs of tubesocks and a rolled-up bath sheet in the front of his bibs.
It's carried over to the next generation. My son wishes every pair of shorts had a buttpad, and was born thinking every household does at least one load of cycling laundry a week. I guess he'll never be modest either.
I feel sorry for his first girlfriend.