I have a friend who was telling me this very cool story about getting a chance to do set design for a bikini shoot. He was excited because of all the women he was going to get to see while watching them get bikini photos taken on his set design. He said that the photographer wanted him to do something of an urban style, like an alley way or something in a major city.

He was happy to let his skills be seen and immediately went about making the set. He told me how hard it was to get everything just right and all the setbacks he had but his eagerness to see the women in the bikini shoot made it all worth the hassle. That was, until the day of the shoot.

These bikini photos were for a specialty magazine that was showing off the new fashion of, yes, you guessed it, men’s bikinis. Now, my friend is a big fan of women in bikinis but when he found out it was for men he nearly gouged his eyes out. He couldn’t help but think that watching these bikini photos being taken would somehow make him less manly. He, of course, was wrong on that point.

He tried every trick in the book to not have to watch as the photos were being taken, but it never seemed to work for him. He would have to run on set with all of these guys in their new male bikinis and fix something. A prop would need to be moved to another spot, or the lighting would need to be changed. After a while, he started looking at it as just another job, and the bikini photos were not something that interested him anymore.

The really funny thing is he actually got asked to try one of the new male bikinis and have his picture taken in it. He said no quite a few times, but finally submitted, and some photos were taken of him wearing one of those bikinis. They were nice enough to give him some of the pictures. He showed them to me, as I was in disbelief that he would do something like that.

To this very day, I give him a hard time about being in a bikini and having photos taken. It seems like such an unusual thing for him to do that making fun of him is a good way to show him that I support his decision.