A long sleeved rashie

It's over! I've surrendered the last ditch and it's now all over; I've had to buy a long sleeved rashie.

For those not in Australia, a rashie (short for rash shirt) is a shirt you wear while riding a boogie board so that you don't get board rash in the surf. It's also worn by people swimming but not riding
to protect them from sunburn.

When you're young and well cut - or just well cut and wanting to convince the blithe spirits in bikinis that you are still the other - you wear it short sleeved and skin tight. A bit like a muscle shirt.

Now, even at my best, the only way you could describe me as well cut was to compare me to a well made string of paper dolls - symmetrical and skinny. My muscles were always about a half-tone flat and I didn't so much fill my clothes as provide a set of shoulders from which they could dangle in a respectably ironed way. But I was young and lean and, given that I had girlfriends, presumably attractive to someone.

Much as I hate to admit it, that was 20+ years ago now. These days, I do fill my clothes - very comfortably in fact. I am pleased to report that I am in no danger of my trousers falling down or anyone mistaking my inny belly-button for one of those weird outy ones. This is partly my own fault - I'm one of the Easter Bunny's greatest fans - and partly the gradual progress of the blithe spirit through the wearing of one's trousers rolled to the ultimate dying of the light.

My rashie is grey and very much a loose fit.

But I'm male. What is more important to a gently ageing male than the belief that he is still sexually attractive? We very happily delude ourselves that we've still got whatever it is that is abbreviated to "it", regardless of the migration of our hair from it's previous hilltop mansion to less salubrious neighbourhoods on the back, on the eyebrows, the ears and, ultimately, into the Great Nostril Retirement Home which is its ultimate destiny.

The world, however, is in a fight against us. And, believe me, we are at war.

The first victory is won against us by stealth. We have our first child and we are strapped into one of those Baby Bjorn style baby carriers. We take junior into the pouch and venture forth onto the highways and byways of the world. And we are mobbed by women. They come over and fawn all over us, smiling and simpering in ways we used to have to dream to enjoy. And doesn't it feel good! For about ten minutes. Then we realise that we've become honorary gay guys.

Gay people - don't take offence here. I am not using your sexual orientation in vain. I am just noting that women talk to you because they know that you're a safe bet; you really just want to be friends.

Men with baby carriers are honorary gay guys. Despite all the advances feminism has made over the last century or so, that baby still has to have been inside a woman somewhere and, given the fact that the guy has been entrusted with the offspring in public, it seems a pretty safe bet that not only was said guy responsible for putting junior in there in the first place but that he continues to have a relationship with the lady in question. You're a safe bet - it's like chatting to a gay guy.

One to the world and you didn't even see the assault coming. And down goes the manly index by a few points.

The next one you know is coming and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's called a baby seat. They creep into the car and no amount of casually thrown clothing will disguise the fact that you're no longer going to be putting up your stall in the mating market on Friday nights.

And the man points go down even further when you have two seats and, even worse, when you have to buy a different car because there are only so many of the damn things that you can fit across the back seat of the sports car.

In my case, I was reduced a couple of years ago to defending the tiny amounts of territory that my manliness had left by the fact that I had to buy a bus. Yep. I drive a minivan.

And that's the end of my female fan base!

So my man points were at bare minimum, I maintained a flag and a parliament but really, I was a puppet king of a puppet state; the homage to my masculinity reduced to but a show. I no longer commanded the respect of princes and the hearts of princesses. I was the ageing ruler of a faded kingdom.

Then the final humiliation. The final dethronement. The final debasement to serfdom. I had to buy a long-sleeved rashy.

No longer are my priorities the tanned skin to set off my fashionable boardies and cutting sunglasses. Now it's responsible protection against skin cancer and setting a good example for the kids. It's long sleeved shirts, broad-brimmed hats and leaping up to be a lifever (that's a lifesaver without the SA) at the first hint that my kids are wandering into water more than ankle deep and frightening my wife.

Then I'll drive them all home in the bus.