Blogs and Stories
Men Who Love Lycra
by Will Doig
Will Doig is the Features Editor at The Daily Beast. He has written for New York, The Advocate, Out, Black Book and Highlights for Children.
A growing number of people are living their lives encased head-to-toe in Lycra. Will Doig goes inside the fad that began in Japan and is coming to an American suburb near you. Plus, view our gallery of the outfits in action.
“We were online, and I saw this link and it intrigued me: a person encased in a suit,” says Ben, a 25-year-old computer programmer from Irvine, California. “My girlfriend thought it was the weirdest thing she had ever seen.”
But Ben saw something else—something he didn’t even know his life was missing. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. After a couple of weeks of bringing it up, I convinced my girlfriend to let me buy one. Finally it came in, I put it on… and I felt free.”
Click Image Below to View Our Gallery of People in Zentai
What Ben found was Zentai, the practice of cocooning one’s self from head to toe in a skin-tight bodysuit. Some Zentai devotees spend hours each day this way, and the reasons they do so are as varied as the suits themselves. The first thing Ben noticed when he slipped into his new Zentai suit was that he liked the way it looked. “It smoothed out all the imperfections,” he says. But even more appealing was the almost overwhelming sensation of security. “It’s like a portable safety blanket,” he continues, “like you’re pulling the sheets up over your head.” Another Zentai enthusiast, a 23-year-old student from Cincinnati named Darryl, describes the feeling of Zentai as “an all-over hug.” (Some last names have been deleted to let private enthusiasms remain private.)
Ben and Darryl have committed to living a good chunk of their lives swaddled in their cozy Zentai suits. They mainly dress in Zentai while alone in their homes, going about their personal daily routines. But other Zentai enthusiasts wear their suits in public and bask in the reactions of startled passers-by. “I’ve been quite happy living as a human silhouette,” says a 24-year-old British woman who goes by iZ, and who wore her Zentai suit almost around the clock for the entire month of February. “I find it very calming,” she says, though she admits that her roommates are a little freaked out.
Zentai originated in the 1980s in Japan, land of synthetic fibers and off-the-wall trends, and has recently begun migrating west. Google Street View captured three metallic-gold Zentai pedestrians in London’s West End. A Zentai party was recently held at a club in Berlin. At an NHL game in Canada last December, two men in green Zentai suits harassed a player in the penalty box. Zentai enthusiasts in France are fretting that the country’s anti-burqa laws could be applied to them as well. And in America, Zentai is finding followers in states red and blue.
“We’ll just go out in public in them,” says Dave Lee, a 28-year-old small-business owner from Walton, Kentucky, whose Southern-twanged syllables spill out of his mouth in stream-of-consciousness style. Unlike Darryl and Ben, Dave and his girlfriend, Trisha, a registered nurse, will go virtually anywhere in their suits. “We go to the Florence Mall,” he says. “We go grocery shopping in them. We’re pretty well known here in Walton.” Surprisingly, the threat of humiliation hardly crosses his mind. “You do have fleeting thoughts, wondering if someone’s going to say something bad, thinking to yourself, ‘What will I say back?’” But he says that more often than not, people are simply curious. Once they were stopped by a cop who wanted his picture taken with them.
Most of Dave and Trisha’s private time is spent in Zentai as well. “Making dinner, watching TV, having friends over—we’ll pretty much wear them whenever we’re at home. As soon as we get off the phone with you, we’ll put them back on.” He says their friends don’t even blink. “At first they were like, what the hell is that? Why are you wearing it? But after the first two times they didn’t care anymore. My buddy and I will be playing Xbox, and I’ll be wearing it and he won’t be, and we’re just sitting there killing terrorists.”
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DicedPeas
Sure its fun now, but sooner or later the morbidly obese will start wearing them to the mall. LOL
pinababie
hahahaha.... that's funny
tijdi09
I found out about zentai after watching Muse's video for their song "Supermassive Blackhole". It includes one obese actor in zentai, to save you having to imagine it. :-)
Love Muse. Intrigued by Zentai.
DM3000
Greenman is a trend setter.
http://www.collegehumor.com/greenman
Lindseyjo22
Greenman anyone? Charlie is the original Zentai wearing superhero:) Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia!!!
JKOak9
Something tells me the guys yelling at players in the penalty box (see picture gallery above) are much more likely to be "Sunny" fans than early early adopters of an odd Japanese fashion trend!
theschmooze
You know the old expression, "I thought I had seen everything". Guess not! Does the lycra make you feel aerodynamic?
Kazander
I'm sure this article will have a whole bunch of people freaking out despite how it's another very interesting interest that really does no harm to anyone. More power to you guys! Glad you're living how you want!
DakLak
Bloody stupid - anything for attention.
redjacob01
Another group of weak men and women creep among us. How we accept them when they cannot even accept themselves?
The "creatures" in this article are not even 30 years old. They have been legal adults for about 12 years and they can't even cope. They are doomed already.
iZentai
Doomed to what though?
I find it amusing how there seems to be a specific prescription to how one "should be an adult"...if it means being miserable, and refusing to accept that the world is full of different things and people and perspectives on life. Then you can keep it.
Just because this article managed to find people willing to share their experiences happen to be under 30 doesn't mean there are plenty of Zentaists out there over 30 who enjoy it too.
latex123456
I couldn't agree more. I also think women are way too easily weirded out and judgmental by something that's different. I don't have a suit like that myself but I can fully understand the appeal. I love the feeling of being hugged all over in a tight wetsuit. I'm over 40 and I also like big inflatable animals.
slave-angel
It is pretty pathetic and yet so expected that there would be a response to this article such as this one and a few others listed here... It is sad that with all the diversity that we as humans encounter in our day to day living, that someone can be so judgemental about how someone chooses to live and enjoy their life.... Maybe you should look for a way to enjoy your life. It is interesting that you make such a comment about people involved in zentai being under thirty years old... when in fact there is such a more diverse age group than one would expect in zentai... It amazes me that people such as yourself feel that just because this article speaks of enthusiests under thirty, there there arent tons more older people out there, you must be doomed because you forgot about the rest of the entire world where zentai has become very common and accepted, mind you... Obviousley your the one who cant even cope... people who can cope well with themselves are accepting and open minded with others... I assure you with my Bachlors degree in Nursing that I am very well aware of how to cope. If you would take the time to be open minded and research before you speak you will find that most of the community enthusiasts are extremly educated and very well in control of their lives as well as their ability to cope... Your judgement upon our community is like saying that people who do ballet are doomed because they also wear spandex daily... and are mostly all under 30... When in fact ballet participants also are very well adjusted and very well in control of their lives... Wearing zentai does not mean that we are weak as a person... zentai is a hobby just like working on cars or skating, or painting... it is an art, it feels good and gives us sensations that we as humans per personal choice enjoy as you enjoy you hobbies.... did you ever think that those of us zentai enthusiasts wear it in public as we do not for attention but to make people laugh... to make someones day better by just a smile... or by just getting out and feeling like a million dollars because of the way it makes you feel? Dont judge us.... we enjoy what we do and us "creatures" are happier because of it... we arent asking you to accept us.... we dont care to be quite frank.... to be quite honest i go out in public with dave (one person of which the article is about) alot and have never had a bad reaction... people on the outside of the fetish enjoy it as well... Im sorry but if you think that we are weak... you have alot to learn... we are some of the strongest most well adjusted people in the world... yeah right you say?? Well we are an open minded, accepting, non judgemental, and caring group of people, we dont care what you do.. what your into, what you do or dont do for a living, or what color you are... im sorry that you feel this way about people you have never met and about something that you have never tried... I hope that you will become stronger as a person and learn to cope with everyones differances.... Have a Wonderful day... and Smile once in a while...
Sincerly,
Trisha (from the article your too weak to cope with and understand...)
rufustfirefly
There is nothing more fucked than a human being.
Hotfrostins
Yeah, thats all we need millions of colored Zen sausages walking around all over the place. The upside, someday we may not have to see people picking their nose in public.
Badflasher
This reminds me of an asinine poem I once wrote about the prevalence of pantyhose fetishism in Tokyo called 'Nylons on Fire.' (link to more on topic, following....)
Nylons on Fire
Hotel rooms, lifts and hallways
Calves sweep floors like brooms
Do the men downstairs know
How you pose-down in their rooms?
Why in your society
Are legs so duly prized?
Men stalk you with cameras
Electronic beady eyes
Escalator climbing
Subway car sit crossed
Waiting for the light to change
Shoes get softly tossed
All the colors are the same, too
Tan, unless they're wet
Then of course dark brown seems black
What style did you get?
Office Lady bending
Salary man buys fries
So polite in email
He lasers out your eyes
I have your sisters bookmarked
Two hundred some odd sites
All of you in nylons
Left goes over right
Why is this so persistent?
This pant-stock game of yours?
I've not yet found the answer
But I'll be vacationing there in September
No, really.
I hope to find out.
***
I don't really have an interest in this particular apparel, but can't knock those who do. I can tell you, tho, that wearing pantyhose for several hours is hard enough - I cannot even fathom wrapping myself up in this stuff - unless, of course, I was suicidal and wanted to do a SuperHero Swan Dive off a tall building and go out in style. But I've always preferred electrocution on the Third Rail of the NYC subway over jumping anyway. Jumping means you might kill someone at the bottom. Not good. Third rail? You screw up someone's commute a bit, sure, but no one else gets hurt.
Max
badflasher.com
dweebmann
inhibitions and intolerance go hand in hand. The less thoughtful will always condemn first, and justify later. Their preconceptions and prejudices will look as quaint and stupid in ten years as they themselves do now.
iZ's zentai project was a hilarious foray into perceptual reality, as evinced by the range of reactions she received in zones of tolerance and intolerance around the city.
Curiosity is universal, and so, it would appear, is a certain level of ignorance among (mostly) men of the difference between sexuality and sensuality.
Tactile awareness probably accounts for about 50% of closet crossdressing by such "manly men", who see their own fetishjes in purely sexualised terms.
The reactionary nature of some of the more basnal and thoughtless replies above is by no means unique, but carries with it an unspoken acknowledgement of the posters' comfortable anonymity. A bit like a zentai outfit, really..
Hao dew yew spel hipperkrit?
*zzzzzzzzzapp!*
Lycraboy
I'm french and i live in Paris... I discovered "Zentai" in 1998;and now i have 56 zentais in my closet bought on webshops...i created my blog with my wife and friends : http://lycrazentai.blogspot.com
Lycraboy
Andrew Volk
I think it's interesting! There is now a business in the US that supplies these zentai suits, or, as they call them, Super Fan Suits. http://www.superfansuits.com
peopleincrowds
I've been wondering the same thing lately...I've seen it in public several times. I even posted a pic on my blog in January...http://peopleincrowds.com...what's up with this?
Ithinktoomuch
I love how the auther thinks the 2 guys at the hockey game are in to Zentai. Green man anyone??? I was him for halloween a few years ago and I had never heard of Zentai. I love TDB but a few of these writers are hot garbage.
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