I live a mere ten minutes from the glorious Atlantic Ocean and am often at the local beach where, in summer, I bare my arms, legs, and belly in a bikini. Yes, at age 65. Come on, it’s hot, it’s humid, the froth-tipped waves beckon—of course I do.

But let’s be real. Sporting a bikini is not solely about the outdoor temperature vis-à-vis the extent of clothing coverage. Some of it, at least to my mind, has to do with vanity. And this summer, more than ever before, I’ve been wondering why I haven’t hung up those spandex scraps. After all, I am officially a Medicare-card-carrying senior citizen. Perhaps it’s time for something more (sigh) respectable, more (ugh!) appropriate.

To understand what’s behind my penchant for a two-piece, I decided to explore how I truly feel about my appearance now—and, to put my findings in perspective, consider other women’s swimsuit psychology as well.

A Bit About My Bod

As a mesomorph, I’m neither long and lean nor round and curvy. I lack the endless legs of a runway model as well as the ample assets society deems sexy. My body type is known as athletic, and while I never was a jock (in fact, I’m a total klutz), I did come of age when the noun “aerobics” entered the vernacular, and I caught the fitness bug early. 

I exercise daily in one way or another. While I enjoy activity (granted, riding my bike is more fun than planks and crunches), I also appreciate that it keeps me in decent shape. I never had the contours of a Kardashian or the limbs of a Twiggy, but I do have muscle tone. Those planks and crunches have produced abs I’m frankly proud of—not a six-pack, more like pull-apart rolls, but my best physical feature.

Daily exercise has produced abs I’m proud of: not a six-pack, more like pull-apart rolls, but my best physical feature. 

That said, I was an itinerant tanner through my thirties, and although I slather on sunblock now, it’s a matter of too little, too late. My skin is not just pasty but speckled, saggy, and patterned in spots like the ocean floor.

Wearing a Bikini at 65: Here’s My Wardrobe

I own three: two in black and one with a delicate flower print. They are not strings. They are certainly not thongs. Rather than itsy-bitsy demi-shape things, the tops tie around the neck to keep my boobs (such as they are) from a Janet Jackson-esque wardrobe malfunction. The bottoms have a high French-cut leg, yet they contain my butt (such as it is). Relatively modest but still definitely bikinis; in front, the bottoms reach an inch or so below my navel. Apologies to the late Nora Ephron, but I feel good about my belly, as anybody on the beach can plainly see.

Except my dear friend Raina insists that nobody does.

Am I Invisible Even in a Bikini?

When Raina and I first met in the late 1980s, she was an associate at an elite law firm, working a million hours a week—which didn’t stop her from going out to clubs and bars most nights. She’s barely five-foot-two and back then weighed about 100 pounds. Ultimately, she quit the law, moved to Los Angeles, and worked in the movie business for more than a decade.

During that period, witnessing how the industry objectified women, she lost her personal vanity. That may not have been her conscious objective, but she traded her precise dyed-red pixie coif for a gray ponytail, usually topped by a baseball cap. She stopped wearing makeup entirely. She also gained considerable weight, mostly in her hips and thighs (not her midsection, fortunately, so I needn’t harangue her for inviting health risks).

Retired now, Raina travels widely and spent much of last summer in steamy Southeast Asia, basically living in drawstring shorts, a sleeveless J. Jill dress, and her no-nonsense tankini. 

“I embrace my invisibility,” Raina says. “I can sneak into a second movie at the multiplex, no problem. I could probably shoplift and get away with it.” True, she admits, this is annoying when it comes to snagging a server’s attention in a restaurant, but for the most part Raina likes moving through the world with her no-see-me superpower. And as to my swimsuit issue, she succinctly says: “Nobody’s looking at you, babe!”

When it comes to my bikini-wearing, my friend Raina says, ‘Nobody’s looking at you, babe!”

I’m not sure I agree, however, that women our age are invisible. So I reached out to my network and found that Raina’s attitude is a full 180 from that of Helene. A fashion editor at a glossy  magazine where I once freelanced, Helene really has style. Like, she knew how to tie a scarf. And she could dash for a taxicab, graceful as an antelope, in stilettos. I remember she’d moved to Charleston, South Carolina—a beach town in its own right—so I was eager to hear her perspective.

The “No More Bikinis” Club

“A bathing suit? In public? Goodness, no!” Helene tells me candidly. “I do love to walk on the beach in the morning—but not in a bathing suit.” I can picture her in an all-ecru ensemble: fluttering linen shirt, enormous straw hat, pants cuffed just so. She doesn’t even try to pass it off as a sun-protection measure. “I have cellulite!” she confesses, as if selling military secrets to the enemy. “I wouldn’t let anyone catch me out in a bathing suit these days!”

One of my friends is firmly in the ‘I wouldn’t let anyone catch me out in a bathing suit these days’ camp

It surprises me that Helene, who formerly possessed a cool, casual body confidence, matured into such self-consciousness. But clearly she believes, as I do, that people look at each other—especially in situations with so much flesh on display. Wearing a bikini gives people all that much more flesh to look at.

When I’m at the beach, I look. Mostly, I look at the ocean; I can stare hypnotized by the crashing surf for hours. I look for seashells on my walks. I look at the birds, with a particular fondness for sandpipers. And I look at people. Damn right I do. I can’t avoid it—it’s the summer, and they’re all over the place, young and old, fit and flabby, free to beat the heat as naked as the law allows. I assume they look at me, too, should I enter their line of vision.

Sea and Be Seen 

What do they think when they see me? Are they offended by my audacity to strut my senior stuff in a skimpy suit? Or do they admire if not my figure, then my chutzpah? 

You know what? I don’t care. 

Besides, who’s going to call the cover-up police to come and throw a caftan over me?

I wear a bikini because I feel comfortable in it. I think I look just fine. No, Sports Illustrated won’t be knocking my door down any time soon—it’s my opinion (my vanity) that matters. Besides, who’s going to call the cover-up police to come and throw a caftan over me? 

Or you, for that matter. The point is, while I may be a bikini diehard, when it comes to beachwear—and beyond—we’ve earned the right to literally suit ourselves. If you’re like Raina in a tankini or Helene in her linen layers, it’s all good! Yet when I’m strolling along the shoreline and a bikini-clad woman of a certain age passes in the opposite direction, we always seem to see each other—and share a knowing smile.