My New Grooming Channel

I absolutely adore the physical specimen of manhood.  I call it just shy of worshipping man.  And all this adoration makes me feel compelled to want to bring out the best in men’s physical beauty and their appearance. I absolutely love and adore the physical body of a man!  It gets me very excited.  It gets me very turned on.  You could say I’m boy-crazy but I’m really just man-crazy.  I’m just crazy for boys and men in general!

I’m also a huge lover of grooming.  When I moved to New York City 10 years ago I had the honor of working with Out Magazine to do a grooming series for a big corporate conglomerate!  There was a video of me training for the Gay Games and it included a jog down to Brooklyn Bridge Park.  A park that is very special and near and dear to me, of course!

So ten years after my Out Magazine partnership, it seemed like a natural fit for me to start my own Grooming Channel, paying forward all the lessons I’ve accumulated over the years. 

As men, we don’t really discuss grooming. I think because it is embarrassing but mostly because it is deemed “feminine.”  Oftentimes, men want to know how to do something, but perhaps they aren’t comfortable seeking out this advice. Well, if this sounds like you then you’re in luck because this space is for you!

I plan on covering everything.  Starting with the feet.  Foot fetishists, rejoice!  I haven’t told anybody this but you get it here on the BLOG EXXXCLUSIVE.  We will start with grooming the feet. 

Why?  Because feet, well,  they carry us through life.  They are sort of very important to take care of.  I am a very physical guy and my feet sweat a lot, so I’ll show you on the grooming channel all the small things I do to maintain good footcare.  The goal is to minimize sweat, thus keeping bacteria, fungus, and all sorts of gross pathogens at bay.

My wish is to keep things simple and economical.  It costs $65+ to get your legs waxed at a salon (probably more since I last went) and this is non-inclusive of tip.  This is expensive.  Especially when you can spend $9.99 on my grooming channel, $20-$25 on your own waxing kit via Amazon, and learn how to do it yourself… All in the privacy of your own home. Better yet, for the rest of your life!

Footcare first, and then we move up the body to leg waxing next.  And then after the legs are done, well.  You get my drift.  Sometimes it is nice to keep people guessing!

We embrace all forms of beauty here, of course.  If you want to keep your nipples hairy and the patch above your ass-crack hairy, that’s your decision.  But wouldn’t you want to know how to get rid of that ass-crack patch if you wanted to?  Wouldn’t it feel empowering to get naked and feel confident, knowing that everything is exactly as you like it for yourself?  Feeling beautiful: it’s such a gift! And it is a gift I would like to share with you.

Don’t be afraid of the self-indulgence.  I hope if anything, you feel slightly more at east with the idea of grooming and removing the shame and stigma surrounding men’s bodies.  Throughout it all my slogan remains the same: “a little goes a long way.”

So, if you’re interested in turning your body into a luxury, sign-up for my Grooming Channel today!

*kisses*

The Type Of College Swimming Coach I'd Be

I like to think of myself as a forward-thinking coach.  Part of being this way is understanding that landscapes are constantly changing in sports.  In this social media era of athletics and sports, it is important to remember and recognize that athletes themselves are now brands.

4 years ago I was at The Standard for a party (I forget which one but my friend Martin was hosting) and I was talking to somebody working at Balenciaga.  You know, before it got canceled.  Anyway, this diva was OBSESSED with Serena Williams.  I asked him why high fashion houses haven’t merged with sports stars yet, as this to me seemed like a marketing no-brainer.  He said he kept putting sports stars forward for partnerships and deals but that it was still a hard sell.  This I understand.  Everything in terms of casting in fashion is always a fight.

World Number 1 and current Wimbledon and US Open Champion Carlos Alcaraz is the brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton.

Fast forward to spring/summer 2023 and we have nothing but sports stars as the ambassadors for high fashion houses.  And no rinky-dink small up and coming designers either but Louis Vuitton babes, have ya heard of them?  Carlos Alcaraz was announced as their new brand ambassador right before winning Wimbledon earlier this year; Félix Auger-Aliassime is the brand ambassador for Dior; Jannik Sinner is working with Gucci and got special dispensation from Wimbledon to carry a Gucci monogrammed bag onto Centre Court this year.  All very prolific fashion brands with all very big sports stars.  We honestly love to see it!  The time has arrived.

The kids these days are walking brands and billboards, drawing great significance and importance to the causes near and dear to their heart.  I mean hello!? The white Nike bucket-hat Carlitos wore at Wimbledon sold out and I’ve seen several white buck-hat knock-offs since.  I walk past one at the Urban Outfitter’s window on my walk to Brooklyn Bridge Park every morning. 

We are living in different times now.  We are so close to living in a time where athletes are able to close deals and keep their full check while also participating at NCAA (college sports) in America.  This was not always the case when I was an athlete myself.

I hate to make it all about me and go Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite on that ass, but back in my day when I was a student athlete, we weren’t allowed to make money off our image.  We had to maintain “amateur” status.  This means we couldn’t swim professionally either.  If we swam professionally and won prize money, we got to keep upwards of what we could prove the trip cost.  So we had to keep receipts and proof of purchase and then whatever was leftover in terms of prize money we had to return. 

Can you imagine how depressing this was?  Winning prize money for your talent and not even being able to keep it.  For non-sensical reasons.  Oh my god how suffocating is that?  It was very strict.  We couldn’t even host swim clinics to make money or anything.  But this of course has all changed and I’m going to tell you how it all changed.

Image Credit: Donatella Versace’s Instagram.

Texas A&M Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel trademarked the name “Johnny Football” and alongside it came a lot of controversy.  It opened a pandora’s box of questioning the NCAA’s exploitation of student athletes.  Why did the NCAA seek to make so much money off the back of their athletes in the excess of millions of dollars yet the athletes themselves weren’t allowed to exploit their own talent, image, and namesake to make a dime for themselves?  It was sort of around this time that the media began tearing Johnny Manziel to shreds.

It did beg a good question at the time though: why is it that all these media companies can make so much money off the back of student athletes and their image, without the athletes themselves making any money off their own image?  It is absolutely non-sensical. 

And the Supreme Court of the United States agreed. In June 2021 during the NCAA vs Alston case the Supreme Court unanimously held that the NCAA may no longer restrict member institutions from offering education-related compensation and benefits to student athletes.  In laments terms: student athletes can now make money from education-related compensation, aka swim clinics.  This is a small step in the right direction but still a far cry from where we need to be.

Now there are legal challenges to the “amateur status” business model that the NCAA holds onto in order to keep their enterprise running.  It is only a matter of time before the student athletes are completely liberated from this very strange desire to keep athletes “amateur,” so media companies can line their pockets up with money.

As a coach in order to anticipate this change, when it comes to social media and trying to control the image of my athletes, I’m going adopt a laissez-faire attitude.  I believe that as a coach, there are far more useful ways for me to use my time.  Like writing engaging practices that are going to contribute to my team’s success.  This is what I’d rather be doing.  Rather than fretting over athletes’ behavior online.

Canadian tennis star Felix Auger Aliassime at the Dior fashion show earlier this year.

Controlling and policing social media isn’t part of the job description of a coach yet it has somehow become this unwritten rule and responsibility.  I have no interest in doing this type of work.  If I did then I’d apply to be a social media manager, not a coach. 

I’d rather spend my time finding ways to inspire my swimmers.  This is what the job is about: extracting my swimmers’ best effort at practice every day.  So much so that they’re going to care more for their recovery and post-practice nutrition than anything else.

As for going out, during my time at Texas A&M they encouraged athletes to limit their alcohol consumption to once per month.  At “Champs Class,” which is a compulsory class every freshman Texas A&M student athlete must take, we had a presentation on alcohol and all the ways it can interfere with muscle development, sleep cycles, and hormonal imbalances.  Once per month ensured minimal damage to the body and it takes about a month of abstaining from alcohol in order for the body to reset its tolerance.

Learning this as a student athlete was so helpful.  The Aggie Athletic department understood that kids are going to do what kids are going to do, so the least they could do is encourage their athletes to drink responsibly and in a way that is going to ensure their academic and sporting success.

This influenced me to only go out once per month.  I honestly think this is what saved my studies and swimming.  Not everybody adhered to this rule of course, but I did notice that the kids exercised more self-discipline and control around alcohol always had higher grades and performed better at the end of year competitions.

Jannik Sinner got special dispensation at this year’s Wimbledon to carry a Gucci monogrammed bag onto the court.

Kids are social creatures.  It is normal after all the stress of tertiary classes and mid-term exams to want to blow of some steam every now and again.  Sometimes it is necessary.  After a night of fun dancing or karaoke on a full moon, I feel more focused for the upcoming month.  It is very important to release tension!  As much as we want to think our student athletes are all going to sit at home and play the sims on their laptop every Saturday night, this is simply unrealistic.  Especially in a city like New York City where there is so much going on.  Don’t be naïve!

I’ve heard stories of coaches punishing their athletes because they posted that they went out on their Instagram stories the night prior.  I find these things really inane and rather silly.  If somebody goes out the night prior but then shows up to practice and turns out a good workout, what else matters?  Furthermore, all because they were out the night before doesn’t necessarily mean that they were drinking and getting rambunctious.  There were plenty of nights I went out in college and didn’t drink.  I was a considerate teammate too and would volunteer to be the designated driver.  Social media is the worst because so much is contextual and making assumptions over what a person is doing is such a waste of time and energy.

I’d like to work with an athletic department that allows me to coach in such a way that encourages but doesn’t restrict.  I think this is the way and this is the future.  These kids and their social media pages are brands.  Whether they are real or caricatures of themselves remains to be seen, but it doesn’t work in anybody’s favor to try and censor athletes.  Let them show off their personalities!  Sports is all about personalities.

Hiring me as a college swim coach is a big risk because I’m a bit of a lunatic online.  But please understand that online persona is simply this: an online persona.  It is performance art.  It is an overwhelmingly large personality in a space where personality is so desperately needed.  The sport of swimming needs to showcase more personalities!

I cannot tell you how refreshing it was to see and hear Cate Campbell talk trash about the American swim team on national television in Australia these last World Champs!  Finally, we are beginning to see some personalities from our swim stars.  People are starting to make things interesting.  I wonder what the inspiration was behind all of this?

America’s Breaststroke sweetheart and multiple Olympic gold medalist Lilly King talked trash right back!  Lilly isn’t new to controversy of course.  Do you remember when Lilly waved her finger in the ready room at Russia’s Yulia Efimova at the Rio 2016 Olympics?  Wow.  What a fabulous moment for sports!  It grew the rivalry and hyped things up for the final.  And all the drama that had led up to the women’s 100M Breaststroke final in Rio made it absolutely electric!

The mature executives in upper-management of athletics need to understand that sports is entertainment!  Yes, we all wish to exercise good sportsmanship but can’t we have some fun at the same time too?  These athletes work so hard for their bodies, can’t they show them off online too?  Nobody here is aging backwards.  Nobody here is getting any younger either.  We should be fostering an environment where people feel proud of their bodies, not shame.

There is so much room to grow in the sport of swimming.  So many stories to be told and lives shared.  It isn’t always the gold medalists that always have the most interesting stories that are needing to be told either: Yusra Mardini taught us that.  There is so much potential to grow this sport through the art of creation and story-telling.  I feel like this is what I’ve been brought here to do.

At the end of the day: it comes back down to the athletes themselves.  That’s the reason why we’re here.  This is why people tune in.  We want to see what the sports stars are wearing.  How they’ve cut their hair.  What brands they’re wearing.  We want to hear about the things that are near and dear to their heart.  We want to listen to what they’ve got to say.  We like it when they feed us parts of their puzzling personalities that are surprising, unpredictable, and interesting.

The time has come for all the worlds of entertainment to collide.  No more artists looking down on athletes and no more athletes looking down on artists, the lifestyle is the same at the end of the day.  We slave our guts out everyday to produce the best quality work that we can, and social media should be seen as the vessel and the medium in which we can choose to express that journey.  I’m a coach that recognizes this as an opportunity and less of a hindrance and I’m a part of that changing landscape and future.

This is the type of coach I’d be.  No nonsense when it comes to the day-to-day practices, but with enough room and space for my athletes to grow and blossom and develop their own winning identities and personalities.  The kids these days don’t even have to be very good to make money from their sport either, they just have to be creative, have an imagination, and develop a following.

Goodbye St. Francis Athletics Program

When I took the coaching job at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights it was only because I wanted to get lane space to host my private swim lessons.  I was weary of taking this job because I knew I’d become emotionally invested in the success of my swimmers.

For context of my emotional machinations: I have this really bad character flaw where I want to lean out of moments that have the potential to hurt me emotionally and I very much know the reason why I do this as well.  I do it as a sort of self-protection mechanism.  Perhaps if I don’t get too invested emotionally in what I’m doing then perhaps it’ll hurt less when I am not successful in my mission.

Living like this is impossible because you’re always having one foot out the door and you’re never really emotionally present enough to fully absorb all of the experiences that come along with it.  We do this to ourselves all the time.  A form of self-sabotage.  Brené Brown talks about this a lot with the human experience.  How we deprive ourselves of emotional joy because we’re scared it might go away later.

So in taking the St. Francis coaching job I really challenged myself to lean into the process emotionally.  I challenged myself to be emotionally present in every moment.  And while there were background whisperings of our program being cut, I chose not to allow that background noise to affect my sunny disposition when out on the pool-deck coaching.

Energy is contagious and I was always determined to have the most infectious positive vibe possible.

And even when some of the kids I coached had leaned out of the process, I continued to lean in because again this was the challenge that I’d set out for myself to accomplish.  Let me tell you this: when you put all your emotions behind something it does allow full potential for you to be devastated; however, on the other-side of the coin opposite devastation you also have the capacity to experienced unbridled joy.  And the amount of times I felt unbridled joy on that pool-deck coaching those kids will remain forever in my heart.

One part that stands out?  Watching every single swimmer improve their dive, underwaters, and breakouts by ten-fold.  When I first started coaching at St. Francis I couldn’t understand how we’d always lose the starts!  Consistently and across the board, everybody would be about a quarter to half body-length behind other teams every single time.

So we decided to work on dives.  And I taught everybody how to dive with all my experience and expertise.  Then suddenly, we were no longer losing dives at every dual-meet.  And then eventually we were WINNING dives at the dual-meet.  Then we started winning races that we wouldn’t typically win at dual-meets too!

Can I express to you how joyful it is to see your swimmers suddenly winning their races because their start has improved? Moments of joy like this stay with us forever.  And when these swimmers with outstanding eligibility move onto new colleges with new coaches, they can thank the Coaching Staff at St. Francis for giving them a great start!

On Monday 3/20/2023 St. Francis cut their entire athletics program, effective immediately.  Not just swimming and diving but basketball, volleyball, and all other sports.  It wasn’t a shock to me personally but I know that it was a lot to process for many of our swimmers, whom now unfortunately have to find new places to finish out their college swimming careers.

Despite knowing that this was highly likely to happen, I’m proud of everybody that I had the pleasure of working with staying emotionally invested this past swim season.  I apologize that this had to happen and obviously it is beyond my control.  Just know this: I am eternally grateful to everybody that I got to work with on this team.  All the lessons learned, laughs shared, and experiences are now sewn into the fabric of my coaching DNA.

I’m proud of myself for constantly staying emotionally invested even though I knew it would destroy me when it all came to an end.  I cried 3 or 4 times yesterday, which is highly unusual. I’m blaming this on the Saturn moving into Pisces planetary transit!  Naaaah, but really though the only reason why I cried this much was because I really cared. And there’s no shame in caring and giving things your best effort in life.  I really don’t know any other way to live it!

And for my darling St. Francis swimmers: I know it might be an anxious time full of fear and uncertainty, but please stay open and keep the faith that perhaps the new place you’ll land at will make you even happier than you were at St. Francis!  I only wish happiness for you all.  Remember that sometimes life isn’t about where we’re at right now but where we’re heading to in the future.  So, not to be corny and quote Catholicism but keep the faith y’all!  Keep the faith that you’ll land somewhere great.  I can’t wait to see where many of you end up and I’ll of course be following all of your journeys.

I’m applying for new coaching jobs now, which means that I’ll be needing to take things private in terms of social media.  Booooooo!  As much as my fans and loved ones enjoy and understand my sense of humor, my future employers might not be quite as understanding.  Self-awareness is key.  I know how I’m perceived online sometimes.  I’m not an idiot.  I def lean into it sometimes just for fun, whoop!

That’s something I really adored about being at St. Francis College, the ability and permission to be myself.  I would coach in my Britney Spears t-shirt (a gift) and orange sweatpants on pool-deck and nobody batted an eyelash.  It was dope.  I’m a wacky dude sometimes.  Have you read my tweets?  It’s why you love me, honestly.  But for the time being it is time to cosplay as an Adult for the foreseeable future and see where I, myself, land!

One thing is for certain, wherever I go I shall be giving myself generously and without fear.  Or perhaps a healthy dose of fear just for fun:

Amini Fonua's Tokyo 2020 Fundraising Project

Hi - I'm Amini Fonua, an Olympic swimmer from the pacific nation of Tonga who's training for the Tokyo Games in 2020. I made some headlines as one of the few openly LGBTQ Olympians at the Rio Games in 2016, not so much because I'm from a country where it's still illegal to be gay, but because I publicly criticized a Daily Beast article that outed fellow Olympians, including some from homophobic countries.

I spoke out against the dangers of outing and published a series of tweets that went viral, followed up by a number of media interviews, that helped to get the story retracted, with an apology. The International Olympic Committee ultimately deemed the article "unacceptable, which was actually the first time the IOC had ever acknowledged any LGBTQ presence.

I hadn't been publicly "out" long, and since Tonga is religious and very conservative, I was nervous -- but I was obviously one of the few in a position to speak for the many athletes who weren't ready, or didn't feel safe, being out. That's a decision all of us should make on our own,  particularly when our lives are at stake.

One thing I never expected, just for speaking up, was the outpouring of heartwarming support I received -- and not just from fellow athletes. Outsports named me "Male Hero of the Year," the Los Angeles LGBT Center presented me with its Vanguard Award at their anniversary gala, and Out Magazine included me in its "Out 100" list. And though Tonga didn't welcome me home as a hero, they didn't censor me. Believe it or not, I think I'm helping to change hears and minds there and I've still got a strong chance to earn a shot to compete at the Tokyo Games next year.

Here's the thing, though -- I don't receive any training support from my country. It's not a homophobic thing; they don't support any of their athletes. It's all up to us.

While training for the Rio Games, I spent every hour that I wasn't training or sleeping, working as a barista. I've got a bachelor's degree in Telecommunication and Multimedia from Texas A&M, but it's not feasible to have a full-time job while training for the Olympics. And since my work as a Starbucks barista offers a flexible schedule with health benefits, I'm still doing that today. But because expenses are so much greater than they were four years ago, I'm working close to full-time to support myself, leaving no time for training.

I do have some side hustles that help me get by. I teach private swimming lessons in the NYC metropolitan area, offer mentoring sessions to high school athletes hoping to swim in college, and I’m set to launch my own collagen hair oil mask promoting hair thickness called “Tropikaux” this spring.

I recently moved from the SF Bay Area to New Jersey, where things are cheaper, but it's still more than I'm able to manage on my own. That's why I've started this GoFundMe. I have a very real chance to qualify for the Tokyo Games, my third (and most likely final) Olympics. But for the first time, I'm asking for help -- and I'm more anxious about doing that than I was speaking out against that horrible Daily Beast article. 

Any money I'm fortunate enough to raise will go toward travel & accommodation for competitions, high quality racing suits, training equipment, coaching, health insurance, post-workout recovery and body maintenance (acupuncture), food & nutritional supplementation, and transportation to and from workouts.

I have a few qualifying competitions between now and next summer, both in the US and abroad, but my main competition will be the 2020 Oceania Championships held June 15-21 in Suva, Fiji. I am a two-time Oceanic swimming champion, so I have experienced great success at this competition before.

From the bottom of my heart, I can tell you that any donation you make will be gratefully received and support a stronger LGBTQ presence at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Thanks for hearing me out!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/4skxp-amini-fonua-road-to-tokyo-2020?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

My GoFundMe Project for the Road to Tokyo 2020

I recently did the “5 Rings to Rule Them All” podcast on Outsports and I talked about starting a GoFundMe campaign for my Tokyo 2020 journey. This wasn’t an easy decision to make and it is still one that I struggle with.

However, when I think about what I’m swimming for these days, I realize I’m swimming for so much more than myself. I’m swimming for queer visibility at the biggest sporting stage in the world. I’m swimming for the LGBT community that still feels alienated and marginalized from sports.

But most of all, I’m swimming for my small part of the world where it’s still illegal to be yourself, alongside 70 other different countries in the world where homosexuality is also illegal. I’m trying to inject hope into an entire generation of young people living in these places to show that you can be your true self and still be successful.

So I write this blog post to let you know that my GoFundMe project for Tokyo 2020 will be going live soon and I’d really appreciate your support. I’m telling you that this journey will not end once I’ve found the adequate funding, it’ll only be the beginning. I hope to share with you all this adventure through my blog and various social media.

It has been shown that GoFundMe projects have a higher chance of being successful if you raise 30% of funding within the first 48hours, so please let me know if you can help and I’ll be sure to let you know once the project goes live!

Peace and blessings,

Amini

Why I'm Still Swimming

I’m still swimming because I believe I have yet to swim my fastest race. My performance at Rio 2016 was humiliating. I flopped at the biggest sporting event in the world, and I for one would like a do-over.

2015 was a lightening year for my swimming career, and all was working extremely well for me leading up to 2016 before I got sick. “Sick” is an understatement, I got incredibly ill. My issues were gastrointestinal and my digestive system completely gave up on me. I knew something was very wrong with my body, but no doctors were ever able to diagnose my pain and nobody could tell what was wrong with me.

What was supposed to be the most exciting time of my life, training for something I’d worked my entire life for, had turned into a living and walking nightmare. I hate that I’m even sharing this with you because it paints me as such a victim, and maybe that’s why I’ve gone so long without sharing this part of my story, because I want to remain seen as a strong and resilient person, but this is honestly what happened.

Training for an Olympics is no joke, it can be very serious and very stressful. My body giving up on me added a whole new layer of complications to the training process. I would cry driving to swim practice. I would cry driving home from swim practice. I would cry because I couldn’t even finish swim practices. I would cry out of frustration for falling short of my full potential, not once or twice a week, but every single day. I would cry out of frustration with a lack of understanding, truly understanding, what was happening to me and my body. I would cry because I knew something was incredibly wrong, very very wrong, but everybody around me was saying I was fine.

I was repeatedly told by many qualified professionals that nothing was wrong with me, and without a diagnosis to fix the problem, an entire new layer of misery was added to the training process.

This isn’t how training for an Olympic games race is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be serious, yes, but more importantly than that, it’s supposed to be fun, but I was having no fun at all. It was one of the darkest and most depressing times of my life and I’m so glad and grateful that it’s all behind me.

Anyway, long story long, I eventually got fixed by an acupuncturist, but by this late stage of the game it was May, and I only had 2 months left to prepare for the Olympics. I had run out of time and that was why my race was so abysmal: a lack of preparation due to dysfunctional bowels.

Fast-forward 3 years later, I still haven’t found a doctor that could properly diagnose and fix me, so I did what all champions do, I found ways to fix myself. My coach at the Rio Olympics, Sandra Burrow always told me: “A winner finds a way, and a loser makes excuses,” that perfectly sums up the equation of sports. I found a way to fix myself through alternative medicine, but I also got a lot of help along the way. I’d like to give a special shout out to Daniele Albert, my former trainer at Texas A&M, whom was a supreme source of information on how to heal my gut through food. I now see food as a life source, as medicine, and it taught me how to listen to my body after every meal so I can learn how to get to a place of everyday optimal health.

It wasn’t an easy journey, one that took years, tons of research, reading scholarly sources, venturing into the health and wellness blogs, and immense amounts of trial and error, but I finally fixed myself and I’m never looking back.

A big part of why I want to do Tokyo 2020 is that I’d like to help people who are living or who have lived through similar experiences like I did leading up to Rio 2016. I see myself as a valuable resource of information for people who want to get their gut health back in check. Going through the misery and pain of my past gut health issues isn’t going to be all for nothing, my purpose this time round is to pay it forward and help others who are living through these digestive issues. I want to share with the world how I fixed my gut health issues, reclaimed my life and vitality, and allow people to follow me on the Tokyo 2020 journey along the way.

I’m going to swim fast next year, I can feel it. I hope you can all accept my invitation to join me on this exciting journey and incorporate some healthy lifestyle changes into your daily routines as well!

Peace and blessings,

Amini