Part XXVII
 

Part XXVII

In the early-mid 1990s, Jockey sold a lot of these thongs under that brand through the major full-price department stores such as those that were part of the Federated Department Store group which then included more brands than Macys. Each one came in a little box. Fabrics varied from a really strong almost elastic-like material, a stretchy cotton-elastic blend with a bit less “kick” to an all-cotton version for the less daring. So part of the purchase decision was by choosing a different fabric, the wearer could get either more or less “kick” from the thong that was chosen. The all cotton version was easier to get into and out of although the band that made up the back still was a strong elastic.

Perhaps accidentally (but surely they must have known something) Jockey quickly realized some why these thongs were selling so well really amounted to what might be considered a great “toy” for self-pleasuring. I do not know exactly how this must work for other guys, but often my choice in underwear on any given day depends on what I am going to be doing that day. If there is something that is going to demand concentration and my full attention, I do not want sexual sensations in the groin area to distract me from the non-sexual task at hand. So on those days the choice might be a looser-fitting pair of briefs.

But on other days, not a lot is going on and I wouldn’t mind at all if during the day I were distracted by sensations from my groin area-no full erections or ejaculations of course. Under such circumstances, oozing a little precum is fine, but not enough to leave a spot on the front of my jeans. And wearing the thong, this dripping can go on for hours on end. The snug-fitting thong keeps me horny and dripping ooze all day long.

For a male college student, a Jockey thong would probably not be the right choice on a day when a tough exam was scheduled in a course. That is a loose-fitting underwear day for sure. But on other days, classes are simply a series of boring lectures being given by equally boring instructors, and a guy would be happy to be distracted a bit by sensation coming from the groin area. With the right thong (some would say “wrong thong”) a guy can ooze precum in tiny viscous droplets over the entire day, with the thong containing the translucent drops of precum and no one else being the wiser about what the guy is doing.

This is a really fun way to spend a day in part that when classes are over having done this throughout the day, her will be ready to have a stunningly powerful ejaculation after all this lengthy thong-induced precumming. Hopefully he will have made it back to an empty dorm room. Just another version of the whole idea that the longer you can learn to remain in arousal-precum mode, the more powerful and enjoyable the concluding full ejaculation will be.

So, there were days I had a lot of stuff to do at work—loose brief days—but also other, slower days—Jockey thong days. Having done this to myself I would arrive home from work ready to take full advantage of what had happened during the day, and how much I now wanted to get off now that work was over for the day. These ejaculations typically ended up being mind-blowing. Sadly, Jockey quit making these thongs in the late 1990s. They sold some updated designs but these designs never fit at all like the original nor were as pleasant to wear.

To be continued…
 

Part XXVIII
 

Part XXVIII

For a period of time in the 1990s, thong underwear was readily available in a host of different brands and designs. The big department stores may have sold a half dozen different premium brands made by companies such as Calvin Klein® and 2x(ist)®. There were all sorts of ideas with respect to how big or small these should be. The Calvin Klein version seemed to simply cut off the back from a cotton brief and replace the back with an elastic cord running from waisteband to pouch. The 2x(ist) version had what they called a T-back set up to only fit right if the band cut deeply between the glutes. I guess if I were to hand out a consolation prize in thong design it would have to go to 2x(ist) not Jockey. It appears that there is a current version of the 2x(ist) T-back thong still being made—these were completely off the market for awhile.

In the 1990s, even the big discount stores sold thongs for men. Target had a version. So did Kmart under their then “house brand” Joe Boxer® label. Jockey had their “Life” brand sold only at Wal Mart that included not only cotton briefs but also skimpier briefs in a choice of cotton or slicker stretch-Lycra® blends. For a time they were selling both fabrics in either colorful no fly bikini briefs, string bikinis (with the “string” usually being the elastic waistband or as a full thong).

These discount store brands typically featured a somewhat wider back perhaps one-half to three quarter -3/4 inches wide and made to stay on top of the guy’s rear and not cut between the glutes. Perhaps the designs where the thong back cut deeply between the glutes were a bit much for a lot of guys, and these designs were designed to appeal to a potentially larger group of wearers who were somehow not as interested in the erotic aspects of thong wear. After all, wearing a thong that is tugging and pulling in various places is something of an “acquired taste” for many guys. Straight guys in relationships also faced the problem of trying to guess what the female partner would think of him wearing a thong. Women always have their own ideas as to what a guy’s underwear should or should not look like. Nearly every guy grows up in a situation whereby mom decided what the boy should wear, and the idea of a guy even expressing a preference in this regard is normally something that happens long after puberty happens with some guys being young adults living away from home with mom no longer doing the laundry before they really get the opportunity to make their own choices.

Then there is the problem of how a thong work in a situation such as a gym locker room where other guys my age might be able to casually observe what I am wearing and whether or not what I am wearing is fitting and proper. This is what I call the “loose plaid boxers” phenomenon. A guy’s choice in undergarments is determined not by what he wants to wear but rather by what he thinks the other guys his age would want him to wear and whatever it is better not be too colorful or racy!

The other problem for straight guys after they get over the issue of wearing something mom might not approve is the problem of whether what I choose will meet the approval of my female partner. And this could be wildly unpredictable as to what is OK or not given that females to the extent they may know anything at all on this subject they probably learned from mom. Guys want to look sexy but at the same time dare not be too adventurous in this respect lest the female not understand and then loses it. The whole idea that a snug-fitting pair of underwear can be used as something a sex toy in masturbation s probably an idea that a lot of females will be unable to readily understand and accept as anything close to normal guy behavior.

I presume gay guys and gay male partners are more accepting and adventurous in this regard and that’s why a lot of a lot of the racier underwear styles seem to be focused on the gay male market. Two males should understand how each other is wired in this respect than a male and female couple.

The racier underwear styles in recent years seem to have increasingly moved out of the bricks-and mortar stores with the big selections now on the Internet. If a guy wants a pair of racy underwear, he can buy it in private and not have to deal with the sales clerk problem. Many uys worry about buying racy underwear when the sales clerk is female. What will she tjink of me doing this? What if the clerk is an older female the age of your mother? What will “my mother think? What if the sales clerk is a guy? If the item is too racy will the male clerk conclude I am gay? Is the male clerk doing the transaction gay himself and is that how he meets other gay guys? These complicated issues can all be avoided by buying on line.

The other thing that interests me is that the 1990s was a period of time when there was lots of options in skimpy underwear, briefs and thongs even as the jeans guys were wearing were always cut really loose and sloppy. Why were guys buying all this skimpy underwear that would make a lot more sense if the jeans that were being worn were skinny and body-conforming? Were guys buying the skimpy underwear to use as a liner to give some male support under the socially acceptable for any occasion plaid cotton boxers? Did guys find a way to remove the boxers and skimpy underwear together so that other guys would not even be aware of the existence of the skimpy underwear? These are some interesting questions.

I checked. It’s possible to still order “Joe Boxer” brand men’s thongs on the Kmart Website!

To be continued….

Part XXIX
 

Part XXIX

Then, starting in the first decade of the 21st century, everything changed again. Suddenly those sloppy-looking loose fitting jeans and tops that disguised a poor physique was out as a look, and the new look was both slim and athletic, showing off the toned calves, thighs and triangular chests and putting a premium on getting and staying in shape. This gave lazy guys a reason to get out and exercise while losing some weight at the same time. Suddenly, the idealized body was the swimmer’s physique.

With these changes, male underwear designs changed as well. With the new emphasis on having a toned body with clothing that revealed the effort, underwear had to shange as well. The sloppy plaid boxer shorts that were fine with equally sloppy oversized jeans simply did not work with the new athletic-emphasizing clothing styles.

About this same time the idea of guys wearing compression gear, both bottoms and tops, took off. This trend us intertwined with the founding and rapid grown of the Underarmour® company, founded in 1996 but whose products really took off at the start of the 21st century. NBA players were displaying tight compression shorts nearly to the knee and dangling below what were still sloppy basketball uniforms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Armour

If wearing compression short was OK for the highest paid NBA player surely this was something the ordinary guys would want to wear too. And sales took off. I also find it difficult to believe that the whole idea of having what seemed to be a reasonable excuse for wearing gear that fit really tight was probably a turn-on for a lot of guys. With the combination of being worn by the top athletes, some claims that such gear improved athletic performance, and the turn-on of really snug fitting gear sales went through the roof.

It did not take long for underwear manufacturers to decide that perhaps there was a place for a garment that was marketed as underwear but had the cut, look and feel of compression gear to find a market. But there were some differences. Generally from a practical perspective such a garment needed a traditional fly, lest the guy otherwise run into difficulty at the urinal. But bright colors other than white were in. Guys are going to be seen in places like the gym locker room wearing these.

What a replacement for those drab boxer shorts! Something that fits this snug and tight and is accepted in the locker room as being perfectly normal gear that may in fact enhance athletic performance. This is a great place to be!

During a lot of this time as well, jammers were the accepted swimwear at both the high school and college swimmers. I suspect many underwear manufacturers were looking at how the swimwear manufacturers were designing jammers in order to design the new underwear. One big difference of course is that jammers do not normally have a fly, but it is common for most underwear containing this much material to have a fly. A lot of the gear marketed as compression shorts can be and is worn without an additional layer, so the compression shorts usually lack a fly. And the material used in compression shorts usually compresses more than a similarly styled pair of underwear would. However there is lots of variation on all of this.

This begin a trend in men’s underwear styles that all used slick, stretchy fabric. For some time Jockey sold bikini briefs and even thongs under the “Life” brand in Walmart with your choice of either a slick stretchy fabric or what they called a stretch cotton. Cotton tends to absorb a lot of moisture but dries very slowly leading perhaps to skin problems. The compression-gear like fabrics tend to not absorb a lot of moisture but the moisture they absorb tends to dry out quickly. These fabrics tend to wick moisture away from a sweaty athlete.

To be continued…

Part XXX
 

Part XXX

Modern men’s fashion has continues to have some erotic elements to it. Given all that has been going on in men’s clothing design, it is not surprising that underwear is a lot more complicated than it was in the old “briefs or boxers” days?

I have been starting to believe that there are actually four not three different and unique “demands” for men’s underwear. I have added a new number 2.

1. What a guy might wear for normal everyday wear with much even thinking about it. This is the old-school ribbed cotton briefs or boxer-briefs versus the loose fitting blue plaid boxer shorts. There is little if anything that would make a guy feel horny wearing these. The ideal underwear is inexpensive and easily tossed in the washing machine each week. Think of your standard discount store items as made by companies such as Hanes or Fruit-of-the-loom priced a 6 for maybe $10. There is no point in showing off with bright colors or unique design as no one other than the guy wearing it is ever going to see it, expect perhaps your men’s dorm roommate and he probably wears something similar.

2. What a guy might choose to wear knowing that he is going to be in a gym locker room where other guys are changing in and out of street clothes too. Here is where the underwear that is styled to look like compression shorts might work and the guys wearing the traditional boxers and briefs might see you as being more of an athlete for choosing something that could look very close to a pair of compression shorts, maybe close enough to be mistaken for compression gear.

3. What a straight guy might wear on a date with a female with the hope and desire that things get hot enough so that she will actually get to see what he is wearing (and perhaps even a lot more).

4. Underwear designs and cuts that exist largely because they are very erotic and will be purchased as a “helpful” masturbation “aid”. The Internet retailers are filled with this kind of stuff, a lot of it out of Asian factories. This is not the kind of stuff you would necessarily find on display at a bricks-and mortar local Target or Wal mart, tho the on-line offerings for the same store may include examples. Part of the problem in stocking local retailers is that the really interesting stuff could prove embarrassing to buy, but the beauty of on-line retailing is that purchases can be made without having to deal with a store clerk.

I suspect that in the gay male world some combination of 4 and 5 get more or less combined, but gay males will probably also need underwear in categories 1 and 2.

So, how does the male, say in his late teens, perhaps at least somewhat interested in each of these categories, wander through these options to make wise choices? Well, for starters every guy needs to have some normal underwear, white cotton briefs or boxer briefs and maybe a couple pair of loose-fitting plaid boxers. This is not a big expense item from the big discount stores. The compression gear thing is so big that every guy needs to own a pair or two of compression shorts or tops. Check out “Tesla compression shorts” on Amazon. These can usually be had on Amazon for under $10. Then take a look at what Walmart carries as well.

To be continued…

Part XXXI

Most guys in their late teens are operating on a limited budget. A lot men’s underwear has gotten quite expensive and retails for $10 up to maybe $30 a pair. For a guy who likes to change into clean underwear daily this means any pair of underwear is going to probably be in the washer at least weekly, and most fabrics do not hold up well with frequent washing.

So if a guy is wearing $30 underwear for daily wear this could quickly get very expensive. Fortunately retailers still sell packages of daily wear underwear made of ribbed cotton in traditional brief or boxer brief style. A typical package nowadays contains 6 ribbed cotton briefs and at the discount stores such as Walmart costs $10-12 which brings the per-brief cost down to $2, maybe less. This becomes the practical daily wear solution even if the fabric is not the greatest for masturbation or sex.

But, these $2 briefs are not exactly what a guy would want to be wearing for a hot date. For that he needs a couple pair of date underwear, perhaps more depending on the relationship. I got to researching what a guy might buy seeking underwear suitable for a hot date. I ended up looking at the offerings from Hollister® on line which caters to teens. Their underwear offerings are interesting. A single pair costs $13 but they have 3-for deals for $30, which brings the unit cost down to $10—still expensive in comparison to the Hanes ribbed cotton white boxer briefs at Walmart, but probably doable. Certainly cheaper than a lot of the high-end “fashion brands”

Hollister offers just 4 basic styles plus a loose-fitting boxer. All of the basic styles (but not the boxer) feature a rather obvious male pouch

The basic styles appear to all be suitable for wearing under the skinny jeans they sell. The style include a traditional brief plus three other styles all cut snug like a brief but with longer snug-fitting legs. The shortest legged version is called the shorter-length trunk has legs that basically come down just to just below the bottom of the pouch, about a 1-inch length. A swimmer might call this a “sunga” style.

The classic trunk is the same except for a longer, 3-inch leg, What they call a longer-length trunk appears to have a leg about 6 inches long but the same otherwise. Each of these are available in a variety of colors and patterns. This is more than plain white but the colors are all subdued, black, gray, dark blue and dark red. Nothing too bright or “feminine”.

Same with the patterns. Solid colors, narrow stripes, tiny prints featuring the Hollister sea gull (flying bird) logo. Nothing too attention grabbing or even “gay” looking. But the Hollister brand name is usually prominently displayed on the wide elastic waistband. The material used in the underwear is always 95 percent fine (polished) cotton blended with 5% Elastane (Spandex®/Lycra®). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandex Even the loose-fitting boxer with wider legs has 5% Elastane, and oddly is a mix of cotton and polyester otherwise.

Hollister caters specifically to teenagers, but teen fashion can turn on a dime. The clothing chain has faced issues as more and teenagers started to think that they had outgrown the brand, and that the Hollister brand was for the “middle school kids” not the teens who were realistically thinking about engaging in an adult type of relationship.

So, perhaps it is not the wisest idea to have the Hollister brand name predominantly displayed on your waistband. The female you are attempting to have sex with may quickly conclude that if you are wearing Hollister you are too immature to have real sex with her. So I see that some of the trunks are available with a wide elastic waistband with only the seagull logo and not “Hollister” in large letters. Putting brand names on elastic waistbands is not a new idea. Recall the Back to the Future scene where Michael J. Fox got called “Calvin Klein.” The idea must have started with some of the big fashion names, but really took off when the compression-gear manufacturers started doing that as well. Now it is all but impossible to find compression shorts from obscure or well known brands that do NOT have a waistband with a prominent brand on it.

To be continued…

Part XXXII
 

Part XXXII

I have been studying changes over time in the materials used in underwear over time, and how all of this is linked to my four different demands for men’s underwear that I laid out. I grew up in a period of time in which men’s underwear and women’s underwear were very different. Men’s underwear was made of ribbed cotton. Generally, white was the only available color in part because dyed cotton could easily change the color of everything else in the same wash. the summer styles were either a brief or what was called a boxer brief with longer legs. Colored underwear was considered effeminate and not something a real guy would wear, apart from the fact that dies used to color cotton were not “color fast”

Women’s underwear more complicated. For women, the underwear covering the groin was more typically called a panty than a brief. Men wore briefs but women wore panties not the other way around. Panties were typically made of cloth other than cotton. Men sweated but women did not. Nylon was the commonly used fabric, usually in a pastel color. Unless blended with Lycra/Spandex, nylon was smooth but had no stretch. The typical all-nylon panty used elastic for the waistband and around each leg opening but fit loosely otherwise.

A lot of women probably learned basic self-pleasuring by fondling key erotic female body parts over the smooth-textured nylon panty. This felt, well, good! So buying nylon panties by women was part of female self-pleasuring. The companies that sold panties for women almost never overlapped with the companies that sold ribbed cotton briefs to men. That was the way it was back then.

Men had no such option—well almost no such option. Back then college guys liked to go on what were called panty raids of female dorms and sorority houses, sneaking in under cover of darkness and raiding (stealing) panties for the co-ed’s dresser drawer. What amounted to theft was all in fun, more or less.

What the college men (boys) actually did with the panties they stole is an even more interesting topic. I guess a lot of guys seemed to find it to be erotic fun to actually wear the panties obtained via theft. For a lot of guys, this would have been the first contact their penises would have had with slick smooth nylon. This felt really neat to the underside of the male penis. More than just an abnormal fetish, the idea that the panty had contained the erotic female body parts only added to the fun. Crazy stuff for sure, stuff a horny college student longing for intercourse with a female might pursue.

One sometimes thinks that using items of clothing as a masturbation aid is a relatively recent development, but that is not the case. What followed involved the development of male underwear that was made of smooth fabrics other than ribbed cotton and in designs that, objectively, looked close to what was already being sold to women. Men quickly figured out that stretchy smooth fabrics felt a lot better rubbed against a semi-hard penis than traditional cotton materials, but they did now want to let other guys know what they were doing.

In the meantime, companies mostly marketing to females discovered that women sweat too, and that cotton fabrics could be sold to women, but particularly if made in feminine colors and blended with Elastane. A number of the biggest companies—Jockey®, Hanes®, Fruit-of-the-Loom® that had formerly almost exclusively catered to men expanded into lines designed to be sold to women. This idea probably had its origins in various women’s movement events as in if we are equal to men in all respects then we should be able to purchase underwear from the same manufacturers as men do.

Enough on underwear. Time to move on to swim briefs.

To be continued…

Part XXXIII
 

Part XXXIII

It is interesting to compare the history of the Jockey® brand men’s underwear brief with that of the Speedo® men’s swim brief. Jockey claims to have been first with developing the idea for brief-style underwear for men. Speedo claims to invented brief-style swimwear for men. If this is all accurate, then which was invented first?

The Internet sites I have visited—manufacturer and Wikipedia claim that Jockey sold its first pair of brief-style underwear in 1935, but Speedo claims to have introduced the men’s swim brief in 1928, seven years earlier. So if these sites are accurate, Speedos actually appeared earlier than Jockey shorts.

The history of Speedo gets very complicated. What you know about Speedo originating in Australia is true, but things get complicated in that the company changed ownership multiple times over the years often appearing as a subsidiary of larger apparel companies, White Stag, Warnaco etc. Nowadays it is a subsidiary of a British firm that makes an assortment of athlete-focused gear called the Pentland Group.

Another complicating issue is that Speedo licensed the brand to other companies in various parts of the world such as Japan and South America. The sleek and skimpy Japanese Speedo looks different from a US Speedo in large measure because it is manufactured catering to Japanese male bodies and fashion sense not for the US market.

But the Speedo brand name has always been associated with designing really fast suits catering to the internationally-competitive swimmer. The brand has almost always been in the leading edge of this, but that history gets really complicated too, given that the company has been involved in the development of the full body suits and the varying FINA rules as to whether a particular suit was allowed or not to set international records.

Unlike what you may think, the original 1928 Speedo was a design that was supposed to take seconds off a swimmer’s time. The early thinking was that skin not cloth was always faster in the water and therefore minimal coverage suits would nearly always have the advantage. Bigger and loose-fitting suits would tend to contain water, slowing the swimmer down in competitions. Never mind that the minimal coverage suit tended to make the guy’s genitalia quite obvious even if covered with cloth. The ability of the suit to produce minimal drag was what really mattered.

The idea that cloth could be faster than skin is a comparatively new idea, which led to the Fastskin and LZR Racer suits—the suits that created all sorts of controversies involving international speed records with many of the designs being determined illegal by FINA rules. The Wikipedia article traces a lot of the controversies and how they have played out in recent years. Apparently record holders wearing suits deemed legal when the record was set were not forced to give up their records if the suit was declared illegal after the record was set. But this sometimes makes intertemporal comparisons of times difficult as in was the record set wearing what is now treated as an illegal suit?

To be continued…
 

Time out!
 

Time out! (Part XXXIII.A)

There is no point in identifying gear that has the potential to make you feel horny and happy without occasionally taking a break and laying out some ideas you might try using some of the gear that has been discussed in this long essay. I thought it might be useful to devote a chapter, maybe more, to describing in detail some of the ideas that I have successfully used over the years that I recommend. Now no two guys are exactly alike, and surely not with respect to turn-ons, but still, a lot of what I am messing around with is related to core male anatomy that all the guys have.

Having said that, sexual sensations can and frequently are very individualized, and thankfully no two guys are exactly the same. So exactly what I like to do to myself might not work as well for you, or it might work even better for you.

I have also found that my discussion of all of this is more detailed if I am wearing the gear as I write, which is exactly what I am doing today. The three gear items today are an underwear thong, a traditional old-school strap (this time without a cup) and a pair of compression shorts—those that could also be worn as an undergarment.

Getting into the correctly-sized thong can be interesting process because if the size is correct the pouch should be just large enough to hold your balls and flaccid penis. A lot of guys (me included) end up precumming a little just getting everything in its place where it should be. Do not become alarmed if you do, that is quite normal.

You will also find that you can snug up the pouch and its contents by making certain that the thong back cuts deeply between the glutes and does not simply ride on top of the butt crack. But in doing this the thong at the bottom of the pouch should be pressing on the so-called perineum area just behind your scrotum, a spot that some of you may not have fully appreciated was sexually active. A guy’s prostate lies internally just above that spot, and part of the sensations you experience with pressure there are coming indirectly from the prostate.

Once you have everything where you think it should be inside the thong, it is time to top the thong with your strap. The thong will want to push your equipment up and forward, while the strap will seem to want to push everything downward. The strap pouch also has a very different texture from the thong, kinda gritty rubbery. Generally I have found that positioning your penis in the “up” not down position works the best. That means that the underside of your penis will be pressing against the fabric of the layered pouches at the same time that the leg straps of the jock are trying to pull everything backward.

At this point, you would almost have to be brain-dead to not have your penis at least a bit engorged with blood. This is not a “normal” situation for your body to be in: your body knows that and will likely respond in its own way, “coping” as best it can.

One of the really interesting parts about having even the start of a hard-on is that the sensitivity of your penis changes rapidly even if you are well below full-scale ejaculation level. But, there is one more layer to go, that of the smooth snug-fitting compression shorts. The snugger the fit the better, right over the top of the pouches containing the now somewhat-engorged penis. Once you are into those, even the slightest finger-tap on the underside of your penis from outside the compression gear should send some fascinating erotic sensations coursing through your entire body.

One option is to simply kick back and enjoy the sensation as your penis gradually increases in size. But my option usually instead is to get on my stationary rowing machine or bike and kick back and enjoy myself as I exercise. The exercise routine breaks my focus so that I can go for long periods of time just enjoying myself while I work out, and my daily exercise routine just seems to go a lot faster.

It is always an interesting experiment for me to see exactly how long I can last and exactly what I dare do without immediately going into a full-scale orgasm, which I admit is fun, but kinda brings the sequence of events to a halt.

I would rather keep going for as long as I can in a semi-aroused state. At some point I will go into orgasm mode, but that can wait for now. Experiments that test how much of this sort of stimulation you can cope with without ejaculating are always interesting as well. Another experiment you can run is seeing how much precum your body is capable of producing, all neatly captured for study from inside the thong pouch.

I’m feeling a little horny right now.

To be continued…

Seeing how long you can hold it back before ejaculation is good edging training anyway.

Thoughts on just being a guy
 

Don't try finding out which brand came out first, just enjoy wearing Speedo brand swimwear that fit very nicely. I think the nylon or polyester material fits and feels better than the baggy cotton jockey shorts. I do remember when I was a teenager wearing the older thick nylon swim briefs with cotton lining, yet fit well and felt nice. They were hard to get off after swimming and really tickled, feeling the tight wet thick outside nylon coming off with the clinging inside wet cotton lining slowly slipping off my very young erection, especially when being helped out of it before showering. The newer and latest style Speedos, TYR, or ADIAS brand swim briefs feel much lighter, made with a comfortable fitting lycra nylon or polyester and nylon inside linings. They certainly do fit and feel a lot nicer than the earlier and older swimsuits, regardless of a guy's age and especially if he's in decent shape.