[sebbie]

International Male at the time gave straights an understanding of what was then a separate gay male culture, part of which was that gay men acted and dressed differently from straight men. For gay men, the clothing was all part of being part of the group.

As gays have gradually been assimilated into a mainstream culture and acceptance that is not defined by a particular sexual orientation, I suspect that there was gradually declining interest in and purchasing of clothing items of all sorts that could readily be seen as somehow "looking gay"

Most gay men like the new world that is evolving, where they are not seen as something different but very much part of everything normal. But that means a gradually declining demand for clothing items that would identify gay men as being gay and part of a separate subculture identified as somehow different. The gay marriage thing and the rapid acceptance of that idea is part of this whole mainstreaming lets not wear clothing that identifies us as different etc, which means declining demand for the International Male Undergear stuff.

MEANWHILE, if I want to shop for a sexy swimsuit, thong or compression gear, I have a host of lower cost vendors than Undergear with interesting stuff to choose from, starting with all the Amazon vendors but going also to all the Asian operations like the vendors in Aliexpress not to mention mainstream "Brief" vendors like Swimoutlet. If I really want clothes to wear that accentuate my male body parts there are dozens and dozens of sources still selling a wide array of goods at reasonable prices.

So, am I interested any more in buying stuff from a vendor that is set up mainly to cater to a "traditional" or old school gay clientele? Not really.

I THINK the California company that ran International Male and Undergear was in serious financial problems at the time IM was closed, and Hanover bought the Undergear brand thinking they could keep it profitable. Its just gotten to the point that running this as a catalog/online operation is no longer a profitable business.

If you want to blame this on something, maybe blame it on how rapidly gays are getting assimilated into mainstream culture in recent years.

As another example, you have Tim Cook, running Apple, and know one knew based on his appearance that he was gay until, just for the fun of it, he decided to announce it. Straight men did not quit buying Apple stuff because of the announcement

But then, you have the now ex-CEO of A&F, obviously gay and with successive plastic surgeries in vain attempts to keep looking like a young gay male, who ran a teen retailer with what could best be described as gay male- themed advertising, despite the occasional bows to heterosexuality with young sexy men and women together in ads. All of this was more than a little weird For some time, the retailer was very popular with teens, and they flocked to wear the branded A&F clothing. But suddenly this all became very uncool, and the kids started staying away in droves. The CEO got dumped and A&F is trying desperately to revamp their bare-chested male image with their customers. The ex-CEO must have had a fetish for flip flops and button fly jeans on males and other weird stuff...The flip flops and bare chests have all but disappeared, and some of their jeans now have (gasp) zipper flies!

Go figure.