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Originally Posted by PSDave
It is interesting that International Male and Undergear didn't impress you as a gay store. It was my thought from the beginning that they were both directed at the gay male. However, my thoughts were stilted by the fact that I visited their shops in West Hollywood -- the gay mecca of Los Angeles.
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Well, my first exposure to International Male was when I was in grammar school, long before Undergear came about. I regularly saw the advertisements in the back of the LA Times newspaper's Sunday "Home" magazine.
I was intrigued by the "Buns" brief and the "Scoop" undershirts. I was interested in the gear they advertised there, because it was not the standard baggy white briefs that I was familiar with as a kid. Maybe the products and ads were aimed to homosexuals, but I didn't see it. At that age and back then in the 70's, "gay" was not as prominent in people's minds or as well known--or at least it wasn't to me in my innocent youth. I believe the term "queer" was used at that time, but didn't understand what it meant other than odd. It seems that "gay" became the universal slang term a few years later. Of course the terminology is irrelevant, except to explain my ignorance of it at that age.
I couldn't find the exact display ads that I had seen in those days, but this ad does feature those two products that first caught my eye.