The male rite of passage
In the 1950s and 60s, for many if not most boys, there was a male rite of passage that marked the end of childhood and the beginning of being a young adult. You probably think that this must be the first real orgasm that a guy has while wide awake, but this time I am thinking of something else.
What I am thinking about is the first time a guy is required to wear a strap, and probably a cup as well. At early ages, guys may not think their private parts need to be not only contained but protected from injury from the outside. I suppose the young baseball players are the first to be told that they need to wear a cup if they are going to play on a team. Part of this is something of a male tribal ritual that calls the notion that a guy’s organs are really important parts of his anatomy that should not be damaged in any way.
Getting a first strap and cup was always a “learning experience” for a young male. At some level, getting one’s head around the idea that he must wear this and still successfully play the sport was part of the challenge. But doing this was made easier by knowing that all the other guys on the team were required to do the same thing. Still, that strap looked mean as all get out. It fit closely to the body in all sorts of places, and gripped body parts quite securely. And adding the cup only increased the apprehension, as the guy knew trhe small cup would likely make itself quite noticeable bearing down on sensitive body parts. Still, the other guys were all doing the same thing, and if they managed, most guys were not going to back away. After all, wearing the jock and cup was a firm requirement for playing the sport.
Runners too, in the 1950s and 60s, liked to run in what we would now call short shorts—typically loose-fitting nylon shorts on occasion with a brief-style nylon lining made with the same material but sometimes unlined as well. Without additional protection, key body parts would simply flop around down there with every step. Basically, something needed to be worn so that the ‘nads stayed firmly in one place.
The solution, of course was to wear a strap of the appropriate size—large enough to enclose the genitalia and snug enough so the genitalia were largely held in one place step by step. A strap was generally an essential part of a runner’s running gear. But in the 50s and 60s straps tended to be rather “mean”, and as the runner took each step, those snug straps would cause chafing in the groin area wherever they came in close contact with the skin. The solution? Vaseline® of course. Routinely runners greased the entire groin area with Vaseline in all of the spots where the straps came in contact with the skin as well as where the edges of the pouch and the skin came in contact.
A runner might spend 15 or 20 minutes preparing himself for the run greasing himself up and getting his strap in exactly the proper position.
Bike® by far was the leading strap manufacturer with designs used without a cup and designs that generally included a cup. Cup designs in the 1950s tended to be smaller and less roomy than the ones we see today, but that made them more “interesting” to wear. Remember, compression gear had basically not been invented yet. The idea of wearing a compression short underneath the uniform with a cup pocket did not exist. Same for runners. Nowadays we thing of runners mainly wearing a pair of snug compression shorts with maybe a looser fitting pair of shorts that covers some of the compression short, but makes obvious the guy is wearing two layers.
The rise of the compression gear industry has had a lot to do with the decline of the jock strap industry. I suspect that the real straps now sell in only a fraction of the numbers they sold back then. Wikipedia provides a great history of the company here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIKE_Athletic_Company
Briefly, the article says the company was formed in 1874 and the early straps were intended for bicycle riders, hence the name. They also claim to have sold over 300 million straps over the years. Over the years they focused on “athletic protective gear”. They tried to market more general athletic clothing under the Bike name. I think the problem was that the Bike name was synonymous with jock strap and so marketing something under that brand was a non-starter,
The company was sold to the Russell company, another athletic wear brand. Russell became part of Fruit of the Loom, and FOTL was a brand owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s empire.Russell has had its own market problems, and in 2017 they discontinued making anything under the Bike label.
In my personal strap collection, I still have a few Bike® branded straps and some in pristine condition. I still regard being able to crawl into a strap as being a true male rite-of-passage thinking about all the guys who got to do this for the first time as young teens or even earlier. While compression gear is fun to wear too, every guy needs to have the experience of being strapped and cupped. It’s one of those great parts of just being a guy!