[sebbie]

Part CIX

Every guy has a preference as to what style and fit of underwear he likes to wear. These preferences do not necessarily remain constant throughout, say a year, but may vary depending on a number of factors. For younger guys at least, maybe older guys as well, a continuing concern is that of “will anyone see me wearing this, and if so, who?” Young guys constantly worry about being teased or worse, if seen wearing underwear in, say a gym locker room, that varies too much from what the other guys are wearing in the same situation. So there is a “herding instinct” that goes on in that guys are interested in figuring out what other guys their age are wearing in order to conform to “the norm” in any situation.

In temperate climates, climates such as where I grew up, the temperatures can vary widely from the summer months to the winter, and a practical consideration is whether or not the weather has turned cold enough to merit wearing say, pair of long johns versus a brief. I presume that guys living in a warmer climate, say Florida or southern California, do not need to be very concerned about all of this at all, and wear pretty much the same cut and style year around.

Then there is the issue of being in a relationship where for whatever reason, a guy knows that his underwear might be seen by the other party in the relationship. Something nicer (more expensive) and maybe even sexier (whatever that is) may be the appropriate choice. This is where the market for underwear costing $25 a pair designer underwear potentially comes into play, not the 3 for $10 (or even 5 for $10) cotton briefs from the discount house.

The other big issue is that what is popular among men as to the go to underwear does not remain forever constant, but changes over time, and some of these changes are quite dramatic.

I grew up as a teenager in the 1960s. Practically every one of my peers wore white cotton briefs with a fly, or maybe occasionally what were called boxer briefs that were the same design but with a slightly longer but still short leg (maybe a 2-inch inseam). The white cotton fly front brief was so popular that in a group of students maybe one in 25 or even one in 50 wore something different. Talk about herding instinct. In the winter, a lot of guys switched over to a white cotton long john that fit snug all the way the thigh and calf so that a guy could pull on jeans over without it being readily apparent that he was wearing long johns. But I presume guys growing up in warmer climates just stayed with their white cotton briefs year around.

The cotton briefs always fit quite snug. The guys were at the age where they were growing rapidly and as a result guys quickly got used to a snug fit. After all the underwear were still in good condition even as they kept fitting a bit snugger and snugger. So guys got “used” to being in briefs that fit quite tight.

Thinking back, this was also a period of time many guys chose to wear swim briefs for regular swimming and related activities. The fit of the briefs was not significantly different from the fit of the combed cotton underwear. Guys had seen all their buds in the cotton briefs anyway, so seeing your buds in a swim brief was nothing that was considered odd at all. Lots of guys did this.

Early in the 1960s, nearly every cotton brief was white, this in part due to the fact that mom washed the briefs with the other white clothes. Had they been dyed there was the problem of how to wash them for fear that the less than colorfast dyes would soak into the other while clothes. Besides, a colored brief was considered by the male tribes to be effeminate. Guy’s briefs were white and always had a fly. Colored briefs and especially colored briefs without flies were “for girls” and the kind of thing a guy in a gym locker room would be teased about. Of course, the swim briefs of the time were both colored and without a fly but that was swimwear not underwear so that was OK. Besides, a guy usually did not wash his swimwear in the washing machine but merely rinsed it out.

By the mid 1960s, manufacturers were starting to experiment with more colorfast dyes for combed cotton, and we started seeing the first combed cotton briefs in color. Still only the truly daring guys were going to be caught wearing these in the gym locker rooms. Now date night---that COULD be another matter. Still, the guy dating a girl did not want her to see anything that would lead her to believe that he was gay in any way, and a colored brief may leave an unintended impression. So I suspect gay not straight guys were often the first to adopt the idea of wearing a colored brief.

By the late 1960s into the early 1970s, there were several interesting developments. First, the briefs were getting briefer, at least some of them. Second, more and more you were seeing colors other than white as dyes became more colorfast. Third, as the briefs became briefer, some of them were starting to be marketed to guys as “fly less” briefs. And fourth, there were some briefs being marketed to men that were made of materials other than cotton—nylon briefs and even stretch nylon briefs made of material that easily could have been used to make (horror of horrors!) a woman’s panty!

Given the male herding instinct with respect to the idea that a white cotton brief was the only appropriate male underwear, all of these developments took time for guys to assimilate. What if a guy showed up in a gym locker room wearing a colored brief that was skimpier than a white cotton brief? And what if the brief lacked a fly? And what if the brief appeared to be made out of a material that was not the usual combed cotton? What do these three “features” say about, err, the guy’s “sexual orientation” for goodness sakes? What is this guy trying to do in picking this style of underwear? Isn’t a fly somehow “proof” that a guy has a penis? How does this underwear style “work” when a guy steps in front of a urinal?

All of these are great unanswered questions that members of the white cotton brief herd must have had. It took time for guys to figure this all out—to adapt to the new trends and styles (styles that many guys believed mist have started among gays and then spread). Many in the herd never adapted to the new trends but some, perhaps those more secure in their sexual orientation, did.

The other fascinating trend in the 1970s was the changes that occurred over the decade in the sizing and fit of swim briefs. The swim brief that Mark Spitz wore in the 1976 Olympics was actually quite large, with maybe 4 or 5 inch wide sides, but the briefs the competitive swimmers all wore kept getting skimpier and skimpier as the decade went on. The Europeans in the international competitions first showed up in briefs with much narrower sides, and then the American swimmers would follow at the next big competition.

All of this was happening even as underwear manufacturers were gearing up for the manufacture of more and more bikini style briefs for men, and increasingly briefs that were made of nylon or other swim brief like stretch materials other than cotton, came in an array of colors not white, and of course, were fly less.

Goodness, if the hunky swimmers in international competition wear this kind of swimwear, why was it not OK for a non-athlete to choose a similar style for his own underwear? The swimwear choice of a world class athlete did not somehow change his sexual orientation from straight to gay, so why would a bikini-style fly less brief worn by a non-athlete do this? The herd pondered the question. Maybe guys should be allowed to select whatever underwear they felt like wearing and not simply adopt whatever the other members of the herd wore. Is it a good idea to tease guys for having the courage to wear underwear not exactly like what the other guys wore? If a guy wants to be an individual in hois underwear choice, what is so wrong about that?

Lots of questions here: Few answers!

To be continued….