All strapped in
Guys routinely discover at a very early age that there are parts of the body that are particularly sensitive to touch, and in a most interesting way. Some of this may happen almost by accident, when a snug-fitting garment simply brushes against a guy's penis, for example.
These sensations are, well, interesting, though some might say erotic, but it is not long thereafter that at least some guys think in terms of reproducing these sensations, and if the particular snug-fitting garment caused something interesting to happen, some guys if not many, seek out the opportunity to do the same thing all over again using the same garment.
This results in an interesting mix of desire to redo the same thing along with apprehension about doing it. Then there is the problem of how a guy’s body responds to the situation at hand. As in “is this going to result in a hard-on?” If so, what iof I am in a situation where there are other people around—especially other guys? Am I going to get teased or bullied? How do I deal with this?
Still, being aroused for any reason is a very pleasant place to be. So guys think about how they can do these things in private, in part to explore the nuances of what is going on down there. And there is a lot to explore.
But, what if a situation arises in which a guy knows he is going to have to deal with wearing a snug-fitting garment that he has never worn before, and maybe even try on the garment for the very first time in the presence of male peers? A swim brief is the classic example of all of this, and a lot of swimmers seem to think that a garment with more coverage will be less of a potential issue in this regard. Early on at least swimmers opt for jammers rather than briefs because of this.
Never mind that a properly-fitting swimming jammer fits really snug and tight as well, and could be quite revealing in terms of the outline of the body.
The athletic supporter was once required gear for many kinds of sports in which the danger was a potential injury to the genitalia…in short, straps were designed to hole the scrotum and balls in place near the body, so they were not dangling loose if the guy was wearing only loose=fitting gear. The idea of wearing a plastic cup over the penis and balls was really there to deal with sports (such as baseball) where a guy could inadvertently get a forward blow from say, a fast-traveling baseball. So guys were expected to wear straps for a lot of sports but cups were required for only some of them.
What I refer to as an “old school” athletic supporter was a rather weird piece of gear, consisting of a 3-inch wide elastic waistband, and a coarse-textured pouch made of a rough, rubberized material, all held in place with two ¾ inch wide elastic leg straps, with the back consisting of nothing at all.
For budding athletes participating in a sport requiring a strap, in many respects these were scarier than even the swim briefs were. Except for the pouch, a guy in a strap was essentially nude, and there was no disguising the state of erection in any way wearing only a strap. This scared a lot of budding athletes, given that the older participants had somehow found a way to cope, and even seemed to “enjoy” parading around the locker room wearing only a strap,
For many decades, the old-school strap was synonymous with the key manufacturer, Bike, a company that had a large share of the market for straps. And the market was huge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIKE_Athletic_Company
This is long before the compression shorts became popular. But then, about in the 1980s, it seems to me that coaches started gradually losing their enthusiasm for straps as the only way a guy could successfully compete in a grueling sport, and other options for keeping a guy’s private parts near the body came---briefs that mimicked the functions of a strap, for example, then a full range of compression gear including compression shorts set up to even hold a cup.
I gather sales of traditional straps was once the major revenue source for Bike, but that over the long term sales of traditional straps were in decline, and other manufacturers were increasingly competing as well. Bike tried to market other Athletic gear under the Bike name, but the name Bike was so synonymous with jock strap that this other gear struggled in the market. Bike was finally sold and the Russell company that purchased Bike kept the name for awhile but soon gave that up too.
One of the competitors was the Duke strap. Duke got a contract with Walmart and for a long time every Walmart had a panel next to the athletic equipment that included various Duke-branded straps. These old school straps were really cheap, for a basic without a cup maybe $2 or even less. So for the guy who simply wanted a strap to mess around with in private and see exactly what happens, this was the place to go. Then Walmart shifted over to other brands such as Riddell or Franklin though these were more expensive and arguably not as much fun to play with in private as the little Duke straps were. I can still find NIB Duke straps on ebay but the ones that used to cost $2 at Walmart are now $7 minimum. I am not sure if these are old stock or whether Duke branded straps are still being manufactured somewhere,
So, can a guy have more fun in private wearing an old school strap or an old school swim brief? That is an interesting question. I am wearing a Duke strap as I write this and I am this well aware of the sensations it provides down there. I remain enthusiastic ut I like a properly-fitting swim brief as well for similar reasons.
A new online Bike store just reopened in 2021 kink
https://www.bikeathletic.com/collections/jockstraps