Shopping for clothes, and in particular clothes that you will want to try on in a changing room, always was a moment of terror but at the same time a great deal of fun as well. The terror occurred because I did not know exactly how my body was going to respond faced with a brand-new and novel situation.
The entire idea of going out and shopping for swim briefs is less popular now than it was 20 years ago. This is in part due to the fact that many guys are probably a little bit to a lot apprehensive about buying such a garment, and then taking it up to a sales clerk (often female) to pay. Trying on the brief in a in a store changing room presents a new and possibly more difficult set of challenges.
So, a lot of guys wear swim briefs, if not for swimming, perhaps serving as as undergarments under board shorts and even for daily wear under jeans. If guys aren’t buying these from bricks-and-mortar stores, what is the supply source? Why on line, of course! That is the easy way to deal with all of the difficulties and fears associated with going to a physical store, finding and then making a purchase. Many guys have always been fascinated with the whole issue of how they will look wearing a swim brief, whether they are skinny enough at the waist, fit enough, etc to pull off the look of the fit guys they see in Web photos, but a lot of guys do not want strangers to make the same judgments, so this can pose a major psychological dilemma. As an individual, you can err on the side of not being critical enough, or perhaps sometimes overly self-critical. Americans, in particular, seem to worry a lot about this, and have the belief that there are somehow rigid standards with respect to whether a guy if fit enough to appear in public in a swim brief. Many American women, in particular, seem to be way hung up on this. Swim brief photo posters probably are often sorting this out as to what others might think.
The old idea of taking swim briefs into a store changing room in various styles and sizes was always an interesting one, however, both psychologically and physically. In a previous post in this series, I have outlined a fun thing to try if you already own briefs in various styles and sizes, that is, lining them all up from biggest to smallest and then trying them on, one-at-a-time from largest and loosest-fitting to smallest and snuggest-fitting. I highly recommend this as an interesting thing to do if you have not tried it, and how your body responds with each change of garment will be, well, fascinating. You will be playing around in this loopy area where you might discover that your body has some ideas about what it is confronting a situation that will look and feel a little different, often snugger and more revealing in sequence. Your body could take over from your brain.In my teens, I might have worried that I was going to have an full orgasm right into the brief I was trying on. Once I got into my 20s, my main concern shifted toward leaving a large precum stain of the brief I would probably be carrying to the checkout counter!
This is the same dilemma faced by members of swim teams who are told that they will be required to wear briefs in a meet. For the young guy who has never seen himself in a swim brief, this can be a moment of real terror, especially if the guy will be trying on a swim brief for the first time in front of the other guys in the locker room. Will I get an erection? Holy terror, will I go into an orgasm on the spot? What about the other guys in the locker room? Are they struggling with the same issues I am sorting through? Are they experiencing the same psychological and physical issues I am confronting? Could this mean that deep down I am a homo? The whole situation whereby a bunch of fit young swim team guys are all changing into swim briefs seems to be a situation that is just a touch homoerotic.
Then there is the issue of downsizing for the meet. The swim coach requires that we wear exceptionally snug and tiny briefs for the meets, meets where the public will be watching me. Having successfully navigated putting on a normal-sized swim brief without too much embarrassment or obvious problems, what happens when I know now that the brief I will have to wear for the meet will be even skimpier, with a snugger and tighter fit?
One partial solution to this series of problems is to make certain that your first experience in dealing with these issues is not in the swim team locker room, but rather in private. Fortunately, that is where the on-line retailers such as swimoutlet.com can serve a useful purpose. Part of the complexity of dealing with the psychological and physical issues in coping with all of this relates to the fact that the briefs large and represent a new and different experience. I suppose the swim coach could pass out the meet briefs and instruct the team members not try them on now but to take them home and try them on for fit. Here is another option. An online outlet such as Swimoutlet sells what they call “grab bag” briefs often at a fraction of the price of other briefs. Swimoutlet usually has one of these for Tyr briefs and another for Speedo. Normally these are briefs that for whatever reason did not sell out at normal prices. The buyer has control of the size but not the style or color, which is part of the fun.
For example, suppose I ordinarily wear a size 32, but I am supposed to downsize for a swim meet. Part of the fun here is that you do not get any control over style or color. These are cheap, usually about 1/3 the regular retail price. Place an order for three briefs, with one each of size 32, 30 and 28, so you have a brief that is normal-sized and also one and two sizes down. You are going to experiment with fit, feel and body response when you are confronted with the novel situation of trying on swim briefs in various styles and sizes. You will have the opportunities to meet your fears and apprehensions directly, but in private not in the semi-public spaces of a locker room.
When you get the order, try the briefs on one at a time, from largest to smallest, in front of a mirror, in the privacy of your bedroom. If you are ok at home, you will at least be more comfortable doing the same in the locker-room situation. If the experiment elicits a strong physical response by your body, the best thing to do is to just let it all happen, and make another attempt the next day when you are calmer and can try again. Eventually, with sufficient practice, you should be able to work yourself through all of your fears. It may take you two attempts, or three, or even more. But with each attempt you will learn something more about your body and exactly how it responds to a novel situation.
Man those briefs feel good! Once the sheer terror subsides, you can just kick back and enjoy being a guy, with all that entails!
Sebbie
|