Thoughts on just being a guy

[sebbie]

Part XXIX

Then, starting in the first decade of the 21st century, everything changed again. Suddenly those sloppy-looking loose fitting jeans and tops that disguised a poor physique was out as a look, and the new look was both slim and athletic, showing off the toned calves, thighs and triangular chests and putting a premium on getting and staying in shape. This gave lazy guys a reason to get out and exercise while losing some weight at the same time. Suddenly, the idealized body was the swimmer’s physique.

With these changes, male underwear designs changed as well. With the new emphasis on having a toned body with clothing that revealed the effort, underwear had to shange as well. The sloppy plaid boxer shorts that were fine with equally sloppy oversized jeans simply did not work with the new athletic-emphasizing clothing styles.

About this same time the idea of guys wearing compression gear, both bottoms and tops, took off. This trend us intertwined with the founding and rapid grown of the Underarmour® company, founded in 1996 but whose products really took off at the start of the 21st century. NBA players were displaying tight compression shorts nearly to the knee and dangling below what were still sloppy basketball uniforms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Armour

If wearing compression short was OK for the highest paid NBA player surely this was something the ordinary guys would want to wear too. And sales took off. I also find it difficult to believe that the whole idea of having what seemed to be a reasonable excuse for wearing gear that fit really tight was probably a turn-on for a lot of guys. With the combination of being worn by the top athletes, some claims that such gear improved athletic performance, and the turn-on of really snug fitting gear sales went through the roof.

It did not take long for underwear manufacturers to decide that perhaps there was a place for a garment that was marketed as underwear but had the cut, look and feel of compression gear to find a market. But there were some differences. Generally from a practical perspective such a garment needed a traditional fly, lest the guy otherwise run into difficulty at the urinal. But bright colors other than white were in. Guys are going to be seen in places like the gym locker room wearing these.

What a replacement for those drab boxer shorts! Something that fits this snug and tight and is accepted in the locker room as being perfectly normal gear that may in fact enhance athletic performance. This is a great place to be!

During a lot of this time as well, jammers were the accepted swimwear at both the high school and college swimmers. I suspect many underwear manufacturers were looking at how the swimwear manufacturers were designing jammers in order to design the new underwear. One big difference of course is that jammers do not normally have a fly, but it is common for most underwear containing this much material to have a fly. A lot of the gear marketed as compression shorts can be and is worn without an additional layer, so the compression shorts usually lack a fly. And the material used in compression shorts usually compresses more than a similarly styled pair of underwear would. However there is lots of variation on all of this.

This begin a trend in men’s underwear styles that all used slick, stretchy fabric. For some time Jockey sold bikini briefs and even thongs under the “Life” brand in Walmart with your choice of either a slick stretchy fabric or what they called a stretch cotton. Cotton tends to absorb a lot of moisture but dries very slowly leading perhaps to skin problems. The compression-gear like fabrics tend to not absorb a lot of moisture but the moisture they absorb tends to dry out quickly. These fabrics tend to wick moisture away from a sweaty athlete.

To be continued…