Thoughts on just being a guy

[dm106]

Seeing how long you can hold it back before ejaculation is good edging training anyway.

[swim suit eddie]

Don't try finding out which brand came out first, just enjoy wearing Speedo brand swimwear that fit very nicely. I think the nylon or polyester material fits and feels better than the baggy cotton jockey shorts. I do remember when I was a teenager wearing the older thick nylon swim briefs with cotton lining, yet fit well and felt nice. They were hard to get off after swimming and really tickled, feeling the tight wet thick outside nylon coming off with the clinging inside wet cotton lining slowly slipping off my very young erection, especially when being helped out of it before showering. The newer and latest style Speedos, TYR, or ADIAS brand swim briefs feel much lighter, made with a comfortable fitting lycra nylon or polyester and nylon inside linings. They certainly do fit and feel a lot nicer than the earlier and older swimsuits, regardless of a guy's age and especially if he's in decent shape.

[sebbie]

Part XXXIV

The Speedo® brand would probably like to find a way in which the label would simply be a brand for athletic and performance gear, without getting bogged down in questions related to male sexuality issues (might the guy seen wearing a branded brief be gay or not?), guys wearing swim briefs in gay pride parades, the crazy anger that some women seem to display over the whole issue of should a guy be seen in public wearing a Speedo etc. etc. There are a lot of interesting and complicated questions here, questions that I have thought about for most of my life but never been able to find a satisfactory answer. Speedo makes money selling swimwear, and it doesn’t make any difference if the customer making the purchase is gay or straight.

The Wikipedia article on Speedo says that Speedo claims that only 2 % of their annual sales revenue comes from selling the iconic and much-maligned briefs, and that they would prefer to be known as a company that generally sells athletic clothing and other accessories as opposed to the brief.

The problem with this, of course, is that if someone says “There is a guy in a Speedo” they are not likely to be referring to a guy they see wearing a loose-fitting board short with the Speedo boomerang logo embroidered on one leg! Once a brand name goes generic there is very little a company can do to turn that around.

Besides, some of this is simply product placement. In the year that Christopher Atkins played the young camp counselor love interest of Linda Gray (the wife of J.R. Ewing) on “Dallas” he showed up on several episodes wearing only the classic bright royal blue Speedo with the boomerang logo obvious.

His character’s name on the show was “Peter Richards” and he very obviously had one of those tucked snuggly under the tight Speedo in the “up” position. Linda Gray swooned. So did the viewers. The director and producers had to know what they were doing. This was a great moment in network TV.

So here are some questions to think about:

1. What if I am a guy who gets aroused and maybe erect just thinking about getting my groin into a swim brief (Speedo or another brand). Is this completely normal for all guys or are some guys somehow immune? A related issue is whether or not a treatment exists so that I can just put on a swim brief without having an involuntary “reation” like this. If I wear a swim brief, say once a week, with this soon become so normal that the reaction will no longer occur? What does my involuntary reaction say about my sexual orientation?

2. Do other guys have this “problem” is this something that is uncommon? Is this a fetish of some sort that a psychiatrist could possibly treat?

3. Suppose I consider myself to be straight but I get aroused when I see another handsome guy wearing a swim brief? Does this mean that I am not as straight as I thought I was?

4. Why do some females seem to get very angry and upset whenever the subject of guys wearing a Speedo comes up let alone actually observing a guy wearing a Speedo. The “Dallas” viewers didn’t seem to react that way, but this was in the 1980s. More generally, guys to not have temper tantrums when they see scantily clothed women displaying obvious female body parts even if covered? What is it about women who seem to get upset if a guy appears to have a penis though covered with the cloth of a swim brief?

5. The slick, smooth and snug swim briefs get me erect and are great fun to get off in. Is this a psychiatric “illness” of some sort if I admit to enjoying wearing a Speedo for jerking off, or should this just be considered a normal thing for guys to do? What if my college dorm mate enters the room while I am enjoying myself this way? How do I get myself out of that predicament, anyway?

6. What if I discover that jerking off while wearing a Speedo is such a great pastime that it deters me from forming bonds with other people who could potentially be a real sexual partner? Bonding with another person so close that the other person becomes a sexual partners is complicated stuff, with all sorts of complexities beyond the sex act itself. If I am really into the finding a partner stuff in order to pleasure myself sexually, is all this stuff at the end of the day worth the effort.

7. More generally if sex with a partner is such great stuff why do sexual relationships with partners so regularly come apart? This is not directly a Speedo-related issue but indirectly it is. They situation is not significantly different in the gay or straight worlds of partner bonding (though the gay partner might be more tolerant of the jerking off in a swim brief than the female partner would!). Some sexual relationships come apart because one or both partners have found another person to engage in sex. But in other breakups, the guy goes back to just being single, and the masturbation techniques (including those that make use of a swim brief) may end up being front and center again.

Is having an option like this in such a situation a problem or a solution? There are guys who marry, get divorced and immediately go into a sexual relationship again with another person and then never But then there are other guys who never form sexual bonds or marry again. Is it not a good thing that the solo-sex options that the solo-sex options that were enjoyable before the first relationship such as the jerking off in the swim brief still exist and be readily available once again?

Tough questions to answer, all of these. Let me jerk off in my Speedo while I try and find answers to them!

To be continued…
 

[sebbie]

Part XXXV

For a long time in the 1980s, it appeared that the swimming briefs being worn by the internationally competitive swimmers at the major meets were getting ever snugger and skimpier. A European swimmer would show up in a really skimpy brief with very sides and at the following meet you would see the American competitor wearing a skimpier brief as well. This made for some interesting TV as the cameras panned the bodies of the competitors. All of this was more-or-less built on the basic idea that there was nopthing like skin for moving rapidly in the water and that called for briefs with ever less material.

Then, seemingly almost overnight, everything changed. I guess swimmers owe Speedo for playing with the idea that a swimwear fabric could move through the water faster than bare skin. This was followed by other manufacturers of competition swimwear coming up with their own versions of what Speedo was attempting. No longer were tiny, body-hugging suits in, but rather the new jammers styles that were at least as tight but covered more down to bith thigh.

Suddenly you would turn on the TV to watch a major meet and all the guys would be wearing jammer style suits that had cloth to mid thigh. The high school swimmers who were always wary of appearing in public with a brief and a hard-on quickly shifted to jammers as well.

If you are interested in the details of Speedos efforts to develop suits that were faser than bare skin the Wikipedia Speedo site lays that all out in detail along with the issues they had in FINA disapproving some of the designs, and the world records set by swimmers who were wearing the full-body suits that were ultimately not allowed in international and other important competitions. Never mind that these full-body suits individually may have cost upwards of $1000 and last for only a few swims, and were nearly impossible to get into and out of. Pitty the swimmer who decides he needs to use the restroom after spending 30 minutes tugging and pulling himself into the suit! These were not very practical even if they had remained legal

What evolved out of this were improvements in Jammer-style suits made of the same fabrics. What got disallowed is a sut for a male that covered the chest, and suits that extended below the knee. The speedy fabrics are still allowed but the suit has to look like a conventional jammer.

For the guy who tended to get a hard on at the mere thought of wearing a swim brief, I’m not sure if the problem is going to disappear if he wears a jammer. Granted, jammers cover more skin but areas such as the thighs are encased in fabric the same as the groin area. Hiding the fact that a guy has male body parts and the “condition” those parts are in might be every bit as difficult as with a brief. Still, jammers do not seem to have some of the issues briefs have. A guy wearing a jammer is less likely to be accused of being gay, for example.

Think about three different garments a guy could wear that are all made of material that fits with stretch
1. Cotton or polyester underwear with legs extending to mid thigh and fabric blended with perhaps 5% Elastane
2. Compression gear made of polyester with perhaps 10-15 % Elastane
3. Swimming jammer typically made of polyester and 20% Elastane
The underwear is designed to be worn as an undergarment and usually has a sewn separate pouch made to fit the penis. The compression gear is interesting. Most versions have a sewn built in pouch, but a few versions do not. Generally the compression gear fabric is designed to compress more and squeeze everything snugger than the underwear fabric does. After all, compression gear is designed to compress!

Part of the issue with shorts made as compression gear is the debate as to whether or not guys can wear these, say, to the gym, without another layer. The issue seems to be mainly focused on whether a specific design has a sewn pouch or not,and if so, how prominent is is. Some guys seem to be more nervous about being seen in public wearing compression shorts that have an obvious pouch than other guy are. It is interesting to read the comments on compression shorts with pouches when someone asks the specific question as to whether these can be worn without another garment on top.

Generally, swimming jammers are made without a sewn pouch and are constructed to press the male anatomy down as flat as possible, all in the name of having a sleeker surface in order to swim faster. But guys still have the problem of finding a comfortable position for the male body parts and just as in a brief, a “penis up” position is certainly a possibility. In which case, for the guy wearing a jammer it may be just as obvios that he has male body parts as it would have been wearing a swim brief.

Finally, I come to the topic of whether or not a jammer is as likely to create an arousal issue for a swimmer as a brief. Is the idea of jerking of in a swimsuit apply only to briefs, or equally to jammers. Jammers do not have quite the reputation briefs have in this regard.

Having said that, more and more members of high school and college swim teams seem to be going away from Jammers and back to briefs especially in competitions. I think it kinda depends of what the guys generally regarded as the top competitors do. If the fastest swimmer on my team set a very good time then I might be more inclined to switch to a brief too. If I go to a meet where teams from other schools are competing and one of the swimmers from another school sets a record while wearing a brief, briefs might start proliferating even with guys who previously lacked the nerve to wear one. Interesting stuff, all of this is!

Me, I wear swimming jammers or compression shorts along with a compression top not to swim, but to use my stationary rowing and bicycling machines. I have no problem with others in the neighborhood seeing me irrespective of whether the shorts have a pouch or not.

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXXVI

The iconic swim brief was invented in 1928 by a Scott named Alexander McRae who started the company that became Speedo® and gave its name to the iconic swimwear. The Jockey brief was invented in 1935 and sold by Coopers Inc., a company that was founded by Samuel T. Cooper in St. Joseph, Michigan in 1876 originally for making socks. The history of the male athletic supporter goes back even farther than that. The original athletic supporter was invented by C.F. Bennett of a Chicago sporting goods company called Sharp and Smith introduced in 1874, and was intended for wear by guys who rode bicycles as messenger and delivery boys over rough streets. It was not until 1897 that this was so successful that Bennett formed what was to be called the Bike company with the major product being the male athletic supporter.

Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s, athletic supporters were all but mandatory for any sort of gym-related physical activity. Guys routinely wore straps under loose-fitting shorts given that stretch fabrics were in their infancy. A strap was something that told the other guys that you were engaging in sufficiently rigorous athletics to “need a strap”. After all, a strap was what the bigger and more highly-skilled athletes wore.

Interestingly, for a lot of guys, getting your first strap was something of a “coming of age” thing that occurred at or shortly after puberty. Females had their first period or menarche typically around age 12. For guys, the big life event was the first conscious ejaculation of semen, analogously but rarely referred to as the thorache. Females have no direct control over exactly when menarche occurs but males do at least to a degree. For most males, this is likely a very private event. To a certain degree guys are proud of having reached that life milestone but it is not something they would talk about.

Wearing a strap for the first time becomes something of a substitute for conveying some of the same information about becoming an adult without words. The strap says I am a good enough of an athlete to be engaging in activities where I need the protection, but also, I am mature enough sexually to need to be concerned about this part of my body.

So, guys grow up with some similar misgivings about wearing a strap to wearing a Speedo®. Any guy realizes that the strap will fit snuggly around the penis and balls and the mere thought of that tends to cause certain body parts to get bigger. But a strap that doesn’t fit snug would be useless for protection. Given that everything is snug when properly in place, getting even a slight hard-on could be interesting but also make matters worse. What if I should ejaculate while wearing or even just getting into a strap? Does this happen to the other guys? The bigger guys seem to take this all in stride. How do they learn how to do that so nonchalantly, anyway?

It’s the same problem guys have when they begin to focus on the need to wear other kinds of snug-fitting clothing. In the 1950s and 60s, manufacturers were a long way from being able to sell other kinds of stretchy body-protective gear like we routinely see today.

The other problem straps have is that the basic strap leave’s a guy’s butt crack completely uncovered. Wearing a strap in the locker room is not THAT much different from wandering around the locker room nude. Why this was such an important part of the design of traditional straps has never been entirely clear to me. The leg straps clearly kept the ‘nads in a “safe place”. These were the “bicycle helmets” of the 1950s and 60s. If you engaged in sport, you had to wear one. All the guys did and you needed to do likewise or you were not an athlete. But couldn’t anyone come up with a design that had leg straps yet covered your butt with some cloth. What was this idea of athletes all being butt-naked, anyway?

True, in later years, after thong underwear and swimwear for men took off, some of the companies did come up with a thong style supporter, one that put a narrow piece of elastic between a guy’s glutes, but was that really a significant improvement? Straps were great in the locker room so long as all the guys had to wear them, and getting over the initial embarrassment of being seen by your peers wearing one was mitigated if all the guys were wearing them. But, as soon as other possibilities emerges, say a compression brief with a pouch for a hard cup, the traditional straps declined rapidly in popularity. It was an “everyone does this or we all do not kind of thing”.

So, the market for straps evaporated as other options became the accepted norm and coaches everywhere no longer required them as a condition for playing a sport. The traditional straps are still sold mainly by online vendors, but most of these I suspect are for what I call the recreational wear market. Guys are buying these because they thing being strapped is a fun way to masturbate or perhaps engage in sex play with a male partner wearing something similar. Part of the market also caters to the “strap-curious” teen guy who simply wants to see how he would look wearing a strap and whether or not the fit and feel is erotic. This is all just part of growing up!

To be continued…
 

[sebbie]

Part XXXVII

Then there are the cups, traditionally worn over parts of the body where contact in the groin area is a real possibility, say a baseball player dealing with a pitch that went way awry, with the danger of doing serious damage to the male sexual organs. Since the strap held the guy’s nads close to the body, it was only logical to think about using the pouch to hold a cup made of an impact-resistant plastic to protect the area.

The cups that were made for the traditional straps, to put is bluntly, were not very big. They were designed to contain a guy’s flaccid penis, with little room to spare. The smaller size also meant that the presence of a cup would not be easily observable once a clothing item, say baseball or football pants were placed over the cup.

All well and good, except of course, every guy knows that his penis does not always stray the same size. There is a “normal” variation that occurs over the course of a day. Further, generally penises are fond of being in a confined space. And a modestly-sized hard cup is, well, a confined space, perhaps not the “perfect” confined space, but still not a “normal” situation either. The mere thought of being in a confined space sometimes causes interesting “reactions” on the part of a penis. Let alone actually being in one.

Penises are expert in a seeming 6th sense about the situation they are in, space-wise and knowing exactly how to use the available space. Put a penis inside a cup of sufficient size to hold it flaccid, and unless the guy attached to the penis is completely brain–dead the penis will expand just enough to fill the available space, seemingly sensing exactly where the walls of the cup are reminding the guy on a constant basis where the cup walls are. These sensations can be fun, but they can also be infuriating especially if a guy is trying to focus his brain on playing the sport, not the interesting and happy sensations emanating from the groin area. Is this really a situation where you want to be horny.

Some guys may think that getting off while wearing a cup would be an easy task and the game would be much better played post-ejaculation with perhaps no one being the wiser. But getting off while wearing even a snug-fitting cup is not easy. True, the penis is sending back all the interesting signals about what is going on in the immediate vicinity, but it likes to just hang there enjoying itself. A guy can press on the cup or tap it repeatedly while still wearing it, and this may have the net effect of sending the penis off into a slightly higher arousal level but normally still not enough for a full-scale ejaculation to.

Another option is to pull the cup away from the body for only a few seconds. Momentarily relieved from the confinement of the cup, the penis expands a bit more. Then the cup snaps back to the body, the now slightly bigger penis entering a more interesting state still. This is great fun to do but you probably don’t want to be engaging in a team sport if you try this.

So, the strap and cup manufacturers probably figured out that the snug-fitting straps and cups they were selling had these “problems” for guys, and set about to fix the problems.

The so-called Banana® cup was one of the first attempt to design a larger, not as confining but still protective cup, with enough space inside so that a guy’s penis could flop around inside the cup without feeling that it was “confined”. (Banana is a registered trade name) The cup was shaped more or less like a hollowed out banana.

A basic problem with the banana cup was that it was a big piece of “hardware” that had to somehow fit between a guy’s legs. It was not like the smaller traditional cups that were easy to disguise. These have proven popular with college and professional football players, and photos you see of them often reveal either that the player is very amply endowed or must be wearing one of these.

These cups are typically so big that they really don’t work for all but a few sports, football being the major example. So, there have also been attempts to design smaller versions of these cups that are not as big a piece of hardware. But as the size comes down, so does the amount of available space. An adult can wear a cup made for a young teen, but that may very well be about as confining as an old-style cup.

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXXVIII

A guy getting into his first strap, but especially one with a hard cup, is probably at least as apprehensive as he would be contemplating getting himself into his first swim brief. How does it feel? Will I immediately get a hard on? What happens if I get a hard-on inside a cup? These are all important and interesting questions, and parallel the concerns guys have about first getting into and then wearing a swim brief in public.

It is funny how these kinds of concerns “play” with a guy’s brain. Guys think that somehow it should be easy to ignore being apprehensive about it all. Still, it doesn’t take long for a guy to discover that his brain and body “like” feeling horny, and in the absence of engaging in sex with a partner situations like this are something of a substitute, embarrassing as the thoughts might be. Male sexual arousal triggering mechanisms quickly get into complicated stuff, including some stuff that happens and appears to make no sense at all. Guys keep thinking that they should be able to turn arousal on and off and that a guy’s penis should be readily told what to do on orders from the brain. Well, yes and no!

At some point most guys probably realize that getting aroused in the absence of a sexual partner is a good thing not a bad thing to be able to do, and if a swim brief, strap, or whatever aids in the process that is a good thing not a bad thing as well.

I have found that straps with cups can be really enjoyable to wear. Sometimes I like to just slip on a strap, kick back and see where my body wants to take me. I guess practically everyone has things they like to do to kick back and relax from the daily grind. The fun part about straps and cups is that they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and each one fits and feels a little different on the penis. Some of them feel simply more than a bit uncomfortable with no real erotic sensations at all, then all of a sudden the sensations morph from uncomfortable to something really erotic and wonderful, and this transition may occur quite rapidly, in the space of but a few seconds.

I recommend that every guy run some experiments on his own body and see exactly how you respond. What makes arousal so interesting is that the sensations change from one moment to the next, like riding a giant wave. Your penis will tell you if it is in a happy place or not when it is confined.

This is generally a core part of male sexuality, alone or with a partner, and there is absolutely no problem running a few experiments with your own body in private. In the process you may learn some things about being male you did not know before, and be able to use that information in subsequent partner-sex episodes as well. With something this interesting and essentially no down side, why not?

To be continued…