Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - UnderWHAT?

I am still on a deadline until the end of the day, when of course, two more kick in for the end of the week, but I just wanted to write a quick post.

I suppose there comes a time in every gay mans life that he starts to realize that maybe, just maybe, in the eyes of the snail mail establishment he has become a raging homosexual. While I have had a subscription to Instinct magazine for a few years, mainly because it is the least self-absorbed gay magazine out there, I have never really been prone to getting big gay catalogs in the mail. Well, unless you count Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and Crate & Barrel.

Yesterday, when I stopped to pick up my mail on my way home, I open it up to find my usual Entertainment Weekly, but there underneath Keira Knightly, was a catalog for Undergear. Now, I will be the first one to say that underwear models are hot to look at, and while the International Male catalog from which Undergear sprang, held a certain fascination for masturbation material in my youth, I was a little shocked to be getting this one in the mail. I've never ordered anything from them, and frankly, I think the only person I know who peruses this stuff regularly is Blanche, and I don't even want to know what he orders out of it.

For me, I find gay men's obsession with underwear to be about as comprehensible as the love of shoes. Wait, it is less comprehensible than the love of shoes because at least the public gets to witness the $300 you spent on a new pair of Gucci loafers. What is the point in spending $20 on one pair of the delightfully named "Papi Anaconda Collection" brief, when the only person that is going to see it is you, your boyfriend, a trick, or possibly the paramedics when they're prying you from a car wreck with the Jaws of Life?

I realize people have a personal relationship with their underwear, that they feel *ahem* uplifted when they wear a certain pair. However, if you need to spend $22 on a (hopefully prophetic) Male Power "Ring Thong" to feel sexy and confident, well, maybe you need to book a few more sessions of therapy. My philosophy is that as long as my underwear gives me the support I need to not have to adjust myself every 5 minutes like a major league baseball player, then they are serving the purpose for which they are intended, and if that means that I am paying $8 for a three pack of Fruit of the Loom, then I am not going to feel any less sexy or confident because of it. Conversely, if a future sexual partner were to judge me because I'm wearing tightey whities, then obviously, their priorities are not in the right place.

All I can think about when it comes to underwear is, "Who cares?" Obviously, if this is something that you need to make you happy, then go for it. However, if you're going to spend money on a status symbol, wouldn't your hard earned funds be better spent on something that is at least seen by the general public, rather than something that when seen is more than likely going to be on the floor in 0.2 seconds?

In closing, I leave you with another apparatus for your apparatus:


If you need to purchase this or any other junk enhancing undergarment, then you are perpetuating a lie and undertaking a (master) bait and switch!

Yes...I couldn't resist....