SPEAKING OF UNDERWEAR

Then the rise of the 1960s gave men permission to wear stuff that previously had been largely worn by, well, flamboyant gay men: coloured briefs, bikini underwear, the thong. Progress marched on beneath the pants. But it took Calvin Klein and Joe Boxer to make men's underwear the full-fledged superstar it is today. Klein's advertising, showing wildly homoerotic images of hunky young guys in briefs, revolutionized the underwear trade; now just about every designer puts his John Hancock on underpants. And Joe Boxer took the stodgy boxer short and made it sexy with outrageous, suggestive graphics.

Meanwhile, the "boxers or briefs" dichotomy was bridged by the rise of boxer-brief hybrids. Underwear became thoroughly visible - even hip-hop fashion, with its shape-distorting baggy pants that hide everything south of the navel, keeps things sexy with a generous glimpse of a brand-named underwear waistband.

While just about every item of clothing has been fetishized, underpants are near the top of the heap. Their revealing-but-concealing function just screams sex. The standard white brief (or "tighty whitey") is still the all-time sexiness champ, but every sort of underwear on every sort of man, from Daddy types in boxers to sleazy sexpots in barely-there sheer bikinis, gets somebody's glands going. It may be a cliche that the nearly nude is hotter than the thoroughly naked, but when you see a hot guy gift-wrapped in underwear, it's easy to believe.

The growth in popularity of designs by Andrew Christian, have taken the gay underwear market by storm. Particularly, this Trophy Boy and Nearly Naked range which highlight every inch of a man, or the ever popular open backed briefs which every bottom boy loves to wear to entice his man.

And like every good sex toy, underpants are even more fun if you play with 'em. At a basic level, they're a main ingredient in stripping, cock-teasingly, for your partner. And, as fans of Tales of the City know, wet jockey shorts, soaked down and nearly see-through, have been a mainstay of queer iconography for decades. Speaking of icons, the handsome businessman in an office chair, the fly of his boxer shorts gapped to show a glimpse of his assets, can keep you up even when the stock market falls.

Once off the body, already-worn underwear has an attraction as powerful as the scent of the guy who wore 'em; used underwear has been an income-producing souvenir for pornstars and Webcam boys for years.

Underwear scenes are lots of fun for the devotedly kinky. A pair of funky briefs stuffed in a bottom's mouth makes for an impromptu gag with porn video overtones. And things can get even more theatrical. "I remember playing with this clean-cut type," says a bondage enthusiast. "Once I tied him to a chair, I took out a big pair of scissors and, as prearranged, slowly cut away his boxer shorts till the last bit was gone. They were respectable Marks & Spencer whites, I remember, which made it even sweeter."

There are still those die-hard bohemian souls who think it's cool, if chafing, not to wear underpants. But for the rest of us, undershorts have morphed from that boring necessity Mum bought in three-packs to a full-blown signifier of sex. In brief, underwear's not underrated any more.

Simon Sheppard

San Francisco artist and activist Simon Sheppard is best known for his contributions to the erotic literary scene. He wrote hundreds of stories that appeared in S/M magazines; erotic anthologies; and over twenty editions of Best Gay Erotica and Best American Erotica. His Sextalk column has appeared on OutUK for more than 20 years. You can find out more about Simon Sheppard in this OutUK feature and tribute, or take a look at some of his many books that are still available:

       

Looking for something very sexy and just as smart? Man on Man collects the best and hottest gay sex writing by Simon, who is also co-editor of Rough Stuff: Tales of Gay Men, Sex, and Power as well as a collection of gay erotica called Hotter Than Hell.

In KINKORAMA : Dispatches from the Front Lines of Perversion he takes readers behind the unmarked doors and black vinyl curtains that lead to the sometimes shocking, often hilarious, relentlessly arousing scenarios of extreme sex. There are also stories of bears in Tales from the Bear Cult: Beat Bear Stories from the Best Magazines.