Boxer Briefs: If you wear boxer briefs every day you most assuredly have given your underwear choice some quality thought. Typically, boxer brief wearers are the boys that made the transition from briefs to boxer shorts in middle school to “fit in” but as they hit puberty or gained more maturity and thus a heightened awareness of their body (and the need for support) they decide to split the difference around their junior or senior year of high school, or early on in college. It’s likely that their overall sense of style ranges from “if it fits and is comfortable, I’ll wear it” to “fashion-forward.” As one of the most popular styles out there today, it would be foolish of me to claim that the boxer brief reveals any universal personality traits or dispositions.

Trunks: If you’re wearing trunks, you had previously worn boxer briefs but tired of making a trip or two to the restroom to fix the legs that had ridden up throughout the day’s wear. Personally, I was never a boxer brief wearer, but had worn a couple of pairs to know about this universal problem, so I went straight to trunks. While I didn’t “stop” there, I was indicative of most men who do end up enjoying trunks enough to make it their preferred style. Trunk wearers are well-versed consumers because they have tried all of the “common” every day styles. The style itself accomplishes just about everything the trunk wearer likely wants in a pair of underwear: Support without having to go to a brief and the right amount of sex appeal without sacrificing (perceived) comfort. The trunk wearer is typically style-conscious, possesses a more athletic build, and wants to both look good in his underwear for his own self confidence, and for the people that might be seeing him in them. If I were to be liberal about what the trunk might universally reveal about its wearers, I’d say that they’re for men who, on outward appearance, convey an “Alpha Male” disposition (in the way they walk, talk, and handle themselves) but who might privately crave attention in a very contradicting self-conscious way.

Boxers: Men who wear boxers naturally come to be perceived as “laid back” because the style allows your package to hang free. Personally, I think the majority of men who wear boxers think their choice in underwear is bound by the eternal “Boxers or Briefs” query. Their popularity has largely faded due to the emergence of the boxer brief’s popularity and the increasing popularity of the trunk. While “laid back” might accurately portray a large number of boxer wearers, the only thing “laid back” is the boxer itself. By their construction alone, they are incompatible with today’s style of jeans and slacks, so how “laid back” are you supposed to feel with a ton of excess and needless fabric jammed into your low-rise jeans? Since I know people of all types of personalities that wear boxers, I won’t begin to try to make inferences about the “universal” boxer wearer. I’ll only say (for a plethora of reasons), the boxer wearer is an interesting breed, for sure.

Thongs: If you wear a thong like everyone else wears their favorite style typically possess the highest conscious when it comes to their underwear preferences. You probably got into thongs from your penchant for bikini briefs or jocks. Sure, you love the unparalleled support thongs provide, but curiosity about the design’s sex appeal was why you bought it in the first place. It’s also likely that you’re in tune with your sexuality and you’re willing to try just about anything in the bedroom.  However, thongs for men do come with a plethora of connotations, almost none of them positive. I am sure there are plenty of men who wear thongs who don’t have any inhibitions-which might not come as a surprise, given the highly-sexual nature of the style. But while it might take a “confident” man to purchase and wear a thong as every day wear, most of those men would likely tremble in embarrassment simply thinking about his co-workers or friends finding out. Surely, the negative connotation society has attached to the male thong requires the man who enjoys wearing them, to “rationalize” his preference, despite the style’s increasing popularity.

Jockstraps: If you wear a jockstrap as daily wear, you’re likely to be as comfortable with how you look in skimpy underwear as the man who wears a thong. The jockstrap’s no-coverage-of-the-rear design means that it’s at the highest end of the conscious scale in terms style choices. It’s prevalence as a design for every day wear is much more common among gay men, but as a straight man I can imagine that the majority of gay men are choosing a jockstrap to wear to their 9-5. It’s a design that was made for wear during rigorous activity such as playing sports or working out, so if you’re wearing it daily, you obviously love the support it offers you. It’s also probably safe to say that you’re extremely comfortable with your body and your sexuality. While I won’t claim that the jockstrap wearer is universally an “Alpha Male” type, if you enjoy wearing jockstraps, you love the feeling of masculinity the style provides.

So there was my attempt to provide (what seems to be) the only comprehensive guide to what your favorite underwear style says about how much you’ve thought about the most important piece of clothing in your wardrobe as well as providing you with an opportunity to see if your personality matches up with my perceptions about each style’s typical wearer. It was imperative that I avoid arbitrarily assigning perceptions about the people who wear each style; because I firmly believe doing so only serves to further the negative connotations that get assigned to various styles of underwear, or the people that wear them.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this guide or the importance of treating negative connotations and stereotypes about various underwear styles with the cynicism they deserve, so feel free to email me at firstthingon@gmail.com

My answer to the question posed in the title of this post is pretty simple. It is my opinion that a man’s choice in underwear only reveals to what extent he has thought about underwear as it relates to him. To me, any other personality trait we think his choice in underwear might reveal is nothing but hypothetical inference.

My father is the perfect example of what I’ve written up to this point. He wore briefs until, “all the stuff about what briefs can do to sperm,” (late 80s) and has been wearing plain boxer shorts ever since. According to the consensus, his preference in underwear supposedly indicates his “laid back, and non-chalant” personality, and that he views underwear as a somewhat “burdensome necessity.” My dad is anything but “laid back,” he wears boxers for two reasons that I can tell. 1.) His thirties started in 1993 and ended in 2003, a time when the answer to “boxers or briefs?” was required of a Presidential candidate. 2.) I don’t doubt he’d love how a pair of high-end designer briefs with a contour pouch would feel, if the same type of people who write these articles didn’t perpetuate false narratives/stereotypes about briefs that the public has come to accept. His overall “style” is not boring, he cares about what he looks like and has great taste in clothing.

It’s time for a re-write that is as assured in its finality as these lazy attempts before it have been in their ignorance. In the guide to come, keep in mind that this is an attempt to re-write the consensus about each underwear style in the two relevant areas. First, is what your style preference says about the extent of which you’ve actually thought about your choices. And second, the inferences from your choice that may “reveal” additional personality traits about you.

I just think it’s high time for someone who has the credibility as an “expert” in the field, to compose a guide that is influenced by actual knowledge of the various styles available to men these days…

Brandon’s Guide To What The Style of Underwear You Favor, Might Reveal About You

Traditional Briefs: If your preference in underwear for every day wear is a spitting-image of the pair you wore on “Show and Tell” day in first grade, it’s obvious that you’ve given underwear little to no thought. NEWSFLASH! It’s 2012. Show and Tell is conducted through cell phones as thinner than half of your wallet. While I think the consensus has been that you’re “immature,” I’ll stick up for you and say, you just don’t know any better, but my congeniality comes with an expiration date.  If you want to stick to briefs, there are tons of options out there that do what your “tighty whities” always have sought to accomplish but never could, due to their 19^th century design. – While I’ll keep my personal opinions of “hipsters” and their ilk to myself, wearing the colorful American Apparel version “ironically” is almost as indefensible. In either case, what might be inferred from your choice of this style for your every day wears is one of the least attractive personality traits out there-apathy.

Modern Briefs: If you’re wearing a pair of these, your choice in underwear is important to you. Your wife, girlfriend or boyfriend is probably not comfortable making underwear purchases for you. At the very least, you’ve been conscious enough to make the transition from traditional briefs because you don’t want to be behind the times. One thing is for sure, you value the support you get from briefs and it’s somewhat likely that you have “transitioned back” from either boxer briefs or trunks because the new cuts and fabrics give you even better support while staying off of your legs. You’re probably fashion forward, which is a good thing since your choice in underwear gives you endless options.   Personality wise, your choice will likely reveal that you’re at least somewhat outgoing and definitely “sociable” and you might even be the “life of the party” on occasion, but only on occasion.

Bikini Briefs:  This is really a sub-category of the former, as few retailers separate the two. If you’re a bikini brief guy, you’re probably just a bit more in tune with your underwear preferences than the guy wearing the modern brief. The bikini brief wearer evolved from wearing modern (low-rise) cut briefs after experiencing the larger leg openings and a little less coverage the bikini brief provides. He also appreciates support and has realized the hidden secret of this style (bikini cuts tend to offer larger pouches and thus more support due to their cut). “Enhancing” briefs can be contained in this category, and it’s likely that the bikini brief wearer may be a little less modest about being “caught” in his underwear. In terms of personality, the bikini brief wearer might be apt to be the life of the party more often than his modern brief-only brethren, and might be a little more confident in general, but in the bedroom specifically. Additionally, he’s not afraid of breaking away from conformity, or social norms and his love for this style is likely to lead him to the even skimpier styles available to him.

I always love coming up with new ideas for underwear content, and what I always find funny is when journalists, bloggers, and even those in The Industry often seem poised to answer this question. To me it’s an interesting question because as a contributor to an underwear blog with a collection of underwear that is well into the triple-digits, the notion that our underwear preferences somehow indicate what type of person we are seems a bit farfetched.

But, despite the fact that I literally own every style of underwear made, in every fabric, I still have my “preferences” and that’s what I think such a “question” aims to get at. The problem I have with the premise of “your underwear defines you” is that it plays directly into the stereotypes that keep many men from trying new things, and at its worst, might insulate men into thinking something not-so-positive about themselves.

For the most part, the people or groups seeking to answer this question tend to approach it the same way the widely-read women’s magazine Cosmopolitan has done in the past. I do like how Cosmo has approached this in two distinct ways. The first is the basic, “what does what your man’s underwear say about him”  while the second takes a much more progressive approach, giving women a buying guide, based on their man’s personality traits or preferences. Folks over at The Frisky also tried their hand answering this question based on the “initial reveal” scenario (when you first see him in his underwear). There are many out there in the wild internet word like these, all of which come to a basic consensus about each style of underwear available to us guys.

The consensus has been built, but not without some woeful laziness on the part of the purveyors of this information. Anyone who visits a men’s underwear blog knows that men’s designer underwear is not made equal these days. We know that the guy who wears the same Fruit of the Loom oversized briefs he’s been wearing since he was five, should not be judged as a “brief guy” the same way someone who wears a form fitting pair of Andrew Christian briefs but in these “reveal” articles, they’re in the same “class.” One of the biggest offenders in this vein comes from a Yahoo! contributor in 2010.

I did manage to find two posts that were neither terrible, nor completely comprehensive and one, ironically comes from another yahoo contributor, in 2009. What I especially like about this article is that it seems as if serious thought and reflection was put into it, and while it largely comes to the same “consensus” opinions about each style are not as non-chalant, or brash. The second comes from someone in the industry (some expertise? gasp!) and takes the same “you’re going to see the guy’s underwear for the first time” approach to its descriptions, and it comes the closest to being an acceptable analysis of what underwear styles might say about a man.

I want to get down to brass tacks. I do believe that a man’s choice in underwear can definitely tell you a thing or two about him. When it comes to an individual’s style, there really is no other piece of clothing more affected by personal preference. Where I see a problem is with the way in which people have sought to classify a man based on his choice of what amounts to a piece of clothing only a handful of people on any given day, at most (say, if you’ve got a gym membership at a busy gym) will actually see.

While some of these voices writing these columns might decide to pay lip service to the fact that your choice in underwear is your choice, they tend to come off as very judgmental. When I wrote my little autobiography a couple of weeks ago, one of the biggest points I wanted to convey was that the majority of men (gay or straight, but straight especially) are incredibly impressionable. So while they may be thinking about switching out their baggy boxers for a more up-to-date style they have in mind, say, a low-rise brief, they may catch a column that says the low-rise brief is for guys that “like to take risks, or are the “fashion forward, metrosexual” type of guy, and that deters them. How fair is that?

More tomorrow, this is the first part of a 3 part series!