The state of men's underwear in 2010

Q:  "Mr. President, all the world's dying to know.  Is it boxers or briefs?"
(Laughter)
A:  "Usually briefs. (Aside to the rest of the audience) I can't believe she did that."

(Exchange between a 17 year old student and President Bill Clinton in a 1994 MTV town hall-style forum)


Note: The same question was asked of then-Senator Barack Obama on the campaign trail in 2008.  Obama artfully dodged the question.

I shopped for underwear the other day.  (Ain't retirement fun?)  These expeditions are generally rare for men, especially unmarried ones such as myself.  Married guys usually get their shorts via their wives when Mrs. notices that the median age of the tighty whities in the sock drawer is about 15 years.  Bachelors, on the other hand, usually decide it's time to swap out the ol' undies when more than two holes appear.

While I'm not quite that careless when it comes to my unmentionables, I do tend to let things go in this area.  However, having noticed that a few pairs of briefs were looking a tad worn, not to mention the fact that their waistbands were about as tight as cooked spaghetti, I decided to include new skivvies on my next trip to Target.

Now, there was once a time in America that a man's choice in underwear was pretty simple; see the above exchange between Bill Clinton (in the pre-"blue dress" days) and the high school kid.  It was either boxers or briefs.  Pretty simple, huh?

I've always been firmly in the brief camp.  This is probably due to my mother's always having purchased briefs when shopping for my dad, my brother and myself.  I grew up with briefs.  My first exposure to boxers was the first time I had to shower with other guys in junior high PE class.  I don't remember the ratio of boxers to briefs, but it seemed to me at the time that wearing boxers looked a little sloppy.  I never gave it much thought after that, and having shared showers with guys in gyms and dormitory shower rooms in the years since, hadn't really bothered to notice the relative numbers.

But a funny thing happened somewhere along the line.  I'm not sure when it happened--maybe sometime during the second Reagan administration.  (Yet another vast right-wing conspiracy.)  We went from a nation of boxers and briefs  to an America populated not only by those undergarments, but also of low-rise briefs, bikini briefs, string bikinis, boxer briefs, and God knows what else.

This is what confronted me as I cruised through my local Target store the other day.  What started as a simple shopping mission (I needed dog bones and a new garden hose, too) became  as challenging as solving the Pythagorean Theorem.  Instead of simply picking up a couple of packages of shorts and moving on to the hardware department, I froze.  The options were dizzying.  I felt rivulets of sweat in my palms and hoped no one was around to notice my panic.

Forget Hanes versus Fruit of the Loom (I think Jockey is overpriced.). They're the same in price and quality. I was confronted with an overdose of selections, all modeled, of course, by hunky 30-somethings with a particular "asset" which was probably targeted at gay men or the aforementioned wives who might be a little
'lonely", if you get my meaning.

This was my dilemma:  to find size 32 waist briefs.  Sounds simple, right?  Wrong.  While I could have my fill of bikinis, strings, and boxers, finding 32 inch plain old briefs (in color. I'm modern enough to have ditched white shorts a long time ago.  Besides, this is the 21st century, for God's sake.) was nearly impossible.  What diabolical power had decided to eliminate this essential part of my wardrobe from the market?  Reflexively, I started to blame George W. Bush, but realized that even he couldn't have been responsible for this.  Now Dick Cheney, well, that's something else.....I forced myself to clear my head and continue looking.

I'm 53 years old.  Although not obese, I've got the typical slight middle age-beer-no crunches paunch.  Although  I've kept my size 30 jeans somewhere to dream the impossible dream, I've pretty much kept the waistline under reasonable control.  But I inherited, from good old Mom's side of the family, the infamous "Darby butt".  I have a bit of a protruding ass, which is fine in one's 20s, not so much in one's 50s.  This limits one's options re: underwear, especially in this brave new world where men's unmentionables are as varied as are the ladies'.

Obviously, strings and  bikinis were out.  Low rise briefs, questionable unless I lost ten pounds.  But I needed underwear NOW, not after a month at 24 Hour Fitness.   My panic was growing by the minute as I pawed through the racks of everything but what I actually needed!  I simply could not succumb to boxers.  Visions of junior high, with skinny, athletic guys in those baggy suckers made me mentally cringe.  Plus, being the nonconformist I am, I couldn't violate my principles.

Just before some Good Samaritan might have called security to summon assistance for a man suffering an epileptic seizure,  I found them.  Hanes Comfort Band Briefs, size medium.  I nearly shrunk to my knees and thanked the Deity for my good fortune.  Suppressing tears, I threw them into the shopping cart and prepared to move on.  I wasn't crazy about the colors (four pack, black and gray, though I'm sure the black might be enjoyed by my next lady friend....they tend to like that shade of undies..oh, never mind...), but was happy I had actually found them.

But then I took a second look at the boxer briefs.  What the hell.  I threw caution to the wind and found some nicely-colored shorts and tossed them into the cart.  I'm proud to say that I can now walk out to the driveway at 0600 to get the paper in those babies and a Tshirt without being arrested for decent exposure.  Win-win!