(Penises are crucially involved in the first of these ads, though they aren’t actually mentioned, much less depicted. Still…)

It’s crude, about men’s underwear, and you probably don’t want to go there, but there it is, or at least was, at least in someone’s commercial imagination. This ad from ca. 1969 (thanks to Peter Korn):

(#1) The model is alarmingly wasp-waisted; that can’t be healthy.

So: not a fly, but a stretchy hole to push your penis through, for the exigencies of the moment. An innovation that seems not to have caught on, or even found its way into stores. A lost inspiration of the 1960s.

(The Regency Square company appears to have vanished long ago, at least under that name. The building was a nondescript office building, not a shop or showroom.)

From the same source:

(#2) Sp. cortitos ‘shorts’

And a whole assortment of slightly dubious menswear:

(#3) Probably worth it just for the lounging cowboy figure; though stretch denim really doesn’t work that way, it’s just stretchy (from elastene) denim

These ads are designed to appeal to male vanity. Their target audience was probably gay men, who are comfortable being objects of sexual desire. Though I wonder how many of these garments they sold, and to whom.

(Men’s bodies and sex between men, in street language, totally not for kids or the sexually modest.)

He’s never early, he’s always late
First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait
I’m waiting for my man

(from Lou Reed’s “I’m Waiting for the Man”)

Today’s Daily Jocks ad, for a jockstraps sale, has yet another model posed as offering himself for anal intercourse, something of a DJ specialty; these ads show really handsome male buttocks, minimally clothed, and right up against the line with porn. In today’s case, I’ve chosen to spin a whole sex story (in free verse, as a caption) about the man in the ad. Under the fold.

(#1)

The ritual

Keyed up in anticipation,
Joe waited, eyes down in
submission for his
mystery trick,
posing on the sofa to display his
muscular body and offer his ass,
hoping to
please his nameless fucker,
who would then
brusquely push his head down,
force him to
hump his ass,
draw his legs up,
open his asshole to
receive the blessing of a
hard cock
within his body

Just to note that this scenario does happen in real life: men contract to be used sexually by strangers they don’t even lay their eyes on. (It’s the fuck equivalent of various schemes for anonymous cocksucking.) Here I’ve emphasized the ritualistic character of such encounters. And also, of course, the great pleasure a bottom experiences from having his top’s cock within his body.

Previously on this channel. Flirting with fucking in DJ goes back some time– see the Page on this blog on buttocks displays —  but recently it’s been something of a theme. I’ve posted about a pair of these ads:

— on 8/29/20 in “Take me, please”:

(#2)

A beautifully (but not extravagantly) muscled male body, lying prone on the silky sheets of a bed — simultaneously tough and high-masculine and also sumptuously queer — with his knees drawn up to offer his very muscular male buttocks for sex

— on 9/3/20 in “Take me, please (supine version)”

(#3)

What’s for sale here is some brightly colored festishwear, what could fairly be described as hot garments (harnesses, jockstraps, socks) to get fucked in)

… Today’s DJ ad has the same model in the same gear in the same silky bed, but supine, with his legs frogged up for getting fucked in the “missionary position”

The model in #1 is a different one, but also presented as highly masculine — way butch —  with lots of tats, that severe buzzcut, and the facial scruff. Plus the gigantic watch.

Waiting for the man. About the Lou Reed song. From Wikipedia:

“I’m Waiting for the Man” (sometimes titled “I’m Waiting for My Man”) is a song by the American rock band the Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed. It was first released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico.

The song is about waiting on a streetcorner in Harlem, near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, in New York City and purchasing $26 worth of heroin (equivalent to $211 in 2019), sung from the point of view of the purchaser, who has presumably traveled to Harlem from another part of the city; the “man” in the title is a drug dealer.

It’s a haunting song. You can listen to the Velvet Underground recording here.

From Steven Levine on Facebook yesterday, some astonishment at getting a targeted ad for

Levi’s® Premium 501® ’93 STRAIGHT MEN’S JEANS

Well, yes, it’s just a familiar sort of structural ambiguity: X Y Z as

 [X + Y] + Z ( [straight men’s] [jeans] ‘jeans for straight men’) (A)

or X + [Y + Z] ( [straight] [men’s jeans] ‘men’s jeans that are straight’ (B)

(where the Adj  straight in (B) is a truncation of straight-fit / straight-leg ‘straight-legged’, while the Adj straight in (A) is a rough synonym of heterosexual)

The Levis people had (B) in mind, But Steven and I, as gay men, immediately perceived (A), straight vs.gay being especialy salient for us, so we found the ad hilarious, wondering just what sort of purity test would be applied before guys were allowed ro buy the jeans.

The company’s illustration, along with some of the characteristics it trumpets for them:

(#1)

The original blue jean since 1873.
The original straight fit jean.
90’s inspired look and feel.
All-American style.

The commercial terms Levis uses for the jeans it offers:

skinny, slim, straight, taper, bootcut, relaxed, loose

Other sources use a somewhat different set of labels. From the Fashion Infographics site, “Types of jeans – a visual glossary” on 11/21/15:

(#2)

American style vs. European style. I was puzzled by the (All-)American style on the Levis site. The contrast is with European style, but I still find the distinction elusive.The best I’ve been able to find is this discussion of men’s European jeans on the International Jock site

When you’re in the market for sophisticated casual wear, it doesn’t get much more on point than a pair of men’s European jeans. European men have an intrinsic sense of style. At once sleek and comfortable, it’s fashion that speaks volumes without ever being overdone. Ready to embrace your inner Euro male? Then take a peek at our quick tips for creating the kind of look that fashionable guys across the globe envy.

The first step to dressing like you’re from across the pond is to eschew the baggy look for a fitted pair of men’s European jeans. European fashion tends to bypass extremely loose fitting pants for more slender stylings. Of course, there’s no need to go for super skinnies – a simple straight leg will do nicely. Just leave the wider legs and droopy waistbands on the rack.

Do it European Style

Another important element to nailing the sophisticated look you’re after is to be selective about the pieces you add to your wardrobe. When it comes to men’s European jeans, it’s definitely about quality over quantity. Save up for a few higher end jeans, and pair them with pieces you already own to maximize both your look and your bottom line. And don’t forget to accessorize. A loosely knotted scarf, classic belt, or quality pair of dress shoes can take your outfit from ordinary to exceptional.

From this, it would apprear that, except for the avoidance of bagginess, the European style is mostly not a matter of enduring quantifiable characterstics, but rather a matter of sensibility and attitude, evidenced in small details of design, tied to local contexts (variable over times and places and social groups), details that themselves are probably noticed only by experienced observers.

(References to sex between men in plain language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

The image from a steamy Daily Jocks ad on 9/28, with (under the fold) my caption.

(#1)

He dreamed
he got fucked
in his
Helsinki
Athletica
jockstrap

When Nikolas feels anxious, he
Pulls down his gym shorts and
Offers his ass, seeking the calm a
Solid fuck can give him

The first theme is that anxiety and stress can cause people to seek distraction and relief through sex — by masturbation, of course, but also with a partner.

The second theme is that satisfying sex leaves in its train a feeling of pleasurable relaxation.

And then there’s the allusion in the He got fucked… title. On that, from my  7/21/17 posting “Getting into harness”:

my caption … is a take-off on the long series of “I dreamed I Xed in my Maidenform Bra” ads from the 50s

For example:

(#2) Young women in their bras in all sorts of preposterous circumstances — here as a firefighter

(This posting starts with a homoerotic Daily Jocks ad — nothing close to the line visually or textually, but you might still want to exercise your judgment — moves through Doan’s pills and ends with musician Rod Stewart.)

… but what story? They’re just pictures, after all, subject to many interpretations. Even when the creator’s intentions are clear, there are often two (or more) intended stories for the same picture — typically, one literal and one allusive (consider still lifes with moral messages). In any case, other viewers are free to see stories the creator did not. And sometimes the pictures have no clear interpretation.

Which brings me to the Daily Jocks mailing of 10/26:

(#1) At the gym, two hunks eye each other’s crotches with facial expressions that would be heavy sexual cruises if exchanged face to face

Well, it’s a menswear ad, and comes with no explicit clues as to how it’s to be interpreted — maybe just as a generic homoerotic encounter (certainly homoerotic). But still you wonder: what’s their story? Are they an established couple, shown here appreciating each other’s bodies for the camera? Or did they just come across one another in the gym and are now setting up a trick? Or maybe merely complimenting each other through their gaze and facial expressions, each conveying that he thinks the other is really hot? (Nice body, buddy.)

Background 1: the ad. From the DJ mailing:

Sport Training 2.0 shorts – dark teal: The new and improved Sport Training Shorts are made of breathable stretch woven fabric that is lightweight and anti-static to keep you cool and comfortable through your workout.

The new [Helsinki Athletica] Sports Training Collection is the ultimate combination of functional, sleek and sexy.

Note the sexy.

Background 2: the models. Except for the fact that both are wearing HA dark teal sport shorts, the models have been chosen to be as differentiated as possible (and posed differently).

Left Guy (sitting, legs spread, in a tank top, white socks and shoes) is dark-haired, with facial scruff and lightly furred body. Right Guy (standing, shirtless, black socks and shoes) has lighter hair, a smooth-shaven face, and a smooth body.

That is, they are presented as complementary, and so as an especially attractive (fantasy) couple. Complementarity is a very satisfying characteristic within a couple; each partner discovers new things from the other, and they learn from one another. For straight couples, the sex difference provides a kind of base line of complementarity (though it can develop many forms thereafter); same-sex couples seek other sources of complementarity (especially characterstics of personality, but also interests), which then help to cement their relationship.

(I’ve had one female partner and one male partner — and then, for some time, the two of them together. Each of them altered my life deeply, changed me, and I changed them in turn. Not always easy, but, as I said, satisfying.)

The saying. The short version, from the Cambridge Dictionary (on-line):

saying: every picture tells a story: said when what has really happened in a situation is clear because of the way that someone or something looks

More detail, with notes on the history, from Pascal Tréguer’s Word Histories site (the site is new to me, so I can’t fully vouch for it, but the material looks dependable):

The phrase every, or each, picture tells a story is used of images that are particularly significant, revealing, or suggestive of real or imaginary events.

His first cite is from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), with each; then a series of later cites; and finally:

In both Britain and the USA, the phrase was popularised in the early 1900s by the advertisements for Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills, in which the slogan Every Picture tells a Story appeared alongside the picture of a man or woman clutching the small of his or her back.

One of the first appearances in this use he found was from the Cambridge Daily News (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England) on 12/18/1902 (the cites are all from local newspapers):

(#2)

The pills were a mild diuretic for the kidneys. They were later advertised as Doan’s Little Liver Pills. They are, in fact, still available (at your local drugstore) as pain relief medicine for backache:

(#3)

Rod Stewart. And the song. From Wikipedia:

(#4)

“Every Picture Tells a Story” is a song written by Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood and initially released as the title track of Stewart’s 1971 album Every Picture Tells a Story. It has since been released on numerous Stewart compilation and live albums

It’s rude, crude, and lyrically wonderfully complex. You can listen to Stewart performing it here (in a remastered version of the performance from The Definitive Rod Stewart).

(From my posting backlog. Not for kids or the sexually modest.)

The Daily Jocks ad (for the premium homowear firm Pump!) from May 29th, a little masterpiece of the hard-cruise soft-porn genre, the underwear model as steamy rentboy:

(#1) A hard cruise’s a-gonna make you crawl, my blue-eyed son, my darling young one

Piercingly cruisy insolent contempt, combined with a display of the goods available, in a pitsntits display, plus an oiled torso and legs spread so that his crotch can be thrust forward for his trick.

But the hard cruise is mostly conveyed with the face: direct gaze, narrowed eyes, and tight mouth.

Two other high points of the genre: the PUMP! swimshorts ad in my June 18th posting “The Magnificent WaterSports”, offering four hard-cruisy models with an assortment of variations on the basic presentation; and in my 7/18/16 posting “The Insolence and the Ecstasy”, a pair of  notably insolent models for 2eros Black Label underwear.

(#2) Left, two head tilts and somewhat raised eyebrows; right, two harder-core flat-on cruises; three of the four men have one leg somewhat raised, in the classic stand-and-pose stance

(#3) Sitting in a half-reclining position; man on left more inviting; man on right with spread legs and intense impassive face

Lexical notes. From NOAD:

adj. insolent: showing a rude and arrogant lack of respect: she hated the insolent tone of his voice.

noun contempt: the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn: he showed his contempt for his job by doing it very badly. adj. contemptuous: showing contempt; scornful.

verb cruise: 1 … [d] informal [without object] wander about a place in search of a casual sexual partner: he spends his time cruising and just hanging out in New Orleans| [with object]: he cruised the gay bars of Los Angeles. [e] [with object] informal walk past and assess (a potential sexual partner): he was cruising a pair of sailors. [The examples make it clear that the verb is virtually always used in a gay male context, though this isn’t explicit in the actual entries.]

Cruising as in the NOAD entry can be an entirely amateur activity, engaged in for the pleasure it affords; or a professional activity, an occupation that brings in money (for stud hustlers).

The caption for #1. A take-off on Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”. The original lines:

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

On the song, from Wikipedia:

“A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962 and recorded later that year for his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963). Its lyrical structure is modeled after the question and answer form of traditional ballads such as “Lord Randall”.

The song is characterized by symbolist imagery in the style of Arthur Rimbaud, communicating suffering, pollution, and warfare.

This morning’s little entertainment from the Daily Jocks site:

(#1) A bit of word play on mask and masc(uline), underwear models being chosen for their projection of high masculinity (as here)

Details.The DJ ad copy:

Wearing a mask doesn’t have to be boring, keep yourself & others safe with DJX’s new Party At Home masks. Available in 6 styles.

The other five are much less interesting than this one; unicorn, gay a.f., macho, open wide, bottom.

The model in #1 (here all in plain black) showing off his full body, flagrantly displaying his crotch:

(#2) Definitely masc

From Ryan Tamares, a gay Xmas and pandemic-chasing card “Adam Likes Santa: Red Santa”, featuring cartoonist Bobo Nisi’s gay bear character Bobo-Bear (sometimes Bobobear or Bobo Bear):

(#1) The card

(Also demonstrating some newly recovered abilities of mine at formatting my blog postings.)

On the Bobo-Bear Facebook page:

A supermarket worker who dreamed to draw, bought some pencils, moved to London and now shares his art on t-shirts. Follow if you like bears [of the gay male variety]. Grrr!

Drawn by Bobo Nisi, a supermarket worker who dreamed to draw, said goodbye to the aisles, bought some pencils and imagined these gay sexy bears.

An overview of some Bobo-Bear characters:

(#2) Six characters

The Bobo-Bear site also sells merchandise (of course):

(#3) Shirtless Bobo-Bear modeling a mask

(#4) Bobo-Bear swimwear, with a butt bear

Just now, day 5 of the DailyJocks 12 Days of Christmas sale on swimwear: in the surf, two arm-linked swimmer-body dudes radiate joy as they contemplate their Elia swimwear (or possibly their crotches — or, of course, both), in the baby blue, pink, and white Pool Party pattern: Titan swim shorts on the left, Kos enhancing swim briefs on the right:

I post this not just because the guys have hot, though not heavily gymmed-up, bodies, but mostly because they do indeed radiate joy, especially Enhanced-Cup Dude, who’s smiling broadly. Joy is a precious commodity these days; this ad made me smile myself as soon as I saw it. And then they’re presenting themselves as a couple, and that gave me still more pleasure.

So I wanted to share them with the rest of you. I don’t think you have to be a gay man to find enjoyment in the ad — or to be intrigued about what’s in their minds as they stare down at their swimwear.

Notes on the swimwear, from the ad:

The Titan swim shorts are a low rise short featuring 3 inch inseam and a lightweight stretch woven fabric to hug your body without compromising on comfort.

The Kos Enhancing swim brief is a low rise brief featuring front removable enhancement cup.

The pattern here is Pool Party; other patterns include Navy Flamingo and Beach Unicorn, as well as many abstract patterns and solid colors.

On the Elia company, enhancement cups, and more, see my 7/4/20 posting “Pretty, and sometimes protuberant, in pink”.

(References to male genitals and sex between men, in sometimes very plain language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

A wonderfully lubricious Daily Jocks sale ad for Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, taking advantage of allusions to box in several different sexual senses:

Muscular glutes and a broad, somewhat goofy, smile. On a Christmas theme, without any actual underwear — just red DJX Football Socks (which are advertised as partywear).

Background from my 12/29/15 posting “Boxboys and transitive bottoming”, about

a not at all subtle play on vocabulary taken from ordinary language to supply euphemisms for explicit sex talk — notably a play on box and package (similarly, basket, junk, sack, etc.) used to refer to the male genitalia.

… [in addition,] all everyday vocabulary for the vagina can be (and, as far as I can see, has been) pressed into service to refer to the male anus viewed as a (receptive) sexual organ (see my 7/26/13 posting on the phenomenon). That gives us a series of synonyms of bottom boy ‘man whose preference is to serve as the recipient in anal intercourse, man who prefers to be fucked’: from the top on down: cuntboy, pussyboy, and, yes, boxboy. (All of these have boy used for a gay man, of whatever age.)

So: Boxing Day could go either way, though the focus in the ad on the model’s very muscular glutes strongly suggests he’s an enthusiastic bottom boy.

Which moved me to produce some thoroughly raunchy verse about him:

The boxboy at play

Once his box was fully
engaged, Joey went wild,
begging loudly for more,
deeper, harder, oh god fuck me
fuck me, please fuck me.

He was a famously satisfying
pussyboy, also enormously proud of
his ability to get men to give him
exactly what he needed.

It starts with a photo that came up in a slideshow of things from Elizabeth Daingerfeld Zwicky’s image trove: Steven Levine and me, both in flannel shirts, in a time and a place and on an occasion that neither of us could identify — and EDZ wasn’t any help.

(#1) The flannel guys

Steven put it at roughly 20 years ago, because the shirt he’s wearing is one that he wore lovingly to death some years ago (cue Donovan singing “I Love My Shirt”). I still have my shirt, however, because it was one of a set of 5 or so L.L.Bean flannel shirts I bought late in the last century and have been carefully rotating over the intervening years, to make them last through as many winters as possible (I do love those shirts; among other things, they are lined).

Ned Deily then cracked the case. First, he extracted a date stamp from the file: 2004-02-15. Then, in his own words:

I was momentarily at a loss to place it when I saw it but quickly realized it must have been at a Bay Area shape note singing. [Both Steven and I are shapenote singers.] Consulting my calendar archive, I see it was indeed: at Carolyn Deacy’s house in San Francisco [in the Glen Park neighborhood]. I think Steven was likely serendipitously in the area on business: from the calendar he was in town for at least 10 days. And earlier that same Sunday, there was a certain baby shower held at the home of Diana Smetters.

The shower would have been for the forthcoming Eliot Ozaki, now a junior in high school. Diana was a school friend of Elizabeth’s, and then as an Ohio State undergraduate took mathematical linguistics from me. We all still keep in touch: the information about Eliot I got from this year’s Christmas card from Diana and her husband Yoshi (They now live in San Carlos CA, not far from me and EDZ.).

Adventures in Flannel Land. Flannel shirts are both warm and durable, so they serve as excellent workshirts, associated stereotypically with (among others) lumberjacks and cowboys —   the macho working class of fantasy.

(These associations with masculinity have led to flannel shirts being viewed as characteristic clothing — a kind of uniform — for dykes.)

They are also very often made in plaid patterns (see Steven and me, above), sometimes associated with the tartans of Scotland and designed in gorgeous colors, so that the shirts can also be fashion objects. And that makes them available for flagrantly way-gay apparel, as in this “gay guy flannel levis jeans white socks” figure (with a big mix of gay signifiers, including a pecs/nipples display made possible by the severely cut-back open-torso shirt) available in many places on the net:

(#2) Beat this, bitch!

And, this somewhat less flagrant, but still way-gay, bear flannel:

(#3) Just an ordinary flannel shirt, but fully open for a torso display

(You can now find on Twitter plaintive cries about how hard it is to distinguish lumberjack/cowboy/country flannel from gay flannel — from straight guys trying to protect their flannel fantasies from the faggy stuff.)

Now, back to #1. It happens that Steven and I are both gay, but that doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with our attractions to flannel shirts. On the other hand, any man, gay or straight, might take pleasure from the routine associations of these shirts with masculinity — just feeling comfortable in your skin when you’re wearing one of these shirts. (Every so often, I have to remind people that I might be a fag, but I’m also a guy, and that both of those things are important to me.)

Bonus: Flannel Underground. Yes, a band — think Velvet Underground — and they do indeed perform in flannel shirts. From their Facebook page:

Playing (mostly) 90’s rock by bands such as Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, STP, Rage, RHCP, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice In Chains, Weezer, Bush and many more.

Then there’s their logo, which suggests that the band’s name might have been carefully chosen for its in-you-face values:

(#4)

Nice plaid.

(I have a number of much more serious things to post about this morning, but I was struck speechless by today’s mailing from the Daily Jocks people, with an image of high-quality high-intensity soft porn aimed at men — presented as if it were just an ad featuring work-out shorts. Warning: this posting shows no male genitals, but it reeks of sex, and might strike some as unsuitable for kids and the sexually modest.)

The e-mail image.

The e-mail header: “Work up a sweat with Franky ”

(#1)

Some salient features:

— this is a pitsntits / pits ‘n’ tits presentation of Franky’s body, making his armpits and his erect nipples available to the viewer (and also focusing on his bulging biceps)

— it’s also a full display of his torso, featuring his abs

— there’s a light sheen of sweat on Franky’s body — you can almost smell him

— Franky’s work-out shorts are pulled down just short of his pubic hair, in a modest cock tease

— Franky offers a challenging facial expression to the viewer: are you man enough to take me?

— Franky’s high-macho presentation is further accentuated by his (short) facial hair, his baseball cap, and the tats on his right forearm

The overall effect is soft porn — providing something for an appreciative male viewer to masturbate to.

But wait, there’s more. The point of the e-mail is not just to display Franky’s hot body, but to use it to push a subscription offer to OnlyJox (“Daily Jocks Naughty Brother”), which offers shopping discounts and “HOT content everyday” (hot content like Franky.)

The logo for OnlyJox;

(#2) Salient features include: a lightly furry torso, an erect nipple, a visible hard-on in the model’s sweat pants

You can make only so much money on premium underwear and work-out apparel. Providing some shopping bargains plus a lot of soft or borderline porn gives the company another source of income.

I stress again the high quality of the photography, very much welcome in a world that overwhelms us with tons of amateurish, poorly framed, awkward porn of men for men.

(About the male body, in particular, men’s buttocks as objects of male sexual desire, and, eventually, about sexual acts between men, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

Two things from Pinterest recently: a vintage Levis ad prominently focused on the model’s buttocks:

(#1) My caption: fanning the flames of desire around the campfire with butt-flattering jeans

and a link to a comic piece “How the West Was Worn” (from 9/18/14, by Christopher Harrity) on the Advocate magazine’s site, about the history of callipygian men in Levi’s ads, with mocking captions added to the ads. (Note: the Advocate provides news and features for LGBTQ readers.)

The excellent word callipygian, from NOAD:

adj. callipygian (also callipygean): rare having well-shaped buttocks ORIGIN late 18th century: from Greek kallipūgos (used to describe a famous statue of Venus), from kallos ‘beauty’ + pūgē‘buttocks’, + –ian.

From the Advocate piece, but without a mocking caption, these happy callipygian skateboarders in a Levi’s ad:

(#2)

Then, the main text of the Advocate piece, plus two vintage ads with jokey captions (from the Advocate) highlighting the male buttocks as objects of male sexual desire.

The most important fashion item of the 20th century — Levi Strauss jeans — based their appeal on slim-hipped cowboys in a fun-loving, all-male environment.

The patent for denim pants with copper rivets to reinforce seams was secured in 1873. Thus was born the most perfectly comfortable, indestructibly durable, supremely ass-hugging pair of pants ever made. If you held on to them and wore them for a few years, they became sensuously soft and molded to your body. The worn patches defined your shape. They had to be the first piece of clothing that became more perfect as they dissolved.

Early Levi’s ads were historic and fairly xenophobic. But the ads reached a peak of manly appeal in the 1950s, when the visuals focused on the man’s butt with the signature red tab and portrayed an all-male world of bunkhouses, group showers, and horseplay. Small wonder that in the late ’50s and ’60s, both the underground biker culture and the underground gay culture (and yes, there was overlap) adopted Levi’s jeans as the de rigueur uniform.

Since then, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and hundreds of others have jumped on the jeans bandwagon. But it was Levi Strauss and Co. that made the market what it is with its charming, frisky, and perhaps unintentionally sexy ads.

Two captioned examples:

(#3) (caption) That’s it, buddy. I just want to get a picture of you looking into the canyon. OK, clench a little?

(#4) (caption) I am very, very aware of the seams on Levi’s.

Jeans ads in their larger context. Iin particular, on the ads as art works — commercial art, in this case — focused on the male buttocks. From my 7/18/20 posting “Buttocks III: (mainstream) art, male art, porm”:

A follow-up to two earlier postings …, about art works of various kinds focused on the male buttocks. The first, “Buttocks display” was largely about men’s premium underwear ads celebrating male buttocks — work by professional photographers (using professional models), carefuly posed and lit, and often very artfully framed, but also clearly attentive to the sexual desirability of the models’ bodies. Art with a homoerotic eye. One brand of what is known as male art. (For a collection of books on the genre, see the Page on Male art on this blog.)

The second posting, “The art of the buttocks”, looked at some mainstream art — notably, paintings by the early 19th-century artist William Etty (who specialized in nudes of all sorts).

And then there’s frank (gay) porn, in which buttocks play a central role (because anal intercourse does). Covered very extensively on this blog (see the Page on pornstars on this blog).

The first thing to be said on these distinctions is that you can’t tell just by looking; you might need to know quite a lot about the context in which a work appears, to judge the intentions of the creator and, especially, to judge the work’s place in the social worlds surrounding it.

An early stab of mine at making some distinctions in this area: my 3/19/13 posting “Porn/art”:

I’ve often reflected on the line — not at all clear — between gay porn photography and male [primarily homoerotic] art photography. The easy delineation has to do with intent: gay porn is intended to get guys off, male photography is aesthetic appreciation of the male body. But of course motives are mixed: porn can be artfully done, male photography can be arousing. There’s no one reading of an image.

A case in point from recent advertising in my e-mailbox: this DVD from the Cocky Boys studio:

(#5)

Now focus entirely on the image of the two men and put it in a different context, as a moment in a modern dance work about an intense encounter between them; both have their muscles tensed to their limits, while the man on the right is drawing the other man to him, either to rest in his embrace or to submit to his power (like a wrestler conceding to his opponent). Their bodies are beautifully aligned in an oblique angle; the whole thing could be nicely captured in a metal sculpture.

Of course, in the actual encounter, the man on the left isn’t merely drawing the other man to him for closeness, but is in fact fucking him (though you can’t actually see his cock in action). We know that because we know this is a cover image for a Cocky Boys gay porn DVD — but remove that information from the cover, and you’ve got a nicely composed abstract arrangement of male bodies.

The point is that if even when you go back and put the image back into its porn context, it is still a nicely composed abstract arrangement of male bodies. The artfulness remains, even if you’re going to use the image to jack off to.

On the DVD. From the Cocky Boys studio: Rough & Ready, released in 2016; directed by Jake Jaxson; starring Angel Cruz, Flex Xtremmo, Allen King, Damien Crosse, Gabriel Clark, Ian Torres, Marco Gagnon.

Breathless summary from the studio:

Rough & Ready sees Angel Cruz leading a cast of hot, horny, and very hung guys who just like to fuck without abandon. Joined by Allen King and Damien Crosse in the sultry city of Valencia [in Spain], these hunks are always ready to get down with each other – anywhere or anytime. It has to be rough though – because they are more than ready!

[Note the flexibility of the sexual verb do. In Angel Does Valencia, Angel fucks men from Valencia; he takes the insertive role in the act. In the straight porn film Debbie Does Dallas — the title is clearly the model for Angel Does Valencia — Debbie (mostly) gets fucked by men from Dallas; she takes the receptive role in the act. In Tom did every single guy at the glory holes, Tom sucked off the men at the glory holes; he took the receptive role in the act of fellation. But in In an act of extraordinary endurance, Tom did three cocksuckers in a row at the baths, Tom got sucked off by three men; he took the insertive role in the act of fellation. (Do is primarily used for a fellator, but it’s possible for a fellatee.)]

(This posting starts with a charming jockstrap ad, but works into the world of sex between men, so its not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

Today’s Daily Jocks ad brings us the very hunky, super-cute, and grinning models Aaron Scott and Adam Scott — yes, they’re twin brothers, and I don’t know which is which — in some PUMP jockstraps from the company’s Play collection:

(#1) Yes, they are wearing fun jocks

(As twins frequently do, they always use their full names in coordination — Aaron Scott and Adam Scott — rather than a reduced coordination — Aaron and Adam Scott — so as to maintain their separate identities.)

Images of very attractive near-naked men always allow a viewer who’s so inclined to project his sexual desires onto the men, but the guys in #1 aren’t adding any fuel of their own to this fire.

It turns out that Adam Scott and Aaron Scott are perfectly happy to present themselves homoerotically (Daily Jocks ads usually have a homoerotic kick to them; #1 is unusual in its sexual innocence.)

So we get the two men, still in their fun jocks, in a steamier pose, with one of them (on the right) performing a heavy cruise face:

(#2)

[Note: about the men and the underwear, on the (very enthusiastic, but rather awkwardy written) Mens UnderwearFan site  (Michael Hanes):

Both are fitness models and actors by profession working with Good Talent Management. [They] are posing in the Play men’s underwear from the newest collection by the famous underwear brand PUMP. The underwear of this collection comes with very high-def fiber colors. The colorful stripe on the underwear waistband makes it unique among other variants of men’s underwear.]

Finally, on the Image Amplified site, steamy photography by Blake Ballard featuring the two men; for instance:

(#3) Both performing cock teases, with their jeans pulled down

Three ways of thinking about jockstraps.

— jocks as utilitarian sportswear (supporting and protecting the male genitals during sports or exercise). As exemplified especially by the simplest of Bike jocks, like this vintage item:

(#4) Vintage Bikes of this sort are available on eBay and similar sale sites

As it happens, such items are easily sexualized. Just viewing a vintage Bike jock can produce, for many men, a madeleine-like evocation of the smell of men’s locker rooms, sharp with male sweat — and for many gay men, dick-hardening recollections of fantasized sexual encounters with athletes sporting classic Bike jocks.

— jocks as sexual display (offering the genitals in front and the buttocks in back, both as objects of sexual desire).  Daily Jocks ads generally make attractive men in jockstraps available as objects of homoerotic desire, as the viewer wishes; but often the models are visibly projecting sexual desire or desirability — they are in fact cruising the viewer. (Compare #1, presenting attractive men with no sexual agenda, with the steamier #2 and #3.)

— jocks as toys or trinkets, as playful display — fun jocks — though of course such jocks could serve simultaneously as utilitarian athletic wear or as sexual display.

[Note: about sexuality and its performance. The men modeling jocks as sexual display often are “visibly projecting sexual desire or desirability”, as I put it above. These are performances of (gay) sexuality, not expressions of it; the models are acting (many are, in fact, professional actors as well as male models). Some of the models identify as gay or bisexual, but many identify as straight. In particular, despite the homoerotic steaminess of #2 and #3, Aaron Scott and Adam Scott identify as straight — and also serve as objects of desire for a fair number of straight women.

Real life is much more complex. The classification of jockstraps as utilitarian sportswear, sexual display, or toys or trinkets is far too simplistic, even given the provisos above about overlaps and multiple functions. For something more realistic, consider the discussion in my 10/16/19 posting “Adventures in homomasculinity: the pink jock”, beginning:

Following on my postings about butch fagginess  in men’s underwear, more intersections of styles of masculinity with styles of homosexuality, still with men’s underwear as signs of these styles.

My talk here is not simply in terms of performances of gay sexuality, but in performances of various styles of homomasculinity, complex patterns of behavior and attitudes, which can then be manifested in complex patterns of self-presentation, like butch fagginess, in which explicit signifiers of butch identity co-occur with others associated with the faggy and the femme —  muscle-hunks in pink underwear, for example.

Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, framed as an instance of the Psychiatrist cartoon meme:

(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)

The patient is lying on the therapeutic couch, but he’s also flat on hs back suffering the affective disorder that comes to many with the winter solstice (Wayno’s title for the cartoon: “Bummer Solstice” — playing on summer solstice).

Then the title “Tropical Depression”, ordinarily referring to a meterological phenomenon, involving lowered atmospheric pressure (depression) arising in the tropics  (the geographical band surrounding the equator); but here referring to a mental condition (depression, characterized by lowered energy and affect), in this case, specifically, seasonal affective disorder (aka seasonal melancholy) triggered by the short, dark, cold days around the winter solstice — which the patient seems to be counteracting with cultural symbols  associated with the bright, hot, and humid tropics (Hawaii, to be specific): beachcomber hat, lei, coconut drink, ukulele, and Hawaiian beach shorts.

So: ambiguity. From NOAD on senses of the noun depression:

1 [a] feelings of severe despondency and dejection: self-doubt creeps in and that swiftly turns to depression. [b] Psychiatry a mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep: she was referred by a psychiatrist treating her for depression. 2 [a] a long and severe recession in an economy or market: the depression in the housing market. [b] (the Depression or the Great Depression) the financial and industrial slump of 1929 and subsequent years. 3 [a] the action of lowering something or pressing something down: depression of the plunger delivers two units of insulin. [b] a sunken place or hollow on a surface: the original shallow depressions were slowly converted to creeks. 4 Meteorology a region of lower atmospheric pressure, especially a cyclonic weather system: hurricanes start off as loose regions of bad weather known as tropical depressions. … ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin depressio(n-), from deprimere ‘press down’).

The senses in 3 are the older ones, close to the etymological original ‘pressed down’. The others are metaphorical developments from this, involving various ways in which something can be pressed down: mental state in 1; the economy or market in 2; atmospheric pressure in 4. The cartoon plays with 1 vs. 4.

At the same time, the cartoon plays with a subtler ambiguity in tropical ‘having to to with the tropics’. Background, from NOAD:

noun tropic: [a] the parallel of latitude 23°26ʹ north (tropic of Cancer) or south (tropic of Capricorn) of the equator… [c] (the tropics) the region between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

The adjective tropical can then be merely a geographical term (as in the meteorological expression tropical depression, or in tropical rainforest or tropical medicine); or it can index the cultural associations of the tropics, in references to tropical drinks, tropical music and dances, tropical clothing, and the like.  The cartoon title “Tropical Depression” then plays on these two senses of tropical as well on two senses of depression.

Next, on seasonal affective disorder, from Wikipedia:

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder subset in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year exhibit depressive symptoms at the same time each year, most commonly in winter. Common symptoms include sleeping too much and having little to no energy, and overeating.

… SAD in the United States affects from 1.4% of the population in Florida to 9.9% in Alaska. SAD was formally described and named in 1984 by Norman E. Rosenthal and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health.

And finally, the culturally tropical symbols in the cartoon. Most of these are familiar or have been taken up in other postings on this blog. Two deserve a bit of commentary.

First, the beachcomber hat — that’s what it’s known as in the clothing business — of straw. From the Windy City Novelties site:

(#2) ad copy: “Our 16″ natural straw Beachcomber Hat is the perfect accent for your Luau or Beach party. Get a feel for the tropics at your party with this straw Beachcomber Hat”

And then the coconut drink: a drink (probably alcoholic) in a whole coconut with holes drilled in it and a straw inserted in one of the holes — a form of coconut drink I think I’ve seen only in the comic strips. In real life, the top bit of a coconut is sawed off and a drink is mixed in the hollow of the coconut, as in these piña coladas (complete with straws) from the lovetoknow site’s “21 Coconut Rum Drink Recipes That Are Irresistibly Easy”:

(#3)

Extracted from my 1/15/21 posting “Flat on his back at the solstice”, this image:

(#1) A guy in Hawaiian mode, with beachcomber hat, lei, coconut drink, ukulele, and Hawaiian beach shorts

These Hawaiian beach shorts are only modestly floral. But ads go past me all the time for just gorgeous shirts, and bottoms as well — beach shorts, board shorts, and swim trunks — many in recognizably Hawaiian patterns (from traditional fabrics of several kinds), others of new, riotously colorful and often playful, design.

I started to assemble a collection of some of my favorite patterns, only to realize that they were all based on hibiscus flowers — some stylized, some more realistic. So this has become a hibiscus posting. (Information about the flowers in a while.)

The cultural context: aloha shirts. From Wikipedia:

The aloha shirt, also referred to as a Hawaiian shirt, is a style of dress shirt originating in Hawaii. They are collared and buttoned dress shirts, usually short-sleeved and cut from printed fabric. They are often worn untucked, but can be worn tucked in as well. They are not only casual wear, but serve as informal business attire in Hawaii.

… Traditional men’s aloha shirts are usually adorned with traditional Hawaiian quilt designs, tapa designs, and simple floral patterns in more muted colors. Contemporary aloha shirts may have prints that do not feature any traditional Hawaiian quilt or floral designs but instead may incorporate drinks, palm trees, surf boards or other island tropical elements in a similar form as the traditional aloha shirt.

(#2) On Amazon: Wave Shoppe men’s navy blue Hawaiian shirt with hibiscus flowers

[Side notes on this Wikipedia piece. First, on tapa cloth:

Tapa cloth (or simply tapa) is a barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii (where it is called kapa). (Wikipedia link)

(#3) From the Cooper Hewitt site: bark cloth (Samoa), 19th or early 20th century

Then on Hawaiian quilts:

A Hawaiian quilt is a distinctive quilting style of the Hawaiian Islands that uses large radially symmetric applique patterns. Motifs often work stylized botanical designs in bold colors on a white background.

Hawaiian quilt applique is made from a single cut on folded fabric. Quilting stitches normally follow the contours of the applique design.

(#4) Hawaiian quilt (from Wikipedia)

… Hawaiian quilting derives from the kapa moe, an indigenous bed cover textile. Kapa was constructed from the inner bark of local trees. Traditional kapa was beaten and felted, then dyed in geometric patterns.

Quilting may have begun in the Hawaiian islands with the arrival of missionaries and Western fabrics in the 1820s. The climate of Hawaii is unsuitable for cotton cultivation and kapa is unsuitable for quilting so all Hawaiian quilts are constructed from imported material. The earliest written reference comes from Isabella Bird, who visited Hawaii in 1870 and wrote a travelogue Six Months in the Sandwich Islands. (Wikipedia link) ]

Tropical fabric.From the Aloha Quilt Shop site, selling tropical fabrics:

(#5) Blue pareau Hawaiian fabric (available in many other colors); those are stylized hibiscus flowers

The term pareau (a variant of pareu) was new to me; it turns out to be another piece of cultural background. From Wikipedia:

The pāreu or pareo … is the Cook Islands and Tahitian word for a wraparound skirt. Originally it was used only to refer to women’s skirts, as men wore a loincloth, called a maro. Nowadays the term is applied to any piece of cloth worn wrapped around the body, worn by males or females.

… In contemporary Tahitian the right word is pāreu … It is not clear where the variant pareo comes from.

… The Tahitian pāreu are among the most colourful and bright of the Pacific. Originally flower patterns, the hibiscus flowers in particular, or traditional tapa patterns, were printed in bright colours on a cotton sheet of about 90 or 120 cm wide and 180 cm long.

The fabrics can then also be used for shirts and bottoms.

The Aloha Quilt Shop site offers this (less traditional) hibiscus floral Hawaiian print:

(#6)

Back in #2, a hibiscus shirt. And now some men’s shorts (from the Paradise Clothing Co.):

(#7) Hibiscus Paradise men’s shorts (in red pareau)

The genus Hibiscus. Three species in the genus have figured prominently on this blog:

— the rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus, a common ornamental shrub

— perennial hibiscus, or rose-mallow, Hibiscus moscheutos, a wetland plant, also popular as a garden plant

— Chinese or tropical hibiscus, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, a  shrub or small tree with showy flowers in many colors; this is the flower that is represented on so many Hawaiian fabrics. Two tropical hibiscus flowers, one red and one white:

(#8)

(#9)

Two other Hibiscus species on this blog:

— roselle, Hibiscus sabdariffai, a Mexican plant of many uses: bast fiber from the stem of the plant, food coloring, folk medicine, dishes made with leaves, beverage, jam

— okra, Abelmoschus esculentus, which was formerly Hibiscus esculentus (that is,’edible hibiscus’)

(Well, men’s underwear, so men’s bodies play a significant role, but nothing raunchy. Look at #1, just below, to get a feel for the content and your comfort level; this is about as racy as things get in this posting.)

Passed on to me by Sim Aberson a few days ago, with the comment “Pair?”, this jockstrap ad from the men’s underwear company TBô (sometimes T-Bô):

(#1)

Not just “pair”, but “pair of jockstrap”, with SG jockstrap.The ad will take this posting  in many different directions, sometimes inconclusively, so the posting will proceed as a collection of very loosely connected mini-essays.

Partitives and plurals. On FB, Jeff Shaumeyer expanded on Sim’s query:

I don’t think I’ve ever before heard “pair of jockstrap”

I agreed:

I’ve long been accumulating all sorts of surprises with partitives [in this case, pair of] and with SG/PL and C/M, but “pair of jockstrap” is brand-new to me. Pretty clearly non-native English.

Meanwhile, Sim did a search for “pair of jockstrap,” and nothing came up.

First thing here: partitive pair of, which combines with a PL (C) noun referring to a bipartite entity. From NOAD:

noun pair: [a] a set of two things used together or regarded as a unit: a pair of gloves. [b] an article or object consisting of two joined or corresponding parts not used separately: a pair of jeans…

(Other partitives combine with a (SG) M noun — piece of candy —  and still others with both PL and M nouns — lots of apples, lots of candy.)

Items of men’s underwear — briefs, shorts, boxers, trunks — are mostly clearly bipartite, so the nouns referring to them can occur with partitive pair of.

pair of + (bipartite) PL (pair of briefs) is in alteration with plain PL (briefs) —  He put on (a pair of) briefs. (For the plain PL, the bipartite nature of the referent is merely implicit.) And then, in the semi-technical usage of the commercial underwear world, SG is available instead of PL: We carry a brief that will astound you. This brief will astound you. (The SG usage tends to convey reference to a type, the PL usage to a token.)

[Digression. People sometimes find the commercial SG usage a bit odd. So, on FB just a little while ago, Monica Macaulay was taken aback by this Ibex ad with SG tight rather than PL (pair of) tights:

(#2) ]

But back to jockstraps. A jockstrap has two straps, and you put it on by putting each of your legs through a space between the pouch and one of the straps, and that might cause someone to think of the garment as bipartite and so to justify a pair of jockstraps (referring to a single object; it could also, of course, refer to two jockstraps). This is not standard usage, but it’s reasonably well attested, largely from what appear to be native speakers (Google hits in the low thousands). For example,

You’ll look good in a pair of jockstraps too (Wikipedia link)

the good guys of ESPN have this illustration of [A-Rod] … wearing nothing but a pair of jockstraps. (Wikipedia link)

Just like women sometimes wear pushup bras, men wear fashion jocks to pull up their package. I often get comments from spouses saying their man looks great in a pair of jockstraps. (Wikipedia link)

But, apparently, for most people the straps of a jockstrap are insufficiently analogous to the legs of briefs, shorts, boxers, and trunks: the legs are the central features of these garments (together with their waistbands), but it’s the pouch of a jockstrap (together with its waistband) that is its central feature; the straps are ancillary structures, designed merely to hold the central features together.

In any case, this gets us to pair of jockstraps, with one of the characteristics of pair of jockstrap — the partitive pair — rationalized. But then?

Chris Waigl on FB:

Also, maybe the writer thinks strap has zero plural. One strap, two strap

(like Dr. Seuss’s  One fish, two fish). However, only certain types of nouns (can) have zero plurals in English; these types are enumerated in Huddleston & Pullum’s CGEL, pp. 1588-9, and there’s no type there to which jockstrap would belong. (There’s a Page on this blog, recently added, about postings on zero plurals, which extends the range of examples a bit, but not enough to take in jockstrap.)

I think that at this point we have to recogize that we’re dealing with non-native English here — showing non-English zero plurals as a carryover from a language in which inflection marking grammatical number is not a a regular feature. (There are plenty of languages showing the equivalent of one strap, two strap across the board.)

So what we have here is a double anomaly in pair of jockstrap: the partitive pair is anomalous because the garments are not actualy bipartite; and the SG jockstrap is anomalous because the partitive pair calls for an actual PL form. The latter is a feature of certain non-native Englishes; the former probably is as well, since there’s some evidence that the person who produced partitive pair did so in the belief that this was the appropriate syntax for nouns denoting bottom undergarments.

pair of thong. Yes, in yet another TBô ad, for a bottom undergarment that absolutely is not bipartite:

(#3) Only one strap, the minimum required to connect the pouch and the waistband

It then turns out that the ads in #1 and #3 stand out from all other TBô ads — all the rest that I’ve seen have entirely standard English  (and  the jockstrap and thong don’t seem to appear at all on the TBô site, but are offered only on the net). That is, #1 and #3 might have a different source from the other ads.

Other comments about what’s in #1. In principle, you could remark on ManShaped Pouch, Temperature Regulating, Comfy Bamboo Fabric, or Bulge Enhancing. Or on The last … you’ll ever need. On FB:

AZ (on the pouch): On a more substantive level, I wouldn’t want a jockstrap with a pouch that wasn’t manshaped.

Chris Waigl (on the bulge): But, but, a rhino-like bulge?

CW (on The last…): I always get a little nervous when something is advertised as “the last X you’ll ever need”. My mind goes right to “is it supposed to kill the user?

AZ (in reply to CW): I think the suggestion is that this jock will never lose its elasticity. That would be genuinely remarkable. If you actually use a normal jockstrap regularly for sports or exercise, the elastic is going to degrade; classic Bike jockstraps had, in fact, rather short elasticity lives.

About the company. “From the “About Us” page on the company’s home page:

TBô is the world’s first DirectByConsumer brand.

We are a fast-growing start-up that was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and now sells products to more than 120 countries worldwide through our direct digital channels merging consumer-driven big data, collaborative creation tech, and e-commerce.

… Traditionally, fast-fashion retailers and designers are the ones to tell you what to wear & when. Those days are gone.

As a TBô Tribe member, you are given the ultimate freedom to be part of the process that allows you to choose what your bodywear looks and feels like.

Yes, another Swiss company, and with a scheme to enlist the users in helping to design the company’s products.

The name of the company is a mystery to me (and there seems to be nothing about it on the company’s site, so far as I can tell). The T is presumably pronounced like the name of the letter T in German or French (roughly [te]). The Bô doesn’t look German at all — no circumflex accent in native German spellings — and is somewhat odd for French, with ô at the end of a word. Perhaps the circumflex is merely ornamental. In any case, it’s likely that TBô is intended to stand for something, but what I don’t know.

The company’s ads are primarily for briefs, boxer briefs, and trunks, and all of those (but not, so far as I can tell, jockstraps or thongs) are illustrated on the website. Limited edition briefs are offered for on-line ordering in an amazing range of handsome colors: mint green, Carnaval yellow, dark burgundy, Rudolph (green with red pouch!), ballsy [hot] pink, sky blue, snow lilac.

Bonus. Since I hadn’t a clue about how to say ‘jockstrap’ in German, I went to the dict.cc English-German Dictionary and extracted these possibilities:

Genitalschutz {m} sports
Suspensorium {n} cloth.
Sackschutz {m} [ugs. für: Genitalschutz, Hodenschutz] cloth.
Jockstrap {m} cloth.
Herrenjock {m} cloth.
Sackhalter {m} [ugs.] cloth.
Ballschutz {m} [Hodenschutz, Suspensorium] cloth.
Tiefschutz {m} sports

Notes:
[ugs.] = umgangssprachlich ‘colloquial’
Hoden / Sacke ‘testicles’
Schutz ‘protection’

Of course, beyond the hint offered by [ugs.] or its lack, I don’t know anything about the contexts in which you might choose one or another of these.

Today’s mailing from the Daily Jocks company (wth a “VIP sale”, offering $25 off when you spend $75) has a model projecting a strongly macho, and highly sexualized, identity while wearing a PUMP! pink space candy underwear: faggy light pink in color, with a cute “space candy” patch on the pouch:

(#1)

A slim-waisted muscle-hunk, with a hairy chest, notable abs, macho facial hair and haircut, and a ton of tats. Situated in his workshop. Meanwhile, he’s staring intently at the viewer, challenging them with a cock tease — the jock pulled down just to the top of his public hair — and a penis clearly outlined in that jock. He’s hot, and he’s sexually on offer.

(Note: this is the character the model is performing; many underwear models are adept at assuming a character that will appeal to men who have sex with men or fantasize about doing so. Of the model himself, I know nothing, beyond that he’s chosen to wear a wedding ring, though he might be married to someone of either sex.)

Focusing on the jockstrap. In a close-up:

(#2)

The pouch is pretty in pink, and playful with its space candy patch on the pouch. Delightfully faggy (in a celebratory rather than pejorative sense): campy in tone and  flaunting “feminine” pinkness.

Earlier on this blog.

— from my 8/14/18 posting “Butch fagginess”:

[Barcode Berlin]’s crop tees display attractive midriffs, and the models project muscular masculinity — solidly butch — but the tees also convey sociosexual messages in teasing and boastful ways that echo the open banter of queer men amongst themselves, acting faggy: faggy minus fem(me), butch fagginess).

— from my 10/14/19 posting “Space Candy”:

a pink jockstrap nicely combines max-macho in the underwear world with high-faggy in color symbolism

— in my 10/16/19 posting “Adventures in homomasculinity: the pink jock”, an extended riff on pink jockstraps

What do you call an outer garment covering the body from the waist to the ankles, with a separate part for each leg? The referentially and socioculturally least restricted lexical item for this purpose, in both AmE and BrE, is the plural noun trousers. (The gloss in my first sentence is in fact the definition of trousers given, without restriction, in NOAD.)

It’s then remarkable that the Quite Interesting Twitter account maintained on 8/14/18 that

The Victorians thought the word ‘trousers’ so vulgar and rude that they used euphemisms such as ‘sit-upons’, ‘inexpressibles’, ‘unutterables’ and ‘unwhisperables’ instead.

The result of such an attitude would have been that there was literally no everyday expression to refer to such a garment — even one originating as a euphemism but naturalized as ordinary vocabulary — as has been the case for white meat as a replacement for (chicken) breast, for some speakers, and in many other cases.

That’s the usual course of development for an expression that has become tabooed because of sociocultural discomfort with one of its referents: it drops out of general use and is replaced  by one of its euphemisms, which is then in effect promoted to become the new  everyday, and relatively innocent, vocabulary for the referent. (For a time, at any rate.)

Unease with women’s breasts led to bosom and bust taking over as polite terms for the female anatomy, and white meat taking over as a polite term for chicken breast.

It’s not clear to me what the claim is about trousers in Victorian times. The garment in question was worn almost entirely by men at the time; it was everyday wear for men in general; and it served as an outer shell for undergarments protecting the male genitals– three facts that could lead sensitive folk to find it uncomfortably masculine and carnal. However, according to all accounts I’ve seen, trousers was the everyday term for the garment. Indeed, several histories of clothing in the period note that Queen Victoria’s eldest son, Edward Prince of Wales (who would become Edward VII, and who gave his name to the Edwardian fashion period) is credited for setting the tone for men’s trousers (under that name) in the modern era: he introduced trouser cuffs to lift the trouser hem above the dirt and popularized trouser creases.

The claim in Quite Interesting then looks like sheer invention, or the passing-on of popular lore that has grown up around what’s been called by some the myth of Victorian repression.

The modern garment and its names. Some entries from NOAD:

noun trousers:  (also a pair of trousers) an outer garment covering the body from the waist to the ankles, with a separate part for each leg. [the most neutral lexical item, used in both AmE and BrE, and in formal as well as informal contexts; also for both men’s and women’s garments and for garments made of a variety of fabrics]

noun pants: 1 chiefly North American trousers: baggy corduroy pants… 2 British underpants. 3 British informal rubbish; nonsense: he thought we were going to be absolute pants. [1 is the relevant sense, and it’s marked as chiefly North American]

noun breeches [variant spelling britches] : [a] short trousers fastened just below the knee, now chiefly worn for riding a horse or as part of ceremonial dress. [b] informal trousers. [b is the relevant sense, and it’s marked as informal]

pl. noun jeans: hard-wearing trousers made of denim or other cotton fabric, for informal wear. See also blue jeans. [a subtype of trousers]

Two exemplars:

— L.L. Bean Men’s Maine Guide wool trousers, in rear view (the company refers to it as a pant — using North American pants, in the sg. a pant, the sg. usage being common in commercial garment language for bipartite garments):

(#1)

— J.Crew Edie full-length trousers in four-season stretch (the company uses trouser, in the sg.):

(#2)

The source of the Quite Interesting claim. The authoritative tone of the QI claim led some participants in the 2018 FB discussion to conclude that the claim was a quotation from some reputable source, in particular the OED. I then pursued that idea; my report (edited for format):

no, this quotation is not in the OED, under trousers, breeches, or any of the euphemisms the OED lists “for breeches or trousers” — inexpressibles, ineffables, inexplicables, unmentionables. Sit-upons is in the OED as “colloq. trousers, breeches”, but it’s not marked as a euphemism (it could be merely jocular) and is not given with the quotation. Unutterables is defined as ‘trousers’ and is not marked as a euphemism, but it’s linked to unmentionables; the quotation is not given. Unwhisperables is merely listed as “slang” for ‘trousers’; the quotation is not given.

So: nothing substantial there.

And then Quite Interesting confessed:

Thanks to everyone who’s responded to this – we’re aware that many Victorians continued to use the word tr***ers, but merely wanted to highlight some of the amusing euphemisms that also sprang up at the time.

That is, their crucial claim was invention. In fact, they were merely passing on unexamined popular lore — as in this piece on “Unmentionables” on the website of The virtual linguist (Susan Harvey / Susan Purcell) on 2/9/11:

Language always reflects the society around it, and thus we find that the Victorian moral values of the 19th century were also reflected in the language. The Victorian era saw a number of euphemisms enter the language as prissiness forbade people to utter certain words. For instance, ‘roach’ began to mean ‘cockroach’ in the 19th century; as one of the OED citations (from 1837) says: “‘Cock-roaches’ in the United States‥are always called ‘roaches’ by the fair sex, for the sake of euphony”.

Even the word ‘trousers’ was too shocking to say, so a number of different euphemisms for these garments were coined in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Apart from unmentionables, there’s also: inexpressibles, ineffables, inexplicables, indescribables, etceteras, indispensables, unimaginables, innominables, unwhisperables, unutterables, unprintables and never-mention-’ems, plus the rhyming slang round-me-houses, and many other euphemisms in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Trousers seem to inspire people to create new words. When I was growing up in Liverpool, we called them kecks. The OED says that word most likely comes from ‘kick’; kickseys, in fact, was another Victorian synonym for trousers. [Sets of synonyms and the introduction of new synonyms are both common phenomena, but have no special connection to taboo avoidance and euphemisms; indeed, many synonyms are slang, sometimes impolite.]

Victorian morality. From Wikipedia:

Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era.

Victorian values emerged in all classes and reached all facets of Victorian living. The values of the period — which can be classed as religion, morality, Evangelicalism, industrial work ethic, and personal improvement — took root in Victorian morality. Current plays and all literature — including old classics like Shakespeare — were cleansed of naughtiness, or “bowdlerized”.

Contemporary historians have generally come to regard the Victorian era as a time of many conflicts, such as the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint, together with serious debates about exactly how the new morality should be implemented.

… Historians Peter Gay and Michael Mason both point out that modern society often confuses Victorian etiquette for a lack of knowledge. For example, people going for a bath in the sea or at the beach would use a bathing machine. Despite the use of the bathing machine, it was still possible to see people bathing nude. Typical middle-class brides likely knew nothing about sex and learned about their husbands’ expectations for it on their wedding night; the experience was often traumatic. Contrary to popular conception, however, Victorian society recognised that both men and women enjoyed copulation.

Verbal or written communication of sexual feelings was also often proscribed so people instead used the language of flowers. However, they also wrote explicit erotica, perhaps the most famous being the racy tell-all My Secret Life by the pseudonym Walter (allegedly Henry Spencer Ashbee), and the magazine The Pearl, which was published for several years and reprinted as a paperback book in the 1960s. Victorian erotica also survives in private letters archived in museums and even in a study of women’s orgasms. Some current historians now believe that the myth of Victorian repression can be traced back to early twentieth-century views, such as those of Lytton Strachey, a homosexual member of the Bloomsbury Group, who wrote Eminent Victorians.

A different basis for avoiding trousers. From the 2018 FB dscussion:

Lori Moon: Apparently this discomfort [it turns out to be discomfort, but not this discomfort] with the word is still alive. We heard a boy’s mother say “change your trousers” and the boy was incredibly embarrassed and said, “Mom, don’t call them trousers in front of my friends.” To which another boy said, “I’m not your friend anymore.” We’ve been laughing about the episode, but maybe there’s something disturbing about the word to some people — At least to some Victorians and contemporary middle school boys.

Arnold Zwicky: What’s the context for this story? What sort of people, where, when? I ask because I’ve never heard of such discomfort in modern times. What I do hear is discomfort with the word PANTS for reference to trousers — because PANTS also refers to underpants, and underpants / drawers / etc. is a taboo topic. (BrE in general doesn’t use PANTS to refer to trousers, so the discomfort is very strong there, but I’ve seen it in the US as well as the UK. For AmE speakers who are uncomfortable with PANTS ‘trousers’, the word TROUSERS is then the euphemism.) By the way, if an American child objects to TROUSERS as a “bad word”, what word does the child use to refer to these garments?

Lori Moon: It was here in Urbana Illinois, recently. The boys embarrassed by the word were 13, white, at least 3rd generation in the US, multi-generational household, relatively high SES. They were happy with “pants” instead or “jeans”. It’s the first time I’d ever heard of embarrassment over the word. Also, for context, the kid who said “I’m not your friend anymore”, who told the story to my son, was completely confused by the interaction —   that’s how the story spread. The best insights I’ve gotten are that it sounds nerdy or stodgy to the kids, not so much dirty.

Word aversion proceeds on many grounds, taboo avoidance being only one of them.

(Very much about men’s bodies as sexual objects, so clearly not for everyone.)

Today’s Daily Jocks sale ad, carefully posed and quite steamily direct, also with an anatomical feature I don’t recall having seen in real life: a blood vessel running down the outside of the model’s leg, quite prominently visible on the surface of his leg (presumably because the model has so little bodyfat to conceal it):

The sexual essence of a jockstrap. As a vehicle for sexual display (rather than as a functional garment for support and protection during exercise and sports), a jockstrap highlights the two foci of gay male desire: the penis (pushed forward in its protective pouch) and the anus (within the buttocks, which are open for inspection).

As it happens, the DJ model seems to be wearing not a jockstrap (with its two side straps attached to the waistband, going under the crotch, and attaching to the pouch), but a thong (with a single strap attached to the back of the waistband, going under the crotch, and attaching to the pouch), with even more of the wearer’s body visible — or a strapless jock (with the pouch held in place entirely by elastic). In any case, no side straps. (I have never worn a strapless jock, but I’m inclined to view them entirely as vehicles for sexual display, rather than as useful support during physical exertion — or simply as minimal underwear.)

The DJ photo shows off the model’s lower body, focusing on, going from left to rght: his pouch, that blood vessel, and his very ample buttocks. (Incidentally, also his large flat feet — pretty much the only thing I share physically with the model.)

Everyday anatomy. I tried to discover what blood bessel that was, only to run aground on the relentless technicality of Wikipedia’s treatment of anatomy. There’s nothing for questions about “everyday anatomy”, asking what easily visible or palpable features of our bodies are called (and what their functions are).

This is a general defect in Wikipedia, which tends to treat fully technical discussions of domains as the only valid ones, consequently often providing no introductory material that would answer Wikipedia users’ everyday questions. This is a defect I’ve noticed in some of the entries on plants, in which sections on identification and the roles of the plants in everyday life tend to be eliminated over time in favor of essays on plant classification based on genetics — the real stuff.

So I still don’t know what that blood vessel is, nor have I found any photos of people with such a visible one.

[Or it’s not a blood vessel at all; see Ellen Kaisse’s comments below, with a much better account of what we see in the ad.]