(Guys in nothing but their underwear, references to their bodies in plain terms, visually close to the line — so not to everyone’s taste.)
The story begins on 3/16 with a Daily Jocks mailing about a PUMP! sale, featuring the model I’ve called Aradesque.
Aradesque I. In PUMP! aqua briefs:
(#1)
Aradesque’s presentation of self is far to the queer end on the queer-straight scale, but (within the queer domain) also far to the butch end of the fem-butch scale.
Meanwhile, he’s performing a dick-framing gesture with his left hand, outlining a highly visible (though covered) half-hard penis — well short of a crotch grab, but similar in spirit to that gesture. In any case, it’s a homoerotically charged pose; he could just have rested his left hand lightly on his thigh, as he’s doing with his right hand.
Note: on the name I’ve given him: see my 6/1/20 posting “Aradesque”, on underwear model and pornstar Arad Winwin and a similar-looking underwear model I call Aradesque. PUMP! is pretty good about identifying its (many) models, but in about an hour and a half of searching through their material on the net, spread over two occasions, has turned up nothing useful, so he continues under my pseudonym.
Another note: on what to do with your hands when being photographed. You could just let them rest by your sides (an option illustrated below, from another PUMP! model). But you can also engage them with your body in various ways. Including, as above, with the involvement of lower-body garments. From my 10/5/19 posting “A man, his hands, his pants”:
So you’re a straight white guy, from North America or some place culturally similar. A photographer wants to take your picture. How do you pose your body? In particular, what do you do with your hands? More generally, what do you do with your hands when they’re not actually involved in your current activity? Then, what role do your lower garments — trousers, shorts, maybe underpants — play in the placement of your hands? And what, if anything, does your choice of placement signify?
So: adventures in hand-pants (or manual-bracal) kinesics.
(The examples include a fair number of gay guys.)
Reggie I. A neutral underwear pose (in those same PUMP! aqua briefs) from a model whose presentation of self is also neutral on the queer-straight scale (which means that in a heteronormative world, he’ll be taken to be straight):
(#2)
I’ve give this model a pseudonym too — Reggie, suggesting “regular guy” — because, despite his appearance in dozens and dozens of PUMP! ad photos, he doesn’t show up in a Google search for “PUMP! underwear models”. What you get in such a search is tons of incredibly hunky men displaying their bodies as objects of gay desire and presenting themselves as cruising intensely for sex (you can almost smell the sex sweat). As here:
(#3) Spanish model Kevin De La Cruz photographed by Adrian C. Martin for PUMP!
Reggie is totally not of this world. He comes from the world of 1950s newspaper ads for Fruit of the Loom underwear.
Aradesque II. Back again in today’s DJ mailing, now in neon green:
(#4) Yet another hand gesture, with his right hand: spread hand on belly, calling attention to his abs and pecs
And, yes, you can get Reggie in neon green too: just take #2 and change the color of the briefs. In fact, this seems to be where all the Reggie photos come from: a small number of basic Reggie poses (front, side, rear views), with the underwear added by digital manipulation. In effect, it’s all cloning.