Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not get your son boxer briefs or boxers so he's not wearing the least cool underwear to ever exist?

Op here. Growing up, my son was always the type of sweet kid who would never throw temper tantrums for boxers. White briefs were what I kept buying him but maybe now he will want to switch to boxers because of peer pressure. My son is shy and struggling socially and it doesn't help that his cousin is always considered "the cool one." At least, to most people.

It doesn't bother me that my son is a little different. My husband also loves our son but is sometimes disappointed that he isn't a more masculine or athletic boy. I want to encourage my son to be himself but worry about him getting teased.

…….he’s 12. One day he will notice titties and then you won’t be able to contain his manhood.

Anonymous wrote:My DS is a nice 12-year-old whose favorite subject is art class and I would say he does seem more creative and more sensitive than other boys his age.

Meanwhile my nephew is ten, plays ice hockey and is popular at his school. He sometimes giggles at my son because he thinks he seems a little, well, gay. My son usually just shrugs off my nephew and doesn't let it bother him. Over the Christmas break, I spent a night in the hotel room with the two boys. The kids had been getting along really well but then it was time to get ready for bed. My nephew stripped down to his boxers and my son got worried when he realized he forgot to pack his pajamas. I whispered to him that it was okay, he could just sleep in t-shirt and underwear like his cousin.

When my son came out of the bathroom, my nephew laughed, "Nice tighty whities!" My son blushed and rolled his eyes. Even though my nephew was just messing with him, my son was very embarrassed and hated looking uncool in front of a younger cousin. I'm afraid my son will likely face more incidents like this in middle school and high school and it seems so unfair.

Most of his friends still think there is something wrong with being gay or at least that it is second best to being straight. What's your advice?

PSA: Your son is NOT GAY just because YOU PURCHASED him white underwear and he can draw.

Tighty whitie underpants? They’re super comfy.

I remember my mom really wanting me to switch to boxers, which made briefs feel like a rebellion. I remember going to school in my brand new red-plaid boxers, changing in the locker room, and seeing these cute nerdy boys wearing tighty whities (seemingly) with no shame. I remember admiring them both for how cute and soft they looked and for how strong and care-free it made them seem. People would get bullied and they just didn’t care. I had a lot of respect for that. So when I was a sophomore in high school, I walked myself to the store and bought my own tighty whities. I wore them secretly for about a year before I accidentally left a pair out for my mom to see. At that point she didn’t say anything about it, and one day I came home to find a brand new pack of fruit of the loom tighty whities in my dresser drawer. (Thanks mom.) It’s the perfect combination of sex psychology and comfort.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not get your son boxer briefs or boxers so he's not wearing the least cool underwear to ever exist?

Op here. Growing up, my son was always the type of sweet kid who would never throw temper tantrums for boxers. White briefs were what I kept buying him but maybe now he will want to switch to boxers because of peer pressure. My son is shy and struggling socially and it doesn't help that his cousin is always considered "the cool one." At least, to most people.

It doesn't bother me that my son is a little different. My husband also loves our son but is sometimes disappointed that he isn't a more masculine or athletic boy. I want to encourage my son to be himself but worry about him getting teased.

What you said makes zero sense. A child shouldn't have to throw a temper tantrum to get something. They should be able to say "Next time you're buying me underwear, can you get me boxer briefs in black and grey instead of white tighty whities?" and then you just ... do that.

Or by 10, take your son shopping with you and say “ You are size X and need Y pairs of new underwear for this year. I don’t know what you want so please go over and pick out what you want.”
Shopping for yourself is a good skill for all kids to learn.

The peak time for briefs was when I was a skinny, queer boy in the late 70s toward the end of 80s. Everyone in the early 80s was wearing briefs, it’s why you see it in all the movies from that time. Briefs fell out of favor around the time of AIDS. When guys didn’t want to do or say anything that would label them as gay. Expressions of male sexuality were silenced culturally, and therefore guys just felt they couldn’t wear or dress in ways that would reveal too much, or put themselves on display. We are finally getting to a point again where guys are fine showing off their bodies and aren’t threatened by the male gaze, or by someone calling them gay. Men in general now just seem more comfortable with varying expressions of sexuality, and more comfort in their own sexualities. This is partly because the Internet provides more ways of expression and community that doesn’t always exist in smaller populations and places...

I think the movies/tv in the 90s and 2000s making fun of tighty whities didn't help, it's crazy to think how quickly we went from Tom Cruise sliding into frame dancing in his jockeys in 1983 to all the boys wearing briefs full time at my
sleep away camp in 1999 the summer before fourth grade and by my 7th grade in fall 2002 tighty whities were lame and made fun of or "gay."

Anonymous wrote:Seems like much ado about nothing, OP.

Do you mean what is the big deal about wearing briefs? It's just underwear...

But this is really about a 12-year-old who sometimes wants to hide the fact that he is gay. So much homophobia at this age including from his own cousin who considers tighty whities too feminine!

Seems like much ado about nothing, OP.

I was in school late 80s/90s and finished high school in 01. The boxer boom did begin in the 90s but, it was still safe to wear tightywhities without really being bothered. Most families were about saving a buck and were not swayed by their kids clamoring for more expensive underwear when they could get a 6-pack of briefs for the price of a 2-pack of boxers or dropping $20 on one pair of Joe Boxer boxers. There were a bunch of briefs-under-boxers guys in the locker room, which I thought was funny and exciting. It wasn’t until your era around 2002 when boxer briefs became the majority what you saw in Walmart, the beginning of the dark ages for tighty whities.

I understand how strong the stigma grew against tighty whities. I’ve heard many horror stories of people getting bullied for simply their preference of underwear. The great thing now is that most of the early 2000 students are now done with high school and feel more confident returning to tighty whities, their preference for underwear.

There is sort of a humiliation factor I kinda enjoyed, but it wasn’t empowering for me to continue wearing them. Seeing my peers in tighty whities from childhood and until adulthood has had a profound effect on me and is directly tied to my preference for guys. I guess this sheds some light on why most tighty whities guys end up liking guys...