[sebbie]

On Fitness and Briefs, Worldwide

In the United States, we have long engaged in endless debates as to whether or not it was appropriate for any American to appear in public in a swim brief, and if so, under what circumstances might this be appropriate. I have been watching local TV news reports relating to high school swim meets in part to determine if in recent years swim briefs have made a comeback or not. My general conclusion is that at these meets, nowadays, anywhere from 30-50 percent of the school-age male swimmers nowadays are wearing briefs not jammers, but this is up from a zero percentage maybe as recently as a decade ago. Still, in the US it is rare to see a guy wearing a swim brief in public outside of a competitive swim meet situation. And the guys at swim meets generally are wearing somber black briefs.

Interestingly, once you get on short Reels videos created on Tik Tok and other video sites, guys showing themselves off in the videos wearing a swim brief are quite commonplace. Generally, the guys in these videos are in their late teens and early to mid 20s, and are quite trim and fit, though not muscular to the degree a competitive bodybuilder would be. Everyone has an image of a bodybuilder wearing a very skimpy brief designed to show off his muscles. In the Reels videos, the briefs tend to be snug-fitting, but not really skimpy.

Another “feature” I notice in these videos is that they often are made of guys located not in the US but in some part of Asia. In particular, there are many videos made from contests held in the Philippines, and involve contests with maybe 15 or 20 Filipino men that appear to be typically in their late teens or early 20s. In at least some of these videos all the men appear to be wearing identical swim briefs with the same cut and color. For example, in one of these videos, all the guys are wearing the exact same brief (maybe varying only by size) in a bright yellow color. So, there are twenty fit guys showing their bodies off in front of an audience.

The videos do not pan over the audience, and I keep wondering if the audience is mostly female, mostly male, or more or less evenly divided. Apparently, these contests draw a sizable audience, or there would be no reason to do them. It also strikes me that these guys have no issue whatsoever about being seen in public in a skimpy brief. But there are lots and lots of guys who individually post photos of themselves in reels-style videos, the videos would not be considered pornographic though invariably they show a nice bulge in the groin area.

As part of growing up, I was always fascinated by how and the circumstances under which an erection happens, but this quickly evolves into questions relating to how other guys cope with a situation whereby an erection is beginning, and such a thing might quickly occur when a guy pulls on a snug-fitting brief of any sort be the brief be underwear or designed for swimming. In the Filipino videos, there are 15 or more guys all in tight-fitting briefs and all showing a significant bulge in the pouch area of the briefs, but not TOO significant.

In the US, it used to be that females held bathing beauty contests, in which 15 or 20 women clad in skimpy bikinis would stand on stage to be judged by designated judges and evaluated by the audience. In the big contests, such as the Miss America contest, there was the interview where the contestant had to answer questions from the judges, the talent event, where the contestant presented some unique talent, the evening-gown competition, and the bathing-suit competition. But the bathing suit competition was eliminated some years ago in the quest to be “politically correct” nowadays.

In these contests in the Philippines and probably other places young men are doing something very similar to what the contestant females no longer are willing to do. And the young men are not being judged based or brains or talents, but only on their bodies. The guys have bulges in different places than the females, but they are bulges nonetheless.

What all of this says about the various cultures in different parts of the world is most interesting. I doubt that neither Filipino women nor women from many other parts of Asia complain that the men in these contests are simply showing “too much”, nor do the men participating in these contests worry that they are showing too much or they would not be participating in these contests at all. Part of the fun for each contestant is to see how the other contestants are able to cope with the situation. But also, from a very early age realizing that there is nothing inherently wrong or bad about being in public wearing a skimpy brief and indeed all of this is very normal. Americans seem to still be hung up on the idea that any guy wearing a brief in public is “likely gay” which of course is not the case, but this acts as a deterrent for guys who would like to wear briefs in public in the US.