The following post is a public service announcement and may contain NSFW images.
Women’s underwear is a zillion-dollar industry with tons of great and diverse product, but what about men’s underwear? I’m going to share my decades-long experience navigating this underserved market that’s laced with sedated fashion design and then outline what you should be doing but probably aren’t doing. All puns intended.
This might sound bizarre, but there’s only one style of underwear I consider viable with tight tolerances on what I find acceptable. That style is known as the trunk (sometimes sports trunk or square-cut) and is the undisputed king of men’s underwear. They’re form-fitting like briefs but have a small inseam, yet don’t confuse them with boxer-briefs which are a different and misguided style of underwear that should only be worn for exercise. The problem is that although trunks are the stone cold nuts for reasons I’ll articulate, finding quality, good-fitting pairs is somewhat difficult. Let’s meet our common styles of men’s underwear in order from worst to best:
Boxers
(These are good for nothing.)
Briefs
(These are good for pro wrestling.)
Boxer-briefs
(These are good for exercising.)
Trunks
(These are good for styling out of control and being sexy as fuck.)
Advantages: The trunk has a few advantages over other styles, the first and foremost being comfort. Once you adjust to a properly-fitting trunk, it will be difficult to wear anything else. Compared to briefs, they have enough inseam to prevent upper-inner thigh chafing, they don’t cuff where your legs meet your goin, and they don’t ride up your ass. Compared to boxers they’re form fitting, so they keep the kids in the car with the windows rolled up. Compared to boxer-briefs, they have less material constantly squeezing your thighs to remind you that your underwear aren’t designed properly; they also don’t show the mid-thigh panty line. On top of fit and comfort, trunks are the most stylish with good proportionality and tend to feature more fashionable prints, colors, accents, and materials.
Dimensions: I don’t allow much latitude in the variation of the inseam: minimum of 2" and maximum of 3". You will absolutely feel the difference in 1". Any shorter is actually annoying and doesn’t solve the problems presented by briefs. Any longer and they start to encroach on the boxer-brief’s territory of hideous proportionality and mid-thigh panty lines. The 3"-4" range could be a gray zone for people with longer legs but I’ve never seen a pair that long on a model that had the right look. Personally I’ve found 2.5" to be ideal, but the incredibly annoying thing about trunks is precisely this variation in inseam. You’ll be lucky to find pairs with listed inseams at all let alone accurate ones, so it comes down to visual inspection, brand familiarity, and chance (to some degree). I’m going to help you out here.
Materials: Poly/spandex blend is preferable to cotton/spandex which loosens with movement and exercise–not great for running the jewels–and cotton also absorbs moisture which is awful. Also, the poly blend just feels, conforms, and retains shape better without being clampy, and in my experience it lasts longer. There are some other factors that affect fit & comfort like the waistband, contoured pouch, and piping. For example, the piping can be fashionable, but I’m careful with it on the leg cuffs due to issues I had with elastic piping that gripped more than the waistband.
Tips and Showcase: Use your eyes for the length. Some pairs incorrectly listed as boxer-briefs are actually trunks and vice-versa. The Discover watermelon trunks pictured above are exactly how a 2" inseam should appear on the model (they are indeed listed at 2"). However, here’s another pair they list at 2":
These are clearly shorter in length though, probably about 1", which is just too short in my experience to get any of the benefits. And another 2" pair that looks correct:
A proper 2" seam will have about 1" of inseam visible from the bottom of the pouch on the model. Some other things to notice about these particular trunks is that they appear to have a nice 1.75" waistband (that won’t roll), a contoured front pouch delineated with a piping detail, and non-elastic piping on the cuffs. They’re 95/5 cotton/spandex blend which wouldn’t be my first choice.
Next up and appearing to be just slightly longer,
this Calvin Klein (Power FX Low Rise) trunk has no piping but appears to have a 2.5" inseam. Fabric is microfiber which is perfect so I’d consider these a buy. They don’t list an inseam spec. Note that these are low-rise trunks like the Discovers, but not all trunks are low-rise.
One my favorite brands for trunks is 2(X)ist. They tend to be on the shorter side (2" to 2.5") and have consistent fit, feel, quality, and stylish designs. Examples:
That last floral print looks more like a 3" inseam than a 2" to me. They also have different side seams (7" top floral vs. 8" bottom floral). Adding another inch (4" inseam) is where I think it starts to lose the look and feel of a trunk and become more of a boxer-brief.
Greg Homme makes this product they refer to as a boxer-brief
but you know better and already realize that this is, in fact, a trunk. Oddly, this pair pictured below with a longer inseam is listed as a trunk:
That looks like a 3.5" inseam and the fabric is perforated which really rides the boxer-briefs line. I think I’d still go with trunk on those though, whereas the ones below are definitely too long.
Here are some more examples for the SHOWCASE:
Where to buy: A lot of these images are from CheapUndies which is a clearance site, but they are hit-or-miss on stock. Popular sizes (M, L, XL) usually sell out fast. There are plenty of other sites like that doing underwear. I also check regular retailers for sales and clearance.
How much to pay: Generally expect to pay anywhere from $8 to $13 on clearance for interesting designer pairs. Retail price is usually $15 to $30. For couture stuff like Versace it’s more obviously.
By the way, I’ve chosen some pretty SFW pics so far. Shopping for men’s underwear online can be a bit weird due to the shrinkwrap effect:
Seriously would it behoove them to only use the small-dicked models, growers, and mannequins for these shoots? Sometimes it feels like hog shopping.