The variation in the amount of material used in male underwear (also known as jocks, kacks, smalls etc.) down through the centuries to the present day turns out to be sinusoidal in nature. This is shown in the graph above, where the most popular type of male undergarment from medieval times onwards is displayed.
Back in the Middle Ages, men wore convoluted kacks called a braie. This usually came with a codpiece, which was a zipper of sorts for, err, easy access! Fast forward to the 1800s and you had long johns, a full body suit, again with flaps (front and back this time!) for convenience. In the 20th century, underwear shrank at a rate of knots with boxers first becoming popular in the 1930s. Briefs started at much the same time but became popular later on, thankfully marking the minimum amount of fabric used in popular male kacks (Peter Stringfellow et al take note: g-strings should not be worn by men!).
Funnily enough, boxers and their derivatives have become very popular again in the past number of years, causing the final upturn in the graph above. This is probably due to their reputation for being roomier and being easier to access, although at the expense of support for the two veg! It may be a periodic sinusoid so perhaps we'll have to dust off those codpieces soon!
Who said this blog wasn't educational?!
7 comments:
Most of the "research" for this post comes from that paragon of veracity - wikipedia!
Interested parties can delve into the fascinating world of underwear evolution here!
For those of you lucky enough to never have heard of him before now, Peter Stringfellow is a famous English nightclub owner and self-proclaimed womaniser extraordinaire. He is generally given a hard time in the British press.
Despite pushing on in years, he was famously photographed wearing a g-string some years ago. Those of you with strong constitutions can check the picture out here!
True.
Back in the day men also wore girdles. Which i think was pointless but not for women, it was genius for women!
Cheers,
Janice
Thanks for further enlightening me on underwear, Janice! Apparently men wore girdles even in biblical times (again according to the omniscient Wikipedia!).
Some guys could definitely do with wearing one now (or a corset, which we men folk have also been known to wear) to keep the gut in!
Re: post and previous comments: LMAO! Love your blog so much I had to share it on facebook.
Thanks a million, Archangel_Baw.
After my mother, you're my biggest fan!!!
Hey, mine are boxer briefs even when I was little!
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