Alan Ilagan

Most guys (straight guys at least) don’t change their underwear style too often. They find something that they like and stick with it – forever. I’m not that way. I’ve been known to change up my underwear hourly if the situation arises (don’t ask). In the last few years, though, I have seen subtle patterns in my underwear-wearing emerge, mostly due to the seasonal variations of the Northeast. I hadn’t really noticed until I started getting into the boxer briefs this week and then it dawned on me. From now until the winter, there will be a gentle transition from briefs to boxer briefs to regular boxers.

The main difference between briefs and boxers is a delicate differentiation in comfort and temperature. I liken it to the distinction between gloves and mittens. Gloves, while form-fitting and tight to the skin, are actually less warm than mittens in the winter. The same principle seems to apply to briefs – which seems at odds with what most people might think. I find that boxers – like mittens – are a bit warmer. Body heat and humidity get to move around a bit, instead of being whisked away by the capillary action of fabric fibers close to the skin.

Yes, this is a shoddy bit of science, probably none of it true – but mind over matter. And, as always, style over substance. As long as my underwear matches my outfit, I’m happy. Onward to the boxers!

These days, I’m more of a boxer-brief kind of guy than anything else, but every once in a while I enjoy the freedom of a loose pair of shorts or jeans, and the soft folds of a pair of boxers. It appeals to the small (miniscule) bit of college frat boy hidden deep within my Prada-carrying, Burberry-wearing homosexual-self.

Sometimes the boys just need to run free. Like young hearts.

According to the Bearer of All Important News (FreshPair.com), today is National Underwear Day, so here are a couple of shots of me in my skivvies. They are especially fitting, as I’ve been on a London kick of late, and these pics were taken the last time I was in that glorious city.

It is a question that has gorgeously tortured me for all my life, and even the invention of the boxer brief and their current ubiquity has done nothing to dispel the raging debate in my mind (and on my ass).

I certainly like to see a man in briefs, though that rarely happens. Most of the guys I’ve dated or seen in their underwear have favored boxer briefs, including Andy (so it’s pretty much all I’ve seen in the last decade).

Only in photo shoots for gay magazines (or devoted solely to David Beckham) do we ever get to see many men in briefs. Even though most of the gratuitious self-shots I post here would have you thinking I solely a proponent of briefs, the main reason, in my limited experience, is that briefs simply photograph better. Boxers make most of us look like we’re wearing diapers. Baggy diapers. Baggy diapers that need to be changed.

However, I am a big boxer fan. They’re what I wear to bed most nights. They’re also what I wear most weekends when I don’t have to worry about ruining the line of dress pants. Like most things in life, I refuse to have an absolute, and neither should you. Straddle the line. Hang tight or hang loose. Play hard or go home. When did this become a sports ad? And what exactly is being advertised?

(And due to enthusiastically-underwhelming demand, I’ll post some completely underwear-free shots tomorrow, because it can never be said that I’m not a good sport.)