Like we needed a new excuse to run even more photos of guys in underwear!

Still, thank you New York Times.

Last week the paper that boasts of being the national arbiter of “all the news that’s fit to print” discovered what has been fit — for two decades now — for gay guys to wear under their pants.

That is, when we deign to wear anything at all.

Our dear Gray Lady, flagship of America’s elite opinion-making newspapers, is now fainting with the news:

Men’s underwear has gone flamboyant.

Men’s underwear has gone positively sexy in the most glorious bun-huggy, dick-pushy way.

In a report on colored, patterned, basket-centric briefs, amusingly entitled But What if You Get Hit by a Taxi?, the New York Times made it official for the slow class, that is, the Metrosexuals.

Underwear has shed the antiseptic white once thought proper by clothing bibles of the last century.

“Plain prose” is how The History of Underclothes, a men’s guide from 1951 quoted in the piece, referred to white skivvies, contrasting them, charmingly, to “the poetical allurements worn by Woman.”

“Man,” the guide stated expansively, “has never used provocative underclothing,” — forgetting — for a very 1950s moment — such major contributions to the Renaissance as all those Capulet and Montague boys running around in codpieces.

“Novelty underwear, for decades the butt of jokes and the joke of butts, has, in the last two to three years, turned into a serious business,” writes David Colman for the Times.

The article recounts the tale of a small-business owner in Portland, Ore. who opened a “specialty shop,” as the Gray Lady demurely puts it, “which sells only novel or little-known brands of men’s underwear.” At the time, the shop-owner’s friends and family thought he was crazy.

“The store was profitable within 30 days,” said Under U 4 Men owner Steven Lien. “And I didn’t open on Gay Street, U.S.A. I opened on Main Street, U.S.A.” Now, only five months later, Lien plans to open two more branches of the store.

“In all their goofy glory, briefs in bright colors, zany prints, new materials and daring cuts are undermining the classic white brief’s long-held status as king of the hill.” reports the Times. “In 2006, white’s share of the market dipped below 50 percent for the first time in decades, if not ever.”

International Male, anyone? Ah Men, anyone? Parr of Arizona, anyone? — selling “novelty” underwear to happy homos and hot hets for nearly, oh, half a century now. Not to mention even goofier outerwear in bright colors, zany prints and — ah yes, dear sweet Lady — “daring cuts.”

But let us enjoy the Times’ Christopher Columbus moment as the Lady steps onto a New World.

It is hard to believe, so eyebrow-raisingly offbeat, and atypically masculine, are many of the selections.

The cheery rainbow of colors, 20 in all, at American Apparel. The low-low rise of Go Softwear briefs. Bamboo fabric from C-IN2 and soy-based fabric from 2(x)ist.

Oversize race-car prints from Diesel . Soccer graphics in Andrew Christian’s new line. Groovy 1970s-sunset supergraphics on Frank Dandy Superwear.

And, unlikeliest of all, the little-boy, Underoos-inspired nuttiness of fire trucks, motorcycles and hot dogs all over Ginch Gonch underwear — they’re fairly crying out to be called underpants.

Not since the Peacock Revolution of the ’60s has there been such variety, all of it going to disprove a cherished maxim of men’s wear: that a man is more loyal to his brand of underwear than to any other article of clothing. Now connoisseurship trumps loyalty…

“There’s been an explosion in printed underwear, low-rise underwear and different kinds of boxer briefs,” said John Sievers, an owner of International Jock, who said that his business has doubled in three years.

Underwear by C-IN2 and Andrew Christian, artfully constructed with seams or straps to make the most of a man’s, um, profile, has done extremely well, he added. “All the Wonderbra sort of technology for men — we sell tons of stuff like that.”

As they say, it’s all about packaging.

For American Apparel, that means marketing that is a clash of squeaky clean and slightly raunchy.

Picture an unshowered, unshaven guy in a pair of pink briefs with white piping, photographed amateur-style, and you get the idea. Using such imagery, American Apparel has sold more than a million of its briefs in the two years since they were introduced, according to Dov Charney, the line’s founder…

“They’re getting away from the old pasty colors,” said Maurice Webb, a infrastructure contractor and an Army veteran based in Iraq, who stumbled onto the Justus Boyz site when searching for new underwear. “They’ve got a lot of fun stuff now. They’re taking notice that there are stylish, daring people out there.”

At first the site — and name — made him nervous, but the desert camo briefs he bought were a hit. “I got a lot of compliments,” he said. “They’re more form-fitting, and they’re also more comfortable.”

His reaction would seem to be shared by many.

Diesel underwear, in the long motel-room photo above,
available from Diesel
All other underwear available at Skiviez

 

Brands from top:
Go Softwear
Andrew Christian
Diesel
Ginch Gonch
Punto Blanco and Artificial Flavors
Go Softwear
Go Softwear (at left)