In the past, we’re white briefs ever the “cool/in” underwear of choice?

I actually think in the UK boxers caught on earlier than in the US. I’ve only ever known my dad wear boxers (either loose woven or more lately boxer briefs). I myself only had one pair of woven loose boxers before I moved onto boxer briefs as that was what everyone else was wearing in the 90s.
Boxers are a scourge on society...
 
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Did anyone get to choose the type of underwear they wore growing up? I didn't. Parents (mom in my case) bought white briefs and that's what we wore. Very few--Just a couple friends and cousins--wore boxers because that's what their parental units bought them.

Not until I started buying my own did I begin to choose other styles.
 
Did anyone get to choose the type of underwear they wore growing up? I didn't. Parents (mom in my case) bought white briefs and that's what we wore. Very few--Just a couple friends and cousins--wore boxers because that's what their parental units bought them.

Not until I started buying my own did I begin to choose other styles.
Same. White briefs until college because that’s what mom bought. I really didn’t think anything about it.
 
Did anyone get to choose the type of underwear they wore growing up? I didn't. Parents (mom in my case) bought white briefs and that's what we wore. Very few--Just a couple friends and cousins--wore boxers because that's what their parental units bought them.

Not until I started buying my own did I begin to choose other styles.
In the Uk in the 90s/2000s I think it was pretty standard to ask your mum to start buying you boxers instead of briefs.
 
Don't know if they were ever the cool underwear, but they were certainly the default choice for many years for those who didn't think too much about underwear. And that was probably largely a function of being widely available and reasonably priced.

Boxers started to become popular among the people I knew in the late '80s. For me, it was mostly a coming-of-age thing, but, in retrospect, there was a fashion aspect to it as well, since most guys switched then, but wouldn't have in, say, 1970.
 
Bro is trolling. His entire post history is fetishizing boxers and he completed two surveys this year with two markedly different ages. Boxer briefs are ubiquitous with 20-somethings on the east coast, Midwest, and west coast.
They aren’t but you do you! Those are all the gay dudes that like to be all feminine and stuff. The straight guys are all wearing boxers as they should
 
It seems presumptuous of you to dismiss the myriad statements in this forum as "not true at all." Do you mean to say that the experience of virtually ALL the other posters is somehow false or made up? How would you know?
I was pleasantly surprised to see the number of guys who responded just as I would have: that until about the later 80's boxers were for OLD MEN. In the 70's in hs, NO ONE in my private boys school wore them .

I went to college in the Northeast and it was only the prep school kids who wore boxers. Virtually no one I knew wore them, except, perhaps, as dorm wear to hang out.

I have never, ever heard anyone say "boxer briefs were girly or "gross." Where did you hear that?As many posters here have mentioned, the choice of most guys appears to be boxer briefs now.

Besides, the OP asked about guys of older generations, so if you're that young, maybe you don't have the experience he's asking about.
I’m 26 (Chicago) can agree with the comment ur are against. As a kid, the guys would tease a kid for wearing tighty whiteys. Boxers were cool
 
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I’m 26 (Chicago) can agree with the comment ur are against. As a kid, the guys would tease a kid for wearing tighty whiteys. Boxers were cool
Isn't it odd how such things can become completely reversed? At one time, boxers were old-fashioned and for grandpas, then they became cool. Who can understand it?
 
I’m so sick of the people on this website constantly claiming this. As someone in this age group, it’s not true AT ALL. Every single guy I knew growing up and now wore boxers. Boxer briefs have always been seen as girly and gross/for old men to most guys in this age group. I still barely know anyone in this age range that wears boxer briefs. Boxers are everywhere and have been everywhere for all of the time I was growing up too. All guys this has come up with have told me they hate tight underwear. I’m so tired of this misconception coming up.
Then you must live under a rock or are just a plain idiot!
 
I’m 26 (Chicago) can agree with the comment ur are against. As a kid, the guys would tease a kid for wearing tighty whiteys. Boxers were cool
Precisely the opposite for my generation (62); boxers were old-man underwear, laughable. Then, mysteriously, that which was risible became cool. It's all illustrated in Dr Seuss's book, "The Sneetches," in which some of these cartoony characters have stars on their bellies and others don't, and over the course of the book, having a star on your belly is cool... then it isn't... then it is... then isn't... etc. It actually pins down how ridiculous we all are very aptly.
Nonetheless, I can state with 100% authority that MY OPINION is the right one. So there! : )
 
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I have read all of your comments regarding underwear trends and generational choices and I can say this is true. I have been an undertaker (funeral industry service) for more than 20 years and the age breakdown on what underwear families bring in for their loved ones to spend eternity in is what most of you have mentioned. Most men 85+ plus wear boxers, those 65 - 85 briefs, low rise, or bikini, and those 45 - 65 briefs or a slight mix of boxers, briefs or bikini kind. Anyone who passes below 45 seem to wear boxerbriefs, trunks, or boxers. I’ve maybe only seen a few families bring in string bikinis to put on their loved ones. I see lots of white briefs but lots of colors as well. Most of the men 65 plus wear white briefs. In my community most families have brought in Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, or Jockey brands with a few wearing Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger. Just my two cents.
 
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I'm in my 60s. Growing up, my mother usually bought us briefs that were Penncrest (from J .C. Penney's), Hanes or Jockey . She said that Fruit of the Loom and BVDs didn't last long.

I think that the first time I saw underwear that came in colors was in an Ah Men or International Male catalogue.

As a pre-teen, I remember staring at blue- or red-colored bikini briefs at Gimbels' Department Store in the mall and wondering if I would ever wear such a thing
 
I have read all of your comments regarding underwear trends and generational choices and I can say this is true. I have been an undertaker (funeral industry service) for more than 20 years and the age breakdown on what underwear families bring in for their loved ones to spend eternity in is what most of you have mentioned. Most men 85+ plus wear boxers, those 65 - 85 briefs, low rise, or bikini, and those 45 - 65 briefs or a slight mix of boxers, briefs or bikini kind. Anyone who passes below 45 seem to wear boxerbriefs, trunks, or boxers. I’ve maybe only seen a few families bring in string bikinis to put on their loved ones. I see lots of white briefs but lots of colors as well. Most of the men 65 plus wear white briefs. In my community most families have brought in Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, or Jockey brands with a few wearing Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger. Just my two cents.
OMG! I hardly know how to respond to this. SO interesting to get a undertaker's point of view. (Very different from an underWEARtaker's point of view!) This might be the best way to measure popularity of diff styles.
 
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So question for people who are a little older. My age range has always considered white briefs to be childish and most guys switched to boxers when they realized this (or social pressure got to them) and now many have migrated to boxer-briefs. The 18-30 year olds now seemed to largely have basically always worn boxer briefs, with comparatively few ever preferring boxers, much less briefs of any color.

For people in their mid 40’s or older, were briefs, and white briefs specifically, ever the “cool” or “in-style” underwear, like Calvin Klein boxer briefs are now? If so, what age group and what years would this have been true?

(Reminder to please limit discussion to people 18+ only, including yourself and your peers, per the forum rules.)
A friend of mine on here pointed me to something in a later part of this thread, but i got to reading the whole thing, even the parts it got off track from the original poster, Lots of thing started clicking in my mind, and my Dad and Uncle and me and my boys all are pretty comfortable talking underwear. I remember my
Dad and uncle talking about their underwear trends and stuff and i don't think my Uncle ever throws anything away till its in rags, because he has a couple big storage boxes, the rubber maid kind, full of underwear from different pionts in his life when he made a change for one reason or another.

The original question being stated was for "older" men, over 40. I had the chance to assemble a group of 9 of us yesterday to discuss underwear and trends and popularity and stuff. My dad, a 1988 high school graduate, my Uncle a 1991, one of their school pals from somewhere similar in age, his name is Cory. Myself, im 28 and a former college athlete and assistant coach in college and now to youth. I do have 4 teenage boys, obviously not mine biologically, but the fact i have 30 plus pair of mens underweear come through my laundry every week does add to my knowledge. The rest of the group were late teens, 18, 19, or early 20's. One a total stud bull rider who also played football in high school, one a high school wrestler, the rest are either current or former basketball and or mullti sport athletes. I say that because it seems to make a difference in underwear preferences and opinions.

I have only ever really felt a few guys considered anyone elses choice to be childish, but for that opinion in underwear, its definitely the guys my age and a bit older, so mid 20's to 39, i'll say.

My uncle says he never knew any of his pals to switch to boxers, he had never even seen a guy in boxers till he saw a couple in college too ashamed to walk down the hall to shower in normal underwear as he called it.

Were white breifs ever cool, yeah, they were, and are at times with certain segments of young men now. My Dad and Uncle both say White briefs were def cool and popular, the guys who wore white briefs, were not ashamed to hang out in them, skinny dip in them, so to speak, go shirtless on the farm and let the waistband show, and just be seen in them in general. This would have been 80's and at least first half of 90's.

One thing my Uncle has told me about was when some of the local boys who had gone off to college would come back to the farm over the summer to help out and after a hot day, they would go to the barn in the shade and get out of their blue jeans and hang out, cooling off, in their white briefs. Those briefs so full of sweat they sagged and gapped and he could not wait till he was one of them, he said they alway had this gap between the legs and the crotch of the undewear that showed some ballsack and pubic hair, and for someone praying for their turn to hit puberty, that was a huge thing.

My dad actually dissappointed my Uncle when he went underwear shopping for himself once and started wearing Jockey H fly briefs, but got the light grey or heather grey ones. In his mind they just were not as cool as the plain old cheap cotton ones, almost like he was a phoney farm boy or jock or had betrayed himi somehow. The other gentleman in our conversation yesterday was actually the one who was with my Dad when he bought those Jockey briefs. Dad had needed to go actually buy a couple extra jockstraps, Cory invited hmself to come along not knowing Dad's reason for going shopping. Dad finally had to tell him and Cory who still played football in college was like, I have plenty of jocks, coach gives us all we want, spend your money on these breifs and we'll do some swapping back at the room. Cory's statement to my Dad back then they say was that those briefs are easy to grab your dick for a quick wank. Easy access fly and all.

Dad must have like those breifs, as that is all i ever saw him in growing up, he had white ones, tons of the grey ones, a few black a few navy blue, not remembering much else color wise, i would say he seemed to like the grey best and white second best though.

an older guy on my football team, old enough he turned 18 before senior year started, (he used to buy cigarettes and resell them to make cash) (no, i don't nor never did smoke, but others did), he shows up late summer when the real practices start, his locker two down from mine. He had always been trendy with AE underwear and stuff, this was like 2011, and he was opening a new package of white Jockey Y front briefs, size 34, needed those to cover his nicely muscular ass. Every day that season he come in, stripped naked of his nicer underwear, put on his white Y fronts then his football pants. Never did get him to try a jockstrap. He must have had a dozen total pair of those briefs, he would leave them and toss them in the white cart and they would get washed at school. Others must have liked his idea, several were sharing in his briefs before long, they def didn't soak up as much sweat as the American Eagle boxer briefs of the day. So in that niche setting, white breifs became popular again.