Most people on these forums don't remember a time when thongs were sold in retail stores; that was at least 25 years ago.  But there was a time when they were somewhat popular; I knew other guys from my fraternity who owned and wore them.  I’m thinking this is part of why the majority of men who post pictures of themselves outside, at a beach, in a public place, etc. are over 40 .

Several factors converged to make men’s thongs and other minimalist men’s underwear more retail-available in the 1980s than they are today.

 

·      First, was the fitness craze of women’s aerobics – The uniform of choice was the thong back leotard worn over spandex tights; this was one of the first commercially successful, mainstream applications of thongs being used by women in general, and the then influencers of the day, hosts of morning TV exercise shows, all wore them.

 

o   Men also had a bit of a fitness craze going on as well, the whole Muscle Beach and Mr. Universe thing with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, just to name a few of he well muscled men without shirts on the big screens.  Add to this many of the M-TV male band members, many of whom wore thong underwear.

o   I think in general the 1980s was just a “Dress Sexy” and show some skin and physique time.

 

·      Next was the tight-fitting clothing for both men and women; this made larger, more full-coverage underwear bunch up under skin-tight jeans that still did not have any give to them, as spandex and elastane were not incorporated into the fabric blends yet.

 

·      Then there was the Chippendale Factor, the rise of the Male stripper, and the fact that to comply with laws, the men had to cover the front, but the back was ok.  Women had a newfound freedom to openly express their sexual prowess at women's-only strip clubs and even ladies’ nights all across America.  The fact that many women saw men in thongs made the thong less of an issue and more acceptable.

 

·      Lastly, the convergence of these all happens because in the 1980’ and up to the early 1990s, women bought 70% of the underwear that men wore.  This translated into comparable styles that matched what women were wearing; companies manufactured them, and they were then stocked in retail department stores.  There were Bikinis, String Bikinis(Tanga), and of course, thongs.  Women bought their men similar styles to what they were wearing for many of the same reasons they were wearing them.

 

o   Now this is not to say that every store in a department chain carried all of these varieties, especially not the Tanga and the Thong.  I grew up in a moderate-sized Midwest city of about 35,000; our Dayton’s, Target and  K-Mart did not carry these, but if I went into Minneapolis or Chicago, they had everything.

What do you think? Can we ever get back to a similar convergence that will see a similar breakthrough

 

Thongs made by Rayze, Greg Homme, & Sukrew.

It was a busy day at the river; lots of people floating down on a hot day.

I name this National Take Your Thong Outside Day!

I wrote scripts and ran them through Chat GPT, Google, Grok, and Gemini to scrape and report the opinions from various message boards, Quora, Reddit, and other platforms and asked for a summary of positive, Neutral, and negative.

The results are above.

This is not scientific research, and the results are biased, especially the negative.

Women with negative opinions:

I dug deeper into that one and it is more from women-dominated forums and places where women with strong opinions of this topic hang out. For women with a negative opinion: In some cases, these are women who don't wear them because they don't like them on women either; they would rather nobody wear them because of sexualization or other issues.

But also revealing is that for women with a negative opinion of the man wearing a masculine thong, they are much more receptive to being indifferent; they just really don't like or want men in Lace, frills, and women's thongs.

The good news is that more than 50% of women love them or just don't care one way or another, so this is one area where you shouldn't get yourself all twisted up in; chances are your woman will love or at least accept them.

So I'm relaxed in my secret place down a little trail that is marked closed by the city. It's a nice hot day in the city, and I can set my chair in the water here and watch people float down the river. Clearly I'm not trying to hide anything; anyone on the river can see me... it's pretty far to the other side, but you could probably make out that I am wearing a thong, I would think... but that is far away, and I have gotten very comfortable with that level of public exposure. I've come here 4 or 5 times this summer and never had anyone even on the trail that leads here.

I'm all settled into my chair, and about 5 minutes with my back to the entrance, suddenly a younger (20-something) girl walks into my spot. Hey, it's a public park; what can I do about it? I'm stripped down to my thong, sitting in my chair getting some rays.

Guys, this is where you have to own it, I mean, really own it. I did not get flustered or embarrassed. I did not try to explain myself; I acknowledged her, we made some small talk, and we didn't even discuss that I was wearing a thong. I think it would have been weirder if I had. I went about my thing; she had a vape and was scrolling on her phone. Eventually, I had to leave; there was nothing I could do about it other than to stand up and put on the shorts I wore as a cover-up...and own my situation. This projects confidence above all else, and probably made this stranger comfortable that I wasn't all freaked out.

This is how you own your thong in a public place, and I have to say, it's awesome.

The Thong Reddits are full of Posts with Men Showing Their Thongs Proudly...Most Are Taken in a Bathroom or Bedroom. 90% are in a private space. There can be no expectation of normalization if men are not going out in the world (locker rooms at the least), where men might see other men wearing them, so that it becomes normalized one person at a time.

The psychological machinery that transforms a personal clothing choice into a source of anxiety runs deep and operates with remarkable speed. Social conformity, far from being a sign of weak character, is one of the brain's most fundamental survival strategies. When a man considers wearing a thong, his brain registers not a piece of fabric but a potential violation of group norms, and it responds with the same basic alarm system that once kept his ancestors safely within the tribe.

The experience of shame in this context follows a predictable pattern. Shame is a social emotion, distinct from guilt, designed to protect an individual's standing within a community. Guilt says, "I did something wrong." Shame says, "There is something wrong with me." The distinction is critical because the clothing choices of other men rarely trigger guilt—they are not moral violations. But they can trigger shame with surprising intensity, because they threaten to reveal a man as different in a way that might be judged, mocked, or rejected. Even when no one else will ever see the garment, the brain simulates the judgment of others so vividly that the shame response activates as though the exposure has already occurred. A man alone in his bedroom can feel as self-conscious as if he were standing in a crowded locker room.

Psychologists have documented what is known as the "imaginary audience" phenomenon, a cognitive distortion in which individuals overestimate the degree to which others notice and evaluate their behavior. Adolescents are famously susceptible, but the effect persists into adulthood, particularly around behaviors perceived as non-normative. A man wearing a thong under his jeans at the grocery store may feel as though a spotlight follows him through every aisle, when in reality no one gives his underwear a moment of thought. The intensity of this feeling does not correlate with any actual risk of discovery. It correlates with the perception of risk, which the brain, conditioned by years of social learning, has set to maximum sensitivity around this particular behavior. The fear is not that someone will see. The fear is that someone could see, and the brain treats both scenarios as equally dangerous.

>I don't know how many times I have read that someone won't wear a thong to work, or won't because of the risk of their pants splitting. A ridiculous scenario and exceptionally rare under the best of circumstances. If my pants split at work, its going to be embarrassing no matter what my underwear and I'm going home immediately.

This same machinery explains why the hesitation often arrives with a companion emotion: a sense of absurdity. Many men report feeling ridiculous or silly when first handling a thong, even in circumstances of complete privacy. The garment seems to provoke a self-consciousness that other clothing choices do not, and that self-consciousness can be so uncomfortable that it short-circuits any further exploration. The feeling of absurdity is not a response to the object itself. It is a response to the gap between the cultural meaning of the object and the identity the man has built for himself. When those two things clash—when a garment coded as feminine and provocative meets a self-concept organized around being a normal, unremarkable guy—the cognitive dissonance registers as humor or discomfort or both.

Understanding these mechanisms is not an academic exercise. It is the first step in recognizing that the hesitation is not a message about the rightness or wrongness of the choice. It is a message about the brain's deeply ingrained social programming. Seeing the programming for what it is creates space. In that space, a man can begin to ask himself a question that the automatic responses would otherwise drown out: what do I actually want? The answer may still be complicated, but at least the question can be asked on its own terms, without the distortion of ancient survival instincts masquerading as personal conviction.

Getting a grip on the psychology is one of the first steps to getting thongs accepted as a choice.

The discomfort many men feel when first considering a thong has no basis in this long history of men's undergarments, where thong-like clothing has existed for centuries. This is really a modern problem of the last 40 years. I started wearing thongs in the 1980s, just as they started being mass-marketed to women; there was not the same gender-based divide on the style; a lot of male Hair Band Rockers wore them in the 1980s, and it was pretty common to find them in most department stores in larger cities.

Today, what experience instead is a psychological collision between an intuitive draw toward practical design and a much younger, much louder set of cultural rules that insist this garment is not for them. Understanding that ancient history does not erase the hesitation, but it does relocate its source. The resistance is not coming from some deep, innate masculine truth. It is coming from a specific and relatively recent interruption in a tradition that once belonged to men without question. The small piece of fabric in a modern man's hand carries a lineage that stretches back thousands of years, and that fact alone should reframe the conversation before it even begins.

The 20th Century Erasure

If ancient history provides a baseline of normalcy, the twentieth century provides the mechanism of its erasure. The early 1900s saw the rise of modern underwear as a mass-marketed product, and with it came a new imperative: selling not just a garment but a version of manhood. The Jockey brief, introduced in 1935, arrived with advertising that emphasized support, athleticism, and a clean, contained silhouette. We see, even today, that a lot of men are still confused and worry about the stigma of wearing a brief, or even a swim brief; the psychological pathology is deeply ingrained in our society.

Boxer shorts were adopted from military issue and popularized after World War II, carrying connotations of toughness, practicality, and no-fuss masculinity.

Both styles competed for shelf space and cultural dominance, and both anchored their appeal in a particular image of what a man should be. Men who wore briefs were modern and streamlined. Men who wore boxers were rugged and traditional. Neither category left any room for anything less substantial.

The marketing machinery of this era was relentless in its gendering of undergarments.

Advertisements for women's lingerie grew increasingly elaborate, emphasizing lace, sensuality, and the promise of allure.

Men's underwear advertising moved in the opposite direction, doubling down on durability, simplicity, and an almost aggressive lack of ornamentation.

The implicit message was clear: a man's underwear should be functional and forgettable. Anything that drew attention to itself, that suggested a concern with appearance or comfort beyond the basic, risked being coded as feminine. This was not an organic cultural development. It was a deliberate strategy by manufacturers to segment markets and maximize sales, and it succeeded so completely that men internalized the binaries without ever questioning their origin.

The Athletic Supporter (Jock Strap) Gets A Pass...Somehow?

The athletic supporter, often overlooked in this history, offers a telling counterpoint. Originally developed in the 1870s to provide impact protection for bicycle couriers on rough cobblestone streets, the jockstrap evolved into a staple of contact sports. Its design—a waistband, a supportive pouch, and two elastic straps that left the buttocks completely exposed—is functionally indistinguishable from many modern thong designs. Yet the jockstrap has always been understood as unambiguously masculine, its proximity to sports and injury prevention acting as a cultural shield. No locker room ever mocked a jockstrap. No partner ever raised an eyebrow at a jockstrap in a gym bag. The garment's acceptance reveals that the issue is not the amount of fabric. It is the story told about the fabric.

>We all know that most men cower and tremble with real fear at the thought of wearing a thong to the gym, so much so that most men who regularly wear thongs change their underwear at home before going to the gym lest anybody see them in a more practical type of underwear for the task to be undertaken.

A woman going to the gym, wearing leggings or tight shorts, not even a question; the thong is the only answer.

1960s & 1970s - Times Are A Changin

By the 1960s and 1970s, the narrowing of acceptable male underwear had calcified into a kind of invisible architecture. Men chose their underwear from a menu so limited it no longer felt like a choice at all. The possibility of something different had been quietly removed from the shelves and, more significantly, from the imagination.

Department stores did not carry men's any alternative men's underwear. The catalogues did not show anything other than the two choices. The cultural permission to wear anything other than briefs or boxers simply vanished, replaced by a consensus so thorough that men born into this era might never realize an alternative had ever existed. What began as a marketing strategy became a social norm, and what became a social norm eventually felt like a law of nature.

The consequences of this erasure ripple through every hesitation a modern man experiences. When he picks up a thong for the first time, he is not simply confronting an unfamiliar garment. He is confronting the accumulated weight of decades in which this object was made invisible, unthinkable, and, when finally glimpsed, unmistakably coded as belonging to women. The anxiety he feels is not a personal failing. It is the predictable outcome of a carefully constructed cultural blind spot, one that can be understood and, with the right perspective, dismantled.

The Female Association

The final layer of the modern hesitation arrived in the 1980s and accelerated through the 1990s with a force that would reshape underwear culture entirely.

Thongs, which had existed in various forms for women throughout the mid-century, suddenly became a mass-market phenomenon, propelled by fashion trends that demanded invisible panty lines under tight-fitting clothing. Manufacturers seized the opportunity, flooding the market with women's thongs in every material, color, and price point. Advertising framed the thong as an expression of female confidence, sexual agency, and body positivity. By the turn of the millennium, the association was absolute: a thong was a women's garment, full stop. A generation of men grew up understanding this not as a marketing trend but as a basic fact of the material world. This largely explains why shortly into the new century, between about 2003 and 2006, most department stores had rid themselves of men's thongs, and any other style of men's underwear than the traditional binary of Boxers or Briefs.

When added to by the invention of the Boxer-Brief by John Vavartos in the late 1990s as an answer to the Boxers or briefs question and the California Surf Culture that brought us long baggy swim shorts, and Magic Johnson's basketball shorts that went down to the floor, pop culture effectively eliminated all of the alternatives.

The Psychological Impact of Gendering.

For a man, even entertaining the thought of wearing a thong means crossing a boundary that has been reinforced by every department store that refused to carry the product, every lingerie advertisement, every joke in a sitcom, and every pop song lyric. The garment carries a charge that has nothing to do with its physical properties and everything to do with the cultural meaning that has been layered onto it.

A man who feels drawn to the design—for comfort, for curiosity, for the quiet thrill of a private act of self-definition—must first navigate the internalized warning that this object is not meant for him. The warning is not rational, but it is powerful, and it operates beneath the level of conscious thought.

Research on gendered product associations helps explain why this barrier feels so solid. Studies in consumer psychology consistently show that once an object is culturally coded as belonging to one gender, exposure to it by the other gender triggers an automatic response of discomfort, even when no logical reason for that discomfort exists. This response is not a personality quirk. It is a learned cognitive shortcut, absorbed through years of exposure to a world organized around gendered categories. The man who hesitates before a thong is not weak or insecure in any unusual way. His brain is simply executing the programming it received: this object registers as female, therefore approaching it requires a justification that would never be demanded of a woman making the same choice.

The irony is that the female association is built on a foundation of pure historical accident. The same garment that a Roman athlete wore without a second thought, that a Japanese laborer considered the most practical option available, that a Viking sailor relied on to stay healthy at sea, was, through a series of market decisions made in boardrooms over the past forty years, rebranded as inherently feminine. The rebranding was so effective that it collapsed thousands of years of male use into near-total invisibility. Today's man who feels the pull of curiosity is not reaching for something alien. He is reaching for something that was taken from his lineage and handed back with a label that reads "not for you."

Understanding this history does not automatically dissolve the hesitation, but it does change its character. What once felt like shame—the sense that there must be something wrong with a man who wants to wear this—can begin to feel more like understandable conditioning. The discomfort is real, but its source is external and recent, not internal and ancient.

That distinction matters enormously when a man is trying to sort through his own feelings and decide what he actually wants, separate from what he has been told to want.

 

Perhaps the most important lesson from this discussion is that public perception is not always an accurate reflection of reality. People often assume that what they frequently see must be common and what they rarely see must be rare. In reality, visibility—not just participation—shapes cultural understanding.

Women's thongs provide a clear example of this phenomenon.

For decades they have appeared in television, movies, fashion magazines, department stores, social media, and advertising campaigns. They are discussed openly among friends, recommended by stylists, and marketed as practical solutions for comfort, fashion, and eliminating visible panty lines. As a result, most people rarely question whether women wear thongs. They are viewed as simply one of many ordinary underwear options. 

Thongs only represent 20% of all women’s underwear sales, yet most men think women wear thongs far more regularly than the average woman does.  The reality is that most women do own thongs; there is no controversy about buying/wearing them or being seen wearing them.  Some women wear them 100% of the time; some 0% of the time, but most wear them somewhere in between these extremes.

Men's thongs have followed a very different cultural path.

Although millions of men wear them, they receive comparatively little mainstream visibility. They are seldom featured in everyday advertising, rarely discussed openly among men, and often portrayed in entertainment as a punchline rather than a practical garment. When men's thongs do appear in popular culture, they have historically been framed as outrageous, embarrassing, or sexually provocative instead of being presented as ordinary underwear.

No man wants to be the brunt of the kind of ridicule that is featured most often in the rare cases where men in thongs are actually in media, or YouTube pranks.  This is a huge factor in the way both men and women have been conditioned to react to a man wearing a thong; it is something to be laughed at, and certainly not a serious choice.  The only other example of a man wearing a thong in TV or movies is limited to the “Gay” LGBTQ+ character, perpetuating the myth that only gay men wear thongs.

While the market for men’s thongs is smaller than women’s at 20%, men’s thongs make up about 7% of annual men’s underwear sales; that is not an insignificant market, and millions of men in America wear them; men just tend to be overly secretive and go out of their way to hide the fact.  Statistics are harder to find on this market because it is nearly invisible.  It is probably safe to say that about 5% of men regularly wear thongs and probably another 5% own one.

>Over time, this creates what might be called a perception gap.

The actual number of men who wear thongs becomes less important than the story society repeatedly tells about them. Every advertisement that excludes men's thongs, every comedy that uses them as a joke, every retailer that doesn’t stock them, and every man who quietly keeps his preference private reinforces the belief that almost no men wear them.

This is the self-perpetuating cycle explored throughout this series of articles.

People assume few men wear thongs because they rarely see them.

Because they assume demand is low, retailers devote no shelf space to them.

Limited availability reduces visibility even further.

Media continues portraying them as unusual because they remain culturally unfamiliar.

The cycle repeats itself.

Ironically, privacy itself contributes to this perception. Underwear is one of the most private articles of clothing a person owns. Many men who wear thongs never mention it to friends, coworkers, or even partners unless the subject naturally arises. Their choice remains invisible to almost everyone around them. Unlike a hairstyle, pair of shoes, or fashion accessory, underwear usually leaves no public evidence of personal preference.

This means that many people unknowingly know men who wear thongs.

They simply have no reason to realize it.

The result is a widespread tendency to underestimate how common the garment actually is.

The discussion also highlights the influence of traditional expectations surrounding masculinity. For generations, men's clothing has often been evaluated not only for practicality but also for what it supposedly communicates about identity. Certain garments become symbols rather than simply articles of clothing. Once that happens, people may make assumptions that have little to do with the garment itself.  The marketing of Thongs to men is heavily influenced by LGBTQ+ friendly websites and/or, when in TV or Film, the man wearing the thong is Gay.  This is a difficult position of many straight men to reconcile with.

These assumptions are reinforced not only by men but often by women as well. Cultural expectations are learned collectively. The same stereotypes repeated in advertising, entertainment, peer groups, and family conversations shape everyone's perceptions, regardless of gender. As a result, many people unconsciously judge men's underwear choices using standards that they would never apply to women's underwear.

That double standard becomes especially noticeable when comparing public attitudes toward thongs. A woman choosing a thong is generally viewed as making a personal decision based on comfort, fashion, or preference. A man making the same decision is more likely to encounter assumptions about his personality, masculinity, sexuality, or motives. The garment itself has not changed—only the cultural lens through which it is viewed.

History suggests that these perceptions are not fixed.

Many products once considered unconventional eventually became ordinary as public exposure increased. Women's athletic wear, pierced ears for men, tattoos, colorful dress shirts, longer hairstyles, skincare routines, and even fitted clothing all experienced periods of skepticism before becoming widely accepted in mainstream culture. Increased visibility allowed people to become familiar with what once seemed unusual.  The TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003 – 2007) went a long way to pushing the normalization of many of these things for straight men, but it has taken 20 years to take hold.

The same process can occur with men's underwear.

If advertising begins presenting men's thongs as one option among many rather than a novelty, if television and movies portray them without relying on ridicule, if retailers devote shelf space to everyday styles, and if men become more comfortable discussing underwear in the same matter-of-fact way women often do, public perception may gradually become more aligned with reality.

Normalization does not require everyone to wear a particular garment.

It simply requires recognizing that different people have different preferences and that those preferences need not carry unnecessary social meaning.

Ultimately, this series of articles is not an argument that every man should wear a thong.

It is an argument that underwear should be judged by the same criteria regardless of who wears it: comfort, function, fit, confidence, and personal preference.

The broader lesson extends well beyond underwear. Society frequently mistakes visibility for prevalence and stereotypes for truth. Challenging those assumptions encourages a more accurate understanding of how people actually live rather than how culture tells us they should live.

As perceptions evolve, acceptance often follows. And when acceptance grows, individuals gain greater freedom to make personal choices without fear of ridicule or misplaced judgment.

That is not simply a conversation about underwear.

It is a conversation about allowing people to define comfort, confidence, and self-expression for themselves.

 

Women Help Normalize Women's Thongs Among Themselves; Men Don't!

Another overlooked factor is that women frequently discuss underwear with friends.

Topics might include:

• favorite brands
• comfort
• visible panty lines
• workout clothing
• fashion advice

These conversations reinforce the idea that thongs are simply one option among many.

Men are generally less likely to have comparable conversations about underwear. As a result, even if some men regularly wear thongs, that information often remains private.

Its this privacy aspect among men that really makes. progress slow.

But is is our hope that communities like this one are a way to further the discussion and allow men the confidence to own their choices without compromise.

Skins Brand thong for the swim.

The Self-Perpetuating Cycle

A feedback loop develops.

1. Men rarely see thongs marketed to them.
2. They assume few men wear them.
3. Retailers stock fewer options.
4. Media rarely depicts them.
5. Consumers (men in particular) continue believing they are unusual.
6. And worst of all; many men that wear thongs regularly avoid wearing them where others might see them. (Gym, Pool, Beach). The majority of men that regularly wear thongs change into something more conventional prior to going to the gym, pool, or beach. Mostly becasue of the perception that they believe they will become the stereotype or experience negative or unwanted consequences; this truly exasperates the myth than men don't wear tongs.

>Nothing in that cycle necessarily reflects actual comfort or satisfaction among people who do wear them. The last item is a pure fear reaction to all of the things we have built up in our mind about what might happen...but rarely does in the real world. This is possibly the hardest aspect of all to fight against.

Different Standards of Acceptance

Women's underwear choices are generally viewed as personal fashion decisions.

A woman wearing:

• briefs
• bikini underwear
• boyshorts
• thongs
• seamless underwear

rarely has her femininity questioned.

Men's underwear choices often become linked to broader assumptions about masculinity.

A man wearing:

• boxers

is considered conventional.

A man wearing:

• briefs

may occasionally face stereotypes.

A man wearing:

• a thong

is sometimes subjected to assumptions about his personality, sexuality, confidence, or motivations—despite underwear alone revealing none of those things.

This illustrates a broader social phenomenon: clothing is often interpreted differently depending on the wearer's gender.

Marketing Reinforces Expectations

Women's underwear companies actively promote thongs as everyday options.

Advertisements discuss:

• comfort
• seamless appearance
• confidence
• self-expression
• fashion

Men's marketing rarely says:

"This is a comfortable everyday choice."

Instead, men's thong advertising often emphasizes:

• sexuality
• novelty
• boldness
• exotic imagery
• An overemphasis on the LGBTQ+ Community that often creates complexity and self doubt for many straight men.

This unintentionally signals that men's thongs are for special occasions rather than daily wear.

Getting a Little Controversial:

Straight men get to enjoy the opportunity to wear thongs primarily becasue of Gay men. Without Gay men pushing the boundaries of what is possible there probably wouldn't be a market or manufacturers.

Gay men have pushed the needle on many things that straight men now take part in without controversy like face and skin care, and countless fashion choices that did not exist 20 or 30 years ago.

But the Marketing of Men's thongs is still firmly rooted in, and with an appeal to the Queer Men's audience. This then tends to feed wildly into the whole "Does this make me Gay" quandary that many male thong wearing men get wrapped up in...and also supports why some women think that men's thongs are only for Gay men.

I think more could be done in this area to make the advertising representative of straight men and parallel the advertising of women's thongs.

Current market Stats:

There are about 50 main manufacturers of Men's thongs in North America. CK, and Jockey are the most recognizable companies, many are small custom shops.

On the large market places such as Amazon, there are over 20,000 men's thong products.

So there is a market for this product.

The Real Reason Men Are Deathly Afraid to be Seen in Thongs - The fact that the only and rare portrayal of a men in a thong in the media is some sort of Gag or Joke.

>This is literally the only visibility that millions of men have ever scene! Search YouTube for Men in Thongs...you already know what you will find.

Nobody Wants That Kind of Attention...Even if it isn't what is likely to happen in the real world, enough men believe it is the truth and have built a whole psychological block around this idea.

Men's thongs have historically appeared in media primarily as jokes.

Examples include:

• bachelor party scenes
• embarrassing vacation moments
• comic misunderstandings
• "banana hammock" punchlines
• In movies and TV it is never serious...often it is an identifier of an LGBTQ+ actor, but never a main actor and almost never someone heterosexual.

The audience is encouraged to laugh at the garment rather than view it as ordinary underwear.

The only time I have seen a man in a thong portrayed somewhat seriously was in the Movie Pam and Tommy (2022) and I think that would have been a bit normal among hair and metal band men of the 1980's.

Women's thongs, meanwhile, are usually portrayed as:

• attractive
• fashionable
• sexy
• sophisticated
• empowering
• practical under fitted clothing

The same garment receives completely different framing depending on who wears it.

Because of this primary stigma, many men avoid wearing thongs where they can be scene out of pure and simple fear of being laughed at. Thus men do not see thongs in the wild, on the Beach, or in the Locker Room because a high majority of men change into something more conventional prior to going somewhere that they have to change.

This is a slow boat to turn.

Be part of the Change!

About 20% of women's underwear sales are thongs, about 7% of men's underwear sales are thongs/jocks. The difference is a lot smaller, I bet most men would have thought woman's thongs occupied a much higher market share.

Lets Explore why everyone thinks men don't wear thongs. Spoiler Alert: Guys you are a big part of the problem.

The gap between women's and men's thong sales is an interesting lens through which to examine perception. Even if we assume figures in that general range, the difference in market share is much smaller than many people imagine. Yet the public perception is often that women's thongs are completely ordinary while men's thongs are extremely rare. That disconnect is driven less by sales numbers than by decades of cultural messaging.

Here's how that dynamic plays out in everyday life.

Visibility Creates "Normal"

People tend to judge how common something is based on how often they see it rather than how many people actually do it.

Women's thongs have become highly visible through:

• Fashion advertising
• Swimwear campaigns
• Lingerie marketing
• Television and movies
• Celebrity culture
• Fitness influencers
• Social media
• And for the love of god please bring back women's low rise jeans and whale tails from the early 2000s.

Over several decades, these repeated images have created a simple mental association:

Women wear thongs, even if they don't all wear thongs, and if they don't always wear them.

The public rarely questions that assumption because they encounter it constantly.

Men's thongs, by comparison, receive almost no mainstream exposure. Most men's underwear advertising still emphasizes:

• Boxers
• Boxer briefs
• Briefs
• Athletic compression shorts

As a result, many people unconsciously conclude:

Men don't wear thongs.

That conclusion isn't necessarily based on experience—it's based on absence of exposure.

The Availability Heuristic

Psychologists call this the availability heuristic.

People estimate how common something is by how easily examples come to mind.

Ask someone to picture:

• a woman wearing a thong

Most people can instantly think of dozens of examples from advertising, movies, or magazines.

Now ask them to picture:

• a man wearing a thong

Many people struggle to think of even one example outside of comedy.

The difference isn't necessarily prevalence—it is visibility.

Men in thongs are not in movies, not on TV, not in advertising, and most men go out of their way to make sure other men... and even the women in their lives don't know. They change before the gym into something conventional to avoid what they think will happen, and what they think will happen has no bearing on reality...the only reference point that we often have is the comedy aspect of it, and none of us want to be on the recipient end of that.

finally a day with no rain and some heat!

Toxic masculinity is often misunderstood as "men behaving badly." A more accurate definition is a system of rigid gender expectations that anyone can adopt and reinforce.

Women grow up in the same culture as men. They are exposed to many of the same messages:

• "Real men don't wear feminine clothing."
• "Men shouldn't care too much about appearance."
• "A masculine man looks a certain way."
• "Some clothing is for women, not men."

By adulthood, these ideas may feel like common sense rather than learned beliefs.

Attraction and Cultural Conditioning

Many women are attracted to traditionally masculine traits. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.

The challenge arises when cultural stereotypes become rigid rules.

Some women may think:

• "A thong makes a man seem less masculine."
• "My friends would judge me."
• "People will assume he's gay."
• "I couldn't take him seriously."

These reactions often stem less from the garment itself than from what it symbolizes within their cultural framework.

If society had always marketed men's thongs as normal athletic underwear, many of these assumptions likely wouldn't exist.

Fear of Social Judgment

Mostly the concern isn't about the thong at all.

It's about what other people will think, and this is where so many men get stuck in their own heads, but some women will also have worried too.

A woman may worry:

• What will my family say?
• What will my friends think?
• Will people judge our relationship?
• Will others think there's something unusual about us?

In this case, the pressure comes from protecting social standing rather than rejecting the man's choice itself.

Gender Roles Provide Predictability

Many people—both men and women—find comfort in familiar gender roles.

When those roles are challenged, it can create uncertainty.

A man wearing a thong may unintentionally challenge assumptions about:

• masculinity,
• heterosexuality,
• confidence,
• and relationship dynamics.

Some people experience that challenge as curiosity, while others experience it as discomfort.

Marketing Has Reinforced the Divide

For decades, advertising has portrayed underwear differently for men and women.

Men's underwear is often sold with themes of:

• performance,
• athleticism,
• durability,
• practicality.

Women's underwear is frequently marketed around:

• beauty,
• sensuality,
• elegance,
• fashion.

Since thongs have predominantly appeared in the second category, many people unconsciously classify them as "women's underwear," even when men's versions are specifically designed for male anatomy.

This marketing history influences perceptions across genders.

Women Also Experience "Masculinity Policing"

Women sometimes reinforce masculine norms because those norms have been presented as indicators of a desirable partner.

Examples include expecting men to:

• never cry,
• always initiate,
• be physically dominant,
• avoid anything perceived as feminine,
• suppress vulnerability.

These expectations can limit men's freedom just as much as they can limit women's.

Many women reject these stereotypes, but others may continue them without realizing their origin.

The Double Standard

One striking cultural difference is how gender expression is viewed.

Women have increasingly gained acceptance for wearing traditionally masculine clothing:

• jeans,
• suits,
• boots,
• workwear,
• athletic apparel.

A woman in men's-style clothing is often seen as confident or fashionable.

A man wearing clothing associated with women, however, is much more likely to have his masculinity questioned.

This asymmetry reflects a broader cultural tendency to value masculinity while devaluing femininity in men.

Not All Women Think This Way

It's important to avoid painting women with too broad a brush.

Many women:

• buy thongs for their husbands or partners,
• encourage them to wear whatever feels comfortable,
• find the confidence attractive,
• appreciate open conversations about body image and self-expression.

Others simply don't care what style of underwear a man wears.

The diversity of opinions is worth acknowledging because it shows attitudes are changing.

What Actually Changes Minds?

Research on attitude change consistently shows that stereotypes weaken through familiarity and positive personal experience.

When women discover that a man wears thongs because they are:

• comfortable,
• practical,
• supportive,
• or simply his preferred style,

rather than because of the assumptions attached to them, many initial reactions soften.

>Confidence also matters. People often respond less to the garment itself than to the wearer's comfort with his own choice and this is possibly the most important aspect of all. If you are not confident, in your choice, how can you expect the woman in your life to be supportive?

A Better Conversation

Perhaps the question should not be:

"Why do women judge men who wear thongs?"

Instead, it might be:

"Why have so many of us—men and women alike—been taught that a man's character can be judged by a piece of underwear?"

That question shifts the discussion away from assigning blame and toward examining the broader cultural norms that shape everyone's expectations.

 

One of the things that most men regret later in life:

You spend so much time and energy trying to look cool, put together, and complying with the unwritten rules of how a man should look, dress, and behave for rooms full of strangers who litterly will forget about you in an hour.

Realize you are making yourself smaller just to fit in, and it is a heavy weight later in life.

Go wear your thong if it makes you feel good, and fuck what anybody else says.

For something that spends almost its entire existence hidden beneath our clothing, underwear carries a surprising amount of cultural baggage. The style of underwear a person chooses can trigger assumptions about their personality, confidence, sexuality, lifestyle, and even their character. Yet these assumptions are not applied equally.

Women have long been granted broad permission to choose from an enormous range of underwear styles without having their identity questioned. Men, on the other hand, often face a much narrower set of socially accepted options. This disparity reveals what might be called the Great Underwear Double Standard—a collection of unwritten rules that shape how society views men's and women's underwear choices differently.

Understanding this double standard helps explain why so many men hesitate to explore styles such as thongs, even when those styles may offer comfort, practicality, or personal satisfaction.

## A Tale of Two Underwear Drawers

Walk into any department store and compare the men's and women's underwear sections.

The women's section typically offers countless choices:

* Briefs

* Bikini cuts

* Hipsters

* Boy shorts

* Thongs

* G-strings

* Seamless styles

* High-waisted cuts

* Shapewear

* Athletic designs

* Lace collections

* Fashion pieces

No one thinks twice about a woman owning multiple styles. In fact, versatility is expected.

A woman might wear a thong under a fitted dress, athletic underwear to the gym, cotton briefs while relaxing at home, and seamless styles for work attire. These choices are generally viewed as practical, personal, and entirely normal.

Now look at the expectations placed on men.

Traditionally, the acceptable choices have been reduced to a few categories:

* Boxers

* Boxer briefs

* Briefs

Anything beyond these options often attracts scrutiny.

The irony is obvious. Society encourages women to select underwear based on comfort, function, and preference while often expecting men to stay within a narrow range of choices regardless of their own needs or desires.

## The Invisible Rules Men Learn

Most men are never directly told they cannot wear a thong.

Instead, they absorb countless subtle messages.

As boys, many learn that certain clothing choices belong to one group and not another. They hear jokes about men's underwear. They see television portrayals that treat certain styles as punchlines. They notice that men's fashion tends to emphasize conformity while women's fashion celebrates variety.

Over time, these messages create invisible rules.

The rules sound something like this:

* Real men wear boxers.

* Boxer briefs are acceptable.

* Briefs are old-fashioned but tolerated.

* Thongs are strange.

* Anything too revealing is suspicious.

None of these rules are based on comfort, practicality, or evidence. They exist largely because they have been repeated for generations.

Many men follow them without ever questioning whether they make sense.

## When Function Doesn't Matter

One of the strangest aspects of the double standard is that function often gets ignored.

Women commonly justify underwear choices based on practical considerations.

A thong eliminates visible panty lines.

A seamless design works under athletic wear.

A specific cut prevents bunching or discomfort.

These explanations are generally accepted without controversy.

When men offer identical reasoning, the reaction can be very different.

A man might choose a thong because:

* It eliminates bunching.

* It stays in place during exercise.

* It works well under fitted clothing.

* It reduces fabric accumulation.

* It provides a feeling of freedom.

These are entirely practical considerations.

Yet many people assume the decision must have deeper implications.

Why?

Because society often views men's underwear choices through a cultural lens while viewing women's underwear choices through a practical lens.

That distinction creates the double standard.

## The Sexualization Gap

Another factor is the way society sexualizes men's and women's underwear differently.

Women's lingerie is frequently presented as normal, fashionable, and aspirational. Entire industries are built around helping women feel confident, attractive, or empowered through intimate apparel.

Men's underwear receives far less nuanced treatment.

When men's underwear becomes more minimal, stylish, or expressive, it is often immediately associated with sexuality rather than self-expression.

A woman purchasing a thong may simply be buying underwear.

A man purchasing a thong is often assumed to be making some larger statement.

The garment itself is nearly identical in concept, but the social interpretation differs dramatically.

This reveals less about the underwear and more about the assumptions people bring to it.

## The Masculinity Test

Perhaps the biggest driver of the double standard is the belief that masculinity must constantly be proven.

Women generally have more freedom to adopt traditionally masculine clothing without their femininity being questioned.

Women wear:

* Jeans

* Boots

* Athletic wear

* Oversized shirts

* Suits

These choices rarely provoke serious debate about their identity.

Men, however, often face stricter boundaries.

Anything perceived as too colorful, too expressive, too fashionable, or too revealing may invite scrutiny.

The result is that men's underwear becomes an unexpected test of masculinity.

Many men fear being judged not because of how a thong feels, but because of what others might assume it means.

The underwear becomes symbolic.

Yet true confidence comes from recognizing that masculinity should not be so fragile that it depends on the shape of a piece of fabric.

## The Privacy Paradox

There is another irony at work.

Underwear is among the most private clothing choices a person can make.

Most people never see it.

Yet men often worry intensely about how others might react.

This creates a paradox.

A man may wear a particular style solely for his own comfort and satisfaction while simultaneously fearing judgment from people who may never know about it.

The fear exists because social expectations can become internalized.

Even when no one is watching, people often carry society's opinions in their own minds.

The challenge is learning to separate personal preference from inherited expectations.

## What Happens When Men Ignore the Rules?

Many men who eventually try thongs report a surprising realization.

The world largely continues as normal.

Most people never notice.

Most people never ask.

Most people never care.

The anticipated social consequences often prove far larger than the reality.

This does not mean judgment never occurs. Some people still hold strong opinions.

But many men discover that the biggest obstacle was not society itself. It was the fear of society.

Once that fear is challenged, the choice becomes simpler.

Wear what works.

Wear what feels good.

Wear what serves your needs.

The garment becomes just another piece of clothing rather than a statement about identity.

## Freedom Through Choice

The ultimate issue is not whether every man should wear a thong.

That is not the point.

The point is that every man should have the same freedom to choose from the full spectrum of available options without facing assumptions that women typically avoid.

The goal is not convincing men to abandon boxers or boxer briefs.

The goal is expanding the definition of what is acceptable.

A man who loves boxers should wear boxers.

A man who prefers briefs should wear briefs.

A man who finds thongs comfortable should feel equally free to wear thongs.

The healthiest approach is one that prioritizes personal preference over social expectation.

## Moving Beyond the Double Standard

Cultural attitudes evolve slowly.

Many fashion choices that once seemed controversial eventually became ordinary.

The same process occurs whenever individuals challenge outdated assumptions through everyday behavior.

Every time a man chooses comfort over conformity, authenticity over expectation, and confidence over fear, he contributes to a broader shift in perspective.

The Great Underwear Double Standard survives because people rarely question it.

Once examined closely, its contradictions become difficult to ignore.

After all, if underwear is ultimately a personal choice, then the standard should be simple:

Wear what works for you.

Not what tradition expects.

Not what stereotypes dictate.

Not what strangers might assume.

Just what works for you.

And perhaps that is the most comfortable choice of all.

Your moderators going out and enjoying a beach day. We gave thongs out too and we are expanding the community. Come on out and join us one day!