A Revolution In My Pants

Someone must think I have huge balls.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have recommended a new kind of underwear with a support pouch in the front for my package.

I’m not sure if I do or not, but I am wearing this $100 pair of boxer briefs (Frigo Revolutionwear) right now, so I guess that says something.

It wasn’t like I was going around before complaining that my underwear sucked. But every dude will tell you the basic problems:

• They ride up
• Poor fit
• They fall apart
• Cheap fabric
• They’re bulky and bunchy

Most underwear is terrible. The fit is suboptimal because nobody knows any better and nobody asks for anything better. For whatever reason, this is good enough for fat slobs and tolerable for dudes who don’t care that much about comfort or quality. I mean, the briefs built into my Lululemon shorts are better than most of what other companies sell…and that’s a feature built into another product. It’s an afterthought. The stuff that the Hanes and Fruit of the Looms of the world churn out for a few pennies in the sweatshops of Bangladesh? It’s garbage. (Which is fine if you’re 16 years old and don’t know any better.)

Most companies think about their underwear products as an afterthought. They’re literally made out of excess fabric and scraps that otherwise would have been thrown away or recycled. It’s a one-size-fits all, lowest common denominator play. They’re designed to fall apart and not be durable either…so you’ll buy them in bulk or replace them constantly.

Again if you’re a fat slob, that’s probably enough for you. It’s why you never thought about it before. But for guys who like nice stuff, you’ve probably been waiting for this.

Ill-fitting underwear is a first world problem. But it’s still a really unpleasant problem.

We’ve all had to try to sneakily adjust–or worse, sat there and pretended it wasn’t torture–because that’s what guys do. Does it really have to be that way?

I’ve always worn American Apparel boxer briefs (I’m a company man and a patriot, you know) which don’t have those problems but they also aren’t designed for sports and they are designed to be basics–no more, no less. And before that I was another idiot like most dudes.

Frigo was thinking of a different market when they re-thought and re-made a line of underwear for guys from the ground up. There’s no seams so it can’t irritate. There’s hem stabilizers so it can’t ride up. It’s got moisture wicking and anti-microbial fabrics. They’re adjustable and flexible. I mean, the guy that made them was a designer behind TempurPedic. They pulled out all the stops.

I tried the $100 pair, though there are other options in the $30 range designed for the same level of comfort.

The New York Times raved about them. New York Magazine raved about them. Hell, even Matt Lauer liked them.

Anyway, after I finish writing this I will be going for a run. Later in the week, I’ll do Brazilian Jiujitsu. The real luxury in this “luxury underwear” is that I won’t have to change into different clothes. I can just wear these.