Underwear and Opinions

by Annabeth Leong

For something most people don’t see, underwear sure as hell seems to be about making a statement.

I found bras mortifying from an early age because they meant so many things. One of the first times I wore a bra, my dad mentioned that he had washed it, and I was so embarrassed I didn’t wear try wearing one again for several years.

When I was young, getting a bra meant growing up and becoming a woman. I didn’t want that. Becoming a woman meant, based on my observation, a sort of slavery that I wanted no part of. It meant being shouted at to fix some man a plate, whether he was your father, your brother, your husband, or your son. I watched my breasts grow and felt my stomach churn. I wanted to avoid this fate.

So my breasts swung free for years, as if by refusing to binding them, I could refuse to bind myself into the role of being a woman and all the terrible things it seemed to mean.

People were incredibly concerned about this detail of my appearance. My (lack of) bra was a true or false question on a trivia quiz some boys put together at my college. Women at a church group had an actual phone tree to figure out who should talk to me about how I needed to wear a bra. Men pulled their trucks over on the street to scream “titties!” at me. Women pulled me aside on the street to warn me that my breasts would sag when I was old.

My former sister in law brought over a catalog one time to show me. Maybe I didn’t like ordinary bras, but would these do? Her husband, it turned out, had admitted to eyeing up my breasts, and she wanted to fix it. Surely it made me uncomfortable to know that, didn’t it? Surely I’d want to make myself decent.

I sometimes tried to wear a bra because I wanted nothing more than to make people shut up about my breasts. But every time I tried, the squirming feeling would start in my stomach. It felt too horrible. I felt constricted all day by the contraption. I wanted to chew it away the way a wolf wants to chew its way out of a trap.

People assumed that I wasn’t wearing a bra because I was a slut or a feminist or a lesbian or all of the above. In reality, I wasn’t wearing a bra because I couldn’t bear it. I can submit to being bound in a sex scene, with a safe word, but all other forms of binding make me struggle and fight. As a child, I had eye surgery, and they had to strap my hands down afterward because of my singleminded determination to tear away the bandages. When I go to a music festival and they snap one of those wristbands around me, I worry at it all night, and tear it off with my teeth the moment I leave the venue.

The weirdest thing about it, in my opinion, is that I look sexier with a bra on. That’s what lifts my breasts, makes them bulge out of the top of my shirt. People’s associations with this garment make no sense to me, and I’m truly amazed by how many people over the years have made it their business to discuss with me what’s underneath my shirt.

Underwear is a different beast, perhaps less political, but still quite thorny. I don’t like to shave my crotch, and that makes it hard to find underwear that doesn’t look weird on me. You would be amazed, or perhaps you wouldn’t, to know how many lovers I’ve had who have fought with me about this, who felt they had some right to force me to shave there. I’ve had lovers who wanted me to wear certain underwear that I was not going to wear.

It took a long time for me to figure out that I feel good and strong and sexy, all at the same time, when I wear boxers, so that’s what I wear now. I know it’s hot to some people and not to others, but I don’t care, and it feels political and important to say so.

Tonight, I’m thinking also of the man who took my underwear away after we had sex and wanted me to go home without it. It’s a common move in erotic novels, but it squicks me out whenever I read it because it makes me think of that man, and he was a jerk. I like BDSM because I like pain, but as I’ve said before, I hate being controlled. It feeds a side of me that I don’t like to feed. I am a healthier person when I can tell a person, these are the boxers that I’m wearing because I like them, and you can fuck right off if you think you can order me to wear a certain thing.

And so if you strip me down to my underwear these days, you’ll see that I’ve finally learned to make choices for my damn self, despite a lifetime of being beleaguered by other people’s opinions about this intimate attire.

(Friends, I’ve been having problems leaving comments on the site recently--maybe something to do with the device I’m using? Anyway, I’m sorry to have been quiet, but I’ve been reading your posts. Hopefully, I’ll figure out how to fix that issue soon.)

Gay Underwear

I wear gay underwear.

I feel stupid saying such a thing, but it seems to be the case.

I reject the “boring” underwear — the black, the navy blue, the white, the gray — and prefer colourful underwear. Well, I have one pair of navy blue boxer briefs that I’m wearing today, but only because it’s laundry day and it’s my last clean pair. Tomorrow I’ll be back to the sunshine yellow or the red and white pinstripes or the purple camouflage.

There used to be one chain store here in the city that sold colourful underwear — and I live in a fairly big city — and it was Superstore, a national grocery chain. They manufacture and sell their Joe Fresh line of clothing, which used to include colourful square-cut boxer briefs that were super comfy. Now, though, they’re all black or dark gray. In other words, they’re boring. I’m no longer interested in their underwear.

There is no longer anywhere to get non-boring underwear for men in this fairly-major Canadian city.

I find it so stifling to wear “normal” colours all day at work. I’ve got my nice gray cords or my slim-fit blue jeans and a variety of t-shirts that run the gamut of colours and are appropriate for work — but all of it is… well… it’s blend-into-the-crowd clothing. It’s hard to get stand-out clothing on a writer’s budget.

Underwear and socks are generally the exception — I can usually find good stuff at a good deal, and it’s where I can go crazy with colours.

I wear socks and underwear that are bright colours and clash with whatever else I’m wearing. And I love it. I do it for the simple fact that I want to wear bright colours. Even if I’m the only one that sees my hot pink briefs or my purple socks, it makes me happy to wear them.

But it’s getting increasingly hard to find these things in person. I think I’m now forced to buy all my underwear online.

And I think it’s because straight men (and I’m generalizing here) think colourful underwear is gay.

There is, of course, the “really gay” underwear, like what Andrew Christian manufactures and sells. These are the ones that have the “anatomical pouch” that makes someone hung like a shrimp look like he’s hung like a horse, and usually have ultra-revealing designs, or maybe even the words “cum slut” printed on the bum.

But I’m talking the “mildly gay” underwear. They fit nice and they’re bright colours. Their websites seem to be clearly targeted at gay men (or perhaps at women buying for their straight male partners). They seem to know that straight men wouldn’t be caught dead looking at an underwear website. Perhaps they assume the straight men are just going to buy Hanes because it’s what’s available at Walmart.

I find it depressing sometimes that colourful underwear — which is identical to other underwear in every way except for the colour of the fabric — is seen as gay. My husband (who, haha, is gay), only wears black or gray underwear. He doesn’t want to wear anything colourful in case he goes to the gym that day.

For me, though, I don’t care what underwear I’m wearing to the gym. I’m comfortable in bright colours, so that will make me comfortable at the gym. I wear my teal briefs to yoga all the time, and when I start up again at the gym, I won’t feel any shame or embarrassment if I wear my blue and white polka dot briefs.

I think straight men, in our sometimes-toxic-masculine culture, are taught that underwear is a utilitarian piece of clothing. Only women and gays wear non-utilitarian underwear, apparently.

Straight underwear is so boring.

I find it stifling.



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Dominating the Freshman. He is publisher at and co-founder of Deep Desires Press and a member of the Indie Erotica Collective. He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Writing Commando (#naked #freedom #genres)

 By Lisabet Sarai

When I was in my mid-twenties – during my sex goddess period – I sometimes went out without panties. Walking around bare beneath my skirt, every current of air caressing my naked flesh, was thrilling to the point of addiction. It's not that I'm an exhibitionist (although perhaps we erotic authors all share a desire to expose ourselves). I wasn't interested in treating strangers to a flash of my pussy. Indeed, I would have been mortified if I'd accidentally revealed my bottomless state.

The appeal had more to do with a sense of freedom and a consciousness of risk, a heady appreciation of my own delightful recklessness. Most of my life I'd hewed close to the rules, an overachiever always trying to please others. I'd been shy and timid, dutiful and diligent, the quintessential good girl. When my hormones took over the helm, that changed. I found that I was far braver and more brazen than I (or anyone else who knew me) would have believed. And I loved that feeling, the notion that I was treading the edge rather than keeping to the straight and narrow.

My panty-less state focused my attention on the sensual. I became acutely aware of temperature and texture. Arousal simmered through me, ready to be sparked into flame by a chance encounter with a kindred spirit. Erotic possibilities waited around every corner, and, bare-bottomed and moist with anticipatory desire, I was ready to take advantage of them.

Writing my first novel felt very similar to “going commando”, though it came more than a decade later. I didn't worry about markets or reader sensibilities. I wrote what turned me on: wild, kinky, transgressive scenes, every assortment of genders, twosomes, threesomes and foursomes, floggers and spankings, nipple clamps and butt plugs, public sex, pony sex, anal sex, even golden showers. I pushed the limits of acceptability to the point that my editor actually made me tone down a couple of scenes (and this was back when Black Lace was billed as “erotica”, not “erotic romance”). My personal fantasies provided the energy to move the book forward. Craft issues were secondary. The book had already been accepted on spec, and I wasn't really thinking about what happened after it was published. The writing process itself was arousing.

I didn't know anything about genres back then., though reading Raw Silk now, I realize that it follows many of the conventions of modern erotic romance – except, of course, for its omnisexuality. The inclusion of F/F and M/M in a book that is mostly M/F will evoke criticism from many romance readers, who seem to want a sort of genre purity. They'd probably judge my heroine as promiscuous too, for having simultaneous sexual relationships with three different men, although in the end, in typical romance fashion, she chooses to commit to just one.

None of this concerned me back then. I wasn't so swept away that I lost sight of the story. Indeed, even now the novel's plot strikes me as quite tight and well-paced. I guess that was instinct, though, because my focus was squarely on the sex. Like those days when I eschewed undergarments and opened myself to adventure, I wasn't concerned with what others thought. I was free, writing for the pure joy of vicarious experience. I was in my heroine's mind and body, living my dreams through her. If others disapproved, so be it.

If you think catch a hint of wistfulness in my description of those times, you're not wrong. I don't go commando anymore. The notion embarrasses me – a sexagenarian exposing her graying pubic hair to the world? But I remember that intoxicating feeling of lightness and power. I miss it.

And my writing? I've had eighteen years of education on the tyranny of genres, what sells and what doesn't, what you can and cannot include in a book aimed at a particular market niche. I'm constantly tempted, for instance, to let my straight heroines indulge their occasional Sapphic inclinations, but I know that will be the kiss of death for any book aimed at the erotic romance market. Meanwhile, I have a difficult time keeping my erotica from becoming to “mushy”. Although I've had my share of zipless fucks, I've never found sex without some emotional connection – love, tenderness, loneliness, shared kink, whatever – to be at all arousing.

I yearn for the freedom – the innocence – of my first years writing erotica. I've started to realize I'll never be a best seller (and I'm not even sure I want to be). So why should I care about pleasing a mass of readers? I know there are some people who'll appreciate my particular approach, my personal blend of romanticism and filth. I should strip off my official author's uniform and just write to please myself, and them.

I can already feel the breeze.