The Curse of The Tiny Penis
Back after a reasonably relaxing weekend, apart from the ongoing chest infection and hacking cough, that is. Deliberately, I didn’t listen to that much news because it’s predictably all-Saddam, all the time at the moment (just the way Rove planned it) and there’s bugger-all I can do about the Congressional elections anyway except to rant uselssly and pass on reports of the grosser voter-suppression and other panic-driven Republican outrages, which continue to intensify and spread as potential nemesis looms ever closer.
So while we wait for Wednesday let’s look at the contents of men’s pants. I’m not normally in the habit of googling men in their underwear (I prefer geeky and brainy men but they don’t generally impress in the buff. Ian Hislop in a jockstrap? Armando Ianucci in a leopardskin thong? Paul Merton in a …. Erk, no, Let’s not go there.), but this amusing little squib in the Guardian syle section tickled me.
The mere existence of these glorified y-fronts tells you all you need to know about male insecurity , that bottomless reserve of fuel which powers so much of politics today .
Padded pants: a good idea
?Simon Mills
Monday November 6, 2006
The Guardian
Almost certainly not, I’d say. With pant stuffing, all you are doing is creating the undergarment equivalent of the Millennium Dome – something irrefutably impressive and attractive when viewed from the exterior but actually rather underwhelming once you get inside. Indeed, any form of crotch upholstery should be regarded with suspicion. It’s undignified, silly, a bit tragic and really just deceitful procrastination that will end in inevitable bitter disappointment for someone, somewhere during an evening.
But the Sydney-based Aussiebum underwear company would disagree. The firm is busy marketing the men’s equivalent of the Wonderbra – a range of Wonderjock (that’s “Ball/Extension Support Technology” – eeuw) shreddies designed to enhance a fella’s equipment using a configuration of ribbing and cantilevering. The makers call the pants a “revolution”, but really this is just genital origami, incorporating playful gift-wrapping and the notion that every man should wear his jockeys two sizes too small to give the impression of increased volume. Think “Hello Girls” – or “Hello Boys (Again)” – and you’ll get the picture.
Most gruesome of all is the “wondercup” pouch used to “separate and stop squashing”. “Lift” and “extend” I can dig (almost), and “squashing”, as caused by those skinny jeans Russell Brand favours, can force a chap’s rudebox to live in reduced circumstances (Brand recently confessed to stuffing socks down his front), but “separate”? Am I missing something? OK, so, there was a boy at my school who used to pull out his white trouser-pocket linings, yank his underpant gusset up between his testicles and shout, “Look out! An elephant!”, but I haven’t met anyone who desires separation provision in his choice of foundation garment since. Maybe I should get out more.
Crotch upholstery is almost as good a euphemism for pants as Jo Brand’s gusset-typing is for what polite women don’t do in public. Well, some do. Oh, you get my point, I’m trying to avoid saying masturbation in my roundabout, English, prudish way.
Tsk. Look what you made me do.
Anyway, I had to go and find a picture of these amazing architectural underpinnings just to see what made them supposedly so special ( or so I told myself), and I discovered that the political implications of these pants were much more profound than I’d originally thought.
Oh dear, oh dear.
I suppose that when little-willied men are propping up their fragile egos by destroying countries and indulging genocidal tendencies they need whatever extra testicular advantage they can get. I’d be really quite interested to see this company’s customer database; I wouldn’t be at all surprised to if there were be some very recognisable names on it, *cough*Mehlman*cough*.
I wonder if Aussiebum’ll notice a US sales dip after Wednesday.
Read more: Fashion, Men’s underwear, US Congressional elections, Political dirty tricks, Vote-rigging, Voter suppression, Male insecurity.
