The Brief History of
Gay Men’s Underwear
From mail-order jock socks and Calvin Klein billboards to pouch technology, pride-branded mesh, and yes — Temu. The complete gayRIOT guide to what’s holding everything together.
For most of recorded history, men’s underwear existed purely as utilitarian infrastructure — something between the body and the pants, unworthy of discussion, thought, or money beyond what a three-pack at the drugstore demanded. Then gay men got involved, and the whole category became something else entirely.
That’s not an exaggeration. The brands, marketing campaigns, and design innovations that turned men’s underwear into a multi-billion dollar market were, disproportionately, built by gay designers and aimed at gay wallets. The mainstream just benefited. It always does.
Below: the full arc from Gene Burkard’s San Diego living room to the Temu listings your algorithm definitely knows about. The brands worth buying, the ones you should approach with your expectations calibrated, and — because money is real — the cheap alternatives that are better than they have any right to be.
How We Got Here: A Brief History of the Gay Underwear Market
The International Male Era (1974–2007)
It started with a medical supply shop in London. Gene Burkard, a formerly closeted US Air Force veteran, saw a suspensory — a bandage-like support garment for men with hernias — in a store window and thought: with some modifications, that would make a very sexy pair of underwear. He brought it home to San Diego, redesigned it, and eventually turned it into the “Jock Sock,” the first product he advertised in Playboy in the early 1970s.
By 1976, he was mailing out the first International Male catalogues — glossy, magazine-format publications stuffed with ripped models in mesh tank tops, tight khakis, and spectacularly skimpy underwear, all shot in settings that felt considerably more boudoir than boardroom. The tagline was “Freedom for the man.” Nobody said whose freedom, specifically. They didn’t have to. At its peak in the 1980s the catalogue had over 3 million customers.
Homosexuality had only been removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual in 1973. International Male arrived three years later, technically a fashion catalogue, actually a lifeline. For gay men in conservative towns across America, it arrived in the mailbox like a private permission slip. The catalogue was never advertised as gay. It didn’t need to be. Filmmaker Peter Jones, who later made the documentary All Man about IM’s legacy, put it plainly: “Straight guys were big customers, but it just had a huge impact in the LGBT world because of what it was able to do.”
Burkard sold the catalogue in 1987, reportedly burned out by AIDS deaths around him. The new owners tried to make it straighter — hired straight photographers, put women in the shoots, toned down the clothes — and promptly lost the audience. By 2000 they were calling Burkard asking how to get the gay readers back. He died in 2020, age 90, of COVID. His sister brand Undergear still exists, online only, and if you’re curious what IM was about, undergear.com gives you the rough idea.
Calvin Klein and the Billboard That Changed Everything (1982–now)
In 1982, Calvin Klein entered the men’s underwear business with a $500,000 ad campaign and one decision that would define the category for decades: he put a near-naked male body on a Times Square billboard. The model was Tom Hintnaus, an Olympic pole vaulter. The photographer was Bruce Weber. Bloomingdale’s reportedly sold $65,000 of the briefs in two weeks.
Klein was publicly closeted for most of this period but has since been described as gay or bisexual in multiple accounts. His campaigns read homoerotic because they were. When his advertising VP asked David Geffen to loan Mark Wahlberg for a 1992 underwear shoot, the result — Wahlberg with his hand down his waistband, photographed by Herb Ritts — became one of the most iconic images of the decade. Klein denied the ads were “gay oriented.” Adweek called the campaign one of “the 16 gayest ads in history.”
The CK briefs themselves — lower rise, tighter cut, that waistband — invented the category of designer underwear as a fashion item. Before Klein, men bought multipacks. After Klein, they bought individual pairs. Klein has since leaned into LGBTQ+ visibility, featuring queer celebrities like Troye Sivan, Indya Moore, and Brandon Flynn in recent campaigns. The brand is now owned by PVH Corp and based in New York. The billboard legacy endures.
2(X)IST and the Rise of the Gay-Coded Brand (1991–)
2(X)IST was founded in New York in 1991 by Gregory Sovell, a gay man who had previously worked with Calvin Klein. The brand’s radical idea: men’s underwear could be designed with the same intentionality as any other garment. The Original Contour Pouch — a structured front that supports, lifts, and shapes rather than simply containing — was something nobody had done before.
The brand targeted what it called the “gay market” from the start, running campaigns in gay publications and sponsoring Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, where viewers were reminded that 2(X)IST was equally appropriate for gay and straight men. Which is true. It’s also a line you only bother running if your core customer is gay. In fall 2002 the brand blanketed New York with billboard advertising that stole attention from Calvin Klein. Sovell left in 2005 and founded C-IN2, another gay-coded brand that still operates today.
Andrew Christian: The Trophy Boy Era (2001–2025)
Andrew Christian launched his clothing line in 1997 and added underwear in 2006. Then things, in his own words, “really took off.” The brand became famous for its “Trophy Boy” model campaigns — essentially softcore videos featuring gorgeous men doing very little while wearing very little — and for its “Show-It Technology,” a pouch design functioning like a push-up bra for the front of men’s briefs.
For roughly fifteen years, Andrew Christian was the gay underwear brand. The one people brought home from Pride. The one you saw in every gay man’s bathroom. The one that made strangers ask where you got those.
Then, in December 2025, it shut down. The founder told Out magazine: “There’s been a clear shift in consumer behavior, with many people — especially younger generations — buying from fast fashion platforms like Shein and Temu, where you can get underwear for $3. Along with the dumping of Chinese fast fashion into our market, the political climate seems to have made it unpopular for large companies to invest in gay brands.” He closed with a statement on Instagram that was, genuinely, moving. The website now just says: Andrew Christian is now closed. Thank you for your loyalty and support over the years.
It’s worth sitting with that for a second. One of the most recognizable gay brands in the world, gone. Because $3 Temu jockstraps exist and DEI budgets collapsed. That’s the market in 2025.
The Brands: Who They Are, What They Make, What We Think
Grouped roughly from everyday practical to “you are absolutely wearing this for someone specific tonight.”
Everyday / Practical
The cotton classics — Modern Cotton, Cotton Stretch, Micro — are genuinely good underwear. Soft waistband, decent fit, comes in multipacks. Nothing about them screams gay, which is the point if you want underwear that functions as underwear rather than a statement. The Modal boxer briefs in particular are better than they have any right to be at the price. The trunk cut fits slim builds especially well.
If you want the brand’s heritage without the price premium, the 3-packs on Amazon are frequently on sale. Skip the seamless performance line — it pills faster than it should.
The gateway drug. A solid wardrobe foundation. Not the most exciting thing in your drawer but it’ll be the last one you throw out.
2xist.com — The contour pouch is still the best thing the brand ever did, and it’s still the reason to buy it. The No-Show trunk and the Sliq line are workhorses: they don’t announce themselves but they fit better than most things at the price. Good for men who want some design consideration without committing to “I am clearly wearing gay underwear.”
The Lightning performance line, made with Speed Dri nylon, is legitimately good for the gym — moisture-wicking without the weird synthetic smell most athletic underwear develops by month three.
The sensible middle ground. Less heritage anxiety than CK, more design consideration than anything in a multipack. Buy it when it’s on sale.
c-in2.com — Greg Sovell’s second act after leaving 2(X)IST is sharper and more interesting than anything he did there. The Sheer Boxer Brief in Dark Nude is one of the best-looking pairs of men’s underwear available at any price. The Flex Collection briefs are genuinely comfortable for all-day wear and still look good enough that you won’t be embarrassed when they come off.
C-IN2 occupies exactly the territory Sovell described in a 2005 interview: not quite the “sex party porn-set” aesthetic of some brands, not the bland basics end, but something in between — racier campaigns, wearable products. Fifteen collections covering different themes, fits, and functions. Worth exploring.
Underrated. Legitimately great product from someone who understood the market better than most. More interesting than 2(X)IST and more wearable than Andrew Christian.
garconofficial.com — A Canadian brand that does something unusual in this market: it takes sustainability seriously without making you feel like you’re being lectured. Organic and recycled fabrics, ethical manufacturing, genuinely premium construction. They’ve appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars for a reason — the product is good enough to handle that kind of visibility.
The cuts lean more fashion-forward than classic. The High Brief silhouette is a particular standout — a higher-rise brief cut that flatters most body types without veering into vintage territory. Worth the extra spend if you care about where your clothes come from.
The responsible choice that doesn’t taste like medicine. Good underwear, good brand values. High Brief is excellent.
Erotic / Statement
addicted.es — Founded in Barcelona in 2009, originally as a swimwear brand, Addicted figured out the gay market earlier and more honestly than almost anyone else. Their Fetish sub-line goes further than most brands dare: allover-zip briefs imitating rubber, see-through mesh jockstraps, bottomless briefs that do exactly what they sound like. You know what you’re buying. The quality of the base garments — straps, elastics, fabrics — is noticeably better than brands at similar price points. Sister company ES Collection does the same aesthetic with cleaner, more minimal cuts if Addicted’s loudness isn’t you.
They sponsor circuit parties worldwide. You will see their logo on beautiful men at every gay festival on earth. That’s the brand in one sentence.
Honest about what it is and very good at it. Buy it for the weekend. Probably don’t wear it to work, unless.
e-modusvivendi.com — Founded in Greece in 1989 by designer Christos Bibitsos, Modus Vivendi is the most distinctive underwear brand in this guide. Everything else here is drawing from the same broad American or Southern European gay aesthetic playbook. MV does something else — Mediterranean modernism crossed with genuine structural experimentation. Snap closures, metal ring connectors, non-traditional hemlines, a signature strap system that keeps jockstraps from tangling (a real and constant problem with jockstraps).
A reviewer at Queer Voices put it well: MV products are “very different from the typical ‘sexy gay menswear’ that is seemingly everywhere online” and are “also rather comfortable, something that certainly cannot be said about the typical sexy gay undies.” Two collections per year. Every one of them looks like it came from a designer who had an actual idea, not a brief to produce something vaguely erotic for gay men.
The most interesting underwear brand in the market. Comfortable, genuinely original, manufactured in Greece. Buy the Leather Boost Jockstrap even though there’s no leather in it — the snap-on strap system alone is worth it.
pumkunderwear.com — Canadian brand, unmistakable. The models are part of the brand identity and it works, but the product underneath the marketing is genuinely flattering. PUMP! designs for men who want things that fit — the cuts are more forgiving than most erotic-adjacent brands that seem designed for a specific body type and nobody else. The fit is flattering across a wider range of builds than you’d expect from something this visually aggressive. Briefs, trunks, jockstraps, tanks, caps, socks. A circuit-party one-stop shop.
Better than it looks like it needs to be. The fit is the feature.
cellblock13.com — Launched in 2012 by the Timoteo fashion company, CellBlock 13 is the place for gear-adjacent underwear. Mesh, neoprene, nylon net, harnesses, slings — the brand operates where “fetish meets fashion” without committing entirely to either. If Addicted is the circuit party brand, CellBlock 13 is what you wear to the after-after. The quality is solid enough that the more extreme pieces survive actual use rather than just looking good on a product page.
Knows its audience, serves them well. Not for everyone. Definitely for someone.
Gone. Andrew Christian closed in December 2025, citing fast fashion competition and a cooling corporate appetite for LGBTQ+ brand association. A genuine cultural loss. The Show-It Technology pouch, the Trophy Boy campaigns, the almost-pornographic promotional videos that nobody actually complained about — they mattered to a lot of gay men and they made a lot of gay men feel, in Christian’s own words, “seen.”
You can find remaining stock on third-party sites. Buy the Almost Naked Brief if you see it. That’s the one. The Air Jock with Show-It in mesh is also worth hunting down.
A small, sad corporate casualty of the political moment. Pour one out.
The Temu Question
Andrew Christian’s founder blamed Temu and Shein for his brand’s closure, and he wasn’t wrong about the dynamic even if the causality is more complicated than one sentence allows. The fact is: Temu sells men’s jockstraps and briefs for €2–€6. Some of them are, by any honest standard, fine.
What Temu Does Well
The basics — solid-color briefs in modal or cotton blends, basic jockstraps in standard cuts — are often good enough for what they are. If you need a specific color for a specific event and don’t want to spend €30 on it, Temu will solve that problem. The sizing on underwear specifically tends to be more accurate than Temu’s clothing, where sizing is notoriously unreliable.
Brands to search: JOCKMAIL (available on both Temu and Amazon, generally decent quality athletic-style jockstraps), Arjen Kroos (briefs and jocks under €10 with very high Amazon review scores, mesh sport jockstrap is consistently praised), and BSHETR (multipacks of brief/jock combinations at genuinely absurd prices — four jocks for under €28).
What Temu Does Badly
Anything involving complex construction — snap closures, multi-panel designs, structured pouches — is where the price difference shows up. The elastics on cheap Temu pieces degrade faster. Printed designs often fade in fewer washes than advertised. If you’re buying something to wear twice and throw away, fine. If you want it to last a season, spend more.
Also: the erotic end of Temu is a grab bag. Some of the mesh and see-through pieces are perfectly acceptable. Others arrive looking like a product photo rendered by someone who had never actually seen the garment. Read the reviews. Look at the photo reviews specifically — buyer images are more honest than product photos on any platform.
It’s worth being clear about what happened to Andrew Christian specifically. Temu prices were a pressure, but brands with distinctive products and loyal customers survive price pressure all the time. What changed was that the corporate partners who sponsored Pride campaigns, placed ads in gay media, and paid to appear on gay brands pulled back after 2024. The market got hostile to gay visibility at the same time cheap alternatives flooded in. Both things happened. One of them was a choice.
The Full Breakdown
Every brand mentioned, at a glance.
| Brand | Based | Founded | Website | What They Sell | Avg. Price | Vibe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calvin Klein | New York, USA | 1982 (underwear) | calvinklein.com | Briefs, trunks, boxer briefs, thongs, bralettes | $22–$38 | Classic / Mainstream |
| 2(X)IST | Dayton, NJ, USA | 1991 | 2xist.com | Briefs, trunks, boxer briefs, thongs, swimwear | $18–$32 | Gay-coded / Practical |
| C-IN2 | New York, USA | 2005 | c-in2.com | Briefs, boxer briefs, trunks, jockstraps, thongs | $24–$38 | Gay / Fashion-forward |
| Garçon Model | Montréal, Canada | 2014 | garconofficial.com | Briefs, trunks, boxer briefs, thongs, swimwear | $28–$42 | Sustainable / Premium |
| Addicted | Barcelona, Spain | 2009 | addicted.es | Briefs, jockstraps, thongs, swimwear, fetish line | €22–€38 | Erotic / Circuit |
| ES Collection | Barcelona, Spain | 1999 | escollection.es | Briefs, trunks, jockstraps, swimwear | €20–€35 | Clean / Premium Spanish |
| Modus Vivendi | Athens, Greece | 1989 | e-modusvivendi.com | Briefs, jockstraps, bodysuits, swimwear, activewear | €24–€48 | Avant-garde / Luxury |
| PUMP! | Toronto, Canada | 2007 | pumkunderwear.com | Briefs, trunks, jockstraps, tanks, swimwear | $28–$45 | Erotic / Inclusive fit |
| CellBlock 13 | Los Angeles, USA | 2012 | cellblock13.com | Jockstraps, harnesses, mesh briefs, gear | $28–$55 | Fetish / Gear |
| Andrew Christian | Los Angeles, USA | 1997 (underwear 2006) | Closed Dec 2025 | Briefs, jockstraps, trunks, swimwear, activewear | N/A | Iconic Gay / Defunct |
| Jockmail | China | 2015 | Amazon / Temu | Jockstraps, briefs, thongs, mesh underwear | $8–$16 | Budget / Athletic |
| Arjen Kroos | China | ~2016 | Amazon / Temu | Briefs, boxer briefs, jockstraps, mesh styles | $7–$14 | Budget / Widely loved |
| Temu generic | China | 2022 (platform) | temu.com | Everything, quality varies wildly | €2–€8 | Fast fashion / YMMV |
| Undergear | San Diego, USA | 1987 (IM successor) | undergear.com | Briefs, jockstraps, swimwear, basics | $15–$30 | Legacy / Mid-range |
What’s Actually Worth Your Money
If you want one brand for everyday wear: C-IN2 or Calvin Klein Modal, depending on budget.
If you want something that looks good coming off: Modus Vivendi for something genuinely original, or Addicted if you want what every circuit-party regular already knows.
If you’re budget-conscious and don’t care about brand: Arjen Kroos on Amazon is legitimately good, consistently reviewed, and under €10 a pair. The mesh sport jockstrap is the one to buy.
If you’re buying for an event and may only wear it once: Temu. Set expectations accordingly, check the buyer photo reviews, and order two sizes because Temu’s sizing for underwear skews small.
And if you see old Andrew Christian stock anywhere: buy it. The Almost Naked line was excellent and the brand deserved a better ending than it got.
The broader point, beyond the product recommendations, is that gay men built this market. The mainstream came to men’s underwear as a fashion category because gay consumers demonstrated there was money in it, gay designers invented the innovations, and gay publications gave the brands an audience to reach. That history is worth knowing, and it’s worth buying from brands that remember it.
