Talk:Briefs

2018 Study
A new study is making the rounds in the media in August 2018 in regard to sperm count and quality being affected by wearing boxer shorts versus tight underpants. Perhaps this article should be updated to reflect that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlackAdvisor (talk • contribs) 14:44, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

How Men's Briefs are Made
Firstly, as per BRD - if you want to reinsert a link if your original edit has been reverted, you discuss not simply revert again.

Secondly, YouTube links are rarely appropriate for the encyclopedia, but I grant that on occasion they are.

Thirdly, the video features sales websites prominently splashed all over the video, from just website addresses to a large brand logo to the waistband of the briefs being adorned with the brand name. This falls deep into the category of advertising with an intent to sell. Chaheel Riens (talk) 06:25, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * As per this edit, with the bizarre summary of "No link to talk page provided", I'm a little confused as to how you are unable to navigate to or find an article talk page, but seem to know enough about Wikipedia to make a contribution over at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Arts and entertainment/Fashion. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:53, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Wrestling Briefs
Unlike underpant and swimwear briefs, wrestling briefs as seen on shows like WWE or Sasuke/Ninja Warrior - and as far back as Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung’s attire in an early scene in Enter the Dragon - are seemingly accepted as outerwear for men and typically are worn with underpants underneath. Should there be a section about these? BlackAdvisor (talk) 02:54, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Is the Slang Term for Jockey Shorts "Tighty-Whiteys" or "Tighty-Whities"?
An edit I recently made to the article to change the reference for the slang term for jockey shorts from tighty-whiteys to tighty-whities was undone by non-existent user named BlackAdvisor, who indicated in the comment for the reversion that based on rules nos. 5 and 6 of the Grammarly blog page for plural nouns, the correct term is tighty-whiteys. However, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary website disagrees, based on their definition page for tighty-whities. Within this definition entry, it does indicate that "tighty-whiteys" is the less common term. In addition, most media articles and blog entries I've personally found online use the term tighty-whities. Sliv812 (talk) 08:56, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * the user exists, though they haven't created a user page.  A Google web search appears to agree with you that while both terms are in use, tighty-whities is the more common, as does Google ngrams.  I also find Merriam-Webster more convincing than Grammarly.  So I would support changing it back again, though I don't think that in the grand scheme of things it matters very much which variant the article uses.  Best, Wham2001 (talk) 09:18, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I’m not nonexistent. With all due respect, this is a little tricky. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s correct. In fact there was a time where English words had more than one spelling as the language was just not as unified as today. A lot of contemporary punctuation also didn’t exist back then. This reminds me of the concept of “bastardization” in language. I think establishing dialogue over the topic rather than just deferring to a source, regardless of its reputation, is a better choice in this situation IMO. The MW, or even OED, doesn’t have anything in their entries surrounding this rule. There still are more than one official spellings of the color that’s a mix of black and white, as far as I know. Have fun storming the castle!
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlackAdvisor (talk • contribs) 23:22, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the indenting of your reply above; hope this is OK. The gray / grey distinction is, as far as I'm aware, a national variety issue, and the manual of style has a lot to say about how to decide which variety to use in such cases.  But here I don't think there's a national distinction – as far as I can tell it's just two spellings, both of which are in common use in e.g. the US.  In that case I think that the convention is, unless there's a good reason not to, mostly to use the currently more common spelling.  OTOH I couldn't find any explicit advice so if you have a better knowledge of the internals of the MOS please let me know.  Otherwise, is there any basis other than what sources recommend and the most common usage to guide us?  Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 10:56, 4 October 2020 (UTC)


 * My sincerest apologies to for mistakenly thinking he or she was "non-existent." I had been under the misperception that every wiki user always has an associated user page in existence, which I now know is incorrect. Regarding the two spelling variations for the slang term for jockey shorts, I'm fine with either one being referenced within the article (or even both variations, if that would make sense). I just felt the necessity to point out within this talk forum that the other spelling for the term (i.e. tighty-whities) is indeed a valid one.Sliv812 (talk) 06:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

== On Ann Marie Fiore (author of Understanding Aesthetics for the Merchandising and Design Professional) classifying white briefs as a basic good in which styling does not alter demand for the product ==

Thank you for explaining the removal here. Anyhow, while AFAIK the author (professor at Iowa State University as per the first page of the book) does not provide specific statistical data on each, the author provides a simple logical reasoning: "When was the last time you raved about the attractiveness or aesthetic appeal of your white athletic tube socks?"

I suppose one could e-mail the author and ask her if she did conduct studies on the material, but I also wonder whether it's necessary to hunt for such data. I wonder if there are sources with contrary data? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:31, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Bikini Briefs vs. ‘Sport Briefs’
So in my experience the kinds of briefs usually worn by footballers AKA soccer players and other by some other athletes are not quite bikini briefs, but a somewhat different cut often called a “sport brief”. These are not simply bikini briefs by another name (though I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one or more manufacturers *do* sell bikini briefs for men and give them another name in order to  accommodate those males who wouldn’t want to wear anything with the word “bikini” in its name, due to a possible connotation of femininity with the word) but a cut that is larger than bikini briefs but smaller than mid-rise cut briefs. As I mentioned, I’m no expert by any means so if anyone provides proof that I’m wrong, I’ll certainly acquiesce. Here’s some examples of what I’m going on about: https://www.hanes.com/cffb06.html (bikini brief), https://www.hanes.com/hanes-mens-briefs-27959.html (sport brief), https://www.hanes.com/782cb6.html (mid-rise brief) BlackAdvisor (talk) 19:10, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

OK replace “usually” at the beginning there with “often” BlackAdvisor (talk) 19:21, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , – well, exactly.  What this article desperately needs (as do all its sibling underwear articles) is reliable secondary sourcing, rather than the current hotch-potch of barely-soured stuff that various editors have made up from their own experience. The sources must be out there somewhere – I don't believe that nobody has ever written an academic or even semi-academic study of underwear – but the few times I've looked I didn't manage to find anything on Google Books, probably because I was using the wrong search term. I'm not sure exactly what change you're proposing but if it's tweaking to the language in one of the unsourced sections then I'm not going to object.  A term-by-term account of how clothing companies brand various designs of underwear distilled from their websites is original research and hence prohibited by Wikipedia policy, but in the absence of any decent sourcing it's not going to make the article any worse.  You have an obvious interest in the subject: might I suggest that you invest some time scouring the fashion literature for a serious discussion of the history and design of underwear? Wham2001 (talk) 06:57, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with that better sourcing is needed. But I also did an internet search a while back and couldn't find anything. I think part of the trouble is names vary between brands and countries so it may be hard to find consistent names beyond simple terms like "low-rise" and "mid-rise". NemesisAT (talk) 15:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with both of your (plural “your”, as in both of you) counts... I admit the terminology gets pretty subjective (for instance, in some European countries boxer shorts are virtually unknown and boxer briefs are referred to by retailers as simply “boxers”) so I’ll just leave it be. But as a point of interest, in hindsight I think the Hanes “sport” briefs I showed above are in fact just low-rise briefs - the difference between that and many of what are dubbed bikini briefs is that the bikini-cut’s leg bands are higher on the hip - and were given the designation ‘sport brief’ either just to catch the attention of athletes and/or are just dubbed that the way boxer shorts were (cuz ya know, those are not worn exclusively by pugilists 🙃😴) BlackAdvisor (talk) 01:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

“Slip”
So this is admittedly anecdotal but I’ve not encountered the term “slip” for briefs much in the anglophone sphere, but it seems a common word for them in at least several other European languages, and by extension Latin America via Spanish BlackAdvisor (talk) 03:21, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello, the only place I have seen the word is at Marks & Spencer. They have higher cut legs than regular briefs and no fly. It doesn't matter anyway as someone else reverted my addition. NemesisAT (talk) 20:33, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

That’s consistent with what I remember; most ‘slips’ resembling bikini briefs more than jockey briefs BlackAdvisor (talk) 22:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Variant of “jockey shorts” = “jockey briefs” (?)
Prior to Coopers Inc. changing it’s name to it’s flagship invention, the *Jockey* Y-Front brief, according to this site here: https://www.etymonline.com/word/jockey - that aside from being known colloquially as jockey shorts or jockeys, the name “jockey briefs” existed to some extent, but I have not been able to find anything online to substantiate this effectively at all, for all I know anytime I encounter “jockey briefs” they mean “Jockey-brand briefs” and didn’t capitalize it BlackAdvisor (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

So I found this quote in the definition for the word “manlily” (yes it’s a real word: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/manlily ) that seems to be the variant I’m talking about: 2002, Richard Dyer, The Culture of Queers (page 67)
 * ... leather has long been associated with 'hard' masculinity ... while jockey briefs are seen to be manlily functional…” BlackAdvisor (talk) 20:01, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

“This article needs additional citations for verification” - from January 2011 (!)
Could someone shed some light on this? It’s been quite some time BlackAdvisor (talk) 04:44, 10 February 2022 (UTC)


 * If you mean why it was added, I would have thought that was self-explanatory: large parts of the article are not supported by any references at all (the entire "Design" and "Mens briefs" sections, to start with). If you mean why nobody has done anything about it in the last ten years, well, I guess nobody has had the enthusiasm to go and look for some good sources... Best, Wham2001 (talk) 08:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

ah ok. thanks BlackAdvisor (talk) 09:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)