For Want Of Men's Panties
I find it very interesting that
although men have been wearing women's clothing since time
immemorial, and although I have read reader accounts stretching back
to the 1950's which tell of men wearing women's panties, still major
retail stores and major lingerie brands don't sell panties for men.
Why is that? Are lingerie retailers trying to keep men down? Hold
them back from fashion equality?
Or is there some other force at work here?
On the surface it seems as if staid and boring lingerie retailers are just too silly to realize the massive market under their very noses, but personally I give them more credit than that. It's not so much that they don't know that men are wearing their products, it is more that it actually doesn't matter.
Why is this?
Well, I think there are several reasons. One, I think it is possible that the demographic is not large enough for the manufacturers to bother trying to campaign directly to it. There are many independent designers of lingerie for men, Panties for Men being one of them, and although they do most excellent work, they have yet to ostensibly experience the same kind of success as Berlei, Wacoal, Olga, Triumph, or any of the major lingerie brands.
Two, I think that lingerie retailers and manufacturers have figured out that men who like women's panties are quite happy to buy women's panties and don't want 'men's panties' on sale at all. Where's the fun in wearing women's panties if they're being sold as men's panties anyway?
Three, I think that they've made some concessions in their lingerie for men lines by starting to offer silk and satin boxers for men, lingerie which feels good, but which none the less can be considered quite masculine. This satiates the desires of men who just want lingerie that feels good, and doesn't effect the panty buyers who were always going to buy women's panties anyway.
In other words, long story short, I think it is the desires of the men who wear lingerie that actually prevents lingerie manufacturers from making lines of panties for men. If men quite happily by the women's lines, and indeed, prefer to do so, then what incentive is there for a lingerie brand to put out a line of panties just for men?
So instead of feeling marginalized that
panties for men aren't a huge phenomenon yet, (and honestly, I think
given the purchasing patterns of men who wear women's lingerie,
probably never will be,) just make peace with the fact that this is
not some giant corporate attempt at mind control and marginalizing
men, instead it is a simple result of the global powers of supply and
demand.The demand for men's panties is simply too limited to appeal to a global chain.