The battle of the underwear bulge

We've come such a long way in terms of variety of options since the day that twinkly and beefy Calvin Klein models in the 90's catwalked with stylized boxer briefs that pretty much covered the entire spectrum of tastes. In less a single generation, the previously dull men's underwear industry has expanded with heaps of new options, niche stylistic approaches and also some worthwhile outright fetish kink-wear.

Not to say that the journey has always been a tasteful or savory one.. but hey, the male underwear consumer has been presented with far more options and has become on the whole far more sophisticated, asking for 'more bang for his buck' (even when often implying less fabric) along the way.

(Calvin Klein Underwear campaign Spring 1996)

What kind of bang you may ask? In the 15+ years we've been in business here at Esculpta and working closely alongside various underwear labels we have been able to make some of our own deductions on a rapidly developing sphere of influences. Men have become far more aware of the styles that suit their body-type to be suited by one generic all-encompassing style. And the heavy increase of online shopping, as opposed to mortar and brick shopping of the past, means that men that lead square lives have been able to shop whatever talks to their hoo-ha best from the privacy of their living-space. But presented by the prevailing brands is a much more exciting narrative in a plethora of propositions, from flamboyant and boldly colorful fabrics of Danny Miami, to the low cut minimal and fit-focused Ergowear and to the highly sexualized labels like Andrew Christian and Es-collection who addressed a booming 'in-your-face' gay lifestyle market from stylishly to a little more aggressively.

(Es Collection swimwear campaign 2017)

Andrew Christian promo 2014

In fact it seems that every identifiable group of consumers has been cornered by several brands competing for their niche. For example Maskulo (which markets itself as 'fetishwear') and cellblock13 are for gay bears what Charlie by Matthew Zink is for the elitist fashionista. The list of flavors for every fancy is endless. One other notable Australian underwear label 'Aussiebum' has successfully entwined an origin-aware lifestyle of life 'down under' (the hemisphere) with a bulge/patriotism formula that speaks to the hearts of Aussies.

(Charliebymz 2019)

However, competition amongth these brands has rarely been based on any game-changing innovations. Many more new labels have been appearing every other day since the 00's with very little differentiation among themselves apart from the all-too-apparent 'Calvinesque' branding along the elastic waistline - making it hard to keep up or separate the multitude of actual labels from their knock-offs which appear as fast as you can type 'Ebay' in your browser.

Reaching the core subject of this post, one of the few - if not the only 'actual' innovation that emerged since the old days of Speedos and uncle Calvin that made a difference beyond the surface was addressing the challenge of a more engineered posture, support and augmentation to the body parts that ultimately mattered. The... bulge.

Aussiebum bulge enhancing presentation

We're not sure whether it was Aussiebum or Andrew Christian who first offered such bulge enhancing technology (possibly neither - although they both entered that game in the early stages) but this came as a notable unique proposition finally addressing a new type of functionality. This new functionality emerged into a quick 'revolution' of sorts reminiscent of (but much smaller than) the havoc and change that 'Wonderbra' brought to women almost 2 decades earlier. Meanwhile the slogan of Aussiebum "If you doubt yourself.. wear something else" seemed to stumble upon itself adding a confusing message to the wearer if anything suggesting doubt in oneself.

Aussiebum campaign (ongoing?)

Come the present day, and the emancipated male consumer has access to a plethora of 'enhancing underwear' options after enduring extended trials and errors of the labels while almost every respectable mens underwear label keeping up has a somewhat dedicated bulge-enhancing section on their website.

(Ergowear MAX SUAVE bikini presentation)

And men don't have to doubt themselves anymore in order to simply want comfortable posturing underwear. There are plenty out there, but how do they all measure? If you've read this far into the article, you've probably tried a few pairs of enhancing undies yourself. We find that a lot of them are quite exciting to wear at first and to say 'yay' in front of the mirror but they're almost just as likely to find themselves living in the rears of your undies drawer because of their fabrics being inconsistently tight or loose and thus cramping your nuts all too often after long hours of wearing (and its not like you can fling your whities off during a business meeting to uncramp your lunchbox). So with a few exceptions (notably Ergowear a company from Chile which seems to be on top of the ball on the massively overlooked comfort front), but by far most enhancing underwear attempts have been too optimistic, un-tailored to individual specs and frequently too ball-busting to wear.

(JockRing Bulge Booster Pro add-ons in silvertone)

In 2016 here at esculpta we sat around a table at an unconventional beach bar setting (because inspiration comes best in the field!) and brainstormed how our 'JockRing' range could fill this underwear gap (pun intended). There appeared to be a single answer for swimwear and underwear enthusiasts resulting in an attractive natural boost that wasn't reliant on the style of underwear worn above it, nor upon its fabric texture or quality of engineering. We realised the reason that even underwear giants could not get it right was that the result depended too much on every man's individual anatomy and specific endowment in the family jewels area.. and that was right in our 'ball-court' just one ecclectic layer beneath the underwear.

(JockRing Bulge Booster Pro add-ons in goldtone)

At this point we already knew that wearing a penis-ring for pleasure under our garments accentuated that part of the body. But what if there was an even more purpose-built piece of sleek hardware that was designed more specifically to vividly complement and accompany any style of underwear, from the jockstrap to even the classic speedo? Presto. Almost a year of R&D brought us the JockRing Bulge-Booster-Pro add-on.

(JockRing Boa in goldtone fitted with optional Bulge Booster Pro add-ons)

We initially tested it by distributing it to fitness photographers and discovered that they were thrilled to shoot male models with an attractive fill in their bulges irrespective of each model's manly endowment - so we eventually incorporated it into our JockRing range that can be tailored by the beholder for an optimal fit and comfort level... as an optional add-on to another heap of manly pleasures (without expanding on the pleasures of a penis ring in this article). You may say that the BulgeBooster Pro is so effective that it is too strongly suggestive or even deceiptful to the unsuspecting onlookers.. but hey we just provide the beautiful bulge option. The rest is your own ball-game!