Inspired by the impish genius of a precocious 'Tween, giggled at throughout the length of junior high school, artfully smiled-at, in passing, while furtively assessing reaction on dates, raucously brought up as standard laugh-lines during stand-up comedy gatherings over a pitcher of beer, this informal poll came to be a measure (yes, there have been a couple of puns already) of one's 'sexual maturity'.
What was being sought?
1) Focus on male genitals, sure;
2) 'Boy' wear and 'Man' wear;
3) Relative constraint and consequent precautionary modesty of the brief as opposed to the loose, open-fly freedom boxers allow for (oops!) the 'inadvertent' erection; and
4) Last, but never least, if you need boxers, you must be so large (how large is it?) -- so large that you can't be contained in briefs. By implication, 'a Mississippi black snake' or 'a schlong the size of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel'.
MTV even ran this by John Kerry when he sought the Presidency. Boxers, said the senator, without so much as a pause. Didn't help. No matter how big it is, there's always a cigar-chomping crew in the wings able to cut it off. 'Swift-Boaters', 'Meat-Cutters'.
Unlike Engels who formulated the notion that 'quantity' eventually transmutes into 'quality' -- enough of something becoming something else dialectically new -- American sexual obsession, bleeding even into its politics, goes in reverse: 'quality' is only 'quantity'.
On our eventual grave-marker, two words: Gimme and More.
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