Shaun argues gym culture began to change this. 'Men were not really encouraged to think about that because it fitted with the rhetoric that men shouldn't have an overt interest in fashion or their appearance and those who did were peculiar in some way.' As a result, men tend to stick to one type of underwear and 'wear them till they're falling apart.' 'Women's underwear is more structural historically,' he says, pointing out they're often used for shaping, support, or built to be hidden and as a result women are more likely to buy an array of choices to suit different outfits. The question itself, 'boxers or briefs?' is a strange one given it's unlikely a variant with female underwear would be posed to a woman, but Dr Shaun Cole, author of The Story of Men's Underwear, argues this is because women and men's underwear operate in different ways.
