A transition most men make is the move from the seemingly universal childhood white brief underwear to more adult types of undergarments. Back in the day men had limited options: continuing to wear white briefs, or making the switch to white boxers, or just forgoing things altogether and going Commando. (Perhaps somebody can enlighten me on how it developed that name. To my knowledge Commandos don't necessarily go Commando. And if they do, why?) The purpose of underwear, as far as I can tell, is to provide a layer of clothing between one's private parts and the outer clothing _ probably to extend the life and cleanliness of that outer layer.  (My assumption being that human genitalia excrete bodily fluids, sometimes without permission, and underwear takes the hit should anything untoward come out.) Anyway. Today's men and boys have a lot more options than they did when I was growing up. Colors, fit, style. There's even a Boxer Brief variant which is perhaps now the mos

 It probably would not surprise anyone who reads this blog that I have, over the years, dealt with more than a handful of body image issues, some of which were brought on by the very experiences that eventually led me to being pretty indifferent about nudity. I've mentioned before the fact that my body, particularly my left side inguinal area, has been the subject of much attention from the medical community. That dates from childhood, and as a young boy I was pretty self-conscious about one particular scar left over from a kidney operation. It runs from my back to just shy of my stomach, and once puberty set in it grew to be an eventual eight inches of pretty obvious scarring to anyone who sees me with my shirt off. Given that the surgery was conducted in the 1960s - before the advent of many modern surgical techniques - it's a pretty nasty looking affair. Later, a series of abdominal surgeries - three umbilical hernias (the belly button) - also left prominent scars on my nav