How Underwear Brands Can Boost Body Positivity Among Men

July 13, 2017 14 Comments

Body positivity is a newer concept that focuses on moving away from the negative stereotypes about people and their bodies. It sounds cheesy, but you can essentially boil it down to this: not everybody can or will be supermodel hot, but they’re still people. Radical, right? The world is ready for this message, and underwear brands can speak up for something besides a great fit and catchy design. Underwear brands can stand for change to help men rock the skin they’re in.

 

Why we need body positivity

Critics of body positivity treat the movement like a participation trophy. It’s a much more serious issue, however. Mental health struggles and eating disorders are on the rise in men. The younger generation is especially vulnerable. These struggles can destroy someone’s life, and hold him back from living to the fullest. That’s worthy of serious treatment.

 In recent years there has been an upwards trend in body positivity for women. This is a great thing, and society certainly has exacting standards for female beauty. In the rush of female-focused body positivity, the increase in eating disorders and issues in our young men has been left behind. It’s time we caught up, and gave men the same encouragement.

 

Models matter

As an underwear brand, our influence is limited. One brand can’t change all of society, but the right steps could raise awareness and help young men—and mature men too. Too many underwear models look exactly the same: incredibly thin, absolutely ripped, and typically white. Diversity by itself can really boost a man’s mood. When men of color see underwear models that look like them, it helps them feel less out of place against the standards of the industry. Take a look around real life and you’ll notice that there are hot men with various combinations of features in real life. They dance, they date, they don’t look exactly like your average underwear model—and they’re hot as anything. Incorporating more hot men of different types will help men in general find their style.

 

Size inclusivity: the struggle is real

The final frontier for many underwear brands isn’t just in models, fashion shows, and advertisements. It comes down to the merchandise itself. It’s underwear brands that think sizes stop at medium. That never, ever offer an “XL”. Designing across a more varied spectrum is difficult work that needs to be done. Of course it’s easier to offer limited sizes. It’s not helping customers or the industry to keep at it, though. Marco Marco makes sure to offer multiple sizes of products to make style, comfort, and sex appeal available to more men.

Underwear brands can’t fight a culture war alone, but they can totally shift perspectives. Underwear is about form as well as function. By embracing more size variety and having underwear models who break the mold, underwear brands can help fight the cruising body crisis in our culture.

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