Arnold Zwicky's Blog

(Largely about men’s bodies — not crudely, but the topic will be uncomfortable for some readers, so be warned that skin and bulges are on the agenda.)

From Romania, through the fabled sensuality of Greek islands in the Aegean, to you: men’s swimwear that embraces playful pinkness while pushing enhancements of male genitals forward. The Elia swimwear company, in a series of ads on the Daily Jocks site.

Starting with the DJ ad from 6/8, for the Kos Titan Swim Short in the Beach Unicorn pattern:

(#1) Real men flaunt their stuff in pink, with little ducks

Color notes. The now-conventional association of pink (in various shades) with femininity (and therefore queerness) means that a man who sports pink clothes — especially in high-masculinity contexts like gymwear and swimwear — will be seen as conveying an identity statement. Either he’s straight and so secure in his heteromasculinity that he doesn’t care what people might think, and might well be asserting his confident heteromasculinity. Or he’s gay and so secure in his homomasculinity that he, too, doesn’t care what people think, because he’s defiantly and openly queer.

Enhancement. In a 6/24 DJ ad, we get an amazingly steamy fantasy hunk rutting on the beach, wearing nothing but the tiny but protuberant Kos Enhancing Swim Brief:

(#2) He stares at you with narrowed eyes and knitted brow; he offers a high-butch haircut and mustache, facial stubble, hairy forearms and thighs, plus those muscles — are you man enough for him? Could you be him?

This ad doesn’t highlight the most salient feature of these swim briefs. This you can appreciate in this display from the company, with its accompanying ad copy:

(#3) “The Kos Enhancing swim brief is a low rise brief featuring front removable enhancement cup. With lifting and accentuating front crotch shaping, as well as a flattering rear shape, this brief with its bronze trim details is one of the sexiest swim briefs to come to market.”

Note that the company doesn’t shrink from potentially faggy colors like Candy Pink and Cherry Red, but enthusiastically embraces them and combines them with protruding stuffed pouches. Another variant of  butch fagginess (first posted on in a 8/14/18 posting here, with a number of follow-ups).

Pouch enhancement. A recurrent theme on this blog. For instance, on pouch-enhancing underwear: “The Xmas package 2” on 12/17/10, “Bulges” on 4/17/11. For many kinds of men’s underwear, the idea borders on the silly. If you’re displaying an apparently big package to attract a sexual partner, then you’re in trouble when the underwear gets pulled down and you turn out to have been wearing a falsie (in the plural, slang referring pads of material in women’s clothing used to increase the apparent size of the breasts; now extended to similar enhancement of the male genitals).

Men’s swimwear is, in general, different, since its bulges are mostly part of a high-masculine presentation of self in public, rather than an immediate sexual advertisement.

One more item of Kos Enhancing swimwear from Elia — the Neon Jungle pattern — in a 6/30 DJ ad:

(#4) Not primarily pink, but with a really obtrusive bulge

The pattern is not, however, without its pink highlights:

(#5)

Elia and Kos.The Elia company is Romanian, mostly providing really hot swimwear for women, but with a parallel line for men.

Now, Romania has its beaches, on the Black Sea, but the company has chosen to situate its men’s underwear in the warmer waters of the Aegean Sea, on an actual Greek island, treated here, however, as a fabulous sensual paradise.

On Kos, from Wikipedia:

Kos or Cos is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese by area, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 33,388 (2011 census), making it the second most populous of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes. The island measures 40 by 8 kilometres (25 by 5 miles).

(#6) Kos on a regional map; you will see that it’s one of the Greek islands right up against the Turkish coast

… Tourism is the main industry in Kos, the island’s beaches being the primary attraction. The main port and population centre on the island, Kos town, is also the tourist and cultural centre, with whitewashed buildings including many hotels, restaurants and a number of nightclubs forming the Kos town “barstreet”. The seaside village of Kardamena is a popular resort for young holidaymakers (primarily from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia) and has a large number of bars and nightclubs.

Kos is not one one of the famous gay Greek island resorts, but it’s certainly gay-friendly, and it does have, or has had, a flat-out gay bar, with a sex club on an upper floor. All the amenities.

Meanwhile, you can live the fantasy in Elia swimwear. Go for the hot pink; you know you want to.

This entry was posted on July 4, 2020 at 8:07 am and is filed under Clothing, Color, Gender and sexuality, Masculinity, Phallicity, Underwear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.