Gird your loins! Jockstraps are still holding up after 150 years
Happy 150th birthday, dear jockstrap
NEW YORK — Happy 150th birthday, dear jockstrap. How far you've come from your modest but mighty days of protecting the precious parts of bicycle messengers as they navigated the bumpy cobblestones of Boston.
Invented for that purpose in 1874 by C.F. Bennett, who worked for a company now known as Bike Athletic, the strappy little staple of yore has become a sex symbol of sorts with a reach well beyond the athletic world.
Fashion designers have fancied them up for catwalks and store shelves. Kristen Stewart recently pulled on a Bike jockstrap for the cover of Rolling Stone, earning barbs from some conservatives. Some athletes, both recreational and professional, still reach for one. And the jockstrap owes a debt to the gay men who have embraced it since the 1950s, when a hyper-masculine aesthetic in gay fashion was in vogue.
“They’re very coquettish. They reveal, they conceal. It’s like a push-up bra,” said 53-year-old Andrew Joseph.
While many athletes and others with a need to keep things safe and secure have traded out jockstraps for compression shorts and other teched-up alternatives, Joseph draws from his extensive collection to don one every day.
Sean McDougle, 55, a queer nudist-naturist in upstate New York, owns about 40 jockstraps.
“There’s a certain feeling of freedom,” he said. «I remember as a child the first time I wore one and thought, what is this thing? They give you this thing, you know? But the look and feel is just somehow really alluring.”
Jockstraps are all things to the people who love them. For some, they're just utilitarian, part of the gear for sports and exercise. But for others, they're comfy little secrets under clothes. They're cheeky, two ways, with
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