This post started out to be about bar boys preferring to sleep in their underwear. I mean when they spend the night with you. Otherwise, I don’t really care. But on the nights that I’ve paid for their companionship, they should be dressed for bed appropriately. Which is completely undressed. As the gods intended. Even though, admittedly, there is a small thrill in stripping off whatever they did think they were gonna get away with wearing between the sheets.

You’d think with Thailand’s hot humid weather, sleeping naked would be the norm. But most bar boys grew up in a small house filled with people and are used to wearing at least their underwear to bed out of a sense of decency. Regardless of how indecent I think doing so is. You’d think as much as Thais hate making a decision, they’d opt for sleeping in the raw. That’d render the question of boxers or briefs moot. Instead they split the baby in half and often wear a pair of briefs under a pair of boxers. But that’s not a problem with Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life. As much as he might prefer sleeping in his briefs, he knows from experience before he can snuggle up to the pillow he just stole from me, I’m gonna offer my one word of direction: “Off.” It’s just easier on both of us if he hops into bed naked and stays that way. Dispute avoidance works wonders in any relationship. Naked sex is generally highly prized too.

The exception to that rule is on high holy days; Hindu observances, not Buddhist holidays ‘cuz he professes to be the former. You are not supposed to have sex then. Or, evidently, sleep in the nude. The sex part there’s little he can do about. I think he chalks it up to bidness and gives himself a pass. As for sleeping attire, on those infrequent days, he dons a pair of white cotton fisherman’s pants we bought years ago on a visit to Chiang Mai. They are Noom’s version of a chastity belt. I cracked up the first time he put those on for bed. His attempt at explaining why didn’t help matters. Neither did that he became entangled in them sometime during the night and decided his best solution was to get rid of them entirely. Which to me just proved there really are gods. Whether you pay proper observance to them or not.

It’s not that I have anything against underwear, even in bed, but rather I love the way Thai guys envelope you with their bodies, preferring farang for a pillow over the skimpy things most hotels provide. And that feeling is just that much sweeter when you can feel every square inch of their body against yours. Especially the parts that are rounded. Outside of bed, I don’t really care. Nor do I have a preference for boxers or briefs. Though you’ll note I did not include boxer briefs on that list. Boxer briefs are the underwear equivalent of being bisexual. They are marketed as the best of both worlds, but in reality are for those who just can’t man up and make a definitive choice. Personally, for myself, I favor briefs over boxers, provided they are Calvin’s. But given my druthers, I’d just as soon go commando. Which for many guys seems to never be an option. They’ll tell you it’s because they need the support. I suspect it really is the support underwear gives them makes their package look bigger than it is. Which, I guess, is a form of support in its own right.

And so it is that at some time in your life as a world traveler you will wake up one morning to discover that which we have all faced at one time or another: you have no clean underwear left to wear. The less fastidious opt for a second day’s wear out of their cleanest pair. The slightly more fussy make the same choice but wear them inside out. Noom opts for the former, but then immediately informs me we need to go shopping for underwear. Which for some strange reason seems to happen often. He prefers Homme’s when my wallet is paying, but picks out no-name briefs at street markets when he makes the purchase on his own. As often as he takes them off, you’d think he’d just skip the whole idea.

I assumed, at first, when he’d run out of clean underwear that it was about being forgetful and not packing accordingly. But the frequent morning ritual of being told we need to go shopping eventually turned into stopping in the men’s department at Robinson on our way into the hotel in the early evening. I suspect Noom favors that hotel because one of its entrances is through the department store. But then since he always models whatever we buy for me when we get back to our room, I’m not complaining.

Not being as savvy of a shopper, when Phil woke one morning to find he was out of fresh drawers, after a bit of hemming and hawing – and a discussion about tropical heat and heat rash – he went with my suggestion of going commando. And seemed to manage his day with a smile on his face. Until Noom joined us and we made a pit stop back at the hotel before heading out to Soi 4 for the evening. When Phil slipped out of his pants to put on a different pair for the evening, Noom was appalled.

“You not wear underwear!” he screeched in complete disbelief. Phil thought he’d just committed some major Thai cultural no-no and turned to me for an assist. Which was slow in coming as the sight of my man standing there naked with my other man – stripped down to his briefs – staring at him temporarily grabbed my entire attention.

“Um, he ran out,” I said, thinking I’d follow up with, “We’ll go buy him some tomorrow.”

Except Noom stepped on that line with what I like to view as one of his mating calls, “We go shopping!”

Phil looked down at his naked body, looked at me, looked at Noom, and was obvious in a quandary. I told him Noom would probably forgive him his transgression for the few minutes it would take us to get downstairs to Robinson. And Noom did. Along with placing himself in the sight line between Phil and any Thai who might otherwise notice the farang wasn’t wearing underwear.

Now I admit, buying underwear with and for Noom is a always a bit of a thrill. It’s an intimate moment because of the intimate merchandise. He always consults with me on his choice. Although since he always buys white, always buys the same style, and always buys size small, I suspect that consultation has more to do with how many pairs he’s decided he needs. Underwear shopping is not something buddies do together. Even in Thailand. So I assume the handful of salesgirls that it takes to ring us up, bag our purchase, and say sawatdee ka because they’ve been trained to, can not be that oblivious and have to suspect there is something intimate going on between the hunky Thai boy and his farang companion. I’m not just sure where their minds traveled when it was three of us busy discussing the pros and cons of half of the men’s underwear department.

The problem with buying underwear is that – even in Thailand – you are not allowed to try it on. I get that. No one wants to buy a pair of briefs some unknown guy rubbed his junk all over. But then I wouldn’t buy the pair I tried on anyway. I’d throw those back on the table and purchase a pair that had not been opened.

But you are not allowed to open underwear packages either. Or you are not supposed to. I assume they seal them up like Fort Knox to keep people from trying them on, but if it is a brand or style you are unfamiliar with, you then have no idea how full the pouch is, how high the leg cut-outs are, how irritating that damn label is gonna be against your delicate skin. Until you take them home, or back to your hotel room, try them on, and then discover you just paid $35 for a pair of briefs you’ll never wear. Unless they are the only clean pair left in your underwear drawer or suitcase.

Needless to say, in Thailand I have no qualms over opening the packages to check out the goods. It’s allowed in the gogo bars, so it should be allowed in department stores too. Thai salesclerks are too polite to scold you. They make a face that is supposed to shame you instead. But its hard to shame a farang who is out buying skimpy underwear with his favorite prostitute.

Phil too likes Calvin Klein’s but that’s a difficult brand to find for sale in Thailand. Even though they are made in Thailand. And while he too has the body for it (too referring to Noom’s bodacious bod, not mine) he didn’t want to buy and wear Noom’s favorite brand, which he quietly described as being almost G-string like. Okay, he said butt floss, but you get the picture. Rather than take a risk, or possibly because he’d enjoyed his day of swinging freely, he tried to go with boxers. Noom wasn’t having any of it. So the two of us got busy tearing packages of briefs open to hold up in front of Phil’s crotch to see how they might look.

He settled on a few pair of fuller-cut black briefs. Which is a color I’ve always thought would look good on Noom. I wondered if Noom ran out, since he had no problem wearing a pair for a second day, if he’d be as agreeable to wearing a pair that Phil had already worn. And then decided that thought would be too difficult to explain without coming off looking a bit twisted. So I informed Noom we were only buying black underwear that day. Which meant he had to put the four pair he’d picked out in white back and exchange them for the day’s acceptable color. I wasn’t sure that he was gonna fall for that one, but then Thais have a shirt color for everyday of the week so Noom probably figured farang have an underwear color for everyday of the week too.

Back in our room, with Noom barely able to hide his revulsion at seeing Phil’s underwearless draped body once again, (and as is his wont, having stripped down to his shorts as he made his entry into the room) the two decided to try on their new briefs. Noom went with off with the old and then, being polite, waited for Phil to shimmy into a pair of his new briefs first. I’ve since told Phil that on out next trip to Thailand, we’d be going underwear shopping again. And just in case he packs more than enough to forgo the need for that retail experience, I’ve already decided to throw those he’s packed out and over the balcony each day as he finishes wearing them.

So Noom’s standing there naked, casting a critical eye at Phil as he pulls his new pair of black briefs up around his waist, instructs Phil to turn around so he can check out the fit on the backside, and patently ignores the chub that is obviously on display through my pants. Then he pulls the band away from Phil’s waist, reaches in, and adjusts Phil’s equipment before awarding him with a satisfied nod. Since no one uses film any more I guess that no longer would qualify as a Kodak Moment. But I sure would have loved to have it on film.

It’s not often you’ll find a buddy willing to adjust your junk so that you look your best. When Noom slipped into his new briefs, I waited for Phil to return the favor. But I think he was still in shock from having Noom so casually move his penis around in his new briefs. I waited for someone to come over and adjust mine for me too, but they opted to head out for dinner instead.

That night Noom tried a side run around my Must Be Naked In Bed rule, noting that both he an Phil had on black briefs with the exclamation, “We twin!” Right. I told him they’d still be twins buck ass naked. With a snort of equal parts derisiveness and disappointment he stripped off his briefs before climbing into bed, muttering, “No. I bigger.” I assume he was going with touch rather than sight.

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