Attack of the Underwear

The Fractures of Fitting In

Note: Limerence Sea Star (LS) is a side character I talk to in narrating this bio, he’s based off of a 25-year-old person I met this year who inquired about my life.

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“ Thin Woman holding a gun in her 40’s wearing glasses seen from behind wearing an adidas tracksuit with her boxers with big flowers printed on them showing high above her sagging pants standing in a store. “ | by Shutterstock AI | Shutterstock ( It just came up on Shutterstock Search and I was like that’s bonkers!)

Don’t worry, this is not me dropping trou and starting a brand new article while things were getting relevant.

In the 80s and 90s, there was a different obsession going on in several parts of the U.S., and maybe even long before whenever cartoons were created. What was that pastime?

Well, hold that thought.

Things are about to get a whole lot more embarrassing.

Let’s talk about fitting in yet standing out, shall we? It’s seems to be a major ongoing topic in the USA (and this piece). Okay, disclaimers aside, let’s go.

The private school, I went to-

I can’t do this…. No more extra paragraph single-sentences….Deep breaths…. OK… Here we go.

At the private school in 1st and 2nd grade, there was a pool on the property, and during a few of the Physical Education sessions in the spring semester, we would have pool days. The facilities were located near a road, which was across from the high school, and I think an older building acting as part of the high school at the time.

So, the girls in the class would go into the locker room to change, and the boys (including me) would change out on the lawn area across near the fence visible to the road and whoever was walking close to the pool area. Two of the P.E. teachers would stand in front of us while we were each in rows. Six and seven year-olds stripping down next to each other (no Epstein fans, just no!). They made like it was normal as the other students didn’t complain; I felt really uneasy.

If someone felt uncomfortable, the P.E. teachers would order them to change faster. Of course, students made fun of one another. If that wasn’t awkward enough, I was the only one in white underwear and everyone got a memo to either wear superhero or comic underoos, or colorful underwear. I mean the whole thing was off, from other boys laughing at me and at other boys’ junk. It was weird and off-putting.

Despite all that, I got into the pool so I could show to the other boys that I could swim as I took swim lessons. They didn’t seem to care. So I swam off alone near the deep.

After dinner one day at home, I recall blurting out: I want superhero underwear!

Everyone stopped what they were doing and wondered about where I was coming from. My mother turned to me later and asked “ do you really want Superman underwear?”

I, then, stopped in my tracks and realized it was completely wrong and said, “no”.

Socialize, be normal, no superhero underwear just be your —

“Adam’s chewing through his pencil again!”

A kid in my second grade class pointed out. I sometimes would go through some Ticonderoga’s and other brand pencils during class. Sometimes I bit through the lead cores. Other times I was biting my sleeves of my green sweater uniforms. As I had Asthma growing up my nose was running too.

Yep, my mother was stoked about laundry day: Adam’s torn sleeves, green and yellow snot stains with loose strings.

I kept occasionally chewing on clothes, primarily my shirt collar until early middle school.

To make matters worse, or this story even more off-the-wall, I used to paste chewing gum on the back of my babysitter’s maroon car seats. I was corrected on this, so you know… we’re cool, right? Right?

After second grade, we, my younger brother and I switched up to public school.

The public school started a bit differently; and by different and what I am about to describe to you, as ChatGPT puts it, “will raise a few eyebrows”. ChatGPT became my temporary psychiatrist for the events later featured in this. I am sure the answers were straightforward and there was little to no sycophant activity (wink, wink).

I went to summer school at the public school after 2nd, met some kids and they knew something was different, besides me slobbering at the sight of their t-shirts (kidding). You’re a private school kid, going to public, did you do something wrong? — was the clear memo I got.

Suppose maybe I did — the public school had made me consider.

But, there were other factors, and it was more cost-efficient to attend the public school at the time. My parents knew a teacher and others who were part of this same system; so, why not?

During the beginning of the year, the school set me up with a counselor on account of the transition from private to public school. The counselor was belittlelingly odd with me and had the students who were being disciplined or who were alleged troublemakers in my grade hang out with me in her sessions. There, I met “R”. He’s the one I had the sleepover with, where his cat got all up in my face leading to my pneumonia. Good times.

She made like I did in fact have a problem. I proved to her that I could read out loud, but the counselor wanted me to feel like I didn’t belong there through her odd interview techniques. Considering all that effort of teachers trying to get me involved with the students in the previous school, and now this, I felt lost.

I felt lost.

I began to act up for attention in class. While the counselor’s message of me not fitting in sort of rang clear. I stopped using the restroom during the day, and I didn’t want to be involved with P.E. as I would refuse to participate.

My mother made time to volunteer as a PTA (Parent Teacher Association) member as I was having some upsetting days.

She discovered that my teacher also was seeking help; her therapist was visiting the class at random, and they briefly met. Keep in mind, this is the early 90s. My teacher flipped out at my mother for using Windex to clean a stain that some of the children made on the desk saying that she would poison us; my mother, I think laughed it off but considered the nature of this teacher Wayside material.

The counselor at the school, ironically stated that I needed a psychiatrist — if this situation wasn’t already bizarre enough.

So, with my mother concerned, I got the first of several unhelpful forms of mental health aides. Some people seek help, others are unhelped in helpful servings.

The psychiatrist would tell me about her divorce while I made sketches using her charcoal chalk.

Relaxing, was probably the best way to describe it. She would tell me about her problems, and then interrupt to ask me how I was feeling. I said I was having a good time drawing. She would then smile and continue on, until — oh, time’s up, that was a lovely session, Adam.

This same doctor had an assignment to shadow me the following year, where she would hide in the bushes and I had to explain who this woman following us was to my friends. The school requested two other psychiatrists later on, who of which weren’t all that much helpful — especially one where I was there for confidence, and the psychiatrist was having trouble breathing and was struggling with his obesity.

However, I learned about their personal lives, so, resourceful I guess. This is making me wonder, was my life all a Goosebumps story, with an upcoming “gotcha moment” at the end?

Building up, from all of this, I suddenly just broke down in class and stormed off one day. I walked out towards the stairs to the field and play structure area and started sobbing.

The class did something stunning.

They all flocked next to and around me. In some ways it felt strategic as if they were expecting me to break down at a certain point so I could “fit in”.

But, for the time being, they came up to me and gave me hugs. The teacher glided to me with what could have literally and professionally been rehearsed words from fellow inmates… I mean students, “there, there, Adam”.

I turned back and I didn’t know what to say. I just smiled as if this was on cue. We all walked back to the classroom, together.

The End.

In the next few days, the students began to play with me on the play structure. I felt I wanted them to also feel like they belonged with me, so I made a club; something normal kids do. You all like me?: let’s start a union.

At the time there was a popular clothing design involving Area 51 guitar pick-head aliens, and I was into that.

I called it the Alien Club (though looking at it now, the symbolism, my goodness!).

To get in, I made the kids flash their underwear.

LS: Sorry, What?!

And in response, so did I back at ‘em.

Wait, you weren’t born back then. People were different, Limerence Sea Star.

They were my age, too. Nope, no custom hand shake or howl at the moon. Just flash what skivvies you’re wearing, and you’re in.

Reflecting on this now, there might have been a few children enrolled in therapy sessions as a result.

One girl of the group invited me over who lived near my bus stop to check out her new trampoline, which, possibly makes me wonder if this was the first invite type of such. On the trampoline she started taking her clothes off, and her mother ran outside screaming to then urgently drag her back in. While it was part of a playground club greeting, I didn’t expect it to appear at home to this extent.

There was anger and correction.

Then there was that one kid who dropped his trousers while waving to me atop the slide, “look everyone, Adam’s here!”

“R” even filled me in one time as I walked into his house for a get-together: “ Today, I’m wearing the purple and orange ones. Want to see?”

I smiled and shook my head, and he flashed to me anyway.

Almost makes me consider picturing the others’ family dinners: “ Hey what did you learn today, kiddo?… Dear God, no!”

So, when I enrolled the teacher into the group…

I just gave her a paper card as her therapist was watching, even when not present.

From time to time I recalled telling other bullies, “ I’m a wolf”, or “I am in a spitting mood” as a public reminder to back off.

Vying for attention, I even started to sing in bus rides. Particularly in the morning bus ride, I made a song based on the “She’s Coming Round the Mountain” tune. The song was entitled:

There’s A Pig in the Toilet

There’s a pig in the toilet, there’s a pig. There’s a pig in the toilet, there’s a pig. (sometimes, I’d add a “Yee-haw!”)

(and then the tune is cut.) Down, down, down it goes. Down, down, down it goes.

I would ask people’s names and even mentioned movie stars, singers and presidents. The bus driver, an older Mexican gentlemen, always grimaced back in his rear view mirror thinking, “not this muchacho all over again.”

Back to that so-called pastime I was referencing. In cartoons and television shows, comic strips and films, there was this constant (and I mean: constant) bit of villains or characters in general getting into a situation where their trousers would be undone, unbuckled, clipped somehow, and they would be exposed for laughter. The 80s and 90s had this bit of bits over and over again.

Simultaneously, in older films, like the original Disney’s Pete’s Dragon, the villain, I recall, was tarred and feathered while the street people were angry and felt justice had been done. The same applied to pants (trousers) falling down or exposing nudity as punishment / tolerable upcoming.

It’s more likely a transition from a Vaudeville disfigurement humor form to startled uproar on formalized etiquette, intertwined with acceptable dignity, to market off human vulnerability as celebrated entertainment. Mardi Gras flashing anyone?

To me, growing up trying to fit in, and many of you millennials might know exactly what I am talking about, but the constant film portrayal of people being exposed and humiliated sort of treated punishment as something fun and enjoyable. It starts out as widely appreciated as safe and funny as it’s novel, oh that character lost their trousers, ha, they deserved that humiliation and to be degraded like that.

Yet, despite what the characters did, I’ve theorized that such people exposed to this exposure exposition over time might have developed intimacy issues growing up, and a need to not be exposed. One instance of such a behavioral abnormality, or transmutation with this practice of reveal, is that there are certain people and groups devoted to this as a sort of sadistic fetish online.

Similar to the film portrayal of tarring and feathering versus what tarring and feathering actually includes, it’s the message of tortured disfigurement if one doesn’t act accordingly to themselves or to others. As an audience member, we do feel that those villains deserve repercussions and to be met with their comeuppance, but to promote a much “softer guillotine delight” through “subtle exposing”, suggests that it’s better to not shake things up for better or for worse; to fit in or be shamed.

Here’s an experiment, try watching this questionable silly sequence with the sound on, and then without the sound effects, upbeat music and comedic dialogue (mute). Notice a difference? Then watch it with the sound on again. This is rated R.

[embed]“Zapped Again! (1990)” — Pants…Scene — FARM YT Channel

(video embed / mature content ) This one is just silly. Good movie back in the day, Short Circuit.

[embed]Short Circut ( 1986) “A Robot Drops a Dude’s Pants with his Laser” — Short Circuit Clip — Box Office Movie Clips YT Channel

Something about flashing one’s (yes this is all horribly off-the-wall now, and red flag all over the place) interior clothing as a sign of respect at the time garnished a wacky sense of mutuality.

The weirdest thing that happened that year involved a girl. She didn’t want to be in the club, and approached me with her bully friends to wreak havoc on my day, just ‘cuz. She started pegging me with a long stick. My skin was getting scratched up, I didn’t know what she wanted, and they started backing me into a corner. Be nice to her, she’s a girl; I was trying to mentally come up with a way to respond in the best way that seemed acceptable.

The tension filled and murmured as I stumbled back onto the bark nuggets shaking in tearing eyes up at this girl holding her stick to me. I stood up and without further warning, grabbed her by the shirt and kissed her cheek. The two bullies and the girl screamed.

I marched off while crying, yet a little triumphant.

My parents that night received a call from the school that the parents of so-and-so proclaimed that “ I raped their daughter!” I was eight or nine years-old!

A Waistband Branded in Wasted Space

Beautiful young woman teeth (not saying this about that teacher). Close up | by grinny | Shutterstock

So, I was a little odd. I had some goofy, quirky, adventures in school here and there; went to family fun centers, played arcades, and video games, and I became a sort of attention-seeker with my silliness. I didn’t completely fit in, and humor helped bridge the bond.

I wasn’t a slacker either as some sources outline on those with the XXY state. I did my homework, and the Extra Credit. I loved mathematics, and creative projects, and drama, but there was a particular moment where that school drama impacted me.

Growing up in the SF Bay Area, and being of mixed parents of two different cultures despite being visibly white was often interpreted by some Jewish (most likely the Zionists) kids, parents, and teachers as being a red flag; a sort of harmful pedigree. In middle school, there was one particular teacher who took this to heart or to hexagon star, after having met my parents in conferences. She was into Egyptian history and she loved … , and enough about her.

When I was applying for a private school for personal reasons, I was rejected. So, my parents wondered about it out of curiosity, yet I quickly accepted it and thought I should just continue on as is.

The private school admission contacted them and reported that I passed the test, did well on the math section, but it all boiled down to what the teacher wrote for the recommendation.

I felt compelled a few days later to ask her what she wrote. I now realize I was pretty brave for doing this. I waited at the end of the line of students who were asking reiteration questions. As I approached her desk, I looked around and muffled my words.

“ Mrs.[name], I have a question about the thing you wrote.”

“Adam, speak up, what is it?!”

Her annoyance wanted my presence removed that instant.

“ I was just wondering what you wrote on my recommendation.”

She grinned and looked up.

Her words left a skid mark on my life. Her reason:

“ Well, Adam, I just said you were below average intelligence.”

“ Oh…oh.. okay. Thank you for telling me, Mrs. [name].”

“Was, there anything else, Adam?”

Well, a principal locked me in her office with the lights out twice for an hour each. The oddities of our educational experiences, am I right?

Snapping Back

Well, I won’t bore you with all the out-there experiences (on par with a Nickelodeon cartoon series) at that public school. Let’s snap back to the topic, and maybe swing around on my basketball finger and fall forward.

The 90s brought in the fad, via prisons which makes me wonder where other U.S. fads started of…. sagging (bell-bottoms were started by sailors)- and no, I am not talking senior ligaments, orifices or flabby ones hanging over: it’s in the pants!

With students at school walking around flashing their underwear ( I did it before it was cool), a new Joe Boxer movement slapped awkwardly and stood droopingly in your face, especially while sitting around as other students entered the bus heading down the aisle.

Photo by EAVONE Jazzman on Unsplash | who gets this reference?

Why is this happening?- I pondered at the time. Why was the President of the United States, Bill Clinton playfully being asked if he wore boxers or briefs? It was all a ploy to see how men needed to fit in for fellowship. Rather than mutuality, these waistbands of baggy fits demonstrated flashing as a disorderly form of order.

Why do people on TV and kids in school keep repeating vocally “boxers” like it’s a new possessive gender identity?

I began spiraling (no, there wasn’t a gender identity crisis back then). Maybe the U.S. has a really bizarre under-fetish being intertwined in a sort of Victorian mania meets Puritanical conservatism.

Soooo, where the hell, am I going with this before we start talking about trying on lingerie and holding furry fly swatters?

Maybe it’s about the lunacy, and that despite this garment showcase existing for what it was — was not the reason each person involved decided to be fashion-identicalized. Maybe, the core approach was all about the notion of a relationship that normalization is to be noticed as fitting in vs. fitting in to being noticed.

Fashion, Identity, & Normalization Relationship: Noticed = “as fitting in” Fitting in = “being noticed”

On the other edge of the spectrum were the: (video embed)

[embed]“ I Don’t Want To Wait” — Paula Cole — Lyrics 90s YT Channel

The Goths. Expecting something else? They were influenced by a sort of new age Wiccan-meets-punk rock-meets-The Craft crowd. Saggers dealt with holding up their baggy trousers; goths, their baggy Hells and personal emotional hardships.

The Great American Trouser Hold-up

“Cowboy in his 40s wardrobe mishap sagging” | by Shutterstock AI

Before I discovered my chromosomal reveal, something else made its way into my life, a lesson or two on being an American. Looking back at this now, I feel it helped me tackle the realization of my diagnosis as not entirely devastating but equitably doable.

The Pull Up

As I had become obese despite staying active with swimming, a mishap occurred. I stood up during class and comically by cargo shorts button fell off. I reach over onto the ground and noticed other students observing and whispering over my incident.

“Adam’s so fat.”

I raised my hand quickly into the class, and explained my situation.

“ I lost my pants button.”

Other students kept on with their whispery comments. In a sudden composed pause, the teacher nodded for my excusal to seek help with this wardrobe disaster.

Holding onto my cargo shorts for dear life, I wiggled out the classroom door and began walking around school and avoiding people in the hallway. Fortunately, the shorts had velcro fasteners at the side. The tragic news was the zipper kept unzipping as it was some sort of cheaper plastic.

Covered in sweat, I reached the front office and was relieved that there weren’t others in line. I could have easily fainted, I was scared to death. I had trouble standing.

With one hand, I motioned to the secretary and summarized my status. Her eyebrows raised.

“ Sorry, young man, we’re not a tailor.”

“ But, please, don’t you have anything I could use to fix this?! ”

“ Do you want to wait till the bell rings for a student or teacher who might be of better assistance to you?”

The realization of other students surrounding and belittling me hit. I had to find a solution, otherwise I would be humiliated and most likely bullied from that point onward.

I stealthily scaled my way to the nurse’s office as that felt logically the place one journeys to, for health solutions.

Walking from her medical cabinet and office supplies, the school nurse delivered an important life’s lesson as she managed to find a solution with a paperclip (so, I could just fasten the holes together):

(not her exact words) “ In life you have to prepare for the worst. Expect that nobody will come and help you with your problems. You have to do your best to be prepared to prevent them.”

I had heard very similar messages from my parents especially with their books and quote signs that they placed around their factory, related to Murphy’s Law, but experiencing this scenario ingrained in me that it applied to situations outside of a general work zone.

She continued: “Either you keep on living with what you have and make like everything is fine and you learn to exist like everyone else, or you learn to fix your own problem(s).”

She then handed me the paperclip and I affixed it into place on my own. It wasn’t 100%, and I had to keep lifting them up, but it was a solution.

The Zip Up

“overweight lady science teacher embarrass trousers mishap” | Shutterstock AI

On the other side of the problem enters the realization of the problem itself, rather than the assumption that the problem will be sorted away on its own.

At the same school, which now sounds like “clown high”, a chemistry teacher wearing tight jeans over her belly was discussing chemicals with her fly unzipped. She was making large arm movements and the skin-tone reveal was causing many students to grip their desk and burst out onto their arm.

Many fellow pupils kept holding it back and smirking on the side. A student whispered behind me, “Ms. M…’s panties are out in the open.”

I kept thinking should I say something? But, many students thought I was gay (pre-testosterone), so I didn’t want this to turn into who’s the freak fantasizing over the educator? In many ways I thought one of the girls in the class would have a woman-to-woman moment — nope they were equally trying not to laugh. The bell rang, and everyone rushed out.

The following day, the teacher stood in front with her arms crossed and waited for everyone to sit down.

“ Why didn’t you tell me I had my fly down?”

We all waited on cue for the jock in the classroom to strike up the answer: “ Out of politeness, I think we all-”

“And you didn’t think it was polite to point out an error? Who else noticed my zipper was undone?”

Some raised their hands, but she could tell everyone in the classroom was guilty as charged.

“Well, next time, if someone has a problem, tell them!”

These might sound like two opposite lessons, as when I was the one with the mishap others belittled me. However: I realized my problem; the teacher was unaware of hers.

Humility happened in both lessons: yes. But, had any of us said something, the problem would have been fixed; and if someone decided to take the initiative to offer a key-ring or a paperclip that would have helped, too. Yet, in both cases, reality drives a point that we have to prevent such problems from happening on our own.

Super-Stitch-ins & Altruism

“ Glowing neon line Hiking backpack icon isolated on black background. Camping and mountain exploring backpack. Colorful outline concept. Vector” | VVadim Sazhniev | Shutterstock

Speaking of problems — and some of you may have done this, too — I would try to keep my old backpack (book-bag) zippers together using staples. My parents would indicate for me to request a new backpack and we could go out and pick up a new one. I was vehement to make the product work no matter what others indicated.

In some ways it was a kind of stubbornness to keep the issue in flux, and that knowingly and eventually, a staple would undo. The other side, was superstition. Many Americans believe in a wide variety of superstitions, some of which include lucky underwear, lucky bracelets, family heirlooms that carry the strength of the ancestors and the praise of objects of our development that support us — like backpacks.

Eventually, after pinching and pricking my fingers pulling out my pencils and notebooks from my bag enough times, I had to commit to accepting a new model.

When I was about 6 or 7 years, I had a neon green and grey backpack. I adored it, and departing a family trip to Monterey Bay (home of the famous aquarium from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home which is not near large enough to hold a single whale) I somehow forgot I placed it into one of the hotel drawers.

I had the “Kevin !” moment in the car on the way back, and my parents indicated to just buy a new one.

The hotel called up a week later and informed my parents of the backpack (which is a rarity in itself), and had it shipped to us.

The correlation is that problems will happen, and a solution is not a one-size fits all. But, we can at least remind ourselves and others what we can do to fix it, even if we refuse to or assume it will buckle up on its own. Or, we may choose to care about our own problems over others, this is the scale of life.

Was I thankful for the hotel’s willingness to deliver the luggage item? Yes. Would I have moved on eventually with another backpack? Yes. But, it’s the moment I experienced there were others who decided to influence a solution against a problem that could shape things for a type of betterment (i.e. altruism, customer satisfaction, good Samaritan responsiveness, etc.) , I realized there was more I could do.

Get Up, Try Up, Don’t Give Up on Type

Several months after I began taking testosterone in 2000, I confronted the Under-World. I walked up to my parents and unzipped:

“ Mom, Dad, we are no longer wearing white speedo underwear. We need to buy boxer shorts or we [will die in infamy].”

My younger brother clasped his mouth.

“ Is this what you want, dear?”

“ It is, and [my younger brother] as well. For he must not be left behind in style and belittled by the followers of the under-world. After all, such white briefs make us look feminine.”

My parents walked back into the kitchen for an advisory counsel meeting. When they returned, they nodded, “this is the wear.”

I bowed, “this is the wear.”

It was extra-under-rary, I confronted my under-fear.

Days later my brother and I were adorned with plastic wrapped boxershorts from Wal-Mart, and I was given a pair of colorful polka dot Men In Black themed alien head boxers.

It was at this time, I decided to buy all my own clothes going forward, yet I was very thankful for this elastically enthusiastic move on their behalf.

CONTINUATION: EXIT: HIGH SCHOOL