Men's underwear typically suffers from several deficiencies, including but not limited to, a propensity for the scrotum to contact and stick to the inner thigh and a high degree of contact between the inner thighs of the wearer which can lead to friction, chaffing, and discomfort while sitting, walking, running, or skating or other numerous athletic activities, a lack of support for the genitalia, limited freedom of movement and natural resting position for the genitalia and a lack of moisture control.
Various underwear designs in the prior art have tried to address one or more of these problems. For example, sports boxer-briefs are typically tight and form-fitting resulting in compressing the genitalia. However, they support the scrotum too close to the body leading to any combination of scrotum contact with inner thighs and legs, and moisture problems resulting from perspiration and skin irritation. Typical loose fitting boxer shorts provide ample freedom of movement but suffer from a propensity for the scrotum to contact and stick to the inner thigh, and lack of support and comfort. Further, the prior art typically does not use performance fabrics as those fabrics are better described below. Typical underwear briefs prevent the scrotum from contacting with the legs, but suffer from unnaturally restricting the genitalia into a small compartment pressing with an unnaturally close proximity to the body with the resultant increase in moisture problems and lack of comfort. To date, no underwear product has successfully addressed the problem of a lack of isolation of scrotum from contacting inner thighs and legs while increasing comfort and support attributes for male genitalia.
In the prior art applicant is aware of U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,345 which issued to Angheluta, et al, on Jul. 9, 1991, entitled Man's Underwear with an Integral Codpiece-like Construction. Angheluta discloses a man's garment, particularly a man's underwear garment, providing a codpiece compartment secured to a front of a trunk panel of the garment. The trunk panel provides an opening for communicating a man's genitals therethrough into the codpiece compartment. The compartment loosely holds the man's genitals. The trunk panel and a slot 24 provides for forward biasing and separation of the genitals by constricting of the sides of the slot behind the testicles and heat insulation to reduce the thermal influence of the man's torso on the man's reproductive organs. Angheluta describes the use of compartment 40 which is a loose fitting compartment around the genitals, it being taught that such a loose fitting compartment prevents compression of the genitals against the male's lower trunk, such as occurs in shorts known to the art, and that by properly selecting the lengths of the front, right and left side panels 32, 38, and 36 a suitably loose compartment 40 is formed. Angheluta concludes that by reducing compression of the genitals against the trunk, the thermal influence of the trunk to the genitals is reduced, and pressure on the genitals is reduced.