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AIBU?

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Original poster

Discovered DP has knickers. Should I be worried?

528 replies

NickyKat · 15/02/2026 02:17

So today, Valentine's Day of all days, I discovered that DP of 6 years has a collection of knickers in his boxers drawer. He has about 12 pairs - mostly hipsters, boyshorts and briefs. I brought it up with him and he seemed embarrassed and said he likes the feel of the material more than men's cotton boxers.

I had another look later on when he was getting ready for our meal out and they're all 14-16 which seems about his size. But I've also never washed them and still wash multiple boxers every week.

I've never come across this with any of my previous partners and my mind is racing. We had a lovely meal out but it was clear he didn't want to talk about it.

I don't think they're another woman's because why would he have so many if they'd been left after a sneaky visit while I was away?

Am I being unreasonable to think this is not normal? Is it a red flag? I have so many questions but he's not telling me anything other than they're his and he likes wearing them.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
BuffysBigSister · 15/02/2026 08:40

Blueskiesandrainbows · 15/02/2026 08:36

I think it is all a bit of an over reaction from a lot of posters, why not just talk it over and see what he has to say about it, then it’s up to the OP to make her own decision going forward. It can surely all be done calmly and in an adult fashion without the hysterics.

What's "hysterical" about some women expressing their opinion that it would be a turn-off/deal-breaker for them? The OP can make her own decision obviously but she's come here to ask for opinions and women have given those opinions.

MrsLizzieDarcy · 15/02/2026 08:40

How have you never seen them before if you've been together some time? Are they newly appeared or have you just never looked in the drawer properly?

Heyhelga · 15/02/2026 08:40

Either he has a severe fetish or he's a player.

Superhansrantowindsor · 15/02/2026 08:41

He knows it’s weird or he’d have told you.

Xmasxrackers · 15/02/2026 08:41

Joey Tribbiani likes them…

AngelinaFibres · 15/02/2026 08:43

FrootyCider · 15/02/2026 07:07

a. Adults are allowed kinks. It doesn't make them bad people.

b. I think it's incredibly understandable that no matter the reason, men hide it. Women can wear pretty much whatever they want. We're even allowed to dress up to feel sexy without being called perverts. Men only have to deviate slightly from the expected protocol and it becomes a headline. There was recently a thread which filled up within a few days full of hand wringing and outrage when a boy wanted to wear a skirt to school. My brother was recently verbally abused while I was walking with him because he was wearing a sparkly pink hat. No wonder they hide, Imo.

OP noone can decide for you. I like a man in a thong. You might think it's a deal breaker. It doesn't mean he's a bad person or partner, so be kind.

Show quote history

Adults are allowed kinks. Their partners are allowed to be uncomfortable about any kink and to end the relationship. HTH

StopWindingBobStopWinding · 15/02/2026 08:44

FrootyCider · 15/02/2026 08:36

Maybe for some men it's more comfy if it's a bit snug/wrapped up down there - maybe it's uncomfortable if there's room for things to flap about?

Can you really not imagine that different things are comfortable for different people? If you imagine it objectively, having a piece of string between one's cheeks must be pretty uncomfortable - however millions of women (and men!) like to wear thongs day-to-day. I am like the princess and the pea, and can feel any label etc on my clothes, whereas my mum frequently forgets to take the tags off and doesn't even notice!
Different strokes for different folks. There's no 'must' about it.

Show quote history

There are dozens of styles of men’s underwear to choose from without having to resort to those designed for women.

TheHillIsMine · 15/02/2026 08:45

PithyViewer · 15/02/2026 02:31

For me, it wouldn't matter what they heralded - worse to come, or another woman - because I would be so violently and irrevocably turned off that the relationship would be instantly over. I like meat-and-potatoes manly men, and I couldn't be doing with this nonsense. My revulsion would be uncontrollable and I don't think I would ever sleep with him again.

Edited

I like you. I love your self confidence and straight talking.

EmeraldShamrock000 · 15/02/2026 08:45

Tell him to m&s seamless underpant briefs. .
He might be cross dressing or have sensory problems and wears them under his boxer shorts.
My DS wears m&s seamless, before I discovered them, he wore girls as he has crazy sensory issues around clothing.

DrinkReprehensibly · 15/02/2026 08:46

It was the first thing I found 6 years in. By 8 years in we were divorced. It wasn't the only thing. I'm sorry this has happened to you.

There was a lot of lying and I effectively went through grief for a man who never existed. It was horrible.

WonderfulSmith · 15/02/2026 08:49

QuietLifeNoDrama · 15/02/2026 07:19

I have to agree with @Catza women wearing ments pants would not be treated with the same level of disgust. I’m not surprised he’s hiding them when majority of the people on this thread have judged him so harshly. I sometimes wear my husbands boxers he’s never questioned my motives or my femininity. He’s just happy that I’m comfortable.
It maybe the start of something bigger it might not but OP won’t know until she gets him talking. Realistically I’m not surprised men don’t ‘speak up’ about issues when they’re constantly judged for not being ‘manly’ enough.

But that’s because men and women are different. Women will wear boxers because they are more comfortable or give a better line under clothes. Men are wearing knickers because it gives them a thrill. No women knickers are more comfortable than men’s pants.

goldenappleofthesun · 15/02/2026 08:51

AngelinaFibres · 15/02/2026 08:43

Adults are allowed kinks. Their partners are allowed to be uncomfortable about any kink and to end the relationship. HTH

Show quote history

Exactly. Noone is saying he isnt allowed his kinks or that it makes him a "bad person" etc. However, if your partner isnt comfortable with that kink then she/he has every right to end the relationship and it doesn't make them a "bad person" either.

I am so bloody fed up of women being told they must put up with things they arent actually comfortable with just to appease men. Its gross.

AngelinaFibres · 15/02/2026 08:51

Barrellturn · 15/02/2026 07:45

The comfort line makes no sense. Knickers whatever format are cut for the women's body. There are plenty of comfort pants for men, no seams, bamboo, breathable organic cotton etc. They have y fronts. Briefs, little short, huge boxers. A very very wide range of men's options. He gets a sexual hit out of the fact they are WOMEN'S knickers. It's not about comfort.

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This.The tiny pants David Gandy advertises for M and S are small but have a pouch to accommodate penis and testicles and a wider crotch than women's underwear to be comfortable underneath. There is no way a pair of women's knickers ( even in a 14/16) would be the right size/ shape to hold the average male genitals.....unless he tucking of course. Which is a whole other can of worms.

Blueskiesandrainbows · 15/02/2026 08:52

AngelinaFibres · 15/02/2026 08:39

She's posted on a public forum so the public are commenting. If she wanted to deal with it privately she wouldn't have posted.

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But I am also commenting, I’m suggesting that they calmly talk it over, it’s very simple!

Cailleachnamara · 15/02/2026 08:53

KimberleyClark · 15/02/2026 07:57

Men’s genitals are on the outside if the body, ours are on the inside so he probably a feel the difference in the material. It would still creep me out though.

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???

I don't know about you - but my labia and clitoris are very much on the outside of my body!

EmeraldShamrock000 · 15/02/2026 08:54

AngelinaFibres · 15/02/2026 08:51

This.The tiny pants David Gandy advertises for M and S are small but have a pouch to accommodate penis and testicles and a wider crotch than women's underwear to be comfortable underneath. There is no way a pair of women's knickers ( even in a 14/16) would be the right size/ shape to hold the average male genitals.....unless he tucking of course. Which is a whole other can of worms.

Show quote history

Tucking. 🫣 nailed it.
No female underwear could hold an adult man in place.

Themilkmanatnight · 15/02/2026 08:54

CuntAmongstThePigeons · 15/02/2026 06:22

Grayson Perry has been very honest and upfront about his fetish. Lucy is the name he goes by when he likes to dress up as a little girl. He's very clear it's a fetish and that he gets off on it. There's a reason he favours a big skirt.........

He has, but he also forces other people to participate in it through the way he dresses in public ( see that photo). and he gets away with it because he is ‘artistic’. It’s not okay that he does that. In that photo he is turning an exhibition on childhood cancer into his own opportunity for public sexual thrill. It’s grotesque. It’s selfish. It’s the ultimate in entitlement.

He’s a smart man and interesting thinker, but he’s also an entitled male sexual fetishist, with a quite disturbing child fetish, who parades this in public.

usedtobeaylis · 15/02/2026 08:54

Catza · 15/02/2026 06:46

There was a thread on here a couple of months ago where a woman admitted to wearing her husband's briefs to work when she ran out of clean undies and hundreds of replies of other women admitting to wearing them casually because they are more comfortable. Yet here we are hypothesising about a man being "abnormal" in a similar situation and having all sorts of kinks and fetishes which "will affect every aspect of life". Honestly...
I'm not surprised he doesn't want to talk about it. It's more of an issue that he feels being judged in a relationship than him wearing briefs made of a different material which is not "manly" enough.

No man wears women's underwear because it's more comfortable. False equivalence.

Nosejobnelly · 15/02/2026 08:55

Catza · 15/02/2026 06:46

There was a thread on here a couple of months ago where a woman admitted to wearing her husband's briefs to work when she ran out of clean undies and hundreds of replies of other women admitting to wearing them casually because they are more comfortable. Yet here we are hypothesising about a man being "abnormal" in a similar situation and having all sorts of kinks and fetishes which "will affect every aspect of life". Honestly...
I'm not surprised he doesn't want to talk about it. It's more of an issue that he feels being judged in a relationship than him wearing briefs made of a different material which is not "manly" enough.

i think a woman wearing men’s briefs is not the same as a man wearing women’s knickers. Men’s undies aren’t sexualised like women’s are.
plus he’s not washing the knickers in the normal wash which makes it more secretive.

usedtobeaylis · 15/02/2026 08:57

I don't know why Grayson Perry is being held up as an example of something good here. Most men who admit to wearing women's underwear also admit to being fetishists who have violated women's boundaries for example secretly wearing their underwear.

WonderfulSmith · 15/02/2026 08:59

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RosieSpring · 15/02/2026 09:00

MrsLizzieDarcy · 15/02/2026 08:40

How have you never seen them before if you've been together some time? Are they newly appeared or have you just never looked in the drawer properly?

He possibly left them out for OP to find.

AngelinaFibres · 15/02/2026 09:00

Themilkmanatnight · 15/02/2026 08:54

He has, but he also forces other people to participate in it through the way he dresses in public ( see that photo). and he gets away with it because he is ‘artistic’. It’s not okay that he does that. In that photo he is turning an exhibition on childhood cancer into his own opportunity for public sexual thrill. It’s grotesque. It’s selfish. It’s the ultimate in entitlement.

He’s a smart man and interesting thinker, but he’s also an entitled male sexual fetishist, with a quite disturbing child fetish, who parades this in public.

Show quote history

He's also made a lot of money from his art and , as we know, having money ( and establishing yourself as part of the rich and cultured in society) allows you to do all sorts of weird and creepy things right in front of people ( Jeffrey E , Jimmy Savile, Roland Harris etc etc)

Themilkmanatnight · 15/02/2026 09:02

BlueJuniper94 · 15/02/2026 07:50

Perry also turned up at a charity event (for children with cancer) with a massive prosthetic man part under his laters of nursery character skirt. He also says he enjoys the frisson of shocking people. He can pontificate all he likes, but he's open himself that it's sheer sexual deviance that motivates him.

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Yes. A man who decides a children’s cancer event is a great opportunity to get the thrill of shocking people by parading his fetish, is not a cool guy. He’s an utterly egocentric, selfish arsehole.

Zennia · 15/02/2026 09:06

He could at least admit that it's his kink/fetish. Not just say that he "likes the fabric" when you can buy men's underwear in the same fabric so it's obviously BS. The lying and hiding would definitely bother me.

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