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Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Odd strap?


I can't tell if that's a jockstrap with the side pieces tucked away or some kind of odd posing strap,
but this Bruce of LA photo's hint of fur on the derriere might please some of you.  While it might seem strange that Bill Melby got rid of his chest hair, but kept some on his behind, remember that he was a competitive bodybuilder at the time, and didn't normally display his bum.

 

4 comments:

  1. Love those shoulders and arms. The strap does kinda add a bit of "mystery" (for want of a better word) to this. Do you think he might have wanted to showcase his hairy ass?

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    1. Why not? It looks great. They might have had to improvise a posing strap.

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  2. I've taken a good look at the strap under magnification and I cannot work out exactly what it is. At that point, a swimmer's or jogger's jockstrap had habitually a much wider belt - 2½" to 3" - and by that time, the striped belt innovated by Bike, was ubiquitous to denote brand. It was likewise Bike that introduced the much narrower-belted swimmer-jogger in the mid-1960s which reduced the belt to ¾". The belt in this image means that it is unlikely to be a standard jockstrap of the time. This therefore looks like some sort of posing strap, which may have been homemade. I have noticed that several bodybuilders of that particular era roll up in all sorts of "odd" trunks and straps and, as today, I suspect that some gyms went to the trouble of having their own line in top and under garments, and this may be the answer to Mr Melby's sartorial elegance.

    There were two types of standard posing strap. The most common was a micro version of what we today would call a thong, which employs a T-back. The second was effectively a micro jockstrap, which had two narrow straps that clung to the sides of the glutes, which some models preferred.

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    1. If you can't work out what the strap was, nobody can, and thanks for the helpful details on period practices.

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