is for International Male.  For all of the sensuality of the gorgeous young hunks who revel in their voluptuousness in the garish photographs of the International Male catalog, an unmistakable note of reticence, even embarrassment, can be found in the advertising copy that accompanies the gauzy "jock socks" and full-length "unitards" in which the models strut and swagger.  As homoerotic as the company's merchandise appears, International Male describes its briefs in lackluster and clinical terms, as if the most gratuitously decorative elements of the garment -- sheer fabrics, massive pouches, strapless thighs -- functioned solely to eliminate unsightly panty lines, or in the case of the "U.S. Jock Brief," to offer something rather inscrutably described as "natural vertical lift support without uptight pullback."  The International Male catalog also ascribes such prosaic, nonsexual ualities to the "Support Bar Brief," which, like a padded brassiere, is equipped with a foam rubber cushion clearly designed to enlarge the bulge of the genitals but is justified as serving to "support and lift."  Utilitarianism thus becomes a justification for fetishism.