The Ensemble Love Line is here to help. We put the call out for your love, dating, sex and relationship conundrums, and had an array of people call and message in (thank you to those who opened up!). We took those anonymous questions and concerns and put them to a range of relevant ‘experts’ – this week, an issue with a partner’s undergarments…

(We’re adults, our readers are adults, and we want to treat you as such. But FYI, there’s some language below that might not be suitable to read while at work.)

If you have a dilemma that you’d like our panel to ponder, get in touch with the Ensemble Love Line on 0272095569.

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My boyfriend doesn’t wear underpants. How do I get him to wear underpants? Love, Anon

Advice from Maxine Kelly, owner of luxury lingerie store Underlena‍

I’m curious to know why it’s so important to you that he wears underpants – I personally think it can be sexy (in that early noughties, fresh out of the surf kind of way) but I understand. It’s not for everybody.

So a practical suggestion from me: go buy some underwear that you’d like to see him in, and either litter them around the house (on the towel rail, under his pillow, in the top drawer, in his glove box?) for non-subtle cues; or explain why you think it’s so hot when he wears underpants – the more descriptive, the better. I’ve heard rave reviews about Icebreaker Merino, or you could go full Jeremy Allen White and buy some fresh white Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

Maxine Kelly believes that sensuality - the pleasure of the physical senses – belongs in the everyday experience, rather than the special occasion. As the founder of Underlena, a destination for coveted, independent lingerie brands, Maxine’s focus is on sharing how the little things - what we wear, how we move about the world – can help us lead a more sensual life. 

Advice from Jonny Mahon-Heap, writer

First, put down the Ensemble Love Line and call the police on your boyfriend (before I do). Unless you’re prank-calling us, which I hope you are, then I despair.

We already know that being a man means getting away with it all, but there’s a weird category of men whose silence is mistaken for insight, their ego for charisma, and their eccentricity for charm. There is a weird, tacit acceptance by many that anything above a grunt turns the blandest of straight men into Oscar Wilde.  

In Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, termed by some as “the Great American Novel”, Franzen brands this distinct brand of quixotic antic as a harbinger of worse things to come, describing that moment of recognition, when your partner's “eccentricities had turned into a low-grade insanity”.

That other Great American Novel, Lena Dunham's Girls, puts it even more starkly. When Hannah Horvath’s (Dunham) mum, Loreen (played with extraordinary bad-temperedness by Becky Ann Baker), makes her feelings plain to Hannah about her boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver). “I don't want you to spend your whole life socialising him, like he's a stray dog,” she explains. “Making the world a friendlier place for him. It's not easy being married to an odd man.”

“Odd”, with its many, many applications, is so general a term as to be meaningless. But boyfriends who refuse to wear underwear are odd. Boyfriends who recreate Napoleonic battle scenes using Warhammer figures are odd. Boyfriends who defend Elon Musk under Twitter pseudonyms are odd. In choosing any partner, you’re choosing the level of oddness you’re willing to tolerate. By writing to us, you’re already making the world a friendlier place for him, hoping the limits of your empathy are not constrained by the boundaries of your understanding. I’d say, though, that there isn’t very much to try to understand here. He will have his reasons for not wearing underwear, sure, but none of them are good ones.

I have seen the best minds of my generation (aka my girlfriends) fighting for their lives at the coalface of modern dating, where they are forced to instruct men who are not quite ready to enter society without letting go of Mummy’s hands, and in so doing end up replacing one Mummy for another. They have taught their spouses how to say please and thank you, how to floss, how to craft an invitation, how to go down on them, how to speak to their friends, how to mop up, how to negotiate a pay rise, how to speak to their parents, how to speak to women, how to speak, how to do their hair, how to navigate their male friendships, how to treat their siblings, how to be in this world. 

I see it all the time, these men standing idly by, basking and revelling in their not-knowingness, as their spouses are forced to finish raising them, forced to finish their mopping up, forced to finish their sentences, as they help make them part of this world. It's a kind of weaponised incompetence that extends from their personal lives and encroaches into every other facet of it. (Funnily enough, it doesn't seem to extend to their relationships with other heterosexual men, which appear far more instinctive: I’ve seen these same men act like boys around their male friends, spit in each other’s mouths, throw up on each other, tackle each other, throw rocks at one another, slap, choke, slam, and hit one another in ways that seem to come to them unbidden). 

Every couple becomes, after a certain time, a pair of drowning swimmers. They can convince themselves of all manner of sins, whilst going round in circles. To the observer, this is a particular kind of insanity. But to the couple, it’s just survival. It’s not your duty to convince your boyfriend to wear underwear (if only because the phrase “Sweetie, let’s take you underwear shopping” should only be uttered to children), just as it’s not your duty to wait while his low-grade quirks blossom into full-blown eccentricity. It is your duty to ask yourself what level of oddness you’re willing to endure, which it sounds like you’ve already started doing.

Jonny Mahon-Heap has written for the Guardian, AnOther Magazine, Stuff.co.nz and more. 

Advice from Johanna Cosgrove, comedian and co-host of Rats in the Gutter

Sweetie! Okay. There is a lot to unpackage here (could I help myself? Apparently not). Is he a full time free-baller? Where is he not wearing underpants? Around the home? In the mall? To pick up his nieces and nephews from kindy?

I have nothing but awe for the self-inflicted masochism of raw-dogging your goolies in a pair of jeans to hobble around the supermarket. Or sitting at the office sweating into Barkers trousers with nothing but Jesus himself between your bits and a 90% polyester blend. Or departing for a morning run knowing full well you are about to give the neighbourhood a jingling marionette show. 

Could it be possible that your boyfriend is attempting to reconnect with some long forgotten Scottish heritage in a way that doesn’t involve the admin of a traditional kilt? Or are you concerned that his lack of underwear denotes a disdain for hygiene and cleanliness usually displayed by a floor mattress, Coke bottle bong and polar fleece ‘sheets’? 

I am very curious about why this bothers you – not to yum your yuck – but this man is your boyfriend, I assume you have seen him naked and therefore find his body attractive. Do you feel embarrassed of his “urge to display” or does the secret knowledge that he cbf throwing on some boxers make you cringe? 

I’m personally a big fan of taking off my underwear as much as possible. If I’m at home, chances are, I’m “airing out”. I like to sleep without knickers and studies (aka Google) show that going commando at night can also have surprising health benefits for men, like improved circulation, temperature regulation and even increased sperm production and fertility – so quirky! 

I think the real thing that I want to whisper in your ear gently is that you cannot be this man’s mother. You are his romantic interest! This unfortunately means accepting his sartorial choices (or absence of) and resisting the urge to fix him. That is simply not your job. 

Your energy is precious and must never be wasted on convincing a man to invest in a multi-pack of Jockeys even if you are literally about to commit to him for life. 

If this is impossible – maybe calmly get to the bottom of why he refuses to wear underwear. Maybe calmly express your concern. Maybe make peace within yourself. That, or, you could bottle it up, allowing your resentment to fester and pickle until you unleash it, full force, at an intimate Italian restaurant to the horror of your waitress. 

The bottom line is, put yourself in his unprotected pants. Would you want someone dictating what to do with your privates? And please for the love of god, I hope he is washing those Levi’s on the reg.

Johanna Cosgrove is an award-winning actor/comedian/writer/poet/clown school graduate based in Tāmaki Makaurau, and the co-host of podcast Rats in the Gutter. She co-wrote the book of poetry, Crying on the Phone.

Advice from Samuel Te Kani, writer and co-host of Rats in the Gutter

Has he talked about his reasons with you? I know there’s some urban mythos about going commando helping to increase the count and motility of sperm, and no I don’t have the medical expertise to back this up with authority. 

Or maybe it’s a comfort thing. If so then why not broach going underwear shopping with him to find a style that he likes. Is his discomfort because he has such an enormous package that suitable support is a sartorial issue; or maybe it’s the opposite issue and he has such a petit appendage that underwear is not a practical necessity. 

Beyond what reasons he might have for not wearing underwear, what are your exact issues with him going without? Do you aesthetically prefer a guy in underwear, like do you especially enjoy the look and feel of a guy in his briefs as extended foreplay? Which is totally fine, not shaming. In fact I understand the specific erotic appeal of guy’s underwear. There’s almost nothing hotter than a jacked guy in his smalls, he’s sometimes hotter like that than he is naked – especially if he doesn’t have an especially photogenic penis. 

Also, maybe he has the same erotic fixation on going bare, like it’s his little secret while he goes about his day. Maybe for him no underwear is a sensual way of being in the world, of jazzing up his mundane reality and getting through the otherwise crushingly sexless daily grind of a nine-to-five office job. Or, food for thought, maybe he’s in an online Dom/sub relationship that you don’t know about, and free-balling is one of his conditions as a sub. Sounds far fetched but it’s more common than you think. If this is the case – and I’ll admit it’s probably not – then lean in and put him in chastity as well. Maybe invite the Dom around and annihilate him with the double-team pegging session he so clearly wants. Or you know, just talk to him about the underwear thing with sensitivity and openness.

Samuel Te Kani (Ngāpuhi) is a writer, author, sexpert and co-host of the podcast Rats in the Gutter. He wrote a book of erotic stories, Please, Call Me Jesus.

Advice from Hayley Sproull, comedian and radio host

Two things. One - why do you want him to wear underpants? Some people like it just floating around in there and maybe he's more comfortable that way. Maybe he likes it hanging loosey goosey. Maybe he loves the rub of raw denim on his wang. Ask him! If it's his preference, just let it go! Maybe you could tell him you're not wearing undies either and turn it into a sexy situation. 

Two - if it's just cos he's gross and doesn't clean his undies, your only option is to sprinkle chilli powder in his jeans. He'll want an extra barrier after that.

Comedian Hayley Sproull will perform at the NZ International Comedy Festival with her show Wild Flutters, at the Best Foods Comedy Gala, and as host of the Best Comedy Show on Earth.