Gay influencers ta e on underwear ar et

The Only Fans Star

Boston-based OnlyFans creator Fabian Bonavento credits his background in marketing and his strong links to his local queer communities for helping him get his Fafabon underwear and clubwear line off the ground last summer.

“Working in queer spaces, you get exposed to a lot of talents, jobs, creatives. It gave me the opportunity to put together what I wanted to do,” he says.

He had been reselling clothes before the pandemic, when he got the urge to start designing his own wares.

“I would go to brands and reach out, and I got a lot of rejections,” he says. “I was talking to this person, all online during the pandemic, it became like hey, I saw that you make dresses, do you know someone who can make underwear It was just pitching myself over and over again.

“Now I work with the manufacturers, some of the materials come from India, Portugal, China. So I had these contacts, but it was really just rolling with it and trying it.”

Bonavento says he was motivated to go into underwear specifically because he felt there was a gap in the gay underwear market for comfortable, everyday undies that are built for all bodies.

“Many of the gay underwear brands, they have a certain niche to them. This is for a furry person, or codified for sexuality, and all that. I thought it would be cool to have a brand that doesn’t just corner a person to a specific type,” he says. “The plan is to create a lifestyle brand that is the go-to brand to feel comfortable and sexy, supported and risqu .”

He says the brand focuses on comfort and quality, without sacrificing the sexiness that queer people want in their underwear.

“It’s about the material and how we construct the products,” he says. “The seams are double-seamed inside so there’s no access to get your hair stuck. It’s made to be very smooth and very comfortable. We have sizes up to L and we’re going to start L soon.”

Speaking of very large, Bonavento’s nearly 0,000 Twitter followers are likely attracted by the many pictures he shares of his, um, biggest asset.

But Bonavento is far from the first well-endowed man from the gay porn world to venture into the underwear industry. Porn star Rocco Steele launched his 7 Collection (supposedly named for his measurements) in 20 , although he decided to shut it down in February. Miami-based OnlyFans star Abel Pirela has his own eponymous underwear brand too.

Maybe it’s the next logical step after gay fashion icon Andrew Christian spent the better part of two decades associating his underwear with gay porn stars.

“I’ve always had this strong social media presence, and I thought, how can I capitalize on this, instead of just posting pictures ” Bonavento says. “To have a good online presence, you should know how to be online. I live on the internet and also study the internet. I’ve gotten the chance to work with different brands in social media marketing. I enjoy doing it, but because it started with me, I have to go along with it because it translates into sales.”

Like the other influencers’ brands, Fafabon is still a one-man show, but Bonavento has a long-term goal of collaborating with other creators to serve the wider queer and trans community.

“The plan is to collaborate perhaps with trans designers who understand how this project should be made. I hope it’s sooner than later,” he says.

The Disrupter

Chicago-based photographer and OnlyFans creator Alex King is a bit of an outlier with his Tie Dye Undies project, which he describes as less of a brand and more of a “disruption model.”

“It all kind of came about because at my birthday party we had a tie-dye party and we had a bunch of white underwear and made them,” he says. “I had one of my friends come over and model, and I posted the photos on Tumblr and people started asking, where can I get them ”

King now makes and releases batches of tie-dyed Calvin Kleins as a kind of personal art project.

“It was a way of adding some color to a stale menswear space. I was shooting some models, and I just noticed the clothes were boring and I just added some color, some zest,’ he says. “I think it’s a bummer how color is disappearing from the world. Even McDonald’s is grey.”

But while the King’s art undies have their fans, he says it’s never been his goal to make money from them.

“It’s not like one of those things where I would tell people to make a brand because it’s hard work, and it’s a bit of a crapshoot,” he says. “Mine’s a disruption model, more fun, more whimsical. It gives me a little bit of happiness to know that those things are out there living their lives.”

Moving product has gotten more difficult as social media channels crack down on posts they consider sexually explicit, especially posts featuring gay men, King says.

“A lot of the free ways of marketing are dwindling on Tumblr and Instagram,” he says. “Even innocuous photos of men in underwear on Instagram are being flagged for being sexually explicit and ad tools are being taken away.”

King says social media remains the main way he markets his undies, even though he tries to keep his underwear business separate from his burgeoning porn work.

“Sometimes there are models on my OnlyFans that are Tie Dye Undies models, but I try to keep that separate,” he says. “People think sex is the next thing that happens in a photo shoot. It has happened, but I try to keep those boundaries.”

With the sudden explosion of gay underwear brands launched by social media influencers, one could be forgiven for assuming that this was a business that was an easy cash grab. But it’s clear that the men behind these brands are creating them out of a genuinely love for underwear and are putting in long hours of work to get them out in the world.

It’s a good reminder that it takes passion, dedication, and talent to stand out in the crowd online, even when you’re in your underwear.