- Location
- Toronto, ON, Canada
As many of you know, I'm John (aka Deusex), the owner of USG. I started it 17+ years ago. I was always into underwear but thanks to the Internet and the beginning of online shopping, I began to realize there was more underwear options available to men than just what you could find in the local department stores. USG started off as a simple website listing all the International stores you could buy men's underwear. A few years and a lot of conversations with like minded guys, I realized we needed a home, so I built the USG forums. A short while later, the galleries were added.
In 2004, I met my partner (and now husband), Adrian. In 2005, we were both hating our jobs so we put our heads together and our online store Jockstrap Central was born. It was a logical decision as we both had a passion for underwear plus my background was in Internet marketing, web design and programming. We focused on Jockstraps (at least at the beginning) both because we loved jockstraps but also because we were able to start small with a niche market. It paid off, as 15 years later, we're still in business.
In the early days, I was VERY involved in USG but Jockstrap Central became more than a full-time job (which was a good thing) but between the crazy workload of keeping Jockstrap Central running and also maintaining a healthy relationship/marriage I no longer had a lot of time to spend hanging out at USG.
Luckily, there was a very active USG member whom I had a massive amount of respect for, someone who had incredible smarts, patience and diplomacy so i asked him if he could help moderate the site. His name was/is @SweatyAussie and to be honest, USG wouldn't be here today without him. I can't thank him enough.
Jockstrap Central is truly my dream job, I get to do something I'm passionate about and do it side by side with the love of my life, Adrian. 15 years later and there's still not a day I can't wait to come down to work. And if you caught that... we run the business from home and work is on the ground floor of our house.
My only major regret is that my work load and personal life has prevented me from being on USG much. Building this new USG and spending all my time here over the past few weeks and interacting with everyone has reminded me how much I love it and given me a new goal - to try to make the time to be more present here.
Now, the difficult part...
If you're wondering why I haven't been posting any recent photos of myself in my underwear and gear, it's complicated...
Partly, it's having some body image issues, which I know is ridiculous as I'm perhaps one of the most open minded person when it comes to the sort of guy that turns me on. Just like I love ALL styles of underwear, swimwear and gear I love guys of all ages and ethnicities and yes, most body shapes. I love cut gym body buys but also love a chunky hairy bearish sort of guy. I love seniors in their gear and young smooth guys do it for me as well. I love pasty white guys and I love ethnic guys, in fact I tend to go through obsession trends. I've always loved Middle Eastern guys but my latest fascination is guys from India and recently, Japanese guys too. And this is just bizarre, but Irish guys drive me crazy, especially when they speak - the accent is a huge turn on.
Anyway, I digress. Back to the body image thing...
I'm still rather slim but out of shape from sitting at a desk for too long and like many, Covid hasn't been good to me. And thanks to my Dad's genes, I'm balding. (At least I'm owning it and not to the dreaded comb-over my Dad did for years). Again, this is stupid though, as I love bald guys. Patrick Stewart has always been on my top 10 celebrities I'd like to have my way with.
And speaking of hair... I'm hairy from head to toe (just minus the head). Which, again is ridiculous feeling self-conscious about because I find hairy guys a HUGE turn on.
Taking all that above into consideration, I was almost at a point to get over myself and start taking selfies again then this happened...
Back in November of 2019 I was diagnosed with colon cancer (If you turn 50, get a colonoscopy, guys!). After doing some CT scans and MRIs, the doctors also found some very small spots on my liver. So, starting in February, I did four sessions of chemo (a very mild version of it, which ironically doesn't make you lose your hair). I then has a five day intense radiation treatment. In April, I had an operation on my liver to remove the few spots (which went very well). At this point, the doctors knew the chemo was working at more scans showed the tumor in my colon shrinking and some of the spots on my liver had disappeared when the surgeon went in to remove them. The next step was to recover from my liver surgery and then get ready for my (quite invasive) colon surgery in July.
BUT... when the colon surgeon did a quick sigmoidoscopy to mark the tumor for the operation, he couldn't find it as the chemo had worked so well. So, he went back to the panel of doctors to tell him he didn't recommend surgery. Instead, I had more chemo treatments, which I'm still going through now. I had 10 in total and have now have two chemo sessions left.
I'm feeling pretty positive about it all, to be honest and I feel blessed that I'm in Toronto (with the best doctors) and we have an amazing (free) Health Care System here in Canada.
But, having the operation on my liver where they cut through some of my stomach muscles (those were muscles?), having scars and the occasional worry about my future (I'm mostly an optimist), this is put a damper on any desire to take a underwear selfie anytime soon.
So there you go. That's where I'm at.
At least I get to live vicariously through our gorgeous Jockstrap Central models, and of course, all the hots guys here on USG. I may not be taking any selfies but at least I get to spend four hours with one of models every other week or so (until we go back to a Covid lock down, ugh!)
Finally, while it's not an underwear selfie, when I'm not going through crappy cancer stuff, this photo from 6 years ago pretty well captures who I normally am:
In 2004, I met my partner (and now husband), Adrian. In 2005, we were both hating our jobs so we put our heads together and our online store Jockstrap Central was born. It was a logical decision as we both had a passion for underwear plus my background was in Internet marketing, web design and programming. We focused on Jockstraps (at least at the beginning) both because we loved jockstraps but also because we were able to start small with a niche market. It paid off, as 15 years later, we're still in business.
In the early days, I was VERY involved in USG but Jockstrap Central became more than a full-time job (which was a good thing) but between the crazy workload of keeping Jockstrap Central running and also maintaining a healthy relationship/marriage I no longer had a lot of time to spend hanging out at USG.
Luckily, there was a very active USG member whom I had a massive amount of respect for, someone who had incredible smarts, patience and diplomacy so i asked him if he could help moderate the site. His name was/is @SweatyAussie and to be honest, USG wouldn't be here today without him. I can't thank him enough.
Jockstrap Central is truly my dream job, I get to do something I'm passionate about and do it side by side with the love of my life, Adrian. 15 years later and there's still not a day I can't wait to come down to work. And if you caught that... we run the business from home and work is on the ground floor of our house.
My only major regret is that my work load and personal life has prevented me from being on USG much. Building this new USG and spending all my time here over the past few weeks and interacting with everyone has reminded me how much I love it and given me a new goal - to try to make the time to be more present here.
Now, the difficult part...
If you're wondering why I haven't been posting any recent photos of myself in my underwear and gear, it's complicated...
Partly, it's having some body image issues, which I know is ridiculous as I'm perhaps one of the most open minded person when it comes to the sort of guy that turns me on. Just like I love ALL styles of underwear, swimwear and gear I love guys of all ages and ethnicities and yes, most body shapes. I love cut gym body buys but also love a chunky hairy bearish sort of guy. I love seniors in their gear and young smooth guys do it for me as well. I love pasty white guys and I love ethnic guys, in fact I tend to go through obsession trends. I've always loved Middle Eastern guys but my latest fascination is guys from India and recently, Japanese guys too. And this is just bizarre, but Irish guys drive me crazy, especially when they speak - the accent is a huge turn on.
Anyway, I digress. Back to the body image thing...
I'm still rather slim but out of shape from sitting at a desk for too long and like many, Covid hasn't been good to me. And thanks to my Dad's genes, I'm balding. (At least I'm owning it and not to the dreaded comb-over my Dad did for years). Again, this is stupid though, as I love bald guys. Patrick Stewart has always been on my top 10 celebrities I'd like to have my way with.
And speaking of hair... I'm hairy from head to toe (just minus the head). Which, again is ridiculous feeling self-conscious about because I find hairy guys a HUGE turn on.
Taking all that above into consideration, I was almost at a point to get over myself and start taking selfies again then this happened...
Back in November of 2019 I was diagnosed with colon cancer (If you turn 50, get a colonoscopy, guys!). After doing some CT scans and MRIs, the doctors also found some very small spots on my liver. So, starting in February, I did four sessions of chemo (a very mild version of it, which ironically doesn't make you lose your hair). I then has a five day intense radiation treatment. In April, I had an operation on my liver to remove the few spots (which went very well). At this point, the doctors knew the chemo was working at more scans showed the tumor in my colon shrinking and some of the spots on my liver had disappeared when the surgeon went in to remove them. The next step was to recover from my liver surgery and then get ready for my (quite invasive) colon surgery in July.
BUT... when the colon surgeon did a quick sigmoidoscopy to mark the tumor for the operation, he couldn't find it as the chemo had worked so well. So, he went back to the panel of doctors to tell him he didn't recommend surgery. Instead, I had more chemo treatments, which I'm still going through now. I had 10 in total and have now have two chemo sessions left.
I'm feeling pretty positive about it all, to be honest and I feel blessed that I'm in Toronto (with the best doctors) and we have an amazing (free) Health Care System here in Canada.
But, having the operation on my liver where they cut through some of my stomach muscles (those were muscles?), having scars and the occasional worry about my future (I'm mostly an optimist), this is put a damper on any desire to take a underwear selfie anytime soon.
So there you go. That's where I'm at.
At least I get to live vicariously through our gorgeous Jockstrap Central models, and of course, all the hots guys here on USG. I may not be taking any selfies but at least I get to spend four hours with one of models every other week or so (until we go back to a Covid lock down, ugh!)
Finally, while it's not an underwear selfie, when I'm not going through crappy cancer stuff, this photo from 6 years ago pretty well captures who I normally am:
