Last week the Times called it “the debate that is threatening to divide the nation” and somehow we at The Lipster, normally with more highbrow matters to attend to such as new shoes and smoking in the bath, have also somehow got drawn into the Jeremy Paxman/M&S pants debate.

Not that we really care, you understand, about old Paxo saying said pants don’t "offer enough support" and M&S CEO Stuart Rose retorting that Jezza had saggy old bollocks and what an old git (we PARAPHRASE) – just that men’s pants in general do interest us and it led us to thinking (a) How is this news? (b) Isn’t it just a cynical marketing exercise by a leading high street chain dressed up as a leaked email about pants? And then somehow c) I think we should all try and care more about men’s unmentionables.

There might be those of you who ask the question, “Why should I care about this debate about pants, because I am a girl?”, to which I reply, “Because you might want to sit on a penis and it might be encased in these pants.” Just because boys smell of meat, and don’t talk about feelings or like stroking kittens, it doesn’t mean that their undergarments should not be worshipped with the same reverence menfolk apply to the female knicker.

To prove my point I refer you to Lipster favourite Daniel Craig. I am talking about the last Bond film, of course, when he came out of the sea in retro trunks when the water was all slithering off his body but you knew because of narrowed eyes he was quite clever too and not just a tasty hunk of man meat. Replay the same scene with him wearing a worn-out tanga brief. THAT, my friends, is the power a well-cut pair of undies can wield.

Closer to home (and reality, dagnammit), skinny indie boys look nice in 70s Y-fronts don’t they? For whimsical reasons, I am saying preferably brown with beige piping, and in nylon… maybe like what Conor Oberst would wear mooching about his brick NYC loft writing songs about girls knees… but I digress. I can speak from bitter experience when I say the modern man has an inbuilt aversion to a Y, for reasons probably to do with childhood and Mr Muscle.

Mr Beckham is definitely making the case for a snug-fitting jockey short (Armani stuffed pants campaign – fnarr – baby’s arm – fnarr) and many ladies will talk excitedly of the flattering stretch quality of a quality jersey. But actually, though it may not be right that our patriarchal society demands women truss themselves up in dental-floss-esque bits of lace and allows men to flop around in a ill-fitting cartoon boxer, it’s a fact that really ones without holes are good. And clean ones. We don’t ask for much.

FIN.

Pant-fanciers! What pants should men wear? Why don’t they bother? Why don’t we notice? Is it time men took more care of their pants? Is it possible to talk about Jeremy Paxman without shouting ANSWER THE QUESTION ANSWERTHEQUESTION?