Still, it is probably worth remembering that there was a time when politicians were seldom seen, even out of the office, without their decorous suit coats, and never in short pants (Nixon famously wore shoes on the beach). And it was only a short while ago that news anchors who ventured out on combat assignment did so in more protective khaki than a Victorian ornithologist braving the wilds of Borneo.

Is Mr. Cooper more or less serious because he chooses to showcase the pneumatic biceps so obviously a part of his appeal? Are the folks behind Calvin Klein yet again on to some cultural shift with the underwear campaign that made its debut this week, featuring the model Garrett Neff bunching his unworn skivvies in front of his crotch?

“The idea of being threatened by the objectified male body has gone, the process is complete,” explained Aaron Hicklin, the editor in chief of Out magazine. “Men are the same as women now.”

Perhaps it is simpler than that. A relaxed approach to sexual display played a role in the policy at Richter7, the Salt Lake City agency, but so did a long stretch of days when temperatures routinely closed in on 100 degrees. “It’s so hot here in mid-July and August that we wanted to combine the two issues” of comfort and fashion, Mr. Newbold said. For client meetings, he pointed out, account executives are expected to “dress to the level of presentation that looks credible and respectable.”

A question arises, though, of what respectability looks like when underwear is routinely worn as outerwear and people travel in get-ups that look like onesies and the combined effects of a cosmetic surgery boom and an epidemic of obesity have given us all an uncommon level of intimacy with the contours of one another’s bodies.

Fifteen years ago, when Hyman Gross, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan, proposed wearing shorts in summer, his boss responded that the firm was not a beach club.