Whether or not you choose to put your bulge on display is your choice. I like looking at them, I think they're hot as fuck and the bigger the better, but in answer to your question about whether they're the equivalent of a woman having her boobs on display, the answer is no.
Believe it or not the male equivalent of having big boobs is big pecs. Go figure right? Women ogle big pecs the way men ogle big boobs (I'm being heteronormative for brevity's sake. Obviously sexuality is a beautiful and complex tapestry with no hard and fast rules, but I'm telling you how the average person thinks and how the general public is going to react).
If pecs are to women what boobs are to men, then that means putting your bulge on display is roughly the equivalent of, you guessed it, a woman putting her vagina on display.
Vaginas are beautiful and every woman should be proud of hers. I love them and won't miss an opportunity to bury my face in one and go to town, but they are a very intimate and personal area. Displaying your vagina prominently in public is going to make most people uncomfortable. And even having said earlier how hot I think bulges are, if I see a dude in a nonsexual general public context and he's got his bulge on display, I'll get a little grossed out and uncomfortable, and it's the same with visible cameltoe.
Be proud of your body, but please respect others. If you can wear clothes that keep your bulge profile low (and it kills me to say this because I love scoping bulges) I believe the right thing to do is to minimize the display.
At the club or in a context where sexuality is a prominent aspect of that venue's interaction, go nuts. If you're at the zoo or the library or something, especially if there's kids around, please be polite and keep it out of sight.
