NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

Brentwood, May 1991

Cesar Romero, the 1940s heartthrob and 1960s Batman villain, is telling me about some of his more memorable hookups.

"I was the go-to guy of Hollywood," he brags. "Gay, bi, closeted, I didn't care, as long as you met my standards."

"Which were....?" I ask.

He squeezes my knee. "Under 40, handsome, nice hair. I've dated Desi Arnaz, Cary Grant, Walter Pidgeon, Tony Perkins, William Holden..."

"But what about more recent stars, the ones I knew in my childhood in the 1960s and 1970s?"

"Well, you already know about Burt Ward, who played Robin on the Batman series. Then there's Rock Hudson, Gregory Peck, Desi Arnaz Jr....."

Desi Arnaz, Jr, one of my biggest childhood crushes!

Born in 1953, Desi grew up in the shadow of his famous parents, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Sr. As a teenager he started a boy band, Dino, Desi, and Billy, with his friends Dino Martin (son of famous crooner Dean Martin, left) and Billy Hinsche. From 1968 to 1972 he starred in his mother's sitcom, Here's Lucy, as she tried to draw young fans.

During the 1970s, Desi appeared in any number of gay-subtext movies: Marco, Billy Two-Hats, Joyride, Gridlock.

"You've been with your close friend's son?" I ask. "Did Desi Senior know?"

Cesar laughs. "My boy, not only did he know about it, he arranged it! But that's a story for another time. I'm a bit tired."

It takes a few more visits and a lot more wheedling before Cesar is willing to open up about Desi Arnaz Jr. Why, I wonder, is this memory more troubling than all the others?

The full story is on Tales of West Hollywood.

During the late 1980s, the conservative political atmosphere resurrected the old "I've Got a Secret" sitcom genre of the 1960s (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian). Nuclear families were harboring a child-robot (Small Wonder, 1985-1989), wisecracking aliens (Alf, 1986-1990), and a Bigfoot (Harry and the Hendersons, 1991-1993). Kids were aliens (Out of this World, 1987-1991), superheroes (My Secret Identity, 1988-91), and spies (The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, 1987-88). Not surprisingly, many of them featured gay subtexts.

My Secret Identity starred Jerry O'Connell, aged 14 to 16, no longer the chubby, buzzcut kid of Stand by Me (1986), but getting noticeably taller and more muscular before our eyes.

Until by the final season, he had become a teen hunk, ready for shirtless roles in Calendar Girl (1993) and Sliders(1995-2000).

One episode even involves him becoming a media sensation after he is photographed in his underwear.

His character, Andrew Clement, was accidentally zapped with a photon beam in the lab of his scientist friend, Dr. Benjamin Jeffcoate (Derek McGrath), giving him an unknown number of unpredictable superpowers. Plots involved learning to use and misuse his powers, plus the standard evil teachers, bratty little sister, bullies, sports teams, and dating -- but not a lot of dating. Only 7 episodes out of 72 involve Andrew being in love with some girl.

Instead, in the second season, Kirk (Christopher Bolton) comes to town, and the two display an instant, stammering, tongue-lolling attraction (so as to not make it obvious that they have fallen in love at first sight, the script makes them old friends who are reuniting).

They are inseparable for the remainder of the series, taking jobs together, working on sports and hobbies, breaking up and reconciling. And more than once, Kirk requires rescue, leading to a "my hero" moment.

Indianapolis, December 2016

Who ever talked me into going to this crazy restaurant?

I guess my friend Tyler, Fred's "son," did. It's a few blocks from where he works, so good for having dinner while waiting out rush-hour traffic.

But Tyler is an expert in the culinary arts. Surely he could drive a few miles to a more...um...modern place, rather than Charlie's Bar and Grille.

Decor from the fifties.

Clientele consisting entirely of heterosexual couples in their 90s.

Grotesquely outdated music playing in the background, syrupy-slow versions of the most depressing songs possible.

"Yesterday"
"If You Could Read My Mind"
"Sad Songs"

And my personal non-favorite, "Times of Your Life":

The waitress, the only person under 90 in the restaurant, is intrusive, overly aggressive, telling us in detail where every menu item is located, as if we have never seen a restaurant menu before, and coming back twice to ask "How's everything tasting?"

I hate the "How's everything?" question. It always comes at the exact moment when your mouth is full or you're discussing something embarrassing. But I hate the "How's everything tasting?" question even more. I order food for its nutritional value and visual appeal. Who cares about the taste?

And to make matters worse, a second person, a maitre-d or wine steward or something, comes up and asks "How's everything tasting?" a third time!

I'm not answering this time. Let Tyler do it.

The full story, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-) takes the standard sitcom premise -- innocent in the big city, surrounded by crazies. -- and turns it upside down. Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) is a scatterbrained yet high-powered corporate attorney who realizes that the only time she was really happy in her life was at summer camp ten years ago, when she had a brief romance with Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III).

So she moves to West Covina, California to stalk him.

She gets a job at the law firm of the quirky, boundary-less Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner), finds a best friend/co-conspirator (Donna Lynne Champlin), and embarks upon crazy schemes.

First up: she dates Josh's friend Greg (Santino Fontana, right) in an attempt to get closer to Josh.

Next: she signs up for yoga classes taught by Josh's girlfriend Valencia (Gabrielle Ruiz), in an attempt to find a "hook" to break them up.

She wrangles an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.

She pushes herself into a beach date with Josh's posse: Greg, Valencia, the gay gym rat White Josh (David Hull, left), and Hector (Erick Lopez, below).

The plot summaries make it sound like Rebecca is a villain, but she's such a wide-eyed innocent that we sympathize with her.

Besides, Josh isn't much of a prize himself: he's controlling, manipulative, narcissistic, and sort of dumb. Even his friends don't really like him.

Meanwhile, Darryl, Rebecca's boss, comes out as "both-sexual."

It's nice to see a bisexual character on tv who's not being portrayed as confused or a threat, but when he starts dating White Josh, my suspension of disbelief is strained.

I'm all for older-younger relationships -- I've been in several -- but what on Earth does the super-muscular gym rat see in the bumbling porn stache?

The second season isn't up on Netflix yet, but according to the fan wiki, they're still dating, with rather a stable relationship amid the constantly-shifting heterosexual machinations of Rebecca-Josh-Greg-Valencia-Heather.

During the 1960s, Tim Matheson voiced some of my favorite cartoon adventurers -- Jonny Quest, Sinbad Jr., Jace on Space Ghost, Young Samson -- all with strong homoerotic friendships.

I didn't actually see him on screen until Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), about a blended family with 18 kids. He plays 18-year old Mike, a clean-cut footballer who expresses no interest in girls -- but takes his shirt off, revealing a magnificent physique.

You didn't see shirtless teenagers much in the 1960s. I was stunned. And hooked.

I saw him on tv a lot during the 1970s: not a lot of shirtless shots, but lots of intense, passionate same-sex relationships. For instance, in The Quest, which lasted for only 15 episodes in the fall of 1976, Tim and Kurt Russell play brothers who didn't grow up together, and therefore treat each other more like lovers as they travel the Old West in search of their kidnapped sister.

In The Runaway Barge (1976), Tim and Bo Hopkins, workers on a barge on the Mississippi, struggle to keep it from crashing with a load of chlorine, and end up walking into the sunset together.

Then something changed. In Animal House (1978), Otter (Tim) displayed a beautifully tanned chest in a toga.

Unfortunately, he formed no strong bonds with any of the other boys of Delta House. Instead, he spent the movie sleeping with every woman in sight, including the Dean's wife.

I continued to go to Tim's movies for a few years. He was displayed in his underwear or nude a lot, but sometimes beefcake is not enough.

He often played horny teen slackers with little time for same-sex romance. In Up the Creek (1984), about an intercollegiate rafting race, his Bob has three buddies (Stephen Furst, Dan Monahan, Sandy Helberg), but doesn't buddy-bond with any of them.

Or else New Sensitive Men (like Ryan O'Neal), slim and handsome, but so busy bedding women that they didn't have a lot of time for same-sex romance.

In A Little Sex (1982), for instance, Michael (Tim Matheson) has a long-term girlfriend plus the dreamy-eyed glances of every woman in town -- but his only male friend is his brother (Edward Herrman).

Or else Ordinary Guys and their wives and kids caught up in paranormal horror. In Impulse (1984), an earthquake in a small town gives everyone poor impulse control. Before long, they're fighting, stealing, and having indiscriminate heterosexual sex.

What changed? The shift from television to movies? From teen to adult? Or did the culture change, 1980s conservativism, mechanical bulls, "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche," making close same-sex friendships suspect?

I gave up in the mid-1980s. Since then, Tim has been in over 60 movies I've seen three.

One night in the spring of 1997, around 11:00 pm,
I got a phone call out of nowhere.

"It's Matt -- I'm at the Castro Street Muni Station. Come pick me up!"

Matt the Cute Young Thing?

Nine years before, my college boyfriend Fred moved to Pomona, California, about an hour's drive from West Hollywood, to study at the Claremont School of Theology.

He brought Matt, 23 years old -- a scandalous age difference!

Plus Matt was an ultra-elitist graduate of the Andover Academy and Harvard University.

Plus he gossiped about everybody and everything, providing the weird voices.

Then Beau told his "Uncle," wink wink, "Be sure that yo' get mah new underweah in extra-extra-extra lahge."

In the bedroom...well, never mind.

I don't know what Fred saw in him, except that he was rather cute and had a Bratwurst beneath the belt.

In 1995, Fred took a job in Fresno, about three hours away from San Francisco.

"This town is so drearyo!" Matt often said. "And you're living in the heart of gay Heaven, Paradis."

In retrospect, I should have seen it coming.

I picked up Matt and his backpack at Castro Street Station and took him to Orphan Andy's for a hamburger. He was 32 years old, no longer a Cute Young Thing, but quite buffed from hours at the gym.

"Fred and I are kaput! Over! I caught him having sex with a kid in the youth group. I'm all for sharing, but en cachette? And I'm pretty sure the kid is underaged!"

"Well, you should at least hear his side of the story."

"No, I've had it. J'ai trop mangé! This isn't the first time, mind you, but I've put up with it because of my misguided sense of loyalty. But no more."

We returned to my cramped third-floor walk-up, over a hardware store, which he criticized as "impossibly bourgeois" and "a downscale dump," and spent the night.

It was my first time with Matt without Fred being there. He still...well, never mind.

This story is too risque to continue You can read the rest, and see the nude photos, on Tales of West Hollywood.

If you watch the Disney Channel, you've probably seen the 14-year old child star Davis Cleveland around.

The Houston native started out modeling and doing television commercials, then moved to Los Angeles at age 6. He guest starred on several Disney Channel teencoms, including Hannah Montana and Zeke and Luther, before being cast as Flynn Jones, crazy little brother of the teenage dancer CeCe on Shake It Up (2010-2013).

More recently Davis has starred in Rufus (2016), about a boy whose pet dog turns into a boy played by the immeasurably feminine Jace Norman of Henry Danger. The sequel, Rufus 2, will appear in 2017.

Also in 2017, presumably around Halloween, we'll see him (or hear him anyway) in the animated comedy BOO (Bureau of Otherworldly Operations, as a child version of Seth Rogan's character.

In his free time, Davis enjoys rollerblading, martial arts, video games, charity work, and social media.

Kids today figure "it" out at an early age, so you're probably wondering, has Davis said anything one way or another?

Not that I can find online, but I love the fact that he likes hanging out with the the big boys.

Like Kenton Duty (Gunther on Shake It Up).

And Adam Irigoyan, Deuce Martinez on Shake It Up.

The caption to this instagram photo reads "Hold me closer, young Tony Danza."

I find it remarkable that a 14-year old would be familiar with the Elton John song, and the way the line "Hold me closer, tiny dancer" was misheard as "Tony Danza."

And that he would know who Tony Danza is...

Ok, who cares? They're hugging.

This is probably Dylan Sprouse from The Suite Life and those nude selfies. It might be Cole.

I don't know who this is, but I'd like to. Davis seems impressed.

Did he walk up to a random guy at the gym and ask, "Can I take a selfie with your bicep?"

David, my friend in San Francisco, spent the first 43 years of his life in small-town Arkansas, a conservative Baptist minister who had barely heard that gay people existed, and certainly didn't know that he was himself gay. After all, he was married. He had two children. He lived in Arkansas.

On January 6th, 1996, his 43rd birthday, he realized that he was gay. Within a week, he had his first same-sex experience, resigned from his pastoral job, moved out of the parsonage, and asked his wife for a divorce.

By June he was living in San Francisco, He got an apartment and a job, joined a gym, bought a new wardrobe, and went cruising.

After 43 years in the wilderness of the Straight World, unwilling to touch, look at, or even fantasize about the masculine, he wanted to make up for lost time by experiencing masculine beauty at least once a day, preferably twice.

Hooking up with two new guys every day, even in Gay Heaven, is a herculean task. You have to be always "on," looking constantly, at work, at the gym, on the Muni. You have to walk down different streets, go to different bars and restaurants, so you don't run into the same crowd all the time. And you can't be picky: you have to be available to every man of legal age, whether he's old, young, short, tall, thin, or fat.

Later, the logistical problems of hooking up so often made him revise his goal to one a day. Still during the last twenty years he's probably been with around 5,000 guys.

Here are his 20 most memorable hookups, one-night stands, and public sexual encounters.

1, The Bible Boy of Castro Street. In June 1996, shortly after we met, David shocked me by picking up a street preacher.

2. Brad Pitt. In August 1996, David and I had a four-way with Corbin the Gym Rat and Brad Pitt.

3. The Homeless Kid. In September 1996, David shocked me again by actually talking to a panhandler. And inviting him over for dinner.

4. Santa Claus. David wasn't usually into the bear type, but he made an exception for Santa Claus, aka Bearnard, in December 1996.

5. The Straight Boy at the Garlic Festival. David even cruised in the Straight World. It paid off when we went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in July 1997.

6. The Car Wash Boy. David was visiting a friend in Oakland, and they passed one of those buffed college guys who advertise car washes by taking their shirts of.

7. The Abductee. Alien abductions were all the rage in the 1990s, so what better place to cruise than at a support group for abductees? Of course, David had to have his own abduction story....

8. The Brothers. David was quite a twink magnet, but he didn't discriminate. One summer he hooked up with two tourist brothers from Slovakia, both in their 40s, while they were traveling with their wives.

9. Kevin's Old Apartment. In March 2003, I flew out to San Francisco for a visit, and David and I tried to track down my ex-boyfriend, Kevin the Vampire. We hooked up with the guy currently living in his apartment after a conversation of less than five minutes.

10. The Hitchhiker. In August 2003, David came to visit me in Florida, and we drove down to Key West for the weekend. On the way we picked up a teenage hitchhiker, on the way to his freshman year at Florida International University.

The full list, with nude photos and sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

The Netflix blurb of The Ice Storm (1997) said something about "hidden secrets coming out during Thanksgiving," and the director was Ang Lee of Brokeback Mountain, so I ordered it, expecting gay chararacters.

It's the 1970s, see? We know because the tv is always in the background, showing us Richard Nixon, MASH, Room 222, The Green Hornet, Time Tunnel, and Divorce Court.

And there are these rich white heterosexual couples in New Canaan, Connecticut (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Henry Czerny, Jamey Sheridan, Kate Burton). I can't tell them apart, but it doesn't matter: they're all identical in every way. They drink, abuse prescription drugs, shoplift, argue, and have sex with random people, whether they like them or not.

The sex is dreadful. They insult each other, they feel guilty and start crying, or they get bored and leave halfway through.

They go to a key party, where the husbands put their car keys in a bowl, and each wife picks one of the sets at random and has to go home with whoever it belongs to. Grim, set-faces, deer-in-headlights stares. No one wants to do it, but they feel they must to be accepted in Stepford...um, I mean New Canaan.

Somehow they have time for Thanksgiving dinner before going back to the booze, sex, and angst.

There are also teenage kids around. I don't know which belongs to which family, but at least I can tell them apart -- there's Frodo, Spiderman, Wednesday Addams, and Kid Brother (Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Adam Hann-Byrd), plus a couple in New York.

They're identical to their parents in every way. They drink, use prescription drugs, shoplift, blow things up, listen to their parents argue, and obsessively try to have sex. They never actually get sex -- one of them starts screaming, or passes out, or a parent discovers them and erupts in hypocritical rage. But one senses that, if they did have sex, it would be horrible.

Spiderman sort-of narrates with over-intellectual, absurdly pretentious voiceovers:

"Your family is the void you emerge from, and the place you return to when you die. And that's the paradox: The closer you are drawn back in, the deeper into the void you go."

Read that over for a moment. It's not a paradox at all. "The closer you are drawn into the [void that is your family], the deeper into the [void that is your family] you go."

And there's an ice storm. The streets are a mess, so stay inside. Wouldn't you know it, this is the exact time that they all decide to rush out of the house in a huff, drive drunk, get on a train, and walk down the ice-encrusted road by the ocean, contemplating suicide.

You know someone is going to die. Actually,by this point, you're hoping they all die, and get some relief from their horrible lives.

Not a lot of gay interest. A little beefcake: some chests of random guys who are trying to have sex.

No gay characters, subtexts, or references, except for a "fag" yelled at a kid who can't catch a football.

But this is the most hetero-phobic film I've ever seen. Heterosexuals lead desperate, tragic lives, and their sexual practices are utterly unfulfilling.

The Ice Storm was based on a novel by Rick Moody (apt name!)

Spartacus (111-71 BC) was a gladiator who led a slave revolution that threatened the Roman Republic. Although there's no evidence that he was fighting against slavery as an institution, he's been portrayed as a freedom fighter ever since.

And as a muscleman on a par with Hercules.

Here are the top screen hunks who put their biceps to work at Spartacus.

1. Mario Ausonia played Spartaco in a 1913 Italian silent version.

2. Kirk Douglas became the iconic Spartacus in the 1960 version, with Sir Laurence Olivier as Crassus, and the famous "oysters/snails" gay reference.

3. John Heston (Giovanni di Benedetto) starred in the peplum Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators (1964).

4. In 1970, the British spoof Up Pompeii! had an episode with a slave uprising led by Spartacus (Shaun Curry, not shown).

5. Goran Visnijic played a rather less than buffed version in a 2004 tv movie.

More after the break.

6. Carlos Acosta performed in Spartacus: The Ballet (1956) with the Bolshoi in 2006. Dancing gladiators.

7. But Vlad Vasiliev was most famous for the role, beginning in 1977.

8. In the Starz network version (2010-2013), Andy Whitfield played Spartacus in the first season, before tragic death from cancer.

9. After a "prequel" season, Liam McIntyre.took over the role.

10. Most recently, Daniel Roche played Spartacus in a school play in the British sitcom Outnumbered (2014).

See also: An Interview with Spartacus

Plains, January 2017

The day after I got back from Christmas in Indianapolis, a new guy showed up on Grindr, 200 feet away!

I've met about 20 of the 100 or so people living in this apartment complex, and half of them are LGBT. Unfortunately, none of them have become friends.
1-4. Two lesbian couples.
5-6. A standoffish gay couple
7. A sleazy bisexual fetishist
8-9. A couple of downlow guys with girlfriends
10. Jimmy who I had 1 date with
11. A college guy who just contacts me for "booty calls."

So I was thrilled to see a new guy.

It was a blank profile, suggesting someone who is heavily closeted, or too new to have uploaded a photo yet. But I didn't care -- 200 feet is 200 feet.

He told me that his name was Abel (English pronunciation, not Spanish). He had just moved out of his parents' house into his own apartment, with two straight roommates. He was a student at the university and a delivery driver for a pizza place.

A college boy! Even better.

So I invited him over to "say hello."

Here's what I wish he looked like.

No such luck. So young looking that I had to card him (19 years old). Tall and skinny, with weird braided hair, a nose ring, dangling earrings, an ultra feminine swish, a high-pitched girly voice, and a weird dazed look. Wearing white pants and a pink button-down shirt. Smelled of marijuana.

We chatted. He looked especially nervous, like he was ready to bolt.

Maybe Abel was thinking the same thing I was: not my type, but 200 feet away!

Finally he said "Could we go in the bedroom?"

Oh well, 200 feet is 200 feet.

The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

There were three Jacoby boys in Hollywood during the Boomer generation, half-brothers (plus their two sisters).

1. Scott (born in 1956) was the serious actor, specializing in weird, quirky movies, such as Bad Ronald (1974), in which a boy hides in the crawlspaces of his house after his mother dies and terrorizes the new family that moves in (including the hunky Ted Eccles), or The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), in which a handicapped boy befriends a girl (Jodie Foster) who lives all by herself after her father's death.

He played a teenager who discovers that his father is gay in That Certain Summer (1973). Hal Holbrook played his father, and Martin Sheen his father's lover.

In spite of the quirkiness, there was plenty of room for shirtless and underwear shots.

His characters were always heterosexual, but the "quirky romance" still had queer resonances that appealed to gay teens.

Scott still acts occasionally, and he owns a recording studio in Hollywood.

2. Billy born in 1969, was the hunk. After a few horror films, he played girl-crazy teenagers who don't seem to own shirts in Just One of the Guys (1985) and Party Camp (1987). His characters were heterosexual, too, but -- odd for 1980s teen movies -- not homophobic.

He also played Blanche's grandson on The Golden Girls.

Billy was probably best known for his role as wannabe thug Mikey, who wore a leather jacket and skin-tight jeans on the tv series Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990-1993).

Today, as Billy Jayne, he is well-known in the business as a commercial director.

3. The baby of the family, Bobby (born in 1973), was the wise-guy. He started out in tear-jerker movies of the week, then moved into thrillers like Tremors (1990) and Night of the Demons 2 (1994). He was also busy in television, starring on Knots Landing (1980-85) and, as a young adult, on MTV's Undressed (2000-2001). Not a lot of beefcake shots, except on Undressed, which apparently existed solely to film attractive young people in their underwear.

Today, as Robert Jayne, he works as a professional gambler, specializing in black jack.

Of all the hundreds of coming out stories I've heard, David's is the most remarkable. A conservative Baptist minister in small-town Arkansas, married with children, figuring it out on his 43rd birthday, with not a hint before!

Fort Smith

Dave was born on January 6th, 1953 (Three Kings' Day) in Memphis, Tennessee. When he was five years old, his family moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas. He had an idyllic childhood, swimming in Creekmore Park, buying comic books at Coleman Drugs, having sleepovers with his friends from Sunnymead Elementary School..

"Sleepovers? Lots of opportunities for seeing guys in their underwear, cuddling with them, maybe some groping?"

"Not that I remember."

In high school he started dating girls, but prided himself on treating them "like a gentleman," rejecting even a good-night kiss. He often double-dated with his best friend, Steve.

"I'll bet you couldn't wait to drop the girls off so you and Steve could..."

"Not that I remember."

Fayetteville

At the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville from 1971 to 1975, Dave majored in Classical Studies and became competent in Latin, Greek, and German. He first became aware of same-sex desire when he translated Virgil's Eclogue 2:

Corydon the Shepherd was in love with beautiful Alexis.

How could Corydon be in love with Alexis, when they were both boys?

The professor explained that the ancient Romans sometimes practiced "the unnatural vice."

"A little frisson of recognition?" I ask.

"Nope. I don't remember feeling any strong emotion about it. It was just something weird that the ancients did."

The rest of the story is too explicit for Boomer Beefcake and Bonding. You can read it on Tales of West Hollywood.

Most people know Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) from The Scream (1893), the expressionistic portrait of an agonized figure under an orange sky. When I was in West Hollywood, you could get Scream t-shirts, masks, and blow-up dolls.

But Munch had a long career in Paris of the Belle Epoque, Berlin, and Kristiania (now Oslo). He experimented with many styles, and produced a huge opus.

Including many male nudes.

Men in the Sea (1908).

He painted female nudes, too, but the homoerotic power behind his nude male groups is undeniable.

Men in a Swimming Pool (1923)

Munch never married or established any long-term relationship that we know of, and was plagued by alcoholism and mental illness throughout his life. A few months after completing his monumental "Ages of Man" (1907-08), which depicts 12 naked men on the beach, he attempted suicide and was admitted to a "nerve clinic."

Sounds like a tortured, closeted gay man of the era of Krafft-Ebing and Hirschfeld.

Adults think that gayness is something that "happens" to you late in life, after a childhood of girls mooning over teen idols and boys grinning at the girl next door. But we know that they are wrong. In every kindergarten classroom, in every preschool classroom, there are some boys who gaze at girls, and some boys who gaze at boys.

But what are they looking at? Is their desire erotic, romantic, or something else entirely, something that we have forgotten as adults? When gay boys watched Blue's Clues (1996-2006), did they think of Steve Burns as a cool big brother, or as a hot fantasy boyfriend with killer biceps?

Or Donovan Patton, who took over for Steve in later seasons?

When they watched Barney and Friends (1992-2010), did they want to hug and kiss Michael (Brian Eppes), or did physical intimacy never enter their minds?

When I was three or four years old, there wasn't a lot of toddler tv. On Saturday morning I probably watched what the older kids watched: The Alvin Show, Tennessee Tuxedo, Underdog, Beany and Cecil. On weekday mornings I probably watched Romper Room, with a female host, and Captain Kangaroo,with an elderly male host. And in the early evening, there was probably Yogi Bearand The Flintstones.

I was drawn to the homodomesticity (same-sex partners living together) and to the same-sex rescues. But did I think anyone was hot?
I have very vague memories of liking The Magical Land of Allakazam (1960-64), a live action series featuring a magician (Mark Wilson actually one of the most renowned magicians of the twentieth century), his wife, and a clown. There was no homodomesticity, no rescuing. In fact, it was somewhat heterosexist, Wilson constantly referring to his "lovely assistant."

I remember not liking the magic tricks. You could see lots better on any tv cartoon.

But Mark Wilson was cute.

See also: Burr Tillstrom, the gay puppeteer behind Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

When I was a kid, I had a toy called "The Visible Man." It was a model of a man with no skin. You had to assemble the skeleton and put all of the organs in place (sadly, no penis), I guess to teach you anatomy.

During the 1970s, actor John Burstein got the idea of becoming a human "Visible Man." He painted muscles and organs onto a leotard, and as Slim Goodbody, set out to teach kids about anatomy.

As you can see, the effect was rather disgusting, and the guy had no physique. But at least he sported a rather noticeable bulge.

There are actually several different suits, with different organs and muscles on display.

Slim Goodbody struck a nerve with parents looking for educational programming, and soon he was appearing on the morning kidvid Captain Kangaroo twice a week.

He branched out from anatomy to nutrition, exercise, and personal hygiene, and eventually to such hot topics as bullying and environmentalism.

In 1980 he got his own PBS series, Inside Story. Plus he appeared in a series of books and educational films.

Slim became so busy that, for seven years, there were two of him. While John Burstein concentrated on the tv series, actor and mime Bill Bowers played Slim Goodbody at schools, hospitals, and public events.

Burstein still performs as Slim Goodbody all over the United States and Canada.

Though outrageously fey in his Slim persona, Burstein is straight. Bowers is gay.

Plains, January 2017

First day of the semester. A day of anticipation and dread. Will my new classes be a pleasure or a pain? Which students will be eager to participate? Which will be taciturn?

But today I'm feeling a little off: I got no sleep last night, and somehow I pulled a muscle doing bicep curls, of all things.

Plus I'm teaching an overload this semester, so it's class nonstop all morning, with no breaks. I have to dash out to get lunch and eat it in my office during my office hours.

It's exactly noon, and very crowded at the Student Union Food Court. I get into the line at the Grille for my regular lunch of chicken, vegetables, and a fountain drink.

The line moves sideways, cafeteria-style. The guy next to me turns and smiles.

"It's my first time here. Is it any good?"

He's a student, taller than me and rather stocky, wearing a brown sweater and jeans, but no coat. Reddish-brown hair, short reddish-brown beard, blue eyes. Reminds me of Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star, my friend in West Hollywood..

"Sure. I eat here almost every day. The grilled chicken and brown rice is pretty healthy."

"I'm Wagner[not his real name]. I just started in the graduate school."

This is weird. You don't speak in line except to complain about the weather, and you certainly don't introduce yourself to someone you'll be standing next to for only about 30 seconds. You stare at the food, or look at your cell phone.

The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

One of the joys of summer is the car wash fundraiser. Check your local event calendar, and you'll find one or two per week: a club, class, team, or church group is raising money by washing cars.

The attraction, of course, is that they're washing with their shirts off, allowing you to gawk at their spectacular physiques.

They know it. They plan on it. It's the one time in the Straight World where everyone acknowledges the existence of same sex desire.

Well, not really. Everyone is supposed to pretend that it's all about the cars.

A lot of the car wash fundraisers feature women instead of men, so you have to be careful. Is it a male team or club? Is it being advertised by men? Especially men who wrap the signs around their waists, implying that they are naked.

You also have to worry about the age of the guys. They are typically in high school or college, but occasionally younger groups host car washes. No point in gawking at a group of 12 year olds.

If you're lucky, they'll be even older than college age.

I stay away from car washes with both male and female participants. They invariably try to steer male drivers toward the females, and female drivers toward the male. If you insist on the "male" group, they act as if they have never heard of anything so outrageous.

And what's up with the car washers who leave their shirts on? I understand that when you're out in the sun for hours, you can get burnt, but that's what sunscreen is for.

You're not allowed to just stand and watch the workers. That would make the real reason for the car wash fundraisers too obvious.

But nobody says you can't bring your car in to be washed several times.

See also: The Nude Car Wash

In case you haven't read the originals Series of Unfortunate Events, the lachrymose Lemony Snicket narrates the adventures of the three newly-orphaned Baudelaire children, 14-year old Violet, 12-year old Klaus, and 1-year old Sunny (Malina Weissman, Louis Hynes, Presley Smith), as they encounter one horribly inappropriate guardian after another.

At first the Big Bad is thespian Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), whose goal is purely mercenary -- getting his hands on their vast fortune -- but gradually, through a series of 13 books (1999-2006), a vast conspiracy is revealed, with battling secret societies, complex motivations, and strange back stories.

The new Netflix adaption is far superior to the 2004 film version, and in some ways better than the original books themselves.

1. The books keep annoying me with anachronisms. They feel like they are set in the 1930s, but suddenly there's a reference to "a computer store." In the tv series, the costumes and sets are big, brash, glittering, and unquestionably 1930s. There are still a few anachronistic references to "the internet" and "streaming media," but you can take them as jokes.

2. The books became tedious with so many horrible things happening to the children page after page after page, with no relief. In the tv series, adults have a far greater role. Even the parents are still alive.

(Luke Camilleri, left, plays a secret society agent who is monitoring the children while trying not to interfere with the events).

This serves a practical purpose, of course -- child actors can't work many hours. But it also dilutes the "unfortunate events," making them more palatable.

3. The books reveal the secret societies so gradually that it becomes tedious. In the series, they're present from the start.

4. The tv series is wonderfully inclusive, with black and Indian actors playing pivotal roles.

5. Count Olaf's henchmen are humanized, not figures of pure evil, as in the books. The Hook-Handed Man, played by comedian Usman Ally (right), seems actually rather nice.

6. The intensely annoying heterosexism of the books has been toned down. Sure, heterosexual romances abound, and when someone mentions "relationship," it always means men and women together, but at least there are a few characters around who aren't boy-girl romance-obsessed. When Count Olaf is ruminating about marrying Violet to get his hands on her money, the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender (real name: Orlando) complains that marriage is a patriarchal system that constrains personal liberty...

But that Orlando (Matty Cardarpole in bad drag): transphobia at its worst, or rather fear of androgyny, designed to make us queasy and uncomfortable. Can't go around breaking gender norms!

Montreal, August ____.

Tommy was 22 years old, tall and very slim with short black hair, a smooth chest, and nicely developed legs. He was a political science major at Ohio State University, on the debate team and the swim team, visiting Montreal for the International Political Science Association conference..

This was his first professional conference, his first time in Canada, and his first time staying in a gleaming multi-story hotel!

Tommy was gay but not out. He had never been in a gay bar or bathhouse. He had only been with a few guys. But he fantasized -- a lot.

He liked older guys, in their 40s and 50s. Uniforms of all sorts: cops, firemen, priests. Businesmen. Professors. Politicians. And especially bodybuilders. Maybe not scary-massive, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but big enough to be impressively masculine, to take charge.

He had never told anyone, but his favorite fantasy involved his middle-aged but still muscular political science professor in his office, with people walking by in the hallway a few feet away.

That afternoon Tommy was on his way to the lobby to go to a session on "Race, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Coalition Building." Wearing a suit, because he mistakenly believed that everyone would be wearing suits, and he brought no other clothes.

12th Floor: Tommy got on and pushed "Mezzanine."

5th Floor, the floor with the health club and pool: the elevator doors opened, and his Fantasy Guy got in!

Tommy froze in place, staring open-jawed. It was like a dream!

In his 40s or 50s, tall, broad-shoulder, thick hard biceps, He was wearing a blue t-shirt, damp with sweat, that displayed his massive hairy chest.

Fantasy Guy smiled as he brushed past Tommy to push the button for the 15th floor.

The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood

Cesar's Hookup with Desi Arnaz Jr. and Dean Paul Martin

Jerry O'Connell's Secret Identity

Cruised by a Waiter at a Crazy Retro Restaurant

The Gay Couple of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

Tim Matheson

Spring 1997: How Matt Started Renting Himself Out

Davis Cleveland Hangs Out with the Big Boys

David's Top 20 Hookups and One-Night Stands

The Ice Storm: The Most Hetero-Phobic Movie Ever

The Top 10 Hunks of "Spartacus"

Topped by the Twink Next Door

The Jacoby Boys

David's First Sexual Experience, at a Gas Station in Arkansas

Edvard Munch's Male Nudes

Toddler TV

Slim Goodbody

The Music Major's Top Turn-On

Summertime Car Washes

The Netflix Unfortunate Events Series: Transphobic as Ever

A Public Encounter in an Elevator