NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

Norfolk, July 2000

Tarik was 32 years old, working as a dietician in a hospital and cruising for older white guys, preferably cops.

Norfolk was a rough town, and rather homophobic, so you had to be careful: a lot of the cops would let you go down on them, then rob you or beat you up. But there weren't a lot of gay venues other than the bars: he went to the MCC, the gay church, and wrote for Our Own Community Press, the local gay newspaper.

It was at the MCC that he met Mitchy: in his 50s, short, thin, greying, a bit on the femme side (I have an image of Leslie Jordan), and something of a dollar-dropper (trying to attract guys with an ostentatious display of wealth). Three minutes into the conversation, he had mentioned that he lived in Linkhorn, the wealthiest neighborhood in Virginia Beach, and that he owned a Rembrandt. All in a thick Tidewater accent: "Hello theah, deah. Ahm'm from Linhohn. Ah own a pictuah by Rembrandt."

Maybe because he grew up poor and a member of the black-supremacist Nation of Islam, Tarik always found topping rich white guys very erotic, so he accepted Mitchy's invitation to "come ovah."

Not a great hookup. A 45 minute drive, and turns out that Mitchy wasn't into anal; he was an oral top, and not even hung. Plus his house was very cold, the Rembrandt was of a woman, there was another picture of a naked woman in the bedroom, he had torch songs playing constantly, and he was a bit racist: "Would you lakh to heah something else? I know y'all lakh rap..."

But Tarik was not used to being pursued, so when Mitchy called two nights later and asked "Why don't yah come ovah?", he agreed.

More boring oral sex while a naked woman looked down on them and torch songs played, and it was so cold that they had to stay under the covers.

Three nights later "Why don't yah cove ovah for dinnah?"

Mitchy served pork chops! Tarik didn't belong to the Nation of Islam anymore, but he still avoided pork. He filled up on mashed potatoes and green beans, and then there was more oral sex right at the dining room table, before dessert.

And Mitchy insisted that he spend the night.

This was turning into a full-fledged relationship, except Mitchy never wanted to go out. Apparently he was too closeted to go to the bars, and the day they met was the only time he attended the MCC. He looked up in online chatrooms, and went out to First Landing State Park, the outdoor cruising area in Virginia Beach.

Great, an unwanted boyfriend who wasn't into anal, who wasn't hung and who was in the closet!

Tarik accepted "Why don't yah come ovah?" invitations two or three more times before getting the gumption to say "No. Sorry, I don't feel like it tonight."

"But deah, I'm horney. I have needs."

It was always about Mitchy's needs, wasn't it? "Sorry, I don't feel like it."

"But deah, if you won't come ovah, I'll have to go to the park to meet a fella."

"Do what you want. I'm not coming over." Tarik hung up on him.

The next day when he went to the office of Our Own Community press, they were talking about a newspaper article. "Does anyone know if he was gay? Was it really a bashing incident?"

Mitchy's housekeeper found him dead in his bedroom. He had been beaten and strangled. Nothing was taken. The police were baffled, but Tarik figured that he had gone out cruising and propositioned the wrong guy.

Tarik felt guilty, of course. If he hadn't said "no" that night. But Mitchy made the decision to pick up rough trade. He made the decision to stay in the closet.

A few weeks later, Tarik was lying in bed, just dozing off, when the phone rang.

"Hello, deah. Why don't yah come ovah?"

A prank call? But Tarik had told only a few people about his hookup/dates, and no one about Mitch's signature phrase or thick Tidewater accent.

Mitchy still pestering him for a hookup from beyond the grave?

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

There were many variations of the Tarzan mythos during the middle years of the 20th century, but one of the most fondly remembered by the first generation of Baby Boomers was Wild Boy, Prince of the Jungle.

He had a short run, appearing in 8 issues of a Ziff-Davis series (1950-1952), which oddly starts with 10. Then St. John took over the title, renamed it Wild Boy of the Congo, and published 6 issues (#9-#15), in 1953. That's it.

But what he lacked in longevity, Wild Boy made up for in gay potential.

His origin story: the young American boy David Clyde goes to the Congo with his uncle, who hires evil native to kill him. He escape and grows up in the jungle, but speaks a stilted "me, Tarzan" patois.

He has two animal companions, a panther (Daro) and a monkey (Kimba), and a native boyfriend, Keeto (who speaks the same patois.)

Artists vary in their interpretation of Wild Boy: should he be a little kid or nearly an adult? And just how feminine should his wavy hair, lipstick, and eye liner get?

But he's definitely a gay icon. He displays no interest in women, but he rescues and hugs Keeto every five minutes.

The comics are hilarious today for their stereotypes of the white Western colonial master and the "childlike" natives.

Hint: the good ones wear Western-style clothes, and the bad ones wear loincloths.

Here he uses the old chestnut "I will make the sun disappear!" to avoid execution by an evil tribe. How corny can you get?

But at least he's holding hands with Keeto.

While looking up Charlie Gillespie, the current uber-hot it-boy, I found a reference to 2nd Generation (2018), a 6-episode Canadian tv series:'

A coming of age story set in today's harsh melting pot society, trying to draw the line between racism, morals, love, friendship, and secrets. Shouldn't there be several lines? Between, like love and friendship, or morals and love, or racism and secrets?

The episode guide on IMD was just as semi-literate and clichéd:

Ticoon's new found popularity has him dealing with some unwanted attention from a new friend in sheep's clothing, something he could of never have imagined but is very accepting of.

Ok, it's wolf in sheep's clothing; the cliché doesn't work with "friend."
Could of never have imagined? Try "could never have imagined."
The something he is "very accepting of" must be the "unwanted attention," but how can you be accepting of something unwanted?

As Ticoon's, Virginia's and Brody's relationship blossoms so does the money, catching the eyes of the authorities, as well as straining the already tender relationship with Everett

Does money blossom?
A tender relationship can't get strained.

But it's on Amazon Prime for free, it stars Charlie Gillespie, and Ticoon looks hot, so I watched the first episode.

Holy bait and switch, Batman. This guy isn't Ticoon, Brody, Virginia, or Everett. He's an extra used to sell the show.

This is Ticoon Kim (pronounced as in tycoon), played by an actor named Ticoon Kim. Nepotism much?

In Act 1, Ticoon's father thinks that he needs "more culture," so he signs him up for an inner-city basketball team.

Wait -- that's culture? How about a class in Chinese calligraphy? Or Korean poetry? Or Shakespeare, depending on what culture you're going for. Sports aren't culture.

Ticoonis the only non-Jamaic an, the only person under 6'5", and the only person under 28 years old on the team, but his teammates are still completely accepting. One of the 28-year old 6'5" women even offers to have sex with him: "Me gonna break off yo' dick," she promises.

But all of those characters vanish forever in Act 2, when Ticoon goes to school. There the 5-year old is bullied by his 28-year old, 6'5" classmates. David (Adam Murciano) makes lots of racist jokes, but the chief bully happens to be Asian: Will (Keanu Lee Nunes, left)

Then Brody (Charlie Gillespie), a long-haired androgynous type, intervenes. So the outcasts are going to bond?

Even more oddly, Brody's sister appears to be dating the bully Will. She must be a holdover from 1980s nerd movies, where the It-Girl is dating an obnoxious jock with no redeeming qualities, just so she can be won over by the sexual prowess of the nerd.

Ticoon has two friends his own age, Arnold (Matthew Edmonson) or Jacob (David Knoll), I'm not sure which, and Sonny (Eshaan Buwadwal). They get together later to discuss "pussy." For instance, Ticoon's crush is "Justin pussy," meaning that she'll only date Justin Timberlake or Justin Bieber (rather a small number of options).

But they're also interested in why Brody intervened in the bullying. No way anybody is actually nice. And what if they become friends? Ticoon will automatically become "pussy fam.," which sounds like a good thing. Apparently Brody isn't an outcast after all; he's the coolest guy in school. When he says "What up," Sonny, overwhelmed by his coolness, exclaims, "Yo, he just said 'What up' to us! Hey, yo, Big B, can I get a BJ?"

Arnold/Jacob points out that BJ means "Blow Job."

Brody's courtship of Ticoon is stunningly homoerotic, from confessions of "I like you" to hands on shoulders to request to meet in the bathroom. So obviously homoerotic that I'm sure it's canon: they're going to be a gay couple.

But it doesn't work out that way. Fast-forwarding through the rest of the series, which seems to be about a basketball team and a marijuana selling business (but it's legal in Canada, yo), I see a lot of scenes of Ticoon dating, and a lot of scenes of his two friends discussing pussy. They get girlfriends, too, yo. Brody and Ticoon are never alone in any scene ever again.

Another bait and switch.

Dreadful.

Not to mention the extremely annoying pseudo-rap talk. Nobody talks like that, yo. And the profanity! I don't mind an occasional "fuck," but every third word? And every fourth word is "pussy."

Surely they meant cats.

My grade: F---.

I'm not going to let the 2nd Generation debacle dissuade me from researching Charlie Gillespie. His Sperman-cape photo was mega-hot, and I'm pretty sure his character was gay or gay-coded.

Any other beefcake photos?
Any other gay roles?
Gay in real life?

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any biography at all, not even a single line, and every time I search for a shirtless photo, Google Images tries to push a photo of someone else. Like Austin Mahone.

Charles Melton of Riverdale

Or someone named Gronkowski who I've never heard of.

Social media has proven fruitless. There are over 100 Charlie Gillespie profiles on Facebook, most elderly, some women, over 20 Charlie Gillespie instagram pages, and over 15 Charlie Gillespie twitter accounts. You'd think that the guy with 7,500 followers would be the right one,but no, that's an airplane pilot.

Do you think this might be him? It's a frame capture from a video uploaded to one of the Charlie Gillespie instagram pages.

How about this guy, sticking his tongue out at a girl? (Obviously his girlfriend: they appear arm-in-arm, hugging, or groping each other n 3,543 other photos on the page.)

Well, at least I can go through his film credits, to see if there are any gay roles.

1. Charlie played himself in the documentary Bienvenue chez nous - La gang à Richibouctou Village (2014), about a New Brunswick village (where they speak English) welcoming a film crew.

2. The film is La gang des hors-la-loi (The Outlaw League, 2014), a sort of French Canadian Bad News Bears, where the kids have names like Shogun, Charlemagne, and Pic-pic.

3. In 2015, Charlie appeared as a guest host on Galala, "un concours télévisé de jeunes talents qui s'adresse aux 5 à 15 ans." They sought out local talent in a different city each week: Edmonton, Saskatoon, St. Boniface, Halifax. Charlie's town was Dieppe, New Brunswick.

I don't understand why a French-language tv program is auditioning talent in English speaking towns.

4. Fast forward two years to July 2017. Charlie has a two-episode story arc on Degrassi: Next Class, a teen soap about students in a fictional Toronto high school. He plays Oliver, hospital roommate of gay kid Tristan (Lyle Lettau). But Oliver is straight.

Only two years ago, and Charlie looks a little chunky. That might explain the lack of beefcake photos.

5. Another guest shot, on a November 2017 episode of The Next Step, about a teen dance troup in Toronto. Charlie plays Marcus, a member of the math team who becomes captain when Zara leaves.

6. Next comes the 6 horrible episodes of 2nd Generation (2018), which required long hair for the androgynous effect. I think his character is gay-coded,but I can't be sure; that would require watching the tv series.

7. Speed Kills (2018) starred John Travolta as an aging speedboat racer (based on real-life speedboat champion Don Aronoff). Charlie played his son, Andrew. Since Travolta is 65 years old, his son must be in his 30s.

8. A two-episode story in October 2018 on the new Charmed: he plays a college student who is dating Maggie until she dumps him. When he's possessed by a demon, she saves him, but they still don't get back together. There's a lot of kissing going on.

9. In January 2019, he appeared in the 6-episode miniseries I Am the Night, something about the Black Dahlia murder case in modern L.A. Charlie appears only in the pilot as "Surfer Hank." You can probably figure out what he's doing.

I'm sorry I started this research. Not many beefcake photos, not gay in real life (if the tongue-wagger is the right Charlie), only one gay-coded role.

And I had such high hopes. The 2nd Generation bait-and-switch strikes again.

See also: 2nd Generation: the Worst TV Series I Have Ever Seen

Three's Company (1977-84) premiered at the height of the disco era, when sex was on everyone's mind, so of course it was about people having sex. Or, rather, about people thinking that other people were having sex:

Janet eavesdrops on Jack, the cooking student, talking to a girl in the kitchen. "Ok, take it out, slowly...that's it...careful...work your hands more..."

They're having sex right on the kitchen table! Disgusting! Outraged, Janet bursts through the door, to find Jack and his classmate...cooking.

No one actually had sex at any time during the eight year run, not even long-married apartment complex managers, Mr. and Mrs. Roper: joke after joke branded him impotent. Nor, when they left, self-designated ladies' man Ralph Furley (Don Knotts of The Andy Griffith Show).

Certainly not the two single girls who occupied the apartment near the beach in Santa Monica: plain-jane Janet (Joyce DeWitt, right, next-door neighbor to one of my friends in West Hollywood) and dumb-blond Chrissy (Suzanne Somers, left, who was eventually replaced by two other blondes).

Or their roommate, Jack Tripper (John Ritter, who would later star on Eight Simple Rules with Martin Spanjers).

Wait -- a guy with two girls? Mr. Roper/Mr. Furley is horrified. This is the 1970s -- it's impossible for a man and a woman to be alone together without sex happening. Jack can't live here!

Jack hits on a novel solution: he'll pretend to be gay! Whenever Mr. Roper or Mr. Furley are around, he'll sashay about, limp-wristed and lisping, and maybe bat his eyes at them. He'll have to hide his girlfriends, of course, or explain them as drag queens.

What could possibly go wrong?

Not much. Most episodes ignored the pretending-to-be-gay angle in favor of "thinking someone is having sex" gags and heartwarming sitcom antics:
The roommates get a new puppy.
They buy Mr. Roper's car.
Jack and Chrissy take over Janet's babysitting job.
Janet has two concert tickets, and can only invite one of the roommates.

Jack's gay persona was a negative stereotype, no gay characters ever appeared, and at the end of the series, when Jack plans to get married to a woman, he explains to the landlord that he's been "cured." The writers had apparently never met a real gay person. But still, there was a lot for gay kids to like on Three's Company.

1. In the fall of 1977, Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign was in full force and our preacher had just discovered gay people, so all I heard about gay people was: subhuman monsters, bogeymen who lived only to seduce and destroy. It was remarkable that anyone would pretend to be such a being, for any reason.

2. Or that a landlord would rent such a being an apartment.

3. Or that others would willingly flirt with the guilt by association. Even horndog neighbor Larry (Richard Kline) had no qualms about people thinking that he wa friends with a gay guy.

4. Jack eventually forgot to do the limp-wristed bit, becoming a conventionally masculine pseudo-gay guy.

5. You could hear the word "gay" frequently.

6. There were frequent muscular men as guest stars, such as Steve Sandor

In 2012, Three's Company was rebooted in the stage play 3C, starring Jake Silbermann.

Marquette High School is not in Marquette, Michigan, which one would naturally assume: Father Jacques Marquette (1637-1675) was the first European to visit what is now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, but he never made it to Missouri.

It's in Chesterfield, but not Chesterfield, Virginia, which one would naturally assume. Chesterfield, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis on the St. Charles River, formed in 1988 by the merging of an unincorported area formerly occupied by the villages of Bellefontaine, Bonhomme, Hog Hollow, and Gumbo.

Leave it to Missouri to obfuscate. The school website leaves out any mention of the city or state. I only found out because when you search for Tucson, Arizona swim teams on Google Images, you get the Fort Zumwalt East High Swim Team in St. Peters, Missouri, which plays against Chesterfield.

I have a question about the one black wrestler on the Fort Zumwalt team going against the one black wrestler on the Marquette team.

In March 2019 a Marquette High School student posted an Instagram photo of herself in blackface. She claimed that it was just special effects makeup, and the school responded: "The incident did not take place on school property."

Later that month, students at Parkway Central High in Chesterfield posted a video laced wih racial slurs and threats, including chants of "slavery" and suggestions that all African-Ameicans should die. The school responded: "The students have received consequences."

Other than its obfuscating and racially suspect high schools (albeit with interesting wrestling techniques), Chesterfield is known for its gay botanist.

Faust Park (no connection to the German scientists who sold his soul to the devil) features a historic village (open March-July), a carousel, and the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, home to 2,000 butterflies of 80 species. It's part of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, founded by Henry Shaw in 1858. Admission is free on July 24th to celebrate his birthday.

Henry Shaw (1800-1889) moved from Britain to St. Louis as a young man, and became so wealthy that he was able to retire at age 40 and devote the rest of his life to his interest in botany. Aside from the Botanical Gardens, he contributed to many other Missouri institutions. He has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, along with Maya Angelou, Scott Bakula, T, S, Eliot, Vincent Price, and Tennessee Williams.

He never married; according to his biography, "he went to parties and balls occasionally,but he seemed to avoid making acquaintances among the girls; he avoided making female friends, fearful that he might fall in love."

Sure,that's one explanation for it

What's up with websites that refuse to tell you the venue's geographical location?

I found this photo labeled Northwest High School, and wanted to find out what town it was in, so I could research small town beefcake.

The school athletics website listed boys' sports (football, basketball, golf, wrestling, and something called MX).

Activities like band, choir, debate, and drama (oddly, they had pages for coaches, schedules, varsity lineup, asif they were sports teams, too).

And the various summer camps (football, wrestling, swimming, volleyball). But nothing indicating where Northwest is. How are you supposed to get there to see the games?

There are Northwest High Schools in California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and probably other states. This one is from Georgia.

No way I'm looking through them all.

The high school website had an Academic Services Directory, with information on foster care and homelessness, gifted education, GED classes, title programs, tutoring programs, and Missouri Options (for kids who are at risk of dropping out).

Aha! We're in Missouri! That narrows it down a bit.

The Community page lists partners in the community, including the Fenton Chamber of Commerce.

Ok, searching on Google Maps for high schools near Fenton, Missouri, I managed to find Northwest High School. It's a long, low, dismal looking building 15 miles from Fenton, in an unincorporated area. The nearest town is Cedar Hill, two miles away, a blip on the map, nothing there but the Big River Pizza Company, an Italian restaurant, a grocery store, and a Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

No wonder they emphasize indoor sports. Who wants to go outside into the nothingness?

The High School is just off Highway 30, on a fork between Cedar Hill Road and Local Hillsboro Road, There's a Subway across the street, and a gas station and a bank to the west.

If you go north/east on Highway 30, you will go through House Springs, High Ridge, Parksville, Murphy, Fenton, Sunset Hills, and finally reach St. Louis, 35 miles away.

If you go south/west you will go through Cedar Hill, Dittmer, Grubville, Parkway, St. Clair, and eventually Jefferson City, 100 miles away.

Sorry for the meticulous detail, but I still don't understand why none of the high school websites lists an address, or even a city and state.

Maybe they don't want anyone to watch their athletes in action.

You've probably wondered through your whole life about Bowling Green State University, the only university in the U.S. where you can get a Ph.D. in Popular Culture. I wonder about the job prospects in an academic climate where you will be ostracized for admitting that you own a television set or have heard of the X-Men.

Of course, it's not just watching tv. The most recent issue of the Journal of Popular Culture had articles on:

"The Motion Picture Trailer and Problematic Synecdoche"
"Quilts and Community in Barbara Graham's Southern Cozies"
"The Multimodal Appeal of Instagram Poetry"
"Patrick Bateman, Donald Trump, and the Hermeneutic Maelstrom"
"Authenticating Identity Claims in the Craft Beer Inudstry"

Well, what did you expect? Chemistry and physics have a specialized vocabulary, too.

But aside from the PhD. in pop culture, the biggest question of Bowling Green is, where did the name come from?

It was settled in 1832, named after Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, settled in 1778, was named after either Bowling Green, Virginia or Bowling Green, New York

Bowling Green, Virginia, founded in 1803 -- wait a minute -- was named after the plantation of founder John Thomas Hoomes.

Bowling Green, New York is a park built in Dutch New Amsterdam in 1733 for the purpose of outdoor bowling.

Bowling Green, Ohio is a typical college town with a depressed downtown area and a lot of brewpubs and pizza places, but only one bowling alley. It's known for the Black Swamp Arts Festival and the National Tractor Pull Competition.

Kurt Erichsen's gay comic strip Murphy's Manor, which is still being published online after all these years, is set in a gay neighborhood in Black Swamp, Ohio. I had no idea he was reflecting Bowling Green.

Not much beefcake in town. Bowling Green High School offers wrestling, swimming, football, lacrosse.

And of course bowling.

There's also a swim club. 300 pictures arranged boy-girl-boy-girl. I couldn't decide on a boy, so I just removed the girl.

But Bowling Green State University doesn't have a wrestling team, a swim team, or any powerlifters, at least none who get photographed.

For that matter, they don't have a bowling team, either.

I guess everyone is too busy studying popular culture.

See also:Gay Comix of the 1980s

I don't usually do sportsball players, but apparently everybody knows about this one, so I have to do a 10-things article to get up to speed.

1. Rob Gronkowski was born in 1989 in New York.

2. After college (University of Arizona), he started a career in sportsball for some team.

3. His position was "tight end," which I'm sure has a sexual connotation.

4. His nickname is The Gronk, which sounds like a bad guy in a 1970s Sid and Marty Krofft kids' show: "In today's episode, the evil Gronk tries to steal the ice crown and bring chaos to the Land of Shadows."

5. He's photographed nude a lot, but I have found no actual penises. It's always a tease, with his genitals covered by a football or a picture of himself.

6. He's photographed with bikini-clad ladies a lot. Apparently he likes women.

7. He seems quite full of himself. I've never seen him on film, but in nearly every photograph, he has an annoying smirk: "Don't you wish you were as good as me? But you're not, are you?"

8. There are 537 articles in various newspapers and magazines exclaiming, with utter surprise, that Gronkowski would be fine with a gay teammate. Since when is this newsworthy? Would he also be ok with a black teammate? How about a Jewish one?

9. There's that annoying smirk again. I don't care if he is ok with a gay teammate, I don't like him.

10. He's not playing sportsball anymore. He retired at age 30.

I've completely run out of tv programs to watch on Netflix, when I get an email: "We added a program you might like, Another Life."

So I start watching. Juliet from Lost, or someone who looks like her -- a middle-aged woman with scraggly blond hair -- is standing on the bridge of a spaceship, wearing black bikini underwear, talking to a fully-clothed man.

Definite sign of trouble.

Juliet (Kalee Sackhoff, who is only 39 but looks over 60) wears that bikini underwear a lot during the first episode; plus, we see Alyssa Milano, or someone who looks like her, reading a magazine with her breasts showing, talking to a fully-clothed guy who looks like Hurley from Lost.

Trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with B, which stands for Boobs.

I'm not going to watch this hetero male gaze monstrosity, but I'll fast forward in case a guy takes his shirt off, or -- dare I hope? -- a gay character shows up.

Episode #1: Across the Universe. Nope. An alien artifact lands on Earth, and renowned elderly astronomer Juliet is assigned to go find its homeworld and make first contact. She leaves her young trophy husband, Erik (Justin Chatwin, top photo) at home to research the artifact further.

By the way, the fully-clothed guy is actually a hologram, William (Samuel Anderson, left), who is in love with her, naturally.

Her crew consists of three or four black bikini underwear clad women, including Alyssa and a butch blonde with a man's haircut. Maybe a lesbian?

Hurley is actually Bernie (A. J. Rivera), the ship's chef and morale officer-type.

There are a couple of other guys in the background.

Episode #2: Through the Valley of Shadows. Nope. They wear space suits and walk around in tunnels on an alien planet that's not the right one.

Episode #3: Nervous Breakdown. Nope. The ship is damaged, so they bicker, the men fully clothed, the ladies in boobalicious black tank tops performing random calisthenics.

To alleviate the boredom, here's a photo of Alex Ozeroff, who plays crewman Oliver. He has also appeared in the Canadian sci-fi series Freakish, about high school students dealing with radioactive mutants. Not zombies?

Ok, back to the boobs.

Episode #4: Guilt Trip. Finally! One of the guys appears shirtless amid the ladies in black bikini underwear when they're roused in the middle of the night by Juliet's bad dreams.

I think he's Jake Abel, playing Sasha, the diplomatic liaison on the ship, whatever that is.

Episode #5: A Mind of Its Own. Nope. They find a second artifact, with all the men in orange spacesuits and the women in boobalicious tank tops, even during the sex scene.

Episode #6: I Think We're Alone Now. Nope. The ship is in trouble again, and there are women displaying their breasts. I wonder why director Mairzee Almas thought it was a good idea to zoom in for closeups of breasts during moments of crisis.

By the way, Greg Hovanissian plays Beauchamp McCarry, Juliet's second-in-command who doesn't appear in many scenes, and never takes his shirt off. But he seems to have nice ab.

Episode #7: Living the Dream. A shocking development! A guy has his shirt off (actually, he's completely naked) in a room full of space suits. I think he's Erik, Juliet's husband who stayed back on Earth.

Episode #8: How the Light Gets Lost.

There's a disco party on the ship, with a lot more crew members than have ever appeared before dancing and hooking up. Young, innocent, virginal Charlie Brown (I can't figure out which character he actually is) takes off his shirt while bumping foreheads with Alyssa.

Later, he stumbles on Alyssa and another guy drinking peach vodka (I can' figure out who he is, either, but he's sort of shirtless, bearded, with a hairy chest). They have a three way! With same-sex kissing and everything! So there's at least a few bisexuals aboard.

But that's all you get.

Episode #9: Heart and Soul. The battle for control of the ship comes to a head. No nudity, boy or girl.

Episode #10: Hello. They reach their destination and are "staggered" by what they see on the planet: a cave and a green limber-limbed alien. They realize that the alien artifact is not a gesture of friendship, but a precursor to invasion and Season 2. There's some kissing and death. And boobs.

Aren't you glad I went through on fast-forward, so you won't have to?

See also: Lost

Between 1936 and 1955, you didn't just go to a movie; you went to a whole evening's entertainment, with cartoons, newsreels, two features, and a serial -- a cliffhanging, 12-15 chapter adventure, Western, or science fiction series designed to fill the seats week after week as audiences wondered "How will the hero get out of this jam?"

Three main studios, Columbia, Republic, and Universal, churned out dozens of serials every year, so they needed lots of action heroes. Some became famous later, in feature films and on tv, and others faded away quickly, but they all offered buddy-bonding and occasional glimpses of biceps and bulges. Here are the top 10 musclemen of the movie serials:

1. Buster Crabbe may have died in 1983, but his fame -- and exceptional physique -- live on. He was a beefcake staple for 30 years, playing Tarzan and Tarzan clones (1933), cowboys Red Barry and Billy the Kid, and futuristic space heroes Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Lots of scripts called for him to get his shirt ripped off.

2. Herman Brix competed in the Olympics as Bruce Bennett, then gave Buster Crabbe some competition with the serials The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) and Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938). He also stripped down to play Kioga in Hawk of the Wilderness (1938).

3. Former college athlete Charles Starrett was best known for the Durango Kid series, but he also got torn out of his clothes in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), to be tortured and turned into a zombie (left).

4. Gordon Jones (left) died in 1963, so he isn't well known to the Boomer generation, but in his day he was a well known face and physique. Catch his exposed biceps in an early version of The Green Hornetin the 1941 serial.

5. Kane Richmond played the adult mentor/boyfriend to teenage Frankie Darro in a series of 1930s "Thrill-o-Ramas," plus some Charlie Chan mysteries, Westerns, and beefcake-heavy boxing movies. His main serial was the superheroic Spy Smasher (1942). He retired to open a hair salon.

6. The rugged Tom Tyler had a long career in Westerns, but flexed his muscles as two comic superheroes brought to life in movie serials: The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and The Phanton (1943)

7. Gerald Mohr played a pulp detective named The Lone Wolf (1946, 1947) and narrated the first season of The Lone Ranger series on tv (1949-50).

8. Speaking of The Lone Ranger, before Clayton Moore became identified with the Masked Man (1949-1957), he had a long career in movies and serials, mostly Westerns, naturally.

9. Kirk Alyn never disrobed on camera, but his muscular frame was displayed in a Superman costume in the only serials about the original superhero, Superman (1948) and Atom Man v. Superman (1950).

10. Jock Mahoney played a rather long-in-the-tooth Tarzan in Tarzan Goes to India (1962), but he also starred in some serials, such as Cody of the Pony Express (1950) and Roar of the Iron Horse (1951).

I've lived on the Plains for 5 years, which means that I've crossed "The Top of Iowa" about 12 times. It is becoming a place of pleasant memories, but I was my pleasant memories are due to traveling through twice a year, and then going somewhere else. Are permanent residents . Are real residents overcome by poverty and ennui? Or worse, homophobia and Islamophobia?

1. Enter Iowa on the I-35 just south of Albert Lea, Minnesota.

2. Stop at the big red barn rest stop next to the Diamond Jo Casino. It has a gift shop with tacky "I'm in Iowa!" knicknacks, and an ice cream store upstairs and a lot of sculpted grounds, where you can see some of the cutest guys on Earth.

Northwood, Iowa, population 2,000, features a park on the Shell Rock River, some brew pubs, the Rock-a-Billies Bar, and the Northwood-Kensit Junior-Senior High.

Searching for wrestling or swimming team photos proved fruitless, but I did find a track player.

So far, rather disappointing.

3. Turn onto State Route 3, go east and south to Iowa Falls: an art center displaying local artists, a huge antique store, a restaurant serving old fashioned phosphates, a Chinese restaurant, and more of the cutest guys on Earth.

Oddly, Iowa Falls has a college, Ellsworth Community College, with a wrestling team, but no high school.

For beefcake photos, I had to do a search for a local, then check out his Facebook friends.

Not great. Craggy, tattooed, scary-looking guys smoking cigars and drinking out of coconuts.

And the memes. One of the scary guys had memes saying:
"Kneel for America!"
"When the time comes, I will give my life to defend America from Islam!"
"One nation under God, not Allah!"

I can only imagine his opinion of LGBT people.

Ok, I don't need to imagine with this hottie:
"Male and female. The end."

Brr. Let's move on.

4. Go south from Iowa Falls, then east on Highway 20, a long stretch with no rest stops except for The Mill, a windmill-shaped travel store with weird tacky gifts, a Godfather's Pizza, and a Subway. More cute guys. Its address is Holland, Iowa, a small town about 5 miles away, but the nearest town is actually Dike.

Dike, Iowa, has no dike, or any large body of water nearby; it was named for the railroad engineer Thomas Dike. But it does have a high school, a public library, a restaurant called Slice, two churches, and a town motto: "A Slice of Iowa." It features Watermelon Days in August and a "Razzle Dazzle" festival just after Thanksgiving.

The only photo from Dike that even started to display a physique was this one from a professional photographer, depicting a redheaded cross-country runner.

5. Continue on Highway 20 to Waterloo, then south to Cedar Rapids, 100 miles north of Rock Island, the farthest edge of my world when I was a kid. From here it's all intimately familiar.

I guess the cutest guys in the world are just passing through.

The early 1960s was overloaded with tv shows about "swinging bachelors" who dug the ladies but found their deepest emotional bonds with each other: Route 66, Follow the Sun, Bourbon Street Beat, It's a Man's World, Hawaiian Eye, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside 6. (Sea Huntwas an exception, about a solo scuba diver.)

They usually had a female friend who worked the switchboard or sang at the local bar and provided opportunities for leering, but few if any plots involved them finding heterosexual romance.

The bachelors were often discovered by gay talent agent Henry Willson, so they were often gay, bisexual, or gay friendly.

77 Sunset Strip (1958-64) paired Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (straight) and Roger Smith (straight) as detectives who lived in Los Angeles. Edd Byrnes (rumored to be gay) played Kookie, a hipster who worked at the nightclub next door, and eventually became a business partner. Jacqueline Beer played Suzanne, their telephone operator.

Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60) paired Richard Long (rumored to be gay) and Van Williams, left (rumored to be gay), detectives who lived in New Orleans. Cal Duggan (straight) was their business partner. Arlene Howell played Melody, their secretary.

Hawaiian Eye (1959-63) paired Anthony Eisley (rumored to be gay) and Robert Conrad (straight) as detectives who lived in Hawaii. Connie Stevens played Cricket, who sang at the Shell Bar.

Surfside 6 (1960-62) paired Van Williams (just before he played The Green Hornet), with Lee Patterson (gay) as detectives who lived on a houseboat docked at Miami Beach. Troy Donahue, left (rumored to be gay) played their friend, a wealthy playboy who lived on the yacht next door. Margarita Sierra played a woman with the odd name "Cha Cha," who sang at a bar with the odd name "Boom Boom Room."

Follow the Sun (1961-62) paired Brett Halsey (rumored to be gay) with Barry Coe, left (straight) as writers who solve crimes in Hawaii. Gary Lockwood (bisexual), who appeared shirtless in The Magic Sword, played their assistant. Gigi Perreau played their secretary.

What are we to make of this abundance of beefcake and buddy-bonding?

An idolization of the unmarried and unattached heterosexual swinger, after years of 1950s Family Men.
A fear of the feminine: women were portrayed as a pleasant distraction from the important things in life. But inadvertently it gave Boomer kids a glimpse of homodomesticity, men who lived together, loved each other, and didn't need a woman to fulfill them.

We usually went to church on Sunday nights, but for some reason I was home one night in November 1968 to see the last half of the best movie ever made, The Secret of Boyne Castle, on the anthology series Wonderful World of Color.
This was former child star Kurt Russell's only movie as a Disney Adventure Boy (others included Peter McEnery, Tommy Kirk, Tim Considine, and Jeff East) before he moved on to playing oddball outsider Dexter Riley in a series of Disney comedies.

Here Kurt plays Rich, an American exchange student in Dublin who learns that his older brother Tom (bisexual muscleman Glenn Corbett, previously a model for Physique Pictorial and star of Route 66) is not a steel company executive after all, but a spy charged with delivering essential information to Boyne Castle, in the west of Ireland. When Tom is captured by Russian agents, Rich must take over the mission, racing through the quaint villages and lush green hills of Ireland, hoping to elude capture and reach Boyne Castle before the Russians. Fellow student Sean (long-faced, steely-eyed Patrick Dawson) tags along, throwing himself into deadly danger for no logical reason except that he rather likes Rich.

The two are presented as more intimate than mere buddies, framed in tight shots, their faces together in close ups. While they are sleeping on the heather, Rich hears a suspicious noise, and wakes Sean by moving his own body slightly. Although all we see are their faces and necks, to wake someone with such a small gesture means that they must be cuddling together. They rescue each other a dozen times, and are eventually rescued by big brother Tom.

But the most important scene, the scene I have remembered fondly for 40 years:

At an inn, Rich flirts with a waitress.

“You didn’t tell me you had an eye for the ladies!” Sean exclaims, as if he hadn’t anticipated any competition.

Rich responds by asking the waitress if she has any rooms to rent for “for a few hours.” Suspicious, she wants to know why the two boys would need a room for such a short period.

Rich and Sean exchange a knowing grin.

In 1968 I was entranced by that grin. I knew that it was a clue to the secret. If only I could decipher it, I could find my way to that other world, Oz or Living Island or Middle Earth, the world where boys could fall in love and got married.

How might we account for the not-so-subtle homoerotic bantr between the Rich and Sean? Certainly Glenn Corbett might be a gay ally: he began as a model for the Athletic Model Guild, the Advocate Men of its day, and made a career as a buddy-bonding “man’s man. Kurt Russell was never particularly gay-friendly.

Patrick Dawson works mostly in Irish radio, but his limited filmography includes the gay-vague Ginger in The Jigsaw Man (1983). We should look at the director, Robert Butler, who in the 1960’s specialized in dramas with strong male leads, such as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, and I Spy, and later directed such hunk-fests as Remington Steele, Moonlighting, and Lois and Clark. Whether he was working with Bruce Willis, Dean Cane, Pierce Brosnan, or Kurt Russell, Butler neither minimized nor hid their physicality, allowing and even directing them to be open as objects of desire, both to male viewers and to each other.

There are nude photos of Kurt Russell on Tales of West Hollywood

See also: Kurt Russell

This is one of the iconic photos of West Hollywood. Nearly everyone I knew had a print in their living room or bedroom. It was a fixture in our homes, like the family photos that heterosexuals keep on their mantles:

A buffed young man carrying tires through an auto shop, his male-model face and expensive hairstyle contrasting with his working-class surroundings, a sweaty, macho, implicitly heterosexual grease monkey emerging from his closet, transformed into an object of homoerotic desire.

He represented all of small-town joys that we left behind in the Straight World, and the much greater joys we found with our friends and lovers in our new home.

I didn't know where it came from until yesterday: it's "Fred with Tires" by fashion photographer Herb Ritts (1952-2002).

He grew up in a wealthy household in Los Angeles (his next door neighbor was Steve McQueen), and attended Bard College. His photography career began in 1978, when he and buddy Richard Gere had car trouble on a road trip, and he began photographing the future star in front of their jalopy -- not shirtless but sultry, bulging, a canny evocation of working class machismo combined with pretty boy sensitivity.

The next year, a photo of John Voight made it to Newsweek.

Pleased with the critical reaction, Ritts began photographing other celebrities, such as Brooke Shields and Olivia Newton-John. He specialized in female supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. He published a number of books on fashion photography, and became a renowned expert in the field.

He was also a well-known commercial photographer, with work for Levis, Revlon, Brut, Chanel, Maybelline.

Although he was gay, out since college, in a committed relationship with partner Erik Hyman, his artistic emphasis was always on the feminine. There are only a few male celebrities in his archive, and those few are rarely shirtless, displaying a sensuality but not overt eroticism. This color photo of Justin Timberlake is an exception.

So how did we get "Fred, with Tires"? In 1984, Herb hired a UCLA undergrad named Fred for a raincoat ad in the Italian magazine Per Lui.

He hated the raincoats, so he had Fred pose in jeans instead. The editor hated the photos -- too sultry, too erotic, too gay -- but ran them anyway. And the last, taken when Fred was tired, sweaty, and little annoyed, anxious to finish up and go home -- perfectly captured the West Hollywood moment.

The original hangs in the Getty Museum, and prints became fixtures in our apartments, emblematic of home.

Michael Landon arrived in Los Angeles at age 19 and immediately started landing roles as tortured outcasts and juvenile delinquents, such as the gay-vague protagonist in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). He also cut some teen idol records and posed for innumerable beefcake shots before landing the role of Little Joe, youngest of the three sons of widowed rancher Ben Cartwright (Lorne Green) on Bonanza in 1959.

For the next 14 years, Little Joe played the part of "teen hunk," strutting about shirtless and bulging, giving thousands of boomer kids their first crushes. Unfortunately, he had little significant buddy-bonding, as he was constantly consorting with women, culminating in a marriage -- and the tragic demise of his bride -- 1972.

When Bonanza finally ended in 1973, Landon had acquired a reputation as a stable, solid, and "wholesome," a conservative remedy to the endless sexual innuendo found elsewhere on prime time.

But his next series, Little House on the Prairie (1974-83), was not exactly conservative. It offered cynicism, backstabbing, contemporary social issues -- and an endless supply of beefcake. According to Alison Arngrim, who played the bitchy Nellie Oleson, Michael Landon was quite aware of the program's gay male fans, and catered to them by mandating that the cute guys on the show often appear shirtless -- and engage in some buddy-bonding plotlines.

Never far from a tv screen, Landon continued after Little House with Highway to Heaven (1983-89), about a wayfaring angel who displays little heterosexual interest and travels with a male companion (Victor French).

He was in declining health, but he lived until 1991, long enough to express his support of his gay son, 16-year old Christopher.

I usually hate the expression "It ruined my childhood." It's usually used by homophobes who discover that someone they admired in childhood is gay.

But a little piece of my childhood died when I discovered the true meaning of "A Whiter Shade of Pale," the iconic 1960s song by Procul Harum.

The band, formed in 1967, has nothing to do with "protocols" or "harems"; it was named after a member's cat. "A Whiter Shade of Pale," their first recorded song, was written by 20-year old Keith Reid. In high school, heavy laden with existential angst, I found the mysterious, symbolic lyrics and melancholy organ music resonated with the human condition. It was about the meaninglessness of life.

But I recently read an interview with Keith Reid He says it was about a man trying to convince a woman to have sex with him.

Huh? This evocative, iconic, symbolic, deep song is not about the magic and mystery of life? It's really just about a stupid hetero hookup?

Next you'll be claiming that there is no Santa Claus.

Ok, how on Earth are these lyrics about sex:

We skipped the light fandango, turning cartwheels around the floor.

I was feeling kind of seasick, but the crowd called out for more.

A fandango is some sort of dance. Obviously a performance going on.

The room was humming harder

As the ceiling flew away

We're no longer in ordinary time. The ceiling flies away, displaying the night sky and secrets of the universe.

And so it was that later

As the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly

Turned a whiter shade of pale

Her face is turning pale. She is a sybil, preparing to prophesy.

Keith: Her face is turning pale because the Miller's tale is about sex, and she's embarrassed.

She said, 'There is no reason'

And the truth is plain to see

There is no reason. There is no greater purpose. We live, and then we die, and that's the end.

Keith: She denies that she is embarrased by the depiction of sex. Her face didn't turn pale for any particular reason.

One of sixteen vestal virgins

Leaving for the coast.

A vestal virgin is dedicated to the service of a god. "Leaving for the coast" means that you are giving up. There are no gods to serve, so there can be no vestal virgins.

Keith: She's part of a tour group.

Although my eyes were open, they might just as well been closed.

He refuses to acknowledge the meaninglessness of life.

Keith: He refuses to acknowledge that she's not interested, and keeps trying.

That's as far as it usually goes on the radio, but the album contain an additional verse;

She said, "I'm home on shore leave," though in truth we were at sea, so I took her by the looking glass, and forced her to agree.

She's been lying the whole time. The looking glass, from Alice Through the Looking Glass, is a gateway to another world. By holding the glass up to her face, he plans to force her to acknowledge that there is a spiritual reality after all.

Keith: He forces her to agree that she is interested in sex.

"You must be the mermaid who took Neptune for a ride."

You are a goddess. Therefore spiritual reality exists.

Keith: You are a tease.

The rarely played fourth verse seals the deal, and they go crashing down into the ocean bed to have sex.

Existential angst or se.

But I wandered through my playing cards

And would not let her be

He uses Tarot cards to try to demonstrate the existence of a spiritual realm.

Keith: They're playing a card game, and he's trying to get with her.

In the rarely played fourth verse, they seal the deal, and go crashing down upon the ocean bed.

Way to ruin my childhood, guys.

Nickelodeon's Cousins for Life is basically Drake and Josh, about two mismatched kids who become related when their parents marry. Ok, the parents, are canonical brothers, so the mismatched kids are actually cousins, but why quibble over details? Their two dads even have a ship name, Lark.

When his "wife" is deployed overseas, goofy, fun-loving, irresponsible Clark (Ishmel Sahid) decides that he can't take care of his kids on his own, so he moves in with his uptight, stick-in-the-mud, slow-burn brother Lewis (Ron G), who has no problems raising his kids as a single dad.

The kids, by the way, are Ivy (Scarlet Spencer) and 12-year old Stuart (Dallas Dupree Young), with younger hanger-on Leaf (Micah Abbey).

After the initial "wife" business, the two don't mention hetero-romance again, and behave exactly as romantic partners. They even break up after an argument, and it's up to Ivy and Stuart to get their squabbling dads to make up.

Ivy and Stuart are the focus characters. with episodes concentrating on money-making schemes and scams (their pig gets a job on a tv commercial) and various woke protests (girls can be superheroes, too).

Back to the two Dads: this isn't the 1980s. Why bother with the lame attempt at heterosexualizing them? Why not just make them a couple?

Well, Ron G. is "the world's funniest clean comedian" who tells jokes about colorful characters in his church.

Ishmel Sahid is known for shorts like "Sex Makes It More Important."

They'd have to get different Dads.

Besides, Nickelodeon remains the most conservative (read: homophobic) of the children's television networks, so we'll be stuck with subtext for the foreseeable future.

Millions of Baby Boomers know exactly who Dr. Smith was: the foil/ pain in the neck/ comic relief on the iconic sci-fi series Lost in Space (1965-68).

A nuclear family (Mom, Dad, teenage girl, preteen boy and girl), blasts off into space to colonize Alpha Centauri (how are they planning to increase the population?)

Enemy spy Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) tries to sabotage the ship, so it won't reach its destination -- instead it will be Lost in Space. But he is accidentally trapped aboard.

How on Earth is he going to be redeemed after that?

Easy -- the writers just forget about it, transforming him from evil to a pain in the neck, occasionally helpful ("I'll negotiate with the aliens"), occasionally devious ("I'll sell you the boy in exchange for passage home"), but usually just annoying ("I'm much too fragile to do any work!"). A vain, prissy, glutonous, lazy, self-centered uncontrolled id.

Also the most interesting character amid the squeaky-clean Robinsons (quick -- name two character traits of the teenage daughter).

Dr. Smith spends a lot of time with preteen Will Robinson (Billy Mumy), whom he hugs, grabs theshoulder of, and calls "my boy." Thus leading to speculation that he was gay.

Maybe, but he certainly wasn't in a gay-subtext relationship with Will.

An adult and a child can't have a gay subtext relationship, because the tropes of the parental relationship would overpower it. Imagine man and boy walking off into the sunset together at the end of the adventure -- the man is going to adopt the boy, not marry him.

For a gay subtext, the two need to be in the same age category: both kids, adolescents, or adults. Maybe an adult and a late adolescent, like the superhero and his teen sidekick.

Well, did he have another sort of interest in Will? Was he a pedophile?

Obviously not intentionally, but did some sort of pedophile subtext arise from the actors' interactions?

Nope. No way. Dr. Smith never expresses any erotic or romantic interest in Will (or in anyone else except an occasional middle-aged alien lady, and then only when he is trying to get something, like dilithium crystals or whatever they use to propel the ship).

He puts his hands on Will for protection, not affection. He calls him "my boy" to signify pretentiousness, not possession.

By the way, Will expresses no romantic or erotic interest in anyone during the course of the series. He's a little boy looking for a playmate, and Dr. Smith is the only member of the crew who isn't a girl (girls! gross!) or busy with important scientific duties. Who else is he going to befriend?

You'll have to look elsewhere for a sexual theme on Lost in Space. Let's talk about John Robinson (Guy Williams) and Don West (Mark Goddard). Which was gay in real life? I'm not telling.

Stevens Point, Wisconsin, population 26,000, is in central Wisconsin, nowhere near Lake Michigan. The Wisconsin River runs through it, but I can't find a "point" anywhere.

Oh, there it is. SPASH, Stevens Point Area High School, full of swimmers of prodigious ability.

So many that I had to split up the photos.

Plus wrestlers, bodybuilders, and miscellaneous athletes.

Famous former residents include Joel Hodgson (Mystery Science Theater 3000), Kathy Kinney (The Drew Carey Show), and professional wrestler Ben Provisor.

I like the biceps and bulge, but not the tats and tongue.

Stevens Point is also the home of a branch of the University of Wisconsin, which has its own coterie of swimmers of prodigious capacity.

And wrestlers, bodybuilders, bikers, and bodybuilding wrestlers who compete in bikeathons.

This is a junior high boy, and probably not an athlete, but I couldn't resist the photo. Pink button-down shirt, striped tie, pink carrying case at his feet. I'm guessing that he'll spend his teen years looking for the point of Stevens Point.

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10 Things You Should Know about Sportsball Player Rob Gronkowski

"Another Life": 3 Shirtless Men and 3,300 Women in Bikinis

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Beefcake at the Top of Iowa

Swinging Bachelor Detectives of the 1960s

Kurt Russell's Secret

Fred with Tires: The Iconic West Hollywood Photograph

Michael Landon, Gay Ally

"A Whiter Shade of Pale": Existential Angst or Hetero Sex?

"Cousins for Life": My Gay Dads

Was Dr. Smith Gay?

The Point of Stevens Point