NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

After I spent the night with Todd in the summer of 1976, after my sophomore year in high school, I became obsessed with all things Catholic. One day I found The Little World of Don Camillo (1950) at the St. Pius Catholic Church book sale: a small, yellow collection of short stories, illustrated by cute, half-naked angels and devils.

I had never read anything like this before. There were lots of stories about boys in love with boys, or teenagers with adult men, but never two adults! And one was a tall, muscular Catholic priest who assaulted people with candlesticks! And the other, a Communist!

The small yellow hardback remained on my bookshelf for several years before vanishing; I think my mother accidentally put it in a "to donate" pile. Then, in the spring of 1985, my Italian class in east Texas was assigned the original.

The Little World of Don Camillo is the first of eight collections of short stories about the priest of a small village in Tuscany. Formerly a boxer and World War II resistance fighter, Don Camillo has hard fists and a hot temper. The Mayor, Peppone, once fought the Fascists beside Don Camillo, but now he is a godless Communist. The two former friends, on opposite sides of an ideological fence, argue religion and politics as they vie for control of the village.

Peppone is married, but his wife and children rarely appear. And almost none of the stories involve the hetero-romance of other characters. Often they involve a conundrum that requires Don Camillo and Peppone to work together:

Vandals steal Don Camillo's clothes while he's swimming.
Don Camillo returns to the boxing ring to save the town's honor.
Don Camillo and Peppone are stuck on a ferris wheel.
Peppone is lost in the mountains, and Don Camillo must rescue him.

As the years pass, from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, Don Camillo and Peppone grow into middle age, and though they remain "enemies," their love for each other shines through more often than not. In the last volume, Don Camillo Meets the Flower Children (1969), a young, hip priest has come to town, and butts heads with Peppone's hippie son, and the cycle begins anew.

The French-Italian movie Don Camillo (1952) starred Fernandel as Don Camillo and Gino Cervi as Peppone (above), and Franco Interlenghi (left) as the young hunk who requires their assistance. Four sequels appeared.

There was also a 1980 BBC television series, with Mario Adorf and Brian Blessed, and a 1983 Italian movie with Terence Hill (left) and Colin Blakeley.

The author, political satirist Giovanni Guareschi (1908-1969), was a conservative Catholic, and heterosexual -- he also published humorous stories about his wife and children. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew that his books had a strong gay subtext.

When we were in fifth grade at Denkmann Elementary School, my boyfriend Bill and I hated music class, or as we called it, Muse-Ick!

1. The teacher, Miss Randall, was a power-mad martinet: tall, black-haired, with a constant scowl and a baton that doubled as a weapon of mass destruction.

2. Why should anyone other than future pop stars learn how to sing? It was a holdover from prehistoric times, when people sang to each other for entertainment. News flash: we had radio and tv now!

3. How could you grade someone on their musical ability? It was a talent, like painting or poetry.

4. Everything we sang was like a thousand years old, mostly ridiculous "American folk songs."

5. The songs were usually oppressively heterosexist, all about boys meeting their true loves, courting girls, getting married. Only Streets of Laredo mentioned a gay relationship, and the boyfriend was dead.

We didn't know about cool folksingers like gay-friendly Woody and Arlo Guthrie, or the gay Justin Utley (left).

So we decided to engage in some civil disobedience, just like I had in second grade, when I corrupted the Mean Boy. We got a few confederates, had a practice session in Bill's family room -- his big brother Mike joked that we were becoming rock stars -- and when it came time to sing, we had a few different lyrics:

Shucking of the Corn, Old People's Version
The winter's cold in Cairo, the sun refuses to shine
Before I'd let my true love suffer, I'd work all the summertime.

Our version:
The winter's cold in Cairo, the sun refuses to shine.
If I can't see a boy with muscles, I'll kiss a porcupine!

"Some of you are way off!" Miss Randall shouted. "Pay attention to the words!"

Billy Boy, Old People's Version
Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Can she bake a cherry pie, Charming Billy?
She can bake a cherry pie, quick as a cat can wink his eye
She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother

Our version:
Can he take off all his clothes, Charming Billy?
He can take off all his clothes, and be naked to his toes
He's a young thing, and cannot show his pee-pee.

Now she was catching on. "Sing the right words!"

Sweet Betsy from Pike, Old People's Version
Oh don't you remember sweet Betsy from Pike,
Who crossed the wide prairie with her husband Ike,
With two yoke of oxen, a big yellow dog,
A tall Shanghai rooster, and one spotted hog?

Our version:
Oh, don't you remember sweet Benny from Pike
Who crossed the wide schoolyard with his buddy Ike
With two boys with muscles and a color tv,
And a tall guy from Shanghai who wants to kiss me?

We had to stay after school and write an essay on "Our Proud Musical Heritage," but it was worth it.

Remember my first boyfriend, Bill, from Denkmann Elementary School? We were inseparable for three years, walking to and from school, watching Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat, reading comic books, inviting cute boys over for sleepovers.

We had our own gang -- me, Bill, Joel, and Greg -- who liked looking at men with muscles.

We stayed friends in junior high, but we drifted apart into other interests and social circles.

The last time I was at his house was for a Halloween party in tenth grade, probably October 31st, 1975. I spent most of the evening talking to his big brother Mike, who used to call me "Bud" and drive us places.

The last time I saw Bill was during our senior year in high school, when we visited David Angel in the mental hospital. He thought we were a couple. We laughed it off as ridiculous.

The years passed: Augustana College, Indiana University, Texas, West Hollywood, San Francisco.
I didn't hear anything from or about Bill, though I often spoke of him as my first boyfriend.

The years passed: Long Island University, Florida, Ohio, Upstate New York. I started a blog about my childhood memories, and recorded all of my Bill stories.

I tried to look him up, but none of the high school or college friends that I was still in contact with remembered him, and he had a common name, impossible to google.

Before I knew it, I was 54 years old. Nearly 40 years had passed since the day Bill and I visited David Angel.

Then out of nowhere I got a friend request from him on Facebook.

Was he gay? Were my memories real, or a misinterpretation of a straight boy's friendship?

We exchanged life histories in that stilted, obituary style that you use when reconnecting with someone after many years. He studied culinary arts at Black Hawk College, then worked as a chef at Jumer's Castle Lodge, across the river in Bettendorf. During the 1990s, he opened a restaurant near the resort of Wisconsin Dells. It went bankrupt after the stock market downturn of 2004, and he moved to Reno, Nevada, where me now manages all of the restaurants in the Circus Circus Casino.

"But I've dabbled in other businesses, too," he continued. "In 1999 I became co-owner of a strip club in Moline, out by the airport."

My heart sank. A strip club? Straight!

"I insisted that we were equal opportunity," Bill continued. "We had male strippers on Tuesday nights."

"I've been there!" I exclaimed. "Christmastime 1999 or 2000. On male stripper night. I saw my old Sunday school teacher's sons, Mickey and Dom!"

Bill was nonchalant. "Sure, I remember them!" Bill said. "College boy act. Very good, very professional, and they had the goods. I always auditioned the strippers personally, to make sure they were up to speed."

"Men and women both?"

"Of course! I have a pretty good eye for beauty, as you saw with Mickey and Dom."

Bisexual? Or straight and nonchalant about gay people?

"What about romances?" I asked. "Any long-term relationships?"

"I was married for 15 years. We had an open relationship, though. We both saw other people. Since then I've been single."

Bisexual? Or straight and wild?

"But what about you?" Bill asked. "Any boyfriends, lovers, husbands? After Dan at Washington, I mean."

Boyfriends, lovers, husbands -- he knew about me! And he interpreted my friendship with Dan as a romance.

I told him about Fred the Ministerial Student in college, Raul and my celebrity boyfriend in West Hollywood, 10 years with Lee, 5 years with Troy. 7 years with Yuri (we were friends, but closer than many lovers).

"You've been busy!" Bill exclaimed. "Me too. I'm single but not lonely. I can still attract the hotties -- look."

He sent me a nude photo.

It was eerie looking at Bill's face again after 40 years. He was a little chunky, with a muscular, slightly hairy chest and big biceps.

In all of our sleepovers, I never saw Bill nude. He was a little small beneath the belt, uncut.

"Hot!" I told him.

"Thanks. It gets me a lot of action."

Ok, still noncommittal. Time to ask.

"Action with men or women?"

Bill didn't hesitate. "Oh, men, of course. Women are nice and all -- I wouldn't kick Scarlett Johansson out of bed -- but at the end of the day you really want two muscular arms around you and a baseball bat pressing against your leg. We knew that back in third grade, didn't we?"

"All but the baseball bat part. That took me a few years to figure out."

"Well, I was precocious. Remember Aaron, the Rabbi's son?"

The uncensored post, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Everyone has heard of 120 Days of Sodom, the much-excoriated novel by the Marquis de Sade, written while he was in prison in 1785, and not published until the 20th century. But most people haven't read it.

I have, for a paper I wrote in grad school. Or at least I skimmed through it.

Four wealthy libertines decide to try out every sexual gratification there is. So they shut themselves up in a secluded castle for four months with 46 victims: their own daughters, some male prostitutes, some exceptionally attractive teenage boys and girls, and some exceptionally ugly older women. They get ideas from four experienced prostitutes, who tell stories of "passions," or erotic acts.

Though the list is long -- 600 items -- it omits a lot of common sexual acts, fetishes, and paraphilias, and includes a lot of weird ones. All of them require the act to be non-consensual.

Sacrilege is apparently a big turn on: the victims are forced to renounce God, spit on crucifixes, desecrate communion wafers, and so on. And so is anal sex, which Sade perceived as a kind of sacrilege.

But violence is the biggest draw. A month is devoted to the "cruel passions," various types of torture. Another month is devoted to the "murderous" passions: burning alive, disemboweling, and otherwise killing victims.

Gay Italian filmmaker Piers Paolo Pasolini adapted it Salo (1975), substituting World War II fascists for libertines. He adds a bit more plot, including a hetero-romance, and ups the humiliation factor.

There's a ton of male nudity, with many very attractive male bodies, and a lot more gay sex than in the original book -- but it's presented as much more shocking than audiences today may find it: "Look, that man is having sex with another man!"

Actually, the whole movie is somewhat less shocking than one expects from hearing its history of banning and censorship. Today you can see much, much worse in the torture porn genre, like Saw and The Human Centipede.

Pasolini was killed on November 2, 1975, shortly before Salo was released. If this is his "farewell" to the world, it's curious that he presents same-sex acts as universally degrading, as bestial, and gives the only hint of tenderness, compassion, and love to heterosexuals.

But maybe not so curious. His other movies present same-sex acts as, at best pleasant diversion from the heterosexual romance that is the theme of everyone's dreeaming.

He was gay, but apparently he wished he wasn't.

The Looney Tunes Show notwithstanding, the Cartoon Network usually gets it right. Adventure Time (2010-) is a sort of reflection of the 1975 sci-fi classic A Boy and his Dog (with Don Johnson):

Finn the Human (voiced by Jeremy Shada, left), the last human alive, and his shape-shifting adopted brother, Jake the Dog (voiced by John DiMaggio), are dedicated to fighting evil in a post-Apocalyptic, quasi-Medieval world where magic works and nearly everything is alive.

Usually they pledge their fealty to Princess Bubblegum of the Candy Kingdom, but they have also journeyed to the realms of other princessess, plus the Underworld, the Fire Dimension, the planet Mars, a staggering number of parallel worlds, and even a place beyond space and time.

Though the word "gay" is never spoken, same-sex desire and practice are matter-of-fact realities, with very few missteps.

1. Finn is invited to a couples-only movie night. He plans to bring a duck, but Jake advises: "You have to bring somebody you can smooch!" Note the major difference from "You have to bring a girl!"

2. The Ice King, who provides comedic tension by constantly kidnapping princesses and trying to force them into marriage, approaches the vampire Marcelline and suggests that they team up. "I'll take the princesses, and you can have whatever you're into." Another big difference from "you can have the men."

3. Although fan sites try to talk their way out of it, Marcelline has had relationships with both sexes. In "What Was Missing," she and Princess Bubblegum must reunite after a long estrangement, and work together to solve a mystery.

They discuss what went wrong with their relationship ("I never said you had to be perfect!"), and in the end we discover that Bubblegum still sleeps in a t-shirt that Marcelline gave her.

4. Beemo, the robot video game console, does not have a gender, but is usually called "he." In one episode, Finn suggests that Beemo might be interested in the Ice King, and eager for dish, Jake says "Why? Did he say something?"

And in another, Beemo has an adventure with a bubble filled with sentient male Air, who proposes marriage.

5. The Earl of Lemongrab is too fussy and demanding to get along with anyone, until Princess Bubblegum makes him a clone of himself. The two Lemongrabs later have a child together, or at least pretend to.

There have been a couple of missteps, however.

1. Prismo, a two-dimensional being who lives outside space and time, befriends Jake, eagerly asks him to return for a visit, and gives him a gift, a jar of pickles. Jake sighes "I got to get him a girlfriend."

2. A male chocolate chip cookie named Baby-Snaps wants to become a Princess. Although Jake supports his transgender aspiration, Princess Bubblegum believes that it signifies insanity, and has him committed to a mental institution.

See also: Clarence: Gay Characters on Kids' TV, Sort Of; and Gay Fan Art 4: Cartoon Kids Grow Up

I spent my undergraduate years at Augustana College, never hearing about gay people in class or from friends or on the street, There were no gay clubs, organizations, newspapers, or books, as far as I knew. The only way to meet gay people was by sheer accident.

In that world of total darkness, it's nothing short of miraculous that I managed to meet 13 gay guys in Rock Island or nearby during my four years at Augustana.
Freshman Year

1. Peter the Male Witch. First I tried asking around, but the only gay guy anyone at Augustana knew of was Peter the male witch, who was expelled for being gay a few years ago.

2. Mary's Brother. My friend Mary was worried that her kid brother Jake might be gay. She asked me to visit her during spring break and find out.

3. The Dwarf at the Post Office. He made eye contact a little "too long," and "accidentally" touched my hand as I passed him the package to be mailed. I found an excuse to go to the post office every day for a week before I got the nerve to ask him out.

4. Cute Nerd or Creepy Old Guy. He was way older than me, in his 30s, a regular at the library book sales. I invited myself back to his creepy old house to help him carry the load of books he had bought, but was he a lonely gay guy or a serial killer?

Sophomore Year

5. Fred the Ministerial Student. When the ministerial student at the United Church of Christ asked me out to dinner, I wasn't sure if he meant a date or not. I wasn't even sure that he was gay.

6. The Priest with Three Boyfriends. Fred introduced me to his friend Thomas, an Episcopal priest who had three boyfriends and introduced me to the concept of "sharing."

Junior Year

7. Tricking My Friend into a Date. Haldor was a member of the Bookstore Gang who never dated girls. But was he gay? So I suggested a dating contest: we would systematically ask out all of the eligible girls at Augustana, and the one who got the most dates won. Of course, we would both go along on each of the dates, and go back to my room after dropping the girl off.

8. Adam at the Bell Tower. Adam was the bookstore manager, a few years older than me, who wanted to "big brother" me. I wanted a kiss.

9. My Professor's Handcuff Party. Every year Dr. Burton, the geology professor, held a handcuff party for his advanced students.

10. What the Graffiti Meant. In junior high Brian wrote a mysterious message, "Brian gives free LBJs," on the school wall. The summer after my junior year Brian, now in college, told me what the graffiti meant.

11. My First Gay Rights March. That same summer, I marched in my first gay pride parade -- except they were Gay Rights Marches then, with placards demanding an end to sodomy laws and police harassment. I met a University of Iowa Russian major named Mickey.

Senior Year

12. The Priest with the Pushy Mom. My second real boyfriend, an ex-Greek Orthodox priest with a Mortadella+ and a pushy Mom. I held on for two months to get access to the Mortadella+, but finally Mom was too much for me, and I bolted.

13. The Chubby Musician. During my senior year, a freshman started working at the radio station, and immediately took over: a music major, black, chubby, annoyingly elitist, extraordinarily feminine. But was he gay?

The uncensored post, with nude pictures, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Have you heard about the movement to remove the T from LGBT, making us gay, lesbian, and bisexual only?

The problem is, we've never been gay, lesbian, and bisexual only. We've always been open to everybody.

Granted, in West Hollywood in the 1980s, you were expected to be gay/lesbian or straight.

But I don't think we were deliberately being exclusionary. We just grew up hearing that "all guys like girls,""same-sex desire does not exist." So for a guy to admit that he did, in fact, like girls and boys sounded a lot like heterosexist brainwashing kicking in.

And we heard constantly that "gay men are really women." So for a guy to admit that he was, in fact, a woman sounded like more heterosexist brainwashing.

By the 1990s, we were confident enough to admit that there were bisexuals and transpeople among us.

We became LGBT.

Queer came next, either as an all-purpose term for LGBT.

Or for people who didn't want to identify as gay, bi, or straight, who wanted to acknowledge the fluidity of desire.

So we became LGBTQ.

For many years, physicians have known about people whose chromosomes or sex organs don't fall into the male or female categories. But they were always pushed into one or the other category, sometimes with surgery.

Then intersexed people began to assert that they are fine the way they are, that you don't need to look male or female. Why shouldn't they join the rest of us who are fighting for an end to "you must look like a man, act like a man, and like women"?

So we became LGBTQI.

For many years, psychiatrists and physicians assumed that sexual desire was universal. Everyone who ever lived desired men, women, or both. If you didn't, you were prescribed medication or psychotherapy to get to the root of your "problem."

Then asexual people began to push for acknowledgement that they are fine the way they are, that warm, caring friendships are more than enough to fill a lifetime. Why shouldn't they join a group that has been fighting psychiatrists and doctors who want to "cure" us?

So we became LGBTQIA

We are still pushed incessantly into gender-polarized heterosexual desiring boxes. So trying to define yourself can be tricky. Some people, especially during adolescence, aren't sure where they belong. But we want them to feel comfortable among us. So we welcomed questioning people.

Now we were LGBTQQIA.

Wait -- what about cisgendered heterosexual people who aren't homophobic or transphobic, who want to support us?

They can come in, too. We'll call them Allies.

So we have become LGBTQQIAA.

Everybody is welcome.

The original nude photos are on Tales of West Hollywood.

I think I've only seen three James Bond movies all the way through: Diamonds are Forever (1972), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Casino Royale (2006). But I've seen many, many clips of pivotal scenes, plus countless pastiches, parodies, and imitations, on everything from The Flintstonesto Family Guy.

From his introduction in a series of novels by Ian Fleming (1953-64) through fifty years' worth of movies (1962-2012), Bond created the image of the suave, sophisticated spy that has been imitated over and over, in tv series (I Spy, Get Smart, The Man from UNCLE, Mission: Impossible); in movies (The Bourne Identity, True Lies, The Secret of Boyne Castle, Austin Powers); even in comics (Spy vs. Spy in Mad Magazine).

Bond comes from a generation before the Man-Mountains, when Swinging Bachelors ruled. He rarely took off his shirt; the producers didn't expect anyone to be looking at his muscles. In the tradition of "everybody's fantasy," the producers expected all women but no men to swoon over him due to his cool savoir-faire, his tailored suits, fluency in French, knowledge of clarets, and hint of danger.

And all men but no women to admire him for his spy expertise, his ability to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, kill an enemy spy on the way down, and land unfazed, unruffled, and ready for sex.

For all his popularity, there is very little for gay men to like in James Bond.

1. Very brief, minimal beefcake shots, only when absolutely necessary -- a part of his chest might peek out over the top of the sheets -- and overwhelmed by endless shots of bikini-clad and nude women. Sean Connery (left) was a former bodybuilder and Mr. Universe runner-up, yet we saw no underwear, no towels, almost nothng of his physique. Current Bond Daniel Craig has been a little better, offering an occasional swimsuit shot.

2. Few homoromantic subtexts. The Bond world is as completely divided into evil men and nice women as Karate Kid. Every woman Bond meets wants to have sex with him. Some try to kill him also, but usually they have a change of heart and become allies.

And the most a man can feel for him, or for any man, is a sort of grudging admiration. More often they feel raw hatred. Same-sex friendships do not exist.

3. Intense homophobia. Fleming wrote his novels for "warm-blooded heterosexuals," and decried the ranks of the "unhappy sexual misfits." The movies almost invariably pit the heterosexual Bond against gay-vague "sexual misfits" -- or not so gay-vague, as the transvestite Spectre agent in Thunderball, or the hand-holding Mr. Witt and Mr. Kidd in Diamonds are Forever. Even Jauvier Bardem, the latest villain (in Skyfall), camps it up to ensure that we identify him as a detestable poof.

4. It's hard to find a gay-friendly actor in the corpus of Bond movies. Sean Connery became irate when he heard that some commentators found a gay subtext in one of his movies. Roger Moore (left) played a negative stereotype in Boat Trip (2002). Current Bond Daniel is a little more gay-friendly, but even he became irate at the suggestion that the superspy like both sexes: "James Bond is heterosexual. There will never be a gay Bond, ever."

Speaking of violent objections, in 1999 there was a rumor that gay actor Rupert Everett would be the next Bond. He quickly spoke up, stating that it would be impossible: "Bond fans would burn down MGM if the studios got a gay actor to play James Bond."

So, what's gay about the James Bond movies?

1. A remarkable preoccupation with Bond's sex organs, from the laser-beam in Goldfinger to the chain-thwacking in Casino Royale. Heterosexuals have never spent so much time envisioning phalluses.

2. Wearing tailored suits, drinking fine wines. dining on haute cuisine, conversing in Italian and French? Metrosexual, to say the least.

3. The violent objections incited when you suggest that Bond might be gay -- or played by someone gay -- suggest that he meets a deep-seated desire in heterosexuals to postulate a gloriously gay-free world. It's fun to discomfort them, to point out that there are gay people everywhere, even in the most homophobic of texts. So take one of Bond's male allies - Willard Whyte in Diamonds are Forever, Milos Colombo in For Your Eyes Only, Damian Falco in Die Another Day -- it doesn't matter how tenuous the relationship is -- and let the slash fictions roll.

During the 1980s and 1990s, every time you met a new person, you exchanged coming out stories.

It doesn't happen anymore. No one offers, and if you ask, the under-30 crowd says "What? Oh, I've always known that gay people exist. My parents had gay friends over all the time."

But in the 1980s and 1990s, we all grew up in a world where gay people were never mentioned, heterosexual desire assumed universal.. It was interesting to hear how someone gradually pieced together clues, measured evidence, and concluded that "it is not raining upstairs."

It was a bonding experience. It gave us a sense of camaraderie.

So here, preserved from the dark, quiet days, are the most interesting of the five hundred or so coming-out stories I've been told (Part 1):

Age 5: The Homosexuals

One day I was playing in the family room, and my father walked through with one of his friends. I heard him say: "...and we need to do something about the problem of homosexuals...." I didn't know what a "homosexual" was, but I knew that it had something to do with me.

Age 6: Louie the Lilac

I was watching the old Batman tv show, the episode where Milton Berle played Louie the Lilac, a villain who dressed in a lavender suit. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I asked my older brother, "Can I get a suit like that for Christmas?" He laughed and said "Only if you're a lilac!" Ever since then, I associated the word "lilac" with being gay.

Age 8: The Babysitter

When I was little, I had a male babysitter, a teenage boy from the neighborhood, and I liked to sit on his lap. I liked the warmth, the closeness -- and the feel of his basket! One night I overheard him talking to his friend: "Yeah, the kid's very affectionate. If I didn't know better, I'd think he had homosexual tendencies."

So "homosexual tendencies" meant "you like to sit on guys' laps."

Age 12: The Porn Magazines

When I was around 12 years old, my friends and I were walking through a wooded area near my house, when we saw some porn magazines that someone left lying on the ground. We started leafing through them, the other guys gushing over the naked ladies, you know, when I saw an article called "Inside a Gay Bar." I didn't know what "gay" meant, but I returned later to tear out the article and take it home. It was about me!

Age 13: The Sleepover

I was spending the night with my best friend, sleeping in the same bed, and in the middle of the night I woke up to him...well, fondling me.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I whispered, shocked.

"It's ok," he said. "All the guys do it. It doesn't mean you're queer if you think about girls."

So I tried to think about girls, but I kept imagining guys. That meant I was queer....

Age 13: The Alternative Prom

One day my mother, who taught high school English, came home and started complaining to my father: "You'll never guess what those idiots on the school board are up to now -- an alternative prom! I can't believe they would pander to the deviants like that!"

I had never heard of gay people before, so I asked "What's a deviant?"

Mom said "You don't need to know. It has nothing to do with you."

But I persisted, and finally she said, "A deviant is a pervert, a man who wants to go to the prom with another man."

Age 20: Getting Some "Cocks"

In the service I was stationed down in New Orleans, and when we had leave, one of the guys in my barracks said "Let's go down to Bourbon Street and get us some cocks!"

I didn't realize that there were guys in the world who liked guys, so I said "Cool! Let's go!"

Turns out that "cock" is Cajun slang for "girls," sort of like "chicks."

But the "damage" was done. I knew that gay people were out there somewhere. I just had to find them.

See also: Two Men Hugging.

When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I was a sci-fi nut, but Space: 1999 was a little far out, even for me.

It appeared sporadically from 1975 to 1979, a few episodes on Monday nights, then off for two months, then advertised in TV Guide on Tuesday but actually airing on Wednesday, so it was hard to see, or get any idea of what was going on.

I did like the intro, which featured a lot of British people in futuristic costumes looking solemn or scared and being thrown across rooms.

Apparently it was a sequel, of sorts, to the British sci-fi UFO, which was about fighting aliens from a base on the moon. On the far-future date of September 13, 1999, a massive thermonuclear explosion wrests the moon out of orbit and sends it careening into deep space, the 311 staff members of Moonbase Alpha with it. They then encounter lots of civilizations ruled by giant computers or aliens with godlike powers, a la Star Trek.

There were several attractive crew members, especially in the most revealing uniforms I have ever seen on tv, but the standout star was Nick Tate as chief pilot Alan Carter (top photo). Most scripts found some reason to get him out of his clothes.

I think this is Tony Anholt (Tony Veredichi), Chief of Security, who apparently got his clothes ripped off a lot, too.

Bodybuilder John Hamill had a guest spot in 1978, but kept his clothes on.

There wasn't a lot of hetero-romance, far less than on Star Trek, where Kirk kissed a different alien babe in a different semi-nude outfit every week. I didn't see enough episodes to notice any particular buddy-bonding, but gay fans point to a love-hate homoromance between Alan and John (Martin Landau, center).

Maybe I should have paid closer attention in the 1970s.

Speaking of childhood icons, which of the Brady kids did you like? (The Brady kids were the six children in the blended family of The Brady Bunch (1969-1974). Every Baby Boomer has every episode memorized).

Most gay guys liked Greg (Barry Williams), the oldest boy, and the self-appointed hunk of the group, but he was obnoxiously girl-crazy. I liked Peter (Christopher Knight), the middle boy, who hardly ever displayed any interest in girls, and had other traits that would get him dubbed "a Fairy" in my junior high.

He liked to sing; he belonged to the Drama Club; he donned a Campfire Bluebird uniform to sell cookies door-to-door. A great role model for boys growing up in small towns with no interest in girls or sports.

And, as the years passed, Christopher Knight grew hunkier than Barry Williams. He was displayed in shirtless spreads in Tiger Beat long after the series ended, and was asked to take off his shirt on tv a lot.

Though he's been busy with various Brady spin-offs and sequels, he's had time for a lot of tv appearances, on The Bionic Woman, Chips, Happy Days, The Love Boat, and others. He starred on Joe's World (1979-80) and the soap Another World (1980-81), and as himself on The Surreal Lifeand My Fair Brady (2005-2008).

Today Christopher Knight is probably the most gay-friendly of the exceptionally gay-friendly Bunch. He starred in two of Greg Araki's gay-themed angst movies, Nowhere and The Doom Generation, and played half of a gay couple (with tv brother Barry Williams) a 2006 episode of That 70s Show. He was interviewed on the gay talk show Queer Edge.

And he still has an amazing physique.

See also: Barry Williams/Greg Brady.

I don't remember where I met Rev. Jasper. Not at MCC, maybe at Evangelicals Together, the gay evangelical network in West Hollywood. He was in his 40s, a little taller than me, and very muscular, thick and heavy, with a furry chest.

A bit too old for me: in West Hollywood, you were expected to date within a 5 year age range, and in the summer of 1988, I was only 27 years old.

But he had most of the characteristics I find attractive, including being a clergyman: he was a minister at a gay-friendly American Baptist church in Gardena, about 45 minutes south of West Hollywood.

There aren't any Baptist churches near Gardena that are gay-friendly today, so I doubt that there were any 30 years ago. Rev. Jasper was probably just feeding me a line.

On our first date, we had dinner at the French Quarter, and he tried to impress me with his knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. But he got some basic dates in biblical history wrong, and he had a weird theory about Leviticus:

"The Bible is the literal Word of God, no doubt about it, but you have to interpret it right. For instance, in Leviticus, 'thou shalt not lie with man as with woman." Well, how do you lie with man as with woman? You lie on top of him, and he puts his legs in the air. So no Greek (anal). But God doesn't say anything about French (oral)."

The rest of the story, with uncensored photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

One day Thomas Hardy saw a person on the bus of remarkable beauty "such as we see sometimes among strangers but never among our friends." Who knows them? He wondered. Who sees them at the breakfast table? Who picks them up at work? Who knows the daily monotony of their lives?

I haven't really been reading the letters of Thomas Hardy. Linus quotes him in a Peanuts cartoon.

And I have the answer: we all know them. They are our friends and lovers, but familiarity has eroded the rush of awe we felt on first sight. A few farts, sniffles, and complaints about the guy at work, and they are no longer creatures of supernatural beauty. They're just plain Stan or Rick or David.

The fleeting glimpse of supreme beauty always happens when there's no way possible for you to ever meet. You're far from home, so you won't be passing that way again, there's not enough time to strike up a conversation, or the press of the crowd makes it impossible to reach him (try tracking a stranger across a crowded room).

That's why the fleeting glimpse is so important. There is no quirk ridden personality or traumatic back story to deal with. There are no meetings to strategize over, no dates to plan. There's no person, just archetypal beauty.

On your death bed you'll remember these faces and physiques. You won't regret that you never met them, never became friends or lovers, maybe didn't even make eye contact. You'll be grateful that you were lucky enough to get a glimpse of heaven.

1. At Augustana, I was walking through the library. On a couch below a Spanish language encyclopedia, he had fallen asleep, legs splayed out on the floor in front of him. His shirt was unbuttoned an extra button, revealing a v of bare chest.

2. In Barcelona, I looked out my hotel room at the hotel across the street, where some athletes had a room. He was still wearing blue bikini briefs as he pushed the window open to greet the world.

3. On a job interview in Florida, I was taking a tour of the town, and we stopped at a stop light. He was standing in line at a frozen custard stand, waiting to order, in a white t-shirt, red shorts, and sandals instead of shoes.

4. We were driving through Rock Island on Christmas Day. It was unseasonably warm, in the 60s, and he was on the roof of his house, doing something with shingles, shirtless, pale, hardbodied.

5. At the airport in London, everyone gets off the plane and heads straight for the rest room, so they get crowded. I saw him next to me at the urinal, wearing a backpack, yellow shirt, buffed, intent on his business.

6. At a hotel in Indianapolis where I was staying while visiting my parents: he was eating breakfast with two other guys. Short, well-groomed, smiling. They were all wearing suits and talking about the project.

7. Driving through South Carolina, I saw him in a field, a farmer or farm hand, black, shirtless, sweating. I waved. He waved back.

8. He was sitting on the Paris metro, wearing a grey coat, reading a book. I couldn't make out the title.

9. On our road trip across the mountain states in 1995, we drove through Missoula, Montana. He was fishing off a bridge, blond, wearing a sleeveless shirt that showed off his biceps.

10. At Harvard University, he was walking briskly across the quad, carrying a cup of coffee, his breath smoky in the early morning cold.

11. He was at LAX, waiting for the same flight that I was, muscular in a grey t-shirt, big hands with a class ring. I prayed for us to be seated together or across the aisle from each other, but no.

12. He was among the crowd leaving a church in Cordoba, Spain, Young, teen or early 20s, wearing a white shirt and blue tie. He smiled at me as I passed.

13. I was at a small diner in Baltimore with just a counter. He was next to me, eating waffles and texting on his cell phone, wearing a cal poly tshirt. I tried to make eye contact, but no.

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

The best way to get to Iceland is from Norway or Denmark, so before you head out to the Icelandic Penis Museum, be sure to visit Oslo. See the Viking Ship Museum, have dinner at the gay-friendly Cafe Christiana, and explore the four-story dark room-maze at the Saunahuset Hercules. But be sure to set aside a couple of hours for the Vigenland Sculpture Park, an 80-acre installation in Frogner Park on the north side of town.

It consists of 200 sculptures in bronze, granite, and wrought iron, life-sized or larger, created by Gustav Vigeland between 1939 and 1949. Not in isolation, like Borders in Dag Hammarskjold Park, they hug, touch, gaze at each other, displaying our journey from cradle to grave, and hopes for eternity. There are women and children, but mostly bald, muscular, naked men in homoerotic poses.

Here an older guy cruises a younger guy, or perhaps they're father and son.

These two are struggling or wrestling, or having sex. There are a number of similar pairs on The Bridge.

A father seems to be swinging his son in the air. While they're both naked, of course.

A wrought iron gate of three naked guys in the ancient Greek mode.

There's also a museum with more of Vigeland's works, plus sculptures from many other Norwegian artists.

Not sure if Vigeland was gay or not, but he certainly preferred working with the male form.

He has been accused of being a Nazi sympathizer during World War II, but in fact he enjoyed the friendship and support of Jewish patrons.

See also: 12 Public Penises of Finland.

My friends and I at Denkmann Elementary School in the 1960s liked Disney comics -- Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Junior Woodchucks -- but they were hard to find. Schneider's Drug Store didn't stock them. We had to depend on that one kid who had a subscription, or in the stacks of comics that went on sale every summer at the Denkmann School Carnival.

When we left Denkmann, no more carnival, no more Disney comics. By the late 1970s, they weren't available anywhere, so I assumed that they were no longer being published.

But I read and reread the few adventures that I owned, with Uncle Scrooge, and his nephews and grand-nephews traveling the world to seek out lost civilizations and ancient treasures: the Philosopher's Stone; the Golden Fleece; the Seven Cities of Cibola; the Mines of King Solomon; the Treasure of Genghis Khan.

There were a few science fiction and humor stories. Occasionally a character from Greek or Norse mythology showed up. But mostly it was boys' adventure, like Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, and the books in the Green Library.

There were no women in this macho world. Donald Duck never mentioned that Daisy was waiting back home, Huey Dewey, and Louie treated girls as nuisances, and Uncle Scrooge? During his many careers as cowboy, prospector, explorer, salesman, and financial tycoon, he had never even been on a date.

During college, I bought a massive tome, Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times (1981), which reprinted some of the best Uncle Scrooge stories, and found a woman mentioned: in "Back to the Klondike" (1953), Scrooge recounts how, when he was a young prospector, a devious dance hall girl named Glittering Goldie drugged him and stole his solid gold nugget. He tracked her down, got the nugget back, and forced her to work at his claim for a month, to teach her the value of "honest work."

That's all. No romantic entanglement suggested.

When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1980s, Gladstone began reprinting some of the old Uncle Scrooge comics, plus new stories by cartoonist Don Rosa. He sent Scrooge back to the Klondike in "Last Sled to Dawson" (1987). And made Glittering Goldie his old girlfriend!

Goldie appeared in several more of Don Rosa's stores during the late 1980s and 1990s, and played a major role in the faux biography of Uncle Scrooge published in 1997. We find out what really happened during the month they spent alone in Scrooge's cabin on White Agony Creek. There's even a dirty joke:

En route to the claim, they encounter a giant mastodon partially frozen in the ice. "Ok, let's get a move on," Scrooge commands. "Between the legs!"

"I beg your pardon!" Goldie stammers, thinking that he means....

Realizing his faux pas, Scrooge reddens. "Um...er...the way to my cabin is between the legs of the mastodon."

What can we make of this incessant heterosexualization of one of my childhood heroes?

Don Rosa's comic book stories weren't for kids, but for adults who had grown up with the Uncle Scrooge books. Adults who were old enough for "mature" themes, like girlfriends and "between the legs" jokes.

But children's media was quick to follow suit. The Ducktales tv series (1987-1990) cast Glittering Goldie as Scrooge's love interest in four episodes. Plus Scrooge flirted with an ongoing series of female reporters, heiresses, and gold-diggers, before, after, or during the adventure. He was heterosexual.

See also: Donald Duck's Double Life.

Andy Lawrence was born in 1988, when his older brothers, Joey and Matthew (ages 12 and 8, respectively) were already well-established child actors.

Growing up with two extremely successful, amazingly muscular, and aggressively gay-friendly older brothers gave Andy some advantages.

1.He began acting at age 2, on his brother's sitcom Blossom. He had a starring role in Tom (1994) at age seven, and then moved on to a long string of tv series: Brotherly Love, Recess, CSI, Bones, and Castle.

2. He began working out at an early age, developing a physique equal to or surpassing that of his brothers by the time they all starred together in Jumping Ship (2001). Since then, he has often played athletes in skimpy uniforms.

And, since he turned 18, in 2006, he has often been asked to do shirtless and semi-nude scenes.

3. He became gay-friendly at an early age. His movies and television appearances regularly involve homoromantic friendships.

In The Other Me(2000), Will Browning (Andy) accidentally clones himself. The rest of the movie involves Will and his clone, Twoie/Gill, bonding, rescuing each other, and using their identical looks to become popular among the girls and guys at his middle school.

In Going to the Mat (2004), blind high schooler Jace (Andy) joins the wrestling team. His buddy Fly (Khleo Thomas), although not interested in sports, joins in order to help him fit in. They are an amazingly physical pair; of course, sighted friends often take the blind person's arm or hand to help them negotiate unfamiliar terrain, but what about casually reclining against each other on a couch, or full body hugs every five seconds?

On the sitcom The United States of Tara (2009), about a woman with multiple personalities, high school wrestler Jason (Andy, left) starts a relationship with Marshall (Keir Gilcrist, right), but then kisses T (Tara's teenage girl alter ego). Does his attraction to Marshall mean that he is gay? Does his attraction to T mean that he is straight? Maybe he's bisexual. He's not sure himself, his confusion mirroring that of many teenagers negotiating feelings that the adults tell them cannot exist.

Not to mention Oliver Beane (another character was gay-vague), Recess (gay-positive character), Chasing a Dream (high schooler becomes a track star to honor his dead friend's memory), The Least of These (haven't seen it, but I think he plays a gay character), and Bones (teenager not interested in girls who buddy bonds with the hunky Jimmy Bennett).

Andrew is rumored to be gay in real life; how could a heterosexual be so extremely gay-positive?

Ask his brothers.

Jimmy Bennett is only 18 years old, but already a favorite of gay kids, and not just because of his preference for appearing shirtless or semi-nude. He has already produced a substantial body of work that articulates and validates same-sex romance.

In Alabama Moon (2009), gay-vague 11-year old Moon Blake (Jimmy) is sent to a juvenile facility in Alabama, where he bonds with Kit (Uriah Shelton). They plot an escape together, and end up finding a home.

In Bones (2010), Bones White (Jimmy) and Anthony (Andrew Lawrence) buddy-bond in 1989 New York.

No Ordinary Family (2010-2011) was a "my secret" comedy-drama about a family with supernatural powers. 14-year old J.J. (Jimmy) was super-intelligent, able to learn new languages instantly and read technical manuals in a few seconds. He fell in love with girls, but his powers marked him as different, as queer (besides, he buddy-bonded with Billy Unger).

He's a talented singer also, performing the soundtracks to Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Party, as well as "Summer Never Ends," from Shorts. Most of his songs are not heterosexist. In "Over Again," for instance, his lover could be male or female:
Why does it feel so distant, when you're standing next to me.
Why does it feel so cold, when we're sharing body heat.

Word is that Jimmy is heterosexual in real life, but warm and welcoming to his gay fans.

At the beginning of fourth grade, there was a new boy sitting in the back of the class: short, slim, with brown hair and glasses, wearing a red sweater.

"This is Danny," Miss Johnson told us. "He just moved to Rock Island this summer. He wears a leg brace and walks on crutches, so he will need a special friend: someone to carry his books and lunch tray, and play quiet games at recess."

Danny reddened with embarrassment.

"Would anyone like to volunteer to be Danny's special friend?

A boy named Joel shot his hand up. Danny grinned at him -- apparently they had already become "special friends" over the summer.

But I raised my hand, too, and for some reason Miss Johnson gave me the honor.

Maybe she remembered that I was the new kid last year. Or maybe she just liked me better.

Joel sat fuming.

For the rest of the day, I carried Danny's books and lunch bag around. I helped him look up "bats" in the Golden Encyclopedia, showed him the cafeteria and the nurse's office, and carried his lunch tray, while his friend Joel glared at me.

Danny glanced over at him and smiled, enjoying the attention.

The quiet games at recess? Showing off, doing complicated hanging routines on the monkey bars -- his arms worked fine.

Danny had muscles! And he was so cute that I couldn't stop looking at him.

Maybe I could get him to come over to my house, and cuddle on the couch while we watched Dark Shadows and Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.

I didn't get a chance to ask.

Just as the final bell rang, and I started helping Danny collect his books, Joel and Bill approached. "Danny lives two houses down from me," Joel said firmly. "I can walk home with him."

"Well -- Miss Johnson told me to."

"That's only in school. She can't tell us what to do when school is out."

He had a point, but I wasn't going to give up on cuddling that easily. "You should come home with me," I told Danny. "I have naked army men, and Mom probably made some cookies."

Nudity and cookies? Danny smiled, thinking it over, enjoying having two boys fight over him.

"You have to go up three steps to get in your house," Bill said. "He'll never make it up."

The rest of the story, with uncensored photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

I suppose you're wondering who this Bert Convy was, who took his clothes off on both Love Boat (6 times) and Fantasy Island (4 times)?

I'm not sure. He seemed to just appear in the 1970s,. He was over 40 years old, with a 20-year career as a Broadway star and pop singer, and before that as a pro baseball player, but I didn't notice until he started strutting around with a Tom Jones Afro and a leisure suit unbuttoned halfway down his smooth, muscular chest. playing slightly befuddled New Sensitive Men in sitcoms and soaps: Mary Tyler Moore, The Partridge Family, Love American Style, Charlie's Angels, Murder She Wrote, and Hotel.

Google Images said this was him, but it might be wrong. The photo seems too recent -- Bert Convy would have been that age in the early 1960s. (It may be Steve Bond).

But not to worry, the real Bert Convy displayed his physique many during his tenure as the host of about a thousand game shows, including Password (1972), Match Game (1973-74), Tattletales (1974-77, 1982), Win Lose or Draw (1987), and Super Password (1984-89),

In the spring of 1976, he starred in a short-lived comedy-variety series, The Late Summer Early Fall Bert Convy Show.

He appeared in lots of movies, mostly sex comedies, like Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (1979), about...you know; Racquet (1979), about a tennis pro who beds women; and Help Wanted: Male (1982), about a career woman who wants a baby but not a husband. More beefcake shots....

He and Burt Reynolds were best buds (imagine the confusion: "Bert came to my party, but Burt didn't.") They starred together in the gay-subtext-heavy Semi-Tough (1977) and The Cannonball Run (1981), and produced two tv series together: Weekend Warriors and Win, Lose, or Draw.

There were some gay rumors, but not a lot. During the 1970s, men drew gay rumors only if they were on the feminine side. You could hang out with male buds all you wanted, and never make a dent in people's heteronormative expectations.

Besides, Bert was married throughout his career, to Anne Anderson (1959-1990), and, while he was terminally ill, to Catherine Hall (1991).

He died from a brain tumor on July 15, 1991, and was interred at Forest Lawn, among other Hollywood celebrities.

Burt Reynolds came to the funeral.

See also: Love Boat; Burt Reynolds Naked on a Bearskin Rug

Handsome "new sensitive man" Michael Sarrazin was a reliable source of beefcake and bulges through the 1970s; unfortunately, you had to look past an endless series of naked ladies to see him.

Born in 1940, he spent the 1960s miscast in Westerns before starring with Jane Fonda in the misnamed They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969), which is not about shooting horses; it's about the angst-ridden, desperate lives of contestants in a Depression-era dance marathon.

He had found his niche: New Sensitive Men, quirky, sometimes amoral, sometimes criminals, who have lots of sex with The Girl en route to the denouement: Barbara Hershey in The Pursuit of Happiness (1971), Jacqueline Bisset in Believe in Me (1971), Trish Van Der Vere in Harry in Your Pocket (1973).

Spoiler alert: in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), which was a big hit in my high school, he makes out with Jennifer O'Neal, only to discover that he's the reincarnation of her father!

By the 1980s, Michael was getting a little long in the tooth for playing quirky young men, and his projects became increasingly sleazy. But in those days "sleaze" included "gay," so there was a bit of LGBT content:

The Seduction (1982): tv reporter is stalked by a one-night stand.

Mascara (1987): crossdressing police officer has a thing for his sister.

The Phone Call (1989): straight guy calls the wrong phone sex line and is stalked by a gay queen, in what has been called the most homophobic movies of all time.

Not a lot of buddy-bonding, with all that heterosexual sex going on, but there are some glimmers of a homoromance between Michael and Tim Henry in Eye of the Cat (1969).

I'm still going with Chuck and Buck as the most homophobic movie of all time.

A Catholic Priest in Love: The Little World of Don Camillo

Bill and I Turn Music Class Gay

My Boyfriend Bill Grows Up

Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Adventure Time: Gay-Positive Cartoon Series

13 Gay College Boys

Why We Should Keep the T in LGBT, and Add More Letters

Shaken, Not Stirred: The Gay James Bond

Top Coming Out Stories: Louie the Lilac to "Getting Some Cocks"

Space: 1999

Christopher Knight/Peter Brady

Rev. Jasper and His Cute Boys

The 20 Most Beautiful Men in the World

The Penis Park of Norway

Fall 1987: Heterosexualizing My Childhood Hero

Andrew Lawrence

Jimmy Bennett: No Ordinary Teen Idol

Naked Nazarene #15: Danny and His Boyfriend

Bert Convy Spends the 1970s Nude

Michael Sarrazin: In the Most Homophobic Movie of All Time?