NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams (1947), is probably the most-beloved American play of all time. It's staged incessantly in big cities and small towns; it's been filmed six times, it's been made into a ballet and an opera.

This seems odd, because it deals with topics likely to make censors nervous: sexual promiscuity, domestic violence, and rape.

Not to mention its strong gay connection.

1. Faded Southern belle Blanche is reduced to living in her sister Stella's two-room apartment in New Orleans after losing the family estate. She is traumatized by the long-ago death of her husband Alan, a "poetic" (that is, gay) boy who probably didn't realize that he was gay until she confronted him. He went out and committed suicide, one of Tennessee Williams' stable of dead gay guys.

2. Stanley, Stella's brutish, violent husband, has a coterie of male friends who like him...a lot. Notable is Mitch, who is mother-obsessed and not particularly interested in women (two signifiers of gay identity in the 1950s). He courts Blanche, but badly, not at all sure what he is doing, and then dumps her when he discovers that she has a history.

After Mitch dumps Blanche, Stanley sexually assaults her, leading to her descent into insanity and famous last line: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

3. Stanley takes his shirt off -- a lot -- most notably when he is flirting with Blanche, and when Stella flees to the upstairs apartment after an abuse incident, and he yells up at her: "Stella!"

I don't know if Williams wanted to emphasize his raw savagery, or if he just liked seeing muscular guys with their shirts off, but Stanleys from Brando on down, whether on Broadway, community theaters, or college drama departments, have always displayed muscular physiques. Here are two dozen shirtless Stanleys:

1. (Top Photo) William L. Peterson, star of soap operas and CSI, at the Stratford Festival in Canada, 1984.

2. (Second Photo) Joe Manganiello, star of True Blood, is currently playing Stanley on Broadway.

3. New York actor Miebaka Yohannes (left) at the Boal Barn Playhouse in State College, Pennsylvania, 2010.

4. Marlon Brando (left), the original Stanley on Broadway and in the 1951 movie version.

5. Alex Baldwin, who starred in the 1992 Broadway revival and in the 1995 tv movie version.

6. Stephon O'Neal Pettway in an all-black version of Streetcar at Pace University in 2009.

More after the break

7. Joe Pallister at the Village Theater in Quogue, New York in 1992.

8. Michael Arata at the 50th Anniversary production at the Petit Theater du Vieux Carre in New Orleans, 1997.

9. Richard Cragun in the 1983 German ballet version by John Neumeier.

10. Brandon Daniel Kenney in a 2012 film version.

11. Rod Gilfry in the Streetcar opera, which premiered in San Francisco in 1998.

12. David Canary (left), a familiar face on 1970s tv, on the Syracuse Stage in Syracuse, New York in 1977

13. Tama Barry (left) in the Scottish Ballet version by Nancy Meckler (2012).

14. Daniel Radcliffe, known for his post-Harry Potter nudity in Equus, is scheduled to play Stanley in London.

Honorable mention: Ned Flanders, playing Stanley in the musical Streetcar! on a 1992 episode of The Simpsons.

West Hollywood, March 1987

The Celebrity and I have been dating for over two months, and I still haven't met any of his friends!

Friends always want to meet a new boyfriend, to make sure he's good enough for you, to expand their social circles, and to increase their options for bedroom activity!

He's met all of my friends, and shared Alan and Raul. What's the holdup?

"It's tricky," the Celebrity says. "I'm not out at the studio, of course. A lot of my friends are straight."

In West Hollywood in the 1980s, you don't have heterosexual friends. If they're not screaming "Got AIDS yet?", they're simpering, condescending, heterosexist. I assume he means coworkers and business acquaintances.

"Tell you what. The Oscars are on the 30th. Let's have a post-Oscar party. I'll invite four or five of my friends, and you invite four or five of yours. That way everybody can meet everybody."

I invite Alan, Raul, and Thanh, plus a couple of celebrities, Michael J. Fox and Tom Villard, who can't make it. Alan and Thanh bring dates to make up the fourth and fifth.

Alan's date is Rye, aka the Porn Star, an acquaintance from his porn days: tall, dark tan, Mediterranean face, big chest, big bulge. "The Entertainment," he whispers with a grin.

The Celebrity's guest list is:

1. Lee Montgomery, a 25-year old former Child Star with a lean, hairy chest.

2.Doug Barr, aka the Fall Guy, a clean-cut All-American type in his mid-30s. They come together, so I assume they're a couple.

3. Another actor named Spencer, aka the Leading Man.

4. The Celebrity's ex-boyfriend, a Director named Joseph: in his 40s, slim, with a salt-and-pepper beard and thinning hair.

5. And his date, a Cute Young Thing named Scott, who isn't in the industry.

I wonder who we will be sharing tonight.

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

Last week I was sick with the stomach flu, and spent 3 days in my apartment, binge watching Fargo and eating toast. On the 4th day I was well enough to go back to the gym, lift weights, and have lunch in a restaurant. On the 5th day I was anxious to get out and jog and see the world again, but I woke up to 3 inches of snow on the ground. On March 1st.

I couldn't run in this! I couldn't even go out! My hiking shoes were in the office. I'd be sliding all over.

Another day in the apartment. The wall were starting to close in.

Who can get bored, with a computer? You can walk the streets of Budapest on Google Maps, take a virtual tour of the Guggenheim, see all the ancient cuneiform tablets ever dug up, translate Armenian into Dutch, watch youtube videos about the World's Worst Cartoons, research your great-grandmother's family tree, read old comics from 1896 New York World, and download as many pictures of naked guys as your hard drive can hold.

Well, I was getting heartily bored.

Time for a boredom-hookup.

I went onto a KIK group that my ex-student Eli told me about. Very basic profile, a name and an icon, typically your penis. No face, no height and weight, no profile describing your personality and listing your favorite music groups. Of course, you can ask all that during chat, but what if you didn't?

Could you choose a favorable hookup just on the basis of his penis?

The rest of the post, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

This was the cover photo of a book on constitutional law. A sculpture of family of muscular naked people about to be squished by a scary giant hand.

Where did it come from? I wondered. Was it part of the Brutopian mind control plan of some post-Orwellian police state?

The back blurb listed the photographer, so I looked up his online portfolio, and found it:

It's the facade of Nebraska State Administration Building, previously Woodmen Accident and Life, across from the Capitol on K Street in Lincoln.

Well, that's pretty Brutopian.

I wanted to know about muscleman who posed as the "father," and also the little boy on the right. Did he spend his whole life walking past a naked image of himself at age 10?

According to the building's guide, the sculpture is "The Protecting Hand," by Lawrence Tenney Stevens, erected in 1954.

Lawrence Tenney Stevens (1896-1972) was one of the progenitors of the "Cowboy High Style" movement. He grew up in Massachusett, lived in Europe, and finally settled in Santa Barbara, California and Cody, Wyoming. He specialized in "big" sculptures, entrances to buildings and so on. Some naked women, but muscular men, too.

Like The Contralto, on the Esplanade in Dallas.

There's also a modern dance award in his name.

He was quite a cowboy.

Now, who were the models for the Grabbing Hand sculpture?

A Smithsonian Catalog revealed more: The subjects were Doug Henson, Mrs. Stevens, and Sylvia, Sara, Marc, and Chad Stevens, his own wife and kids.

The boy, Marc Stevens, (b. 1949), now lives in Passaic, New Jersey.

The baby, Chad Stevens (b. 1954), now lives in Montrose, Colorado.

I couldn't find out much about them.

According to the Gay Art website, Doug Henson, the model for the father, was a Tulsa "motorcycle policeman" and a 1952 Mr. America.

Unfortunately, the 1952 Mr. America was Jim Park (left), No one named Doug Henson, Doug Hanson, or Doug Hansen competed.

I checked the pro bodybuilder and pro wrestler databases. Nothing.

A check of the Lincoln obituaries revealed a Douglas Andrew Henson, born in 1924 and died on May 24, 2014. He was named "Mr. Oklahoma" in 1949, just before he joined the Tulsa Police Department.

However, I can find no more on the "Mr. Oklahoma" award. It may have been an amateur title, not based on an actual bodybuilding competition.

I guess there aren't any pics of Doug Henson in a posing strap lying around.

But here's a picture of a modern bodybuilder.

West Hollywood, March 1993

Whenever a new boyfriend is admitted to a social group, he always has to tell his coming out story. It's a rite of passage.

But in the five years we've known Matt, Fred's boyfriend, he hasn't told his. "I'm like Topsy," he claims. "I didn't have no birthin'. I just growed."

One night in spring of 1993, at a party at Will the Bondage Boy's apartment, he finally gives in: "Oh, all right! But you have to tell it, Fred, mon étalon. Tell about the chevalier blanc, the white knight who rescued me from the two dragons of Kansas City."

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

Former teen idol and contemporary pop star Justin Bieber is gay.

I wouldn't dare say a bad word about him. Millions of his fans, nicknamed Beliebers, lash out against anyone who casts any aspersions on the talent, personality, or hotness of their idol, as Patrick Carney, drummer for the band Black Keys, discovered in 2013.

But if they don't think that being Jewish is bad, they won't mind if I say he is Jewish, even if I happen to be mistaken.

So surely they don't think being gay is bad, so they won't mind if I say:

JUSTIN BIEBER IS GAY.

Even if I happen to be mistaken.

Bieber himself certainly wouldn't mind. By all accounts, he's completely nonchalant about sexual orientation. And religion.

No one can dispute the spectacular rise of the teen idol. Born in London, Ontario, Canada on March 1, 1994, he began by posting videos on youtube. This led to his discovery by talent agent Scooter Braun in 2008, and his first album, My World, in 2009. It went platinum.

Several other albums followed, all top-sellers. In the last 3 1/2 years, Justin has released several other albums, all top-sellers. He has won 90 music awards. He has 45 million Twitter followers.

Of course, anyone who rises to such spectacular fame so quickly is bound to make enemies, and Justin has lots, whole websites devoted to trashing him. One enemy tried to kill him in a Toronto nightclub last August.

My evidence that he is gay or gay-friendly.

Or maybe just a heterosexual who is not homophobic.

1. Some of his songs are unremittingly heterosexist: "Boyfriend, boyfriend, I could be your boyfriend."

But most are not, suggesting that he recognizes all types of love as valid:

I was a player when I was little, but I'm bigger.
I'm overboard, and I need your love to pull me up.

2. He has a superheroic sexual energy. Fans and enemies alike enjoy counting the instances where he is aroused on stage. All the time, apparently.

3. If you google "Justin Bieber Gay," you get 109,000,000 hits. But if you google "Justin Bieber Homophobic," you only get 479,000.

4. He supports the It Gets Better Project, dedicated to preventing the suicide of LGBT teenagers.

5. He is an evangelical Christian.

6. He said that sexual orientation is "a choice." (Ok, that's homophobic.)

7. He and his girlfriend Selena Gomez partied at gay clubs.

8. He hangs out with gay male friends.

Any questions?

Guys my age and older are always talking about a golden age, back when things were nicer, kinder, simpler, more innocent, interesting, authentic, creative, humane. They usually mean their childhoods, when selective memory erased the bad things, and nostalgia gave the good things a golden shimmer. But I mean just a few years ago, when Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, and the Cartoon Network were overbrimming with gay-positive programs.

Nickelodeon first.

1. Zooey 101 (2005-2008). Future pop diva Brittney Spears is a student at a private boarding school, with a coterie of friends and friendly enemies. The "clues" about gay people come fast and furious. A computer dating service pairs two boys. The male characters get faux crushes on other boys. Everyone, regardless of gender, has a crush on Austin Butler.

2. True Jackson, VP (2008-2011). High school girl (left) becomes vice president of a fashion company (sounds like a Disney Channel plotline). The receptionist is a gay-coded swishy stereotype. He'd be retro, except that everybody knows he's gay. Including the kids. On a kids' show!

3. Supah Ninjas (2011-2013). Mega gay-positive Ryan Potter and his friend become supah-ninjas. They are scripted as absurdly girl-crazy, but they have enough gay-subtext chemistry to rival Drake and Josh.

4. Max and Shred (2014-2015). Snowboarding champion (left) and teen nerd (right) share a bedroom.

5. Kenan and Kel (1996-2000). Ambiguously gay duo gets into scrapes. Kenan likes girls sometimes, but Kel likes only Kenan.

6. The Thundermans (2013-2016). A family of superheroes, with Jack Griffo (right, with friend) as a supervillain in training, as gay-coded as you can get without wearing a sign.

7. Sam and Kat (2013-2014). After breaking up with girlfriend Carly (ICarly), Sam Puckett rides her motorcycle to L.A., where she runs into Kat of Victorious. The two move in together and start a babysitting service, although presumably they're still in high school. The show couldn't be more clear in presenting them as a lesbian couple.

ICarly (2008-2012) had a lot of gay references also, but it doesn't get on the list because they were mostly homophobic.

8. Salute Your Shorts (1991-1992). Mismatched kids in an ineptly-run summer camp. One was gay in real life, and played his character as gay as possible, given the homophobia at Nickeodeon in the 1990s.

9. Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide (2004-2007). Golden boy Ned and his two friends, one feminine, one a girl, offer tips on how to survive junior high. There is same-sex dating, a gay-inclusive "life skills" class, male puberty without girl-craziness, and two bullies,

10. Drake and Josh (2004-2007). By far the most gay-positive teencom Nickelodeon has ever broadcast. Foster brothers who knew precisely what a gay subtext is, and play it to the hilt. Plus they have two friends, Craig and Erik, who are a gay couple in all but the name.

When I first moved to the Plains, faced with the absence of gay organizations, gay churches, gay bars, or gay anything within a hundred miles, except for a single gay-friendly coffee house, I started hosting bear parties every two weeks, alternating daytime and evening.

Soon the parties were completely split. Different guests, different atmosphere, different activities.

Evening Parties: Cute Young Things and Twinks.

A surprisingly young crowd, mostly college students and young adults who hadn't fled to a gay neighborhood far away, rarely anyone over 30, never anyone over 40.

Gay, out, open.

Discussions of career plans, being out at work, gay subtexts in the latest movies, and the latest streaming gadget.

Confident, relaxed. They often met someone they liked and arranged dates for later.

Daytime parties: Bears and Daddies.

An older crowd, rarely anyone under 40, never anyone under 30. White-collar businessmen in suits, blue collar workers, retirees, married to women, sneaking out on their lunch break or while the wife was out shopping.

Bi, downlow, on the sly, requiring "discretion."

Discussions of income tax, health problems, the exploits of their children.

The daytime guys were also painfully unaware of the Gay Rights Movement. Sometimes I felt like I was teaching a class in Gay Studies 101. "Yes, it's legal....no, it's not a psychiatric disorder...yes, there are books on gay topics...the first gay character on television was in 1977..."

I was tempted to cancel the daytime parties altogether, and stick to the evening, but educating these guys seemed like a public service. Besides, many of them were hairy, husky, and very big beneath the belt.

One week in March 2015, Joey, age 19, asked to join the guest list for the daytime party.

"It's mostly older guy," I warned him. "You might feel out of place."

"No, that's great!" Joey replied. "I love older guys! My first boyfriend was way old, almost 30."

Um...okay.... "What's your opinion of guys in their 40s, 50s, and 60s?"

"Sure, they're great, too. I love hot dads."

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

The "boys alone" genre (White Water Summer, Toy Soldiers, Bless the Beasts and Children, The New People) usually features a group of teenage boys isolated from adult society, stripped down to their underwear, and working together to survive or fight a common enemy. It argues that competition, envy, hatred, and strife are plagues of adulthood, that in the primal Eden of adolescence, we are all one.

But William Golding's 1954 novel The Lord of the Flies, based on the children's novel The Coral Island, turns the genre around, arguing for the natural enmity of men without women. It was required reading in high school: our teacher expected us to have an ephiphany, thinking "Yes, we are savages. Only the adult rules keep us from killing each other."

It has been filmed twice, in 1963 and 1990.

When their plane crashes, a group of British school boys find themselves stranded on a desert island. Ralph (James Aubrey, Balthazar Getty) takes charge and establishes a democratic society, as in Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky. He organizes the search for food and the rescue fire, and uses a conch shell to call the citizens to a democratic congress.

But the boys fear the Beast who roams the jungle, and develop bizarre manhood rituals. Jack (Tom Chapin, Chris Furrh), Ralph's best friend in civilized life, leads a rebellion. His "savages" worship a rotting pig's head (the "Lord of the Flies").

Tensions escalate, and the savages attack. A boy named Piggy is killed, the conch broken, and Ralph's boys scatter into the jungle. Jack leads his savages to attack Jack, but just as they close in for the kill, the adult rescuers arrive. Civilization restored, the boys begin to cry.

Why is this story so different from the others, so depressing, so skeptical of the human spirit? William Golding is generally a downer -- his second most famous work, Pincher Martin, is about a man dying on some rocks in the ocean.

But there is an obvious gay subtext. Ralph is a veritable teen idol, strong and handsome, and though he cares for Jack, he doesn't display any homoromantic intensity.

Jack, soft, blond, feminine, "queer," has an unrequited romantic interest in the stronger, more muscular boy. He manipulates the other boys' fears, orchestrates the mutiny, the bizarre rituals, and finally the attack -- not out of unrequited love, but out of hatred for the civilization which denies his homoromantic potential, which doesn't even have the vocabulary for expressing what he feels. In the end Lord of the Flies is about what happens to a dream deferred. Sometimes it explodes.

I always get sensitive when people say "Life used to be so great, and now it's so terrible ! We cared about each other then! It was a simpler, more innocent time!"

I have binge watched Fargo Season 2, the tv series based on the Coen Brothers' black comedy, about a simpler, innocent, loving time.

The 1940s.

It's set in 1979, a year everyone hates. They're always moaning about everything is so bad now, society has gotten so violent, everybody at each other's throats, much worse than the kind, loving, innocent 1940s (really, they say that).

World War II? Auschwitz? Really?

And 1979 was the best of times! Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out, and we were singing "We are Family".

Living life is fun and we've just begun to get our share of the world's delights
High hopes we have for the future, and our goal''s in sight

Maybe 1989, after 8 years of Reagan-Bush homophobia, AIDS, Chernobyl, and the Iran-Contra Scandal. But not 1979!

It's about an ordinary couple in "you betcha" small-town Minnesota in horrible 1979, Ed and Peggy Blumquist (Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst), who accidentally kill the son of an organized-crime syndicate, and find their lives unraveling. They are targeted by the syndicate, dogged by the police. They have to kill more people. Ed finds himself tagged as the Butcher, a famous paid assassin with a price on his head.

The crime syndicate is led by the taciturn housewifely Floyd (Jean Smart), who butts heads with her domineering, sexist son Dodd (Jeffrey Donovan), who disapproves of a woman running the empire.

Dodd has a partner, boyfriend, foster brother, or something, the taciturn Indian Hanzee Dent (Zahn McClarnon).

There are two other surviving sons, plus a granddaughter and a grandson, Charlie (Allan Dobrescu), who has a hand deformity. Both have been excused from the action due to their...um...problems, but they long to participate in some of the bloodshed.

Meanwhile Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine), a fixer from a rival gang, tries to find out who theis Butcher is, who is disrupting gang alliances in the Minnesota-North Dakota crime game.

Meanwhile the state trooper investigating the case, Lou Solverson (the very ugly Patrick Wilson), has a disgustingly heteronormative wife and daughter. Oh, so perfect! They love each other so much! Isn't that what life is all about, the only thing that makes life worthwhile is gazing into the eyes of a heterosexual life partner and the wondrous new life that your love has created. Anyone who doesn't have this incredible heterosexual bond is worthless, and probably out to destroy us all.

I'm not kidding. That's exactly what the Coen Brothers say, or indicate, over and over again.

Well, it's not completely perfect. The wife has cancer, caused by the 1970s (they do explicitly say that).

No gay people exist, except for a predatory lesbian who paws at Peggy, and is rebuffed.

No beefcake, unless you're a chubby chaser (Jesse Plemons is a little on the pale, portly side).

I'd give it a miss, unless you love heteronormativity and hate the 1970s.

Why even set your series in a decade you hate?

I'm attracted to darker guys, dark skin, dark hair. Black, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian. Blonds and redheads, not so much.

Maybe because Rock Island had a huge Swedish population. My classmates were all Jensons, Johnsons, Svensons, and Piersons.

But outside of Rock Island, blonds are relatively uncommon. Only 63% of the U.S. population is of European ancestry, and of those, 16% are blond. That's about 1%.

Given the odds, and my initial preference for darker hair colors, how many blonds have I dated or "shared" during the last 30 years?

Texas

1. Only 1 that I can remember: Carl the Cowboy Cop. Tall and blond, two turn-offs, but one of the biggest Kovbasas on my Sausage List.

West Hollywood

2. So many Black, Hispanic, and Asian guys around that the blonds fell by the wayside. But Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star, my best friend from 1985 to the mid-1990s, was blond, sometimes.

3. So was Zack, the kept boy we picked up at Mugi, who turned out to be a drunk.

4. Matt, Fred's Cute Young Thing boyfriend.

5. Redheads count, right? At least in Spanish, blonds and redheads are both rubios. So I'm counting the Ginger Boy that Fred and I hooked up with one Christmas, and Dick and I several years later.

6. My friend Larry in Nashville, who learned that his fetish was being spanked, was blond. But we never actually dated, and shared a bed only incidentally.

7. Artan the Beach Boy, who Lane and I dated twice before he left us for an older guy.

San Francisco

Not many: the Amazing Invisible Boy that I brought home doesn't count, as he vanished before the intimacy.

I'm going to guess Santa Claus, aka Bearnard, was once blond, but when I knew him, he had white hair.

New York

8. Yuri the Russian Weatherman, my best friend in New York and Florida.

9. Barry the Colonial Williamsburg boy, who I met at a traditional Catholic exorcism.

10. Jaan, the Estonian mountain climber that Yuri and I fought over.

11. And Liam, who gave me a present on his 18th birthday.

Florida

12. Wade the Beach Boy, with whom I had a long-term relationship, by Florida standards.

13. The shy boy in the 3rd row at the West Hollywood MCC, who bulked up.

14. Usually redheads are super-sized beneath the belt, but Comic Book Guy was a little lacking in that department.

Ohio

15. The Huber Heights Horror was...shudder...blond.

16. Sammy Blowfish was a rare Asian blond. I think he dyed his hair, though.

Upstate

I can't think of any, but....

Plains

I'm back in Scandinavian country again, so the blonds are rather plentiful.

17. Jimmy, the boy toy of my platonic friends. I tried unsuccessfully to arrange to "share" them, but ended up with a date with Jimmy instead.

18. The boy with Daddy issues who wanted to tear my clothes off. Easier said than done.

19. Bastian, the high schooler who Gabe and I shared.

20. And, finally, the blond Adonis I picked up at the gay-friendly coffee house earlier today.

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

Many gay teenagers in the late 1970s and early 1980s were more familiar with Jimmy McNichol's body than the bodies of their real-life friends. They saw it more often, tanned and pleasantly muscular, splashed over dozens of pin-ups and photo spreads in teen magazines, and during his dozens of tv and movie appearances.

Born in 1961, Jimmy began acting as a child along with his sister Kristy. But he didn't hit teen idol mania until the Eight is Enough clone The Fitzpatricks (1977-78). It only lasted for 13 episodes, but teen magazines were ecstatic about his taciturn Irish Catholic teenager and his buddy bonds with Clark Brandon. They got even more ecstatic over California Fever (1979), which lasted for only 10 episodes, but showed Jimmy and costar Lorenzo Lamas in swimsuits.

Jimmy may have had bad luck on tv series, but he gave well-received performances in Champions: A Love Story (1979), in which he falls in love with a girl and figure-skates in a revealing leotard, and in Blinded by the Light (1980), in which he is brainwashed by an evil cult and rescued by his sister.

In Night Warning (1982), he plays a shy, sensitive heterosexual teenager who is subjected to homophobic harassment by the evil sheriff (in addition to being nearly smothered to death by his crazy aunt). And there is a positive portrayal of a gay person, the high school gym coach who is trying to help (and gets killed by the crazy aunt).

Then there was Escape from El Diablo (1983), also released as California Cowboys, which gave Jimmy a buddy-bond with Vincent Van Patten and a truckload of hot male friends, including John Wayne's son Ethan, trying to break him out of a Mexican prison. An added attraction for gay fans: Patricia Quinn, Magenta of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, has a small role as Rosa.

Jimmy's teen idol star faded by the mid-1980s, in spite of his friendships with Hollywood hunks like Michael Damian and Byron Cherry. I haven't been able to discover much about what he's doing today, except that he lives in Colorado and is involved with environmental activism.

See also: Peter MacNicol

Plains, March 2016

Earlier today I was on my way to the gay-friendly coffee house down the hill from my apartment. Just as I got to the side door, a red car pulled into an empty parking spot, and Adonis jumped out.

Twenties, shorter than me, dirty blond hair, stunningly beautiful face,insouciant smile. He was wearing a pink button-down shirt, short sleeved, very thin for March, unbuttoned to reveal a smooth muscular chest and hard biceps. Blue jeans bulging left. A gold chain around his neck. A gold class ring.

He went inside a moment before me, without waiting and holding the door open.

We stood at the counter together, waiting for the guy in front of us to finish ordering. There were two baristas: a lesbian teenager named Jane was taking the orders, and a middle-aged woman I'd never seen before was staffing the cash register.

I smiled. Adonis ignored me.

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

When Brian Krause starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), yet another "discovering girls on a desert island" movie, there was a collective groan from West Hollywood. Sure, gay teens probably found him dreamy, but why did they have to sit through two hours of heterosexist "you don't exist" propaganda for a glimpse of a slim chest?

Next he starred in the homoromantic December (1991), as the jock boyfriend of quiet, studious Wil Wheaton in a prep school during World War II.

But it's all downhill from there.

Next Brian starred in an aggressively homophobic movie, Sleepwalkers (1992): Charles Brady (Brian), a feminine-stereotype villain, and his mother/girlfriend, feed off the life force of virgins. But he takes a moment from his busy schedule to dispatch a gay high school teacher named Mr. Fellows, who keeps hitting on his students. It's Stephen King, so there's bound to be a lot of anti-gay hatred.

Family Album (1994) is not quite as homophobic: Greg Thayer (Brian) is the son of a famous actress (Jaclyn Smith of Charlie's Angels) and her husband (Michael Ontkean). When his brother Lionel announces that he is gay, it causes immeasurable strife in the family.

Then he starred in some heterosexist "erotic thrillers," which provided some nudity, but they were about guys having sex with girls.

And some buddy-bonding movies, but he never played one of the buddies.

Brian most prominent role to date has been in the tv series Charmed (1998-2006), about three witch sisters (eventually a fourth) living in a gay-free San Francisco. Brian played Leo Wyatt, the sisters' Whitelighter (guardian angel). He begins a forbidden romance with Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and eventually they marry and have children.

While the "I've got a secret" genre is always open to queering, the Charmed ladies are so aggressively searching for heterosexual partners that any symbolism is drowned out in the constant exchanges of "I met a new guy!""Is he hot?"

Plus only one gay character -- Duncan Philips (Blake Bashoff) -- who appears in only one episode, apparently the only gay student at the Magic School, and the only gay person in San Francisco.

Plus female-female friendships are fine, but men approach each other only with suspicion, as competitors and potential enemies.

No word on whether he's a gay ally in real life. I doubt it.

March 2014, St. Peter, Minnesota

I'm at a conference at Gustavus Adolphus College, a small Swedish Lutheran college in a small town on the Minnesota River.

It's fun being immersed in my Lutheran roots. Old Main looks almost like the Old Main back at Augustana, my alma mater. The chapel is a vast, airy expanse with impressionistic stained glass windows. The campus bookstore stocks The Presocratic Philosophers and Bainton's life of Martin Luther, just as Augustana did.

I didn't come here to seek out beefcake, but it keeps finding me.

Even though it's March and quite chilly, there are two shirtless college boys, hard-bodied, Scandinavian pale, walking across the quad (not naked).

And a tanned, very buffed jock in a muscle shirt lounging in the campus library.

The weight room in the campus gym have vast windows that look out onto a basketball court, where a shirts vs. skins game is in progress.

Plus beefcake sculptures everywhere on campus, like this naked man -- yes, that's his penis -- on the facade of the science building. I guess he's inventing something.

Or several beefcake sculptures by alumnus Grant Granlud: Jacob wrestling an angel, a luna moth with a buffed masculine form inside, and the naked man and woman bouncing a baby in the air (below).

I heard that the Hillstrom Museum of Art has some Grant Woods in its permanent collection, so I drop in. It's actually just one big room, empty except for the college boy volunteer sitting at a table reading a book on French impressionists: slim, thick dark hair, red t-shirt and short pants.

Asian, probably Vietnamese! I am surprised to see him. There aren't very many Asians on the Plains, and even fewer, I assume, who want to go to a Swedish Lutheran college in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

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

I love finding beefcake in old photographs: hard chests, bulging biceps, perhaps a hint of beneath-the-belt gifts, men and boys caught at a moment of time a century or more ago, bright with promise and erotic energy.

I try to imagine the lives they had. The books they read, the games they played, their hundreds of sunrises and breakfasts and walks through city streets.

I try to imagine their friends, their lovers.

I try to figure out if they were gay..

Of course, they grew old and died long ago, so I can never really know them,

Unless they drop in for a visit.

Remember what Walt Whitman said:

Full of life, now, compact, visible,
To one a century hence, to you, yet unborn, seeking me
Fancying how happy you would be, if I could be with you, and become your comrade.
(Be not too certain but I am now with you.)

Usually there's no name to go with the physique, so research is impossible.

But for these turn-of-the-century hunks, I have a name and a place. They are the Tonawanda, New York high school basketball team, which won the New York State Championships in 1907.

Basketball was only invented in 1891, so they were playing an innovative new sport.

1. Hewitt Miller, the oldest of the group, born 1887. He went to Michigan State College, where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. In 1919 he was back in Tonawanda, where he played for the American Legion basketball team.

In 1924, he told the Michigan State College Record: "Am still single." If he wasn't married at age 37, chances are he never would.

He also said "Hope the dormitory fans win out, because it is there the rigorous and hearty germ of college spirit is sprouted, and kept alive."

He really liked those MSC dorms.

2. Harry Webb was born in 1889.

As an adult, he worked in a granite factory.

An article in the Grand Island Dispatch mentioned that he belonged to the Young Men's Club of Grand Island, which played pingpong in Larson's Soda Bar.

In 1952, "Harry Webb's Orchestra" performed at a Gay Nineties review at an elementary school in Grand Island, near Tonawanda.

He died in 1957 in Toledo, No mention of a wife and kids.

3. Legrand (Bill) Simson (1886-1974). went on to Cornell, where he was student body president, the captain of the football team, and on the rowing team. Later he became a businessman.

In 1972, Cornell alumni news tells us that his old friend Clarence N. (Sliver) Seagrave tracked him down: "They were a great pair and still are."

4. Blake Miller.(1889-1987). He went to Michigan State College with Hewitt Miller, no doubt his brother, where he played football, baseball, and basketball. Later he played pro football, coached at Michigan State, and was a golf pro at the East Lansing Country Club. He was married, and died in Lansing, Michigan in 1987.

5. Duval Hosmer. Can't find anything on him, but a Duvill C. Hosmer is one of the plaintiffs in a court case filed against Buffalo Commercial Insurance Co. in 1907, and a Clarence Hosmer (1891-1968) was an offensive guard for the Tonawanda Kardax football team in 1921.

Who do I want hovering over me now?

Simson is the hottest and Hewitt is most likely to have been gay. But if I can only get one, I'll take Duval-Duvill-Clarence. He has an air of mystery, and perhaps of tragedy.

See also: Beefcake and Bonding in Old Photographs

The 1985 movie Weird Science was terrible, an entry in the "sex with the babysitter" genre that featured nontop assertions that gay people don't exist. But strangely enough, the spin-off tv series (1994-97) was not terrible.

1. The boys, Gary (John Mallory Asher) and Wyat (Michael Mannaseri) do create a magical computerized babe named Lisa (Vanessa Angel), but she is neither sex partner nor sex object; she acts more as their big sister and mentor.

2. Of the 26 first and second season episodes, only 5 involve dating/romancing girls. The others are wacky science fiction adventures:

Gary ends up stuck in a time loop, repeating the same events over and over.

Wyatt becomes President of the United States

Clones of Gary and Wyatt take over their lives

3. Lisa never removes any articles of clothing, but Gary and Wyatt and their male peers are often displayed as shirtless, in swimsuits, in the shower, in locker rooms.

4. Gary and Wyatt may be aggressively heterosexual, but older brother Chet (Lee Tergesen, later to display full frontal nudity on Oz) has almost no interest in girls.

An amazing turn-around from the movie.

The same plot was used in the 2014 Disney Channel movie How to Make a Better Boy.

San Francisco, Spring 1996

Lane and I were living in San Francisco, gay heaven. I was 35 years old, far beyond my twink years. He was 40, graduated to Daddy.

Our best friend was probably Drake, the leather bear artist (left) -- teddy bears in bulging chaps, in leather jackets, carrying whips and gay flags. He was 53 years old, husky but muscular, with a hairy chest, prominent nipples, and nice biceps. Average beneath the belt, uncut. A bondage bottom.

He had just lost his boyfriend. He was involved in the gay social world, but not dating.

A couple of weeks after Darrell's death, Drake returned to the gay social world.

Beer/soda bust at the Lone Eagle
Underwear contest at the Lone Star
An AIDS benefit at the Metropolitan Community Church
A book signing at Different Light
The bear parties every Wednesday and Friday night.

We saw Drake at every event, eating, drinking, socializing, cruising. But he didn't hook up with anyone, not even at the bear parties, he didn't ask anyone for dates. He always went home alone.

Why do you go to a bear party without even looking for someone to share your bed?

At Christmastime, Lane and I tried to fix him up with a guy we knew, but he refused: "Been there, done that. The domestic thing isn't for me, anyway. Too many rules."

So we let him alone.

Then one day in March 1996, Drake met us at brunch after church and announced: "I have a new boyfriend! Last night was our third date!"

The rest of the story is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was from Galesburg, 60 miles south of Rock Island, so my teachers loved him.

I didn't.

Although he does look nice naked.

It seems that every English, language arts, writing, and history teacher from third grade through college foisted Sandburg upon us.

Chicago Poems! Cornhuskers! Smoke and Steel! Slabs of the Sunburned West! The People, Yes!

He was a two-bit Walt Whitman wannabe, with none of Whitman's homoeroticism.

When Sandburg mentions a man, it's only to pair him with a woman.

A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month; to-night they are throwing you kisses.

But mostly he's desperate to tell you how much he likes women. Over and over and over and over.

Each morning as I move through this river of young- woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all going, so many with a peach bloom of young years on them and laughter of red lips and memories in their eyes of dances the night before and plays and walks.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that he expects his intended audience to agree. All beauty is feminine beauty, the Eternal Feminine is everybody's goal in life.

In high school we had to read Always the Young Strangers, maybe because it mentioned Rock Island and Augustana College. But it's not, as you might suspect, about cruising for late-night pickups.

It's about Sandburg growing up in Galesburg,with no interest in male friendship, just devotion to family, the thrill of the feminine, and heterosexual sex.

He liked to imagine heterosexual sex. Even when it was between his mother and father:

They were a couple and their coupling was both earthy and sacramental to them. There were at times smiles exchanged between them that at the moment I didn't understand but later read as having the secret meanings of lovers who had pleasured each other last night.

Do heterosexuals usually spend a lot of time imagining their parents having sex?

But the very worst was Rootabaga Stories, American fairy tales with an Edward Lear twist that were foisted on us in 3rd grade.

The titles didn't make sense:
"The Story of Blixie Bimber and the Power of the Gold Buckskin Whincher"
"How the Hat Ashes Shovel Helped Snoo Foo"
"Only the Fire-Born Understand Blue."

And once you got past the title, you got endless hetero-romance between men and women, boys and girls, and gender-polarized inanimate objects.

Except for one weird story about two skyscrapers who decide to have a child together. Their genders aren't specified, but since they're phallic symbols, I'm going to assume both male. Sandburg doesn't explain how their child comes about. Maybe they adopt.

The only gay potential anywhere in Sandburg's work is in his 4-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. In The War Years (1926), he writes that Lincoln's relationship with Joshua Speed had "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets."

And maybe in the poem "Planked Whitefish," in which a "demon driver" named Horace Wild tells Sandburg about an experience in World War I in Ypres (site of a major battle): a Canadian soldier nailed to a wall with bayonets, his sex organs cut off and shoved into his mouth. The sight made him a pacifist.

Not exactly a gay-positive image.

See also: Gather the Faces of Men

Providence, Rhode Island, Spring 2000

I''m in graduate school in New York. Zack the Photographer, who I met four years ago when he was dating Drake the teddy bear artist, is now enrolled in the MFA Program at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Yuri and I take the train up to for a weekend visit.

Drake is 23, a twink with smooth, pale skin, a thick chest, prominent nipples, xylophone abs, and an uncut Mortadella.

He lives in an apartment in an old Victorian about half a mile from the RISD, with Seth: in his 30s, with short brown hair, a rugged face, and a hairy barrel chest; and Mikey, a shaggy-haired twink with blue eyes and a smooth lean physique.

On Friday night we have dinner in an Indian place near campus, go cruising at a gay bar called the Stable, and then return to the apartment, where Yuri and I "share" Zack.

I'm more interested in Seth and Mikey.

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

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