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Rex Smith: Not Gay, in Spite of the Outfits
When I was in college (1978-82), I still read teen magazines; they were the only place to get beefcake images in the small-town Midwest. And this was the image I saw most often: Rex Smith, a gleaming,...
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Joe Dallesandro: Counterculture Icon with the Most Famous Face, Physique, and...
Joe Dallesandro had one of the most recognizeable faces, physiques -- and bulges -- of the 1960s.When the teenager met Andy Warhol in 1967, he had already had a colorful career as a juvenile delinquent...
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My First Asian Hookup, with a Little Help from My Friends
West Hollywood, July 5th, 1985I arrived in Southern California two days ago, on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday was a holiday, but today I'm getting started with the three things I need.1. An apartment....
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19th Century Slave Paintings
This is one of the most famous paintings of the 19th century, Le supplice de fouet (Flogging), Whipping of a Fugitive Slave" by Marcel Verdier (1817-1856). It depicts a naked slave, tied spreadeagle on...
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Little Lulu: The Perils of the Gay Child's World
During the 1960s, when Bill, Greg, and I zoomed into Schneider's Drug Store to blow our allowance on comic books, we zeroed in on the Gold Key jungle titles (Tarzan, Korak), Disneys (Donald Duck, Uncle...
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Joe Dallesandro's Date with Peter Pan
Last week I put the word out to all of my friends and friends-of-friends for celebrity hookup stories about Tony Dow. I got a lot of other 1950s and 1960s teen idols instead: Jack Wild, "Dennis the...
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Photographing the Beauty and Fragility of Male Youth
On his tumblr blog, David Corvine has published a number of black-and-white photos that expertly capture the paradox of male youth: innocence and experience, strength and fragility, infinite joy and...
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The Top 9 Beefcake Stars of "America's Got Talent"
I don't watch talent shows on tv, so I figured that America's Got Talent (2006-) was just another rendition of American Idol, with wannabe pop stars belting out off-key Madonna while a panel of...
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The Glory Hole at the Air Force Base
Last week 69-year old Jock, a retired landscaper and Uber driver from Tucson, told me a story of when he was in the California National Guard in 1966, and Tony Dow, the actor who starred as teenage...
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The Top 10 Beefcake Murals of U.S. Post Offices
The people who deliver your Netflix envelopes and Amazon boxes were once responsible for a lot more. They brought paper copies of your bills, magazines, and even messages from friends. If you wanted...
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My 16 Boyfriends
Quick, are these guys friends or partners?There's no way to tell without asking them. In gay communities the boundaries between friends and romantic partners are blurry.You have sex with friends, and...
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The Gay Photographer in Eastern Kentucky
In 1964, gay documentary photographer William Gedney, known for documenting the Bohemian subcultures of New York and San Francisco, traveled to the Blue Diamond Mining Camp in Pike County, Eastern...
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The Top 10 Flandrin Nudes
Every apartment in West Hollywood had this painting somewhere: Jeune homme nu assis au bord de la mer (1835-6): a curly-haired young man, naked, sitting on his clothes on a rock overlooking a desolate...
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Kevin Zegers: Former Teen Idol is Trans-Friendly
Only a few teen idols have achieved such fan accolades that there are websites devoted to detailed descriptions of every scene of every movie, tv, and theatrical appearance. Luke Halpin of Flipper....
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Getting Even with the Overly-Friendly Banker
Wilton Manors, August 2003I HATE the question "Got any big plans?" or "Got any exciting plans"?It makes me feel like everybody else on Earth spends every night in a Mountain Dew commercial, going...
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Cruising in New Mexico: The Twink, the Redneck, or the Gordito?
New Mexico, Summer 2004Remember my trip to visit Larry in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the summer of 2004? After four deplorable days, we had a gigantic argument, and I packed up my stuff and drove away,...
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A Gaggle of Shirtless Jeremys
Somebody found this blog using google search terms "Jeremy naked." Jeremy who? The only Jeremys I have posts about are Jackson and Lelliot. But, just for fun, I put "Jeremy shirtless" into google...
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Larry is Spanked by an Alabama Boy
Huntsville, Alabama, November 1991It's the weekend before my 31st birthday, and I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, 2,000 miles from West Hollywood, taking classes in Biblical Hebrew and Protestant theology...
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Paul Newman and Rocky Graziano: Somebody Down Here Likes Me
Paul Newman and James Dean met in 1952, when they were studying at the famous Actors Studio in New York. They began a passionate affair. But there were problems from the start: Paul didn't like...
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N.C. Wyeth: Keeping Gay Desire Hidden
During the first half of the twentieth century, kids who got adventure books as presents, or checked them out of the library, were sure to find beautiful illustrations by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), like...
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