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Steam: Beefcake, Ludicrous Characters, Hysterical Over-Reactions
You're an out-and-proud lesbian dating a college freshman who is just starting to come out. You invite her to a party to be held on Thanksgiving Day, and she says "Thanks, but I should really spend...
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Camp Lakebottom: Gay-Positive Summer Camp for Monsters
While tv series aimed at juveniles are always heavily scrutinized to censor all references to gay people, writers often sneak in gay subtexts. Especially animated series. Some of the most obvious...
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Caligula: Drag as Pure Evil
Everybody's heard of Caligula, the Roman Emperor who ascended to the throne in 37 AD and pursued an aggressive program of reforms, granting pardons to political prisoners, requiring corrupt highway...
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Top 10 Beefcake Horror Movies: The 1960s
Horror movies in the 1950s were simple: two guys compete over a girl; a monster kidnaps her; they work together to rescue her; one is killed, and the other sweeps her off to a fade-out kiss. All very...
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John Davidson: Hollywood White Bread with a Gay Twist
Everyone was shocked in 1974 to see John Davidson nude in the centerfold of Cosmo.First, he had quite a nice physique (his privates were coyly hidden).Second, he was John Davidson.Hollywood Nice,...
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A Gay Scandal on London's Museum Circuit
London is the City of Museums, with 240, including some that top every tourist's to-do list: The British Museum, the Victoria & Albert, the Tate Modern, the Museum of London. But leave some time...
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Ross Lynch's Top 10 Hunks
Austin & Ally has become the Disney Channel's most popular teencom, due primarily to the charm and charisma of Ross Lynch as aspiring singer Austin Moon, and his chemistry with Calum Worthy as...
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Fall 1990: Sneaking Chazz into his Boyfriend's Bedroom
In the fall of 1990, I was working at Camp Routh, a probation camp for juvenile delinquents, and sneaking a Gay 101 unit into their sex education class, under the nose of the old-school homophobe...
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8 Things Wrong with San Francisco, and Why It's Still Gay Heaven
For gay people in the 1990s, West Hollywood was a sacred site, a safe haven free from the heterosexism and homophobia of the straight world. Everyone visited at least once; almost everyone moved there...
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10 Forgotten Musclemen of Movie Serials
Between 1936 and 1955, you didn't just go to a movie; you went to a whole evening's entertainment, with cartoons, newsreels, two features, and a serial -- a cliffhanging, 12-15 chapter adventure,...
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Beatles Penises: What John, Paul, George, and Ringo Looked Like Naked
Musicians in the 1960s rarely took their shirts off on camera, and nudity was unheard of. That's why this photo of John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) was shocking when it appeared on their album Unfinished...
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Fall 1972: Slow-Dancing in the Junior High Gym
When I was in 6th and 7th grades, I was told incessantly about my upcoming "discovery of girls." One day soon, very soon, I would awaken desperate to talk to, kiss, hold, hug, and have sex with...
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Popeye: Finding a Non-Traditional Family
Critics panned the 1980 movie musical Popeye, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, but I loved it. I loved the world of Sweethaven, a tiny, cramped, desolate seaport, cut off from the rest of...
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12 Public Penises of Paris
My favorite spot in Paris is the Luxembourg Gardens, the grounds of the French Senate. It's got everything you want in a Parisian park: geometrically-precise walkway, sculpted groves of chestnut...
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Rex Smith: Not Gay, in Spite of the Outfit
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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Popeye: The First Gay Superhero
During the 1960s, Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat often showed Popeye cartoons. They were awful, nothing but heterosexist morality plays. In every single one of them, the absurdly macho sailor...
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The Three Stooges: Gay Symbolism on "Cartoon Showboat"
When I was a kid in the 1960s, every day after school I rushed home or to my boyfriend Bill's house to watch Cartoon Showboat. Riverboat Captain Ernie (later weatherman Ernie Nims) showed old Bugs...
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Neil Diamond: All of the Sad, Gay Songs
My junior year in Augustana College (1980-81) was very busy: cruising at the levee, tricking my friend Haldor into a date, going to Professor Burton's Handcuff Party, hanging out with the Bookstore...
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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 illustrations by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), like this naked...
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The Finnish Sauna Championships
Today every health club has a sauna, a little wooden room where the temperature is high so you can sit around naked, sweating in either wet or dry heat, with relaxation and maybe other benefits.It's a...
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