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Head: More of the Monkees
After their spectacular, media-orchestrated rise to fame in 1966, with a top-rated tv show and several #1 hit songs, the Monkees were on top of the world. But not for long. They chafed at their "boy...
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Spring 1976: My Date with the King of Sweden
Prince Charles isn't the only royal that I've been associated with. Rock Island, my home town, has strong Swedish roots, so on a visit to the U.S. on a hot day in the spring of 1976, King Carl Gustaf...
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Beefcake Dads of 1950s Sitcoms
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a fad of nuclear family sitcoms, set in small town Mayfields, with a pipe-smoking Dad, a Mom who did housework in high heels, groovy teenagers, and...
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Matthias Schweighoefer: What a Man
Matthias Schweighoefer is one of the most popular young actors in Germany, notable for his stunning physique, his nonchalance about full frontal nudity, and his intense buddy-bonding. Indeed, he often...
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Quentin Crisp: Homophobic Gay Pioneer
This elegantly-attired, feminine person, who looks a lot like my Grandmother Dennis, is Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), who spent his life saying and doing exactly what he wanted.He didn't like doing...
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Finding a Boyfriend in the Girls' Locker Room
Bill and I began to drift apart in junior high, when we took different classes and joined different clubs. We still hung out, but we never slept over, and I think both of us were actively looking for...
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Easter Island: Phallic Statues and Penis Festivals
If you thought Mongolia was remote for Westerners, try Easter Island (aka Rapa Nui). From New York, you fly to Miami, then to Panama City, and finally to Santiago, Chile (about 24 hours). From there,...
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Tom Jones: Sex and Nudity in 1749
When I was studying for my M.A. in English at Indiana University, I had to select two historical eras. The first was easy: the Romantic Period, full of exuberant homoerotic scenes and buddy-bonding...
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Top 12 Public Penises of Finland
That's right, Finland, the conservative outsider of Scandinavia, somewhat isolated from the usual tourist circuit (but you can fly from London in about 3 hours), cold and cloudy, with a...
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Spring 1998: Jaan Chooses Between Me and Yuri
At my birthday party in 1997, my friend Yuri, the Russian meteorology major who claimed to be heterosexual, introduced me to Jaan, the Estonian mountain climber. Jaan didn't even know what gay people...
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The 8 Dead Gay Guys of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was one of the most popular playwrights of the 1950s. He won two Pulitzer Prizes and was nominated for four Tony Awards. Film versions of his plays topped the charts at...
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Mickey Rooney: Gay-Vague Teen Hunk of the 1940s
Mickey Rooney, who just died at age 93, played elderly men for so long that it's hard to remember that once upon a time he was the biggest teen hunk in Hollywood. Born Joe Yule in 1920, Mickey got his...
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Top 10 Beefcake Horror Movies: The 1970s
Horror movies in the 1970s upped the blood, guts, and overall grossness content to compete with tv, but unfortunately backed away from the nonstop nudity of the swinging 1960s. Still, there were...
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Tarzan, the Stage Musical: Major Loincloth-Clad Hunkage
With all of the movies, tv series, books, comic books, and toys surrounding Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan since his first appearance in the October 1912 issue of All Story Magazine, it makes sense that...
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August Strindberg: Nude Statues and Dream Visions
Growing up in Rock Island, where most people were of Scandinavian ancestry, I heard constantly about Vikings, runestones, Peer Gynt, Knut Hamsun, Hans Christian Anderson, lukefisk, The Elder Edda, and...
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Richard Halliburton: A Gay Adventurer of the Jazz Age
When I was a kid in the 1960s, I was constantly looking for "a good place," where I could be free from the "what girl do you like?" interrogations. One such "good place" was a book in the Denkmann...
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The Wonderful Adventures of Nils: A Boy and His Goose
Remember Leda in Greek mythology and the Yeats poem, who had a thing for swans?14-year old Nils Holgersson had a thing for geese.The star of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1906) and The Further...
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14 Shirtless Stanleys of "A Streetcar Named Desire"
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...
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Kevin Zegers: Teen Idol without a Girlfriend
One of the last of the old-style teen idols, Kevin Zegers was born in Canada in 1984, and did some modeling, tv commercials, and guest roles as "kid" before hitting adolescence. Then he achieved...
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Spring 1970: Playing Outside
When I was a kid, I hated bright, sunny days. I much preferred dark, cloudy, and rainy.I know, it made me weird. In People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck states that people who prefer cloudy days are...
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