By the 1950s, it was getting easier to obtain gay porn but still a very socially guilty, and legally dangerous, pleasure. On the other hand, it was a breeze to obtain body-building magazines and men's magazines which covertly catered to the latent homosexual impulses of -- how shall I phrase it diplomatically...umm -- a lot more men than most people will ever admit. Ok, sure, some of the boys and men who consumed the images of naked or near-naked weight-lifters and pawed the pages of gay-looking men's magazines were probably just admiring the athleticism. At least that's what they and the copywriters pretended to believe. But gazing upon the body-builders and the muscle-genre of men's magazines with 21st century eyes, what do you see? I see a lot of delightful 50s beefcake designed to titillate gay men. The idea of men stripping to turn women on was still a couple of decades away, and while I'm sure some women used these materials for masturbation, het females were definitely not a target audience for these.
I'll start with some tasty 50s photography of vintage models and actors.
1950s muscle pulp mags.
Early 1960s muscle pulp fiction:
Funny that you should mention this. I subscribe to Men's Health magazine, which is a general interest sort of publication. I've been learning more about working out with weights, so one day I picked up some muscle mag, hoping to learn some new routines and such.
The mag came with a fold out poster of a well built young man in a pose that just exuded sexuality. Flipping through the rest of it, I began to wonder if I had picked up a closet gay mag that was merely disguised as a fitness mag.
I bought it anyway, but I felt so ashamed...
Posted by: Tom Allen | Jul 18, 2009 at 06:12 AM
Oh yum!
Thank you for posting these, not only for their beefcake appeal, but also for a look at "vintage" sexualities.
Posted by: Treacle | Jul 19, 2009 at 11:55 AM