Today’s Daily Jocks ad, for an offer featuring BCNÜ underwear (in this case an Atletico Sports Brief), showing the model alluringly posed on sheepskin:
He chose the name Mandrake,
His conventionally handsome veneer
Concealing a magical, dangerous
Creature, the taste of whose body drove
Men into delirium. Posing as an
Underwear model, he transformed
Men into beasts.
A mandrake is the root of a plant, historically derived either from plants of the genus Mandragora [roughly ‘man-dragon’, in the nightshade or potato family, Solanaceae] found in the Mediterranean region, or from other species, such as Bryonia alba, the English mandrake, which have similar properties. The plants from which the root is obtained are also called “mandrakes”. Mediterranean mandrakes are perennial herbaceous plants with ovate leaves arranged in a rosette, a thick upright root, often branched, and bell-shaped flowers followed by yellow or orange berries. … They are very variable perennial herbaceous plants with long thick roots (often branched) and almost no stem. The leaves are borne in a basal rosette, and are very variable in size and shape, with a maximum length of 45 cm (18 in). They are usually either elliptical in shape or wider towards the end (obovate), with varying degrees of hairiness.
Because mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids and the shape of their roots often resembles human figures [and allegedly shriek when pulled from the ground], they have been associated with a variety of superstitious practices throughout history. They have long been used in magic rituals, today also in contemporary pagan traditions such as Wicca and Odinism.
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk (before he created The Phantom). Mandrake began publication on June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip’s illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip is distributed by King Features Syndicate.
Mandrake, along with the Phantom Magician in Mel Graff’s The Adventures of Patsy, are regarded by comics historians as the first superheroes of comics. Comics historian Don Markstein writes, “Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics’ first superhero.”
Davis worked on the strip until his death in 1964, when Falk recruited current artist Fred Fredericks. With Falk’s death in 1999, Fredericks became both writer and artist. The Sunday Mandrake strip ended December 29, 2002.
Mandrake is a magician whose work is based on an unusually fast hypnotic technique. As noted in captions, when Mandrake “gestures hypnotically”, his subjects see illusions, and Mandrake has used this technique against a variety of villains including gangsters, mad scientists, extraterrestrials, and characters from other dimensions. At various times in the comic strip, Mandrake has also demonstrated other powers, including turning invisible, shapeshifting, levitation, and teleportation. His hat, cloak and wand, passed down from his father Theron, possess great magical properties which in time Mandrake learns how to use. Although Mandrake publicly works as a stage magician, he spends much of his time fighting criminals and combatting supernatural entities. Mandrake lives in Xanadu, a high-tech mansion atop a mountain in New York State. Xanadu’s features include closed circuit TV; a sectional road which divides in half; and vertical iron gates.
Lothar is Mandrake’s best friend and crimefighting companion. Mandrake first met Lothar during his travels in Africa. Lothar was “Prince of the Seven Nations”, a mighty federation of jungle tribes; but forbore to become king and instead followed Mandrake on his world travels. Lothar is often referred to as “the strongest man in the world”, with the exception of Hojo — Mandrake’s chef and secret chief of Inter Intel. Lothar is invulnerable to any weapon forged by man, impervious to heat, cold and possesses the stamina of a thousand men. He also cannot be harmed by magic directly (fire bolts, force bolts, spell incantations). He can lift an elephant by one hand easily.
(Some explicit talk about man-man sex, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)
Today’s Daily Jocks ad, announcing in a shriek that CURBWEAR IS BACK!, with a shot of model Ben advertising one of his identities (on briefs in the British firm’s IDENTITY line):
Greek receptive, French insertive, that’s the way
Ben swings, and he has underwear to
Advertise his identities. His boyfriend likes
Sandwich sessions with Ben: blow him for a while,
Screw him – well, really, provide Hungry Ben with a
Dildo dick and a cum load – then finish Ben off in his
Mouth. Works for them both, and Sam gets a long time to
Look up into Ben’s handsome face, and into
The astounding eyes that once
Beckoned Sam to pursue a perfect
Stranger off the street for
Risky sex in a
Grubby alleyway.
We’ve visited Curbwear’s IDENTITY line before, in a 2/27/15 posting “Color and advertising your preferences”. Available slogans: Blow Me, Power Bottom, Total Top, Versatile, Circuit Boy, Active.
Ben is the model’s name on the Curbwear site. Sam is my invention. In any case, Ben and Sam are characters, not actual people.
Now, shots of Ben displaying his body and his identities out and about in London:
(Not about language. No direct discussion of sexual acts either.)
The most recent Daily Jocks ad, showing a model wearing a Supawear jock in the Supacharge line, with Lightning theme (there’s also a Thunder theme, but Lightning has the more startling colors):
Jonas adored his
Lightning-themed
Jock strap, and
Pranced around in it
All day long, though he was
Reluctant to get
Plugged by that
Two-pronged
Electric monster.
Today’s Daily Jocks ad (for Marcuse swimwear, showing a model in the very low-rise line of swim briefs Jagger, in the color Ivory), and another model in the same swim briefs, plus a caption:
Both in their Marcuse Jaggers in Ivory, the
Spare intellectual end of extreme low-rise
Swim briefs, Mick and his brother Keith would
Troll the surf together for cute boys to
Double-team while disputing political economy
With them – the Jaggeds bewitched the pups with the
Smell of their sweat, the feel of their tight
Muscular bodies, and the
Acuity of their reasoning.
(Possibly relevant linguistic fact: there is a verb jag ‘stab, pierce, prick’, with a derived agent noun jagger.)
(Brothers Mick and Keith Jagged use a combination of heady sweat/muscles and acute reasoning to bring boys to their knees in sexual submission, just as Monty Python’s brothers Doug and Dinsdale Piranha used a combination of violence and sarcasm to intimidate the London underworld and bring the city to its knees.)
We lack helpful tattoos to distinguish the men, who are otherwise pretty similar. Different hair, different beards, but these are easily altered. However, Mick’s torso seems to be longer and his pecs bigger, and Keith’s inguinal crease looks much more pronounced, so I’ve given them different names.
The DJ ad copy:
New Marcuse Swimwear + Underwear have arrived. Explore new low-rise styles including Brave [has an Indian brave on the front panel], Rider [has wild horses on the pouch and rear panel], and Patrol [has a badge on the front panel].
Ouch on the “Indian brave”. Older styles (still available) include Jagger, Sunset, Flash, Vamper, Ibiza, Champion.
Here’s a different model in Rider, front and rear:
From Daily Jocks on the 2nd, a set of three images for 2eros underwear, with this ad copy (untouched here):
X MARKS THE SPOT
Australian luxury brand 2eros have released The X-Series, a new active underwear collection. Each styles comes in two marle colours, grey and black. It features 2EROS’s signature form fit and singled lined pouch for that enhanced but natural lift. Made from premium Lenzing Modal® which has epitomized pure luxury and softness for over 40 years.
Give your skin the ultimate sensual feeling, the fibre remains wonderfully soft even after repeated washing and retains its color brilliance.
(As you will see in #2 below, the spot that X marks seems to be the anus.)
[Quick addition: I neglected to explain marle. This is the British spelling corresponding to American marl. From NOAD2:
a mottled yarn of differently coloured threads, or fabric made from this yarn: blue marl leggings. ORIGIN late 19th cent.: shortening of marbled.
Similarly, red marl, navy marl, and, yes, grey/gray marl and black marl.]
Below the fold, the three images, in the sequence they came in, with a little tale of a romantic triangle in my captions.
Jamal, wanting nothing to do with a
White faggot looking for a black stud to
Top him, ignores the bitch; Tommy is
Wicked hot for him, but averts his gaze,
Wouldn’t want to be staring blatantly at the
Object of his desire.
Comes muscular Brad, commanding in
Grey — Whoa! Jamal seriously
Reconsiders white guys.
Unpacking the titles of the three scenes is left as an exercise for the reader. But I’ll unpack part of the main title, “Tinging the scalene triangle”. Here’s one such triangle:
Put Tommy at the left vertex, Jamal at the top right, Brad at the bottom right, so that the distances between their verticles corresponds to the emotional distances between the men.
“Ah, the Scalene Triangle” is an expression associated with a video in which the narrator seductively repeats the phrase “ahh the scalene triangle” while zooming in on an illustration of the geometric figure.
On September 8th, 2012, Tumblr user Drawing Guitaristposted a video in which the narrator repeats the phrase “Ah, the scalene triangle” with increasingly sexual overtones [climaxing in “Aaaah, fuck me, scalene triangle!”] while zooming in on an illustration of a scalene triangle. Within 11 days, the post received over 35,000 notes.
The video is on the Know Your Meme site.
(To recap from your school days: equilateral triangle, all three sides the same length; isosceles triangle, two sides the same length; scalene triangle, three sides of different lengths.)
In my Trent Atkins posting yesterday, photo #3 had the man in briefs apparently labeled Pigskin, which I took to be an invention of the Michael Lucas studios, expressly for a film in which a number of actors (Atkins among them) behave piggishly. But no, it’s a real thing, and the name is PigSkin (now corrected in the Atkins posting). It’s the company that conveyed the piggish, edgy, even raunchy associations by their choice of name, meanwhile allowing themselves plausible deniability by playing on the word pigskin as a sports term (for a football).
Cover image for the line, showing an intense nude model:
From an Underwear News Briefs bulletin by UNBTim on 12/13/11:
This is a underwear that has a bit of a darker side. It was photographed by Timoteo Ocampo. The model is Israel Zamora. The underwear line is called PigSkin and this is the new line with styles called the Mechanic, Grappler, Gridiron, and Prizefighter.
(All high-masculinity names, three of them sports-related.) Here’s Zamora in a Grappler jockstrap in yellow and a Mechanic brief in blue:
(There will be stuff about music and some incidental stuff on translation, but there’s also crude mansex in very plain language, so this is certainly not for kids or the sexually modest.)
The latest Daily Jocks ad, with a caption of mine (one you can sing!):
Randy Handy stands in the shadows
While his johns walk in the light
You see the rich guys shine in brightness
But their stud hustler’s out of sight
Randy is prime meat in his rentboy stable, so a 50%-off sale is a real money-saver, guys.
Some background notes on the fantasy in the caption, then lots of words on the source of the caption (meanwhile, think “Mack the Knife”).
[Added: oh yes, there’s now a Page on this blog, on “Male prostitution”, under “XBlog essays”, with an inventory of postings on male hustlers, rentboys, escorts, etc.]
In the caption world, Randy works for an escorting agency that books tricks for him, but he also loves the excitement of being a street hustler, “loitering for the purposes of prostitution” (as the laws say) and working face to face with his prospects: showing his body off at his station in a dimly lit alley, clutching his junk invitingly, using his face to dominate the men and simultaneously offer himself to them. He cruises in nothing but minimal briefs (always from really hot companies, like TeamM8), an unusual arrangement made possible by a trade he made with the local police (they don’t harass him in any way, in exchange for which they get unlimited free access to his services, whatever they want, whenever they want it). Randy seals the deals on the spot, negotiating on services to be rendered and price and then providing these services right there in the alley (or, if the john wants, in a somewhat more secluded alcove a few feet away). The vision of a hunky man hooking in public virtually naked and (randily) ready for immediate sex, right there, really pulls the johns in in droves; they stand in line, and so get a sex show while they’re waiting their turn.
Mostly the johns just want to suck Randy’s cock or get fucked by him, and he’s happy to oblige (even better, his refractory period is something like two minutes, tops, so he can easily satisfy one after another, and he has the stamina for it). Early on in the business, Randy discovered that many men would pay big bucks to be abused verbally and physically, so after some coaching from his stable-mates, he got to be a master at these acts. Later he realized that many of these men gained even deeper satisfaction from the humiliation of being abused in public, in front of an audience, and would pay extra for it.
In fact he’s about as versatile as a man can get, willing to do virtually anything (so long as nobody actually gets damaged), and good at taking either role in any of these acts. Although he’s solidly, deeply gay, he can convincingly portray a contemptuous straight guy taking over a faggot, or a curious straight guy being converted to panting queerness by a superior man, or, for that matter, an affectionate lover together with an equal partner; it all depends on what the client needs / wants. His philosophy is that getting truly comfortable with receptive, submissive, etc. roles in mansex has made him better at taking the other roles (the ones that are his first preference), has taught him to appreciate what an insertive, dominant, etc. man can provide to a male sexual partner.
Although he has no drive towards sex with women, he likes women and also isn’t at all uncomfortable with their bodies. So, off work, he’s willing to provide supportive sex to a needy female friend. And, on the job, he’s up for doing a client’s female partner — and if the client wants it, him as well.
Of course, he’s fine with male couples hiring him to take care of both of them, however they want the roles to be distributed. And if a john wants to hire a pair of guys, to do whatever, Randy has buddies in the stable who work well with him.
Outside of work, Randy has clear preferences in sex, but on the job, he’s sexually transparent, completely adaptable to his customer’s wishes.
Now, Randy Handy as Super RentBoy is a fiction — no one is this perfect at the job, not to mention this extravagantly flagrant in his sexual behavior — but a potentially enjoyable one. Just imagine Randy in that dark alley, already nearly naked, ready to give or take whatever.
The caption. Lovers of the musical theatre probably recognized the meter of “Mack the Knife” even before I handed you the title. But there’s more, much more.
“Mack the Knife” or “The Ballad of Mack the Knife”, originally “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer”, is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper [DGO], or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera.
… A moritat (from mori meaning “deadly” and tat meaning “deed”) is a medieval version of the murder ballad performed by strolling minstrels. In The Threepenny Opera, the moritat singer with his street organ introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly Mackie Messer, or Mack the Knife, a character based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (who was in turn based on the historical thief Jack Sheppard). The Brecht-Weill version of the character was far more cruel and sinister, and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero.
Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne,
Und die trägt er im Gesicht.
Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer,
Doch das Messer sieht man nicht.
[literal translation:]
And the shark, it has teeth,
And it wears them in the face.
And Macheath, he has a knife,
But the knife can’t be seen. [more literally: ‘… you don’t / can’t see’]
In the best known English translation, from the Marc Blitzstein 1954 version of The Threepenny Opera, which played Off-Broadway for over six years, the words are:
Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear,
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear
And he keeps it out of sight.
The rarely heard final verse — not included in the original play, but added by Brecht for the 1931 movie — expresses the theme and compares the glittering world of the rich and powerful with the dark world of the poor [and the thieves and the whores; note that my character Randy Handy is a whore, like Jenny Diver in DGO]:
Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht
Und man siehet die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht.
[literal translation:]
There are some who are in darkness
[Blitzstein has ‘shadows’, not ‘darkness’, and I use that in my caption]
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight.
[even more literally: ‘…you don’t see’; but that loses the rhyme]
You’ll see the echo of the street singer’s line in his opening verse, Doch das Messer sieht man nicht, in his closing line in the movie, Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht. Note that the Brecht-Weill productions (the stage version, which opened in 1928, and the movie, directed by G. W. Pabst and released in 1931) were intended as Socialist critiques of the capitalist system (but with musical-comedy features as well); the economics and politics pretty much vanished in all the later versions of the work (of which there are a great many; I had the great pleasure of seeing Lotte Lenya, who played Polly Peachum in the 1928 and 1931 versions, in this role, using the Blitzstein adaptation, at the tiny Theatre de Lys in Greenwich Village, more than once in the late 1950s, but it was nothing like the movie, though it has mostly the same songs). Their intentions are clear in the movie, throughout which the rich and powerful are presented as vain, grasping predators upon the poor and dispossessed, workers who are viewed with great sympathy as sufferers under this system. At the very end of the movie we get the Dunkeln – Licht(e) quatrain, powerfully illustrated by a crowd of shabbily dressed poorfolk shuffling silently off away from the viewer into darkness.
I haven’t been able to find a clip of this final scene. But you can get the whole movie, with English subtitles, on YouTube here (which will allow you to appreciate just how different it is from versions you’re likely to be familiar with) and then forward to very close to the end.
Other German versions on film of this third finale (yes, third finale; the story is complicated) to the show are available on YouTube, in particular a performance directed by Nacho de Paz in which the light and darkness bit is harsh and biting rather than sad and despairing. But not funny or heart-warming.
A follow-up to my 2/18/16 posting “Ben, advertising” about Curbwear model Ben (with four photos on him in briefs), a man I was much taken with, and it now turns out that he has quite a following, among people who praise him for his “male beauty”, citing his handsome face, gorgeous eyes, and hot body (sometimes also his cool hair, beautiful smile, or notable bulge). Since the photos in the earlier posting showed an unsmiling (but not challenging or threatening) Ben, after a little background I’ll give three photos of him smiling (and shirtless and looking athletic) and go on to analyze his male beauty and compare him to some other beautiful men, of several types.
Ben — Ben Riches (aka Ben Hunt) — is now officially The Face of Curbwear, under an exclusive contract with the company, which means that he appears all over their advertising . The company specializes in the sexy, the outrageous, and the decidedly gay-oriented, but unlike many firms with that profile their models are not presented in a stud-hustler persona; instead they are mostly amiable, fit and athletic, young men, with Ben Riches as the prototype.
Ben in three smiling photos, shirtless, looking athletic:
Ben flexing for the camera, showing his lean muscular body, and a serious bulge
(As far as I known, this is as close as Ben gets to nude photos or more overt penis display. He’s photographed apparently out and abroad in London in nothing but Curbwear briefs, but that’s as outrageous as he gets.)
Ben’s widow’s peak and neat beard frame a heart-shaped face (a shape usually taken to be feminine), and he has big, beautiful eyes (again, a feminine attribute), but the man has masculine hair, that beard, and a neat mustache, and his hair is dark rather than blond, so he’s decidedly masculine, and also not boyish (much less feminine): a beautiful man.
References to male beauty usually focus on beautiful male faces, and there are collections of facial photos. In these collections, the young Brad Pitt, especially smiling, is a famous beautiful man, and he also had a beautiful body and a strongly masculine physicality in motion. My 8/6/13 posting, “Seven Supermen and Brad Pitt”, has a section on Pitt with two shirtless photos: #12 the beautiful boyish man from Thelma and Louise, #13 Pitt in training for Fight Club, bulking up, though still with a beautiful face. Then in a 2/29/16 posting, “Four mythic hunks”, we see Pitt hugely bulked up for the part of Achilles in the movie Troy, in three photos (#4-6, the third shirtless), into a much rougher presentation of himself, with a handsome face, but not a beautiful one.
For some people, Robert Redford as Sundance in the 1969 movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is the model of facial male beauty. A close-up of him in this role:
A beautiful face, and blond hair as well. His mustache serves as a masculine counterweight to the beauty of his face. Here’s Redford side-by-side with Paul Newman as Butch:
Both very good-looking men with strongly masculine physical presences, but Newman is more on the rugged side, Redford more on the beautiful side.
A more recent actor often nominated as a model of male beauty is Robert Pattinson, who came to fame in the role of the vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight series of movies. My 4/3/13 posting “scruffilicious” has two maximally contrasting (though both lightly scruffy-faced) photos of Pattinson: darkly (bad-boy) beautiful in the seventh photo in that posting, broadly smiling beautiful in the eighth. Then Pattinson plays the central character in the movie Bel Ami:
Bel Ami is a 2012 drama film starring Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Christina Ricci and Colm Meaney. The film is directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod and is based on the 1885 French novel of the same name by Guy de Maupassant.
Now several Bel Ami digressions,
the first on the expression bel ami, an Adj + N phrase, with the masc. N ami as head. The N ami (fem. counterpart: amie) translates most neutrally as ‘friend’, but depending on context it can refer to a buddy / mate, or to a boyfriend.
The masc. sg. Adj beau (fem. counterpart: belle) translates as ‘beautiful, handsome, good-looking, pretty (as in pretty boy)’ or in an extended sense just ‘nice’; beau has the variant bel before a vowel-initial N, hence bel ami rather than beau ami.
The combination bel ami is idiomatic, in that it doesn’t normally refer to good looks in a male friend, but instead to that friend’s niceness or to the closeness of the friendship. Typical neutral translations are ‘fine / nice / good / close friend’; or if the friendship is romantic or sexual, ‘boyfriend’ (usable by both women and gay men). Beyond that, the phrase can be used ironically or sarcastically, conveying something like ‘scoundrel’ — and indeed the usual translation of the novel’s name is The History of a Scoundrel.
bel ami ‘pretty boy’. Unlike the examples above (and the ones to follow after these digressions), there are styles of male beauty that feature adolescents (or those who look like adolescents) sometimes referred to as pretty boys: smooth-faced, smooth-bodied, young-looking, with a boyish rather than rugged face (“weak” chin, large eyes), slim rather than muscular bodies, “soft” rather than “tough” presentation, attentive to grooming and men’s fashion, unaggressive, playful. This is pretty much the Twink Package, but real-life twinks are in fact very variable, and a fair number of them have beautiful, rather than pretty, male faces, while pretty boys are, well, pretty.
Bel Ami …, also known as Pretty Boy, and Pretty Man, is a South Korean romantic comedy television series starring Jang Keun-suk, IU, Lee Jang-woo and Han Chae-young. Based on the same-titled 17-volume manhwa [Korean comic, and cartoon, also animated cartoon] by Chon Kye-young, it aired on KBS2 from November 20, 2013 to January 9, 2014 … for 16 episodes …. Dokgo Ma-te (Jang Keun-suk) is a pretty boy.
(Korean names get variously represented in English spelling; Jang Keun-suk also appears as Jong Geun Suk, though both versions have the family name first.)
Still more Bel Ami, this time for gay porn slanted towards the twinkish. From Wikipedia:
BelAmi is a gay pornographic film studio with offices in Bratislava, Prague and Budapest. It was established in 1993 by filmmaker George Duroy, a Slovak native who took his pseudonym from the protagonist Georges Duroy in Guy de Maupassant’s novel Bel Ami.
The intention in the name of the studio seems to have been to play on beau/bel referring to male beauty — the studio specializes in beautiful young men, who are framed as being considerably younger than they actually are — and on bel ami ‘boyfriend’ (the characters are presented as being each other’s boyfriends, who can then be fantasized by gay male viewers as being theirs). From a 4/28/11: AZBlogX posting “Lukas and Johan (and Chance)”:
Bel Ami is the world of Gayboys’ Dreamtime — of adolescent companionship, buddy-play, and incandescent horniness. This world is especially well portrayed in An American in Prague, a big Bel Ami hit whose main story line has an American hunk, Chance, visiting Johan [Paulik] in Prague while getting ready to do a porn shoot there and being taken on a four-day tour of gay-sexual Prague. Their scenes together are full of adolescent horseplay as well as hot sex. (A bonus disc has an assortment of backstage scenes, including a delightful one of the two stars goofing off in bed, with a lot of playful talk about their dicks; King Missile’s “Detachable Penis” figures prominently.)
On Johan Paulik, who was the studio’s first big star and (under this name) in some sense the embodiment of the studio’s ideal, from Wikipedia:
Johan Paulik (born [Daniel Ferenčík] 14 March 1975) is the stage name of a Slovak former gay pornographic model. In 2000, he was inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame with Lukas Ridgeston and George Duroy, owner of Bel Ami, the studio Paulik worked for his entire career. In 2002, Paulik became general manager for Bel Ami in Europe.
Yet another beautiful man, not really a pretty boy, but certainly more twinkish than his acting colleague and near-contemporary Lukas Ridgeston, seen here in an early photo:
A strikingly beautiful man, closer to muscle boy than classic twink (and he became more muscular as he aged).
Almost all the Bel Ami actors are straightforwardly G4P (gay for pay). This is the case for the actor who plays Johan, despite his having spent virtually all of his working life in the gay porn business (as actor, director, and now business manager). The actir who plays Lukas, exceptionally, is cagey about identifiying his sexuality.
In any event, the Bel Ami films are chock full of boyish playfulness. I recently watched Mating Season (Bel Ami, 2006), featuring a crew of boys on bikes in the Slovakian countrside, with lots of adolescent horsing around, but also with an appetite for tons of enthusiastic mansex.
Four more beautiful men. Now, out of the world of bel ami and back to male beauty in mainstream actors. Some time ago I had the opportunity to consult two authorities on this world: two teenage girls. My deep thanks to Maggie and Opal, who pretty quickly nominated four men, starting with one who seems to have some fame as a man with a perfect beautiful face, Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester in the tv show Supernatural). In my 8/20/13 posting “Five television hunks”, you can see Ackles in #5; Jared Padalecki (playing his brother Sam Winchester) in #4; and the two paired in #7, where you can compare their faces. My consultabts say that Padalecki is really cute, but Ackles is beautiful.
Depp was a teen idol in the tv show 21 Jump Street and then a great commercial success in the Pirates of the Carbibbean movies, while taking on a very wide range of other roles.
Lukas had a solid career doing
Gay porn in the Czech Republic — his
Muscular body, dark good looks,
Dominating presence, and high
Sex drive earned him a big
Fan following, among them a Finnish
Enthusiast in search of a model for his
Sportswear — so Lukas trekked North to
Craft a career in sporty shorts, and,
Sometimes, out of them.
The DJ ad copy:
Introducing Lukas by Helsinki Athletica: Be one of the first in the world to get your hands on the Lukas Shorts from Helsinki Athletica. These Sporty Stretch Shorts made from a lightweight mesh fabric grab you in the right spots and can help enhance your body with with body-hugging properties. They also feature slim contrast pockets and subtle logo print, perfect for the gym, running or lounging.
A Daily Jocks ad (for their underwear club, but featuring Pump! wear) from the 14th, with the man we know as Lukas (sometimes as Joe) in the Pump! Cruise Boxer (with pockets), in Pump!’s home town of Montréal:
He boasted he was
Monosexual – “Only guys,
All the time” – not any kind of
Multisexual, but he was
Aggressively multicultural,
Multilingual, working in
Gay porn in several languages,
Hustling guys in many countries,
Lukas in Czech in his
Native land, Joe in English with his
Boyfriend Ken in San Francisco.
Eventually, proudly, Lukas everywhere:
Finland (for Helsinki Athletica),
Montréal (for Pump!), and he’s a damn good
Papi.
The DJ ad copy for the Touchdown Cruise Boxer:
This varsity and surfer styled boxer will cause a huge splash wherever you go.
The PUMP! Touchdown Cruise boxer offers ultimate support and breathability with it’s athletic elastic trims and light body contouring fabrics. Its vivid blue, white, and neon orange color combination illuminates a provocatively playful and endearing aesthetic that makes this a true statement underwear that will take your normal everyday style to new, edgier horizons.
Ah, fly-front boxers with a provocatively playful and endearing aesthetic! Underwear that makes statements, possibly at press conferences, at the edgy horizon, where underwear performs in gay porn (“Mr. Touchdown Cruise, what’s your position on international pouch support?” “Who are you paired with in your forthcoming feature Jockstrapped!?”, “Any truth to the rumor you’re finally going to work with Ken in a short called Pocketman Does Flyboy in Greektown?”).
Previous history, starting with the 1/31/16 posting “Cruise jogger” (Joe and Kev), which gives us:
#1 darker Lukas/Joe in the Pump! Cruise Jogger (with pockets)
#2 blonder Kev (with a notable left-shoulder/arm tat) in his Pump! Cruise Jogger
#3 Lukas/Joe shirt-lifting in a neon green Shockwave Tank from Pump!
#4 Kev shirt-lifting in a dark blue Star Tank from Pump!
Then in 3/11/16, “Boxer in shorts”, Lukas as a boxer, in Helsinki Athletica shorts, with the story:
Lukas had a solid career doing
Gay porn in the Czech Republic — his
Muscular body, dark good looks,
Dominating presence, and high
Sex drive earned him a big
Fan following, among them a Finnish
Enthusiast in search of a model for his
Sportswear — so Lukas trekked North to
Craft a career in sporty shorts, and,
Sometimes, out of them.
Another shot from Lukas’s Finnish Period, showing him lounging muscularly in a different color short:
Mr. Multilingual is out of his boxing gear here because he’s been practicing his Greek, which is virtually flawless, right up there with Papi’s Spanish, Joe’s English, and Lukas’s Czech, Finnish, and (Canadian) French. (Ken is sexually pretty much totally adaptable, though inclined to the receptive side, but linguistically he’s almost exclusively an anglophone, though on occasion he’s willing to switch to his school French to please Joe/Lukas. Athletically, Ken is an exhibition-sports guy — swimming, diving, gymnastics, skating — a complete foil to powerfully agonistic Joe/Lukas, with his passion for boxing above all, but also wrestling, martial arts, and (gay) rugby; Ken loves to watch Joe sparring, all that grunting and hot sweat, but he’s uncomfortable with Joe’s actual bouts, which involve pain and, often, blood.)
Joey Jockstrap was a cheap con man who
Preyed on gullible gay men, luring them through his
Intriguing slicked-back retro look and his
Intense, urgent sexual presence – but he couldn’t
Restrain himself from ripping off his clothes to
Parade the jutting package in the jockstrap.that
Gave him his alliterative street name.
Lift! Support! Enhance!
It’s the new Joey Sports Jockstrap from BCNÜ, designed to (as the DJ copy puts it)
with Push-up technology to lift, support and enhance your package. Get sporty and playful in one hit.
Joey Jockstrap, the character, is aiming for a look he models on, among other men, the actor Ralph Forbes:
Ben ran through the
Watermelon patch in his
Fruity jockstrap, hunting for
His boy Dino, Di, Princess Di!, in
Diamond Dash Pink briefs that
Drove Ben crazy for him,
Slim on slim, take a
Bite of the fruit, baby.
Ben’s boy Di, in the Supawear Diamond Dash Brief in Pink:
DO NOT WRITE ME about the problems with the image of a black man on a field of watermelon slices. I will write separately about the racist stereotype and its long, very sad, history, and about street vendors’ calls, the watermelon woman in Porgy and Bess, Herbie Hancock’s jazz standard “Watermelon Man”, Melvin van Peebles’s in-your-face movie Watermelon Man, and more. I frankly can’t imagine what was going through the DJ ad writers’ heads when they put together the image in #1, which would have been merely heavily gay-sexual (like premium men’s underwear ads in general) and playful (with its outrageous colors and its in-your-face flaunting of the anti-gay slur fruit). if it hadn’t been for those watermelon slices. I was, in fact, affronted, but I’ll put off explaining why to another posting. This one is for a fantasy pairing of two gay men, as in the caption.
Di in the Supawear Diamond Dash Brief in Marine (with a pink pouch):
The DJ burbling ad copy, which gave me “Take a bite!” for the caption:
SUPAWEAR FRUITOPIA: Fruitopia, Watermelon! Supawear’s latest mouth watering collection is here! It features Supawear’s iconic form fitted retro and stylings. The bright, juicy pinks and rich greens reflects summer – Take a bite!
Earlier Supawear postings on this blog (the Australian company goes for entertainingly intense faggy colors):
from 6/3/15, in “The Diamond Sweat Short, with caption”: Diamond Sweat Short from SupaWear
from 10/15/15, in “Lightning strike”: Thunder brief (Lightning is pink and yellow, Thunder is teal and orange)
from 2/20/16, in “The fearful exhibitionist”: Supawear jock in the Supacharge line, with Lightning theme
His name was McTrim,
And he called himself Tim,
But everyone knew him as Pansy.
Now he and his man, who called himself Stan.
Were in the back room making whoopee, when
Their buddy broke in, grinning a grin, growling
Move over boys, Daddy needs nookie!
(Ok, a take-off on Lennon & McCartney’s Rocky Raccoon. And yes, I’ve messed with the line divisions, while preserving the rhymes, including my half-rhyme whoopee – nookie, which introduces the item nookie, for another posting.)
On this blog, a piece on 7/11/13:, “Steve Grand, DNA, Timoteo”: American designer Timoteo Ocampo and his men’s fashion line Timoteo.
And then the advertising copy. Two from DJ and the Timoteo firm:
New Release from Timoteo – Magnitude: Step up your game with the latest collection from Timoteo – Magnitude. Enjoy a thick waistband, roomy pouch and bold styling you expect from Los Angeles based brand Timoteo. Available in all sizes and in Jock, Trunk, Brief and Jock Brief.
[Magnitude wear comes in Blue/Red (with the blue stripe down the dickline, as above), and White/Blue] Timoteo underwear, swimwear and sportswear has grown into an internationally recognised menswear brand. As the founder of CellBlock13, the fashion company is a go-to-brand around the globe for stylish men. Known for their exceptional fit, quality and cutting-edge designs, you’ll find something for you whether you’re a football, rugby or grand prix fan. Timoteo is inspired by American Sports and Athletics culture and designed in their LA studio. Search for Timoteo swimwear, sportswear or underwear today.
Just savor their products above. And enjoy the attention paid to the models’ crotches.
From Aric Olnes, a link to this entertainment on the Dangerous Minds site: “‘Sexy’ Knitted Elephant and Snake Underwear for Men” by Tara McGinley 4/13/16 (intended for a woman to give her man, but of course a man could get (or knit) them for himself or for his guy):
Etsy shop WarmPresents makes these sausage packers if you’re interested in owning a pair.
Now prior to this discovery, I didn’t know these cock warmer underwear were “a thing”. But. They. Are. So I added a few others I’ve found on the Internet in a similar, er… vein …
The best of the snakes (to my mind), in a side view:
Following up on my posting of the 14th on men’s knitwear with elephant-trunk and snake appendages — apparently intended as underwear but easily interpretable as soft codpieces — Arne Adolfsen posted on Facebook to ask if anyone remembered “Eldridge Cleaver’s foray into haute couture”; an advertisement (available on several sites) from the period, passed on by Arne:
Also from Arne, the beginning of a piece in the Harvard Crimson, “Eldridge Cleaver’s New Pants: Every revolution needs a haberdasher, right?” by Mark Stillman on 9/26/75:
Eldridge Cleaver’s voice was soft and modulated and sprinkled with pauses as he discussed his latest venture–not his efforts to return to the United States, which he was loath to discuss, but his new role as entrepreneur, the designer of a new line of slightly obscene men’s trousers.
“Well, the ideas for these pants came out of an article I’m writing about the uni-sex movement, attacking the uni-sex movement. While I was writing the article I started thinking of tangible ways to express my ideas, you know? And these pants are the natural outgrowth of that.”
… “Well these pants look like a regular pair of men’s pants except around the groin, you know?” Cleaver said. “In a conventional pair of pants the penis gets tucked behind the pants, you know?” He imitated a tucking motion with his hands. “But in these pants, the penis is held in a sheath of cloth that sticks outside of the pants.”
“You mean the penis protrudes out — it’s hanging in this tube of cloth — outside the pants?,” Bruce [Caball, son of Cleaver’s friend Jack Caball] said loudly, his voice rising in glee. “Like a codpiece?”
“Yeah, that’s the idea. Now you see how this is a direct attack on uni-sex. Women can’t wear them, right? Take a look at what you guys are wearing. You’re wearing sissy pants,” Cleaver said.
For those of you who didn’t experience the 70s in the U.S. (or have forgotten those times), a bit from Wikipedia on the man:
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party. His 1968 book Soul On Ice is a collection of essays, praised by The New York Times Book Review at the time of its publication as “brilliant and revealing”
He scrutinized himself pitilessly in the
Mirror, as a piece of meat to feed the
Hot guys – Was his hairstyle
Trendy enough? Would his long slim torso
Excite them, or did they need
Big muscles? Was the Hipster Trunk in Mint
Too faggy, or would that be a good thing? Would the
Humongous pouch make them laugh or
Get them hard?
He’s in a Hipster Trunk, which comes in Mint, Flint Blue, Slate, and Red Brick.
Earlier on this blog, on Obviously’s AnatoMAX design, with its truly huge pouch. And now:
AnatoMAX is the most recent pouch release and it is the largest pouch design available from Obviously. It provides a naturally shaped, anatomical pouch with MAXimum size, MAXimum space and MAXimum comfort. Available in Jockstrap, Thong, Brief, Trunk and Boxer Brief in all sizes.
His name was
Drogo, after the legendary
Horseman, but everyone called him
Oxo, because he was so
Beefy.
On the underwear, from the ad that goes with #1:
SPECIAL EDITION COUNTRY UNDERWEAR
Show your patriotic side with these special edition undies. Featuring a soft waistband with a bold logo and printed flag, whilst the cotton/spandex blend will keep you feeling comfortable and looking great!
Available for USA, GBR, CAN, and AUS, but not (using other three-letter country codes) NZL, IRL, or ZAF. USA as in #1:
Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, but Oxo now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, e.g. Chinese Recipe and Indian Recipe. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water.
… Concentrated meat extract was invented by Justus von Liebig around 1840 and commercialized by Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company (Lemco) starting in 1866. The original product was a viscous liquid containing only meat extract and 4% salt. In 1899, the company introduced the trademark Oxo for a cheaper version; the origin of the name is unknown, but presumably comes from the word ‘ox’. Since the cost of liquid Oxo remained beyond the reach of many families, the company launched a research project to develop a solid version that could be sold in cubes for a penny. After much research, the first Oxo cubes were produced in 1910 and further increased Oxo’s popularity. During World War I 100 million OXO cubes were provided to the armed services, all of them individually hand-wrapped. (Wikipedia link)
Khal Drogo is a fictional character in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, and its television adaptation Game of Thrones.
Introduced in 1996’s A Game of Thrones, Khal [‘warlord’] Drogo is a Dothraki [a tribe of horsemen] from the continent of Essos.
Drogo is portrayed by Jason Momoa in the HBO television adaptation.
Catherine showered the boys with
Money, Sebastian traded the bounty of
His Electric jockstrap for the treasures in
Their ragged boardshorts, but the
Cash ran out — the slavering
Pack set upon the terrified Sebastian,
Ripped what lean flesh they could from
His beautiful body.
The caption sets the 2(X)IST Electric underwear ad in the Spanish beach town of Cabeza de Lobo, the location of the movie Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), in which Montgomery Clift succumbs to a pack of beach boys.
(I’d show more of the Electric line — Sprectrum Blue as well as the Violet Rose above — but all the ads seem to show only headless models, which might as well be headless mannequins.)
[in the Spanish town of Cabeza de Lobo (‘Wolf’s Head’:] A group of young men who had been watching [Catherine] from the neighboring public beach start to approach but are intercepted by Sebastian. Catherine comes to realize that he is using her to attract these boys in order to proposition them for sex. Since the boys are desperate for money, Sebastian is successful in his efforts; however, he gradually becomes “fed up with the dark ones” and, being “famished for blonds,” makes plans to depart for the northern countries. One scorching white-hot day, Sebastian and Catherine are beset by a team of boys begging for money. When Sebastian rejects them, they take up pursuit through the streets of the town. Sebastian attempts to flee, but the boys swarm around him at every turn. He is finally cornered among the ruins of a temple on a hilltop. In the meantime, Catherine has been frantically trying to catch up with Sebastian, but she reaches him only to see him overwhelmed by the boys. To her horror and revulsion, they begin to tear him apart and eat his flesh.
Montgomery Clift was one of the great closeted hunks of the silver screen — often brooding and tortured, but usually sultry-sexy, as in this photo on an Italian beach, taken by another movie star of the time, Roddy MacDowall (widely supposed also to be closeted):
Hank was always
Up for the
Hot-dog eating
Contest, but he was
Anxious about exploding
Fireworks in his pants
The DJ ad copy:
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Show your patriotic side with these special edition USA undies. Featuring a soft waistband with a bold logo and printed flag, whilst the cotton/spandex blend will keep you feeling comfortable and looking great!
(Hank’s patriotic side seems to be right out in front.)
The caption introduces the ambiguous nominal exploding fireworks, just like the famous textbook nominal visiting relatives (ambiguous Visiting relatives can be dangerous, unambiguous Visiting relatives is dangerous vs. Visiting relatives are dangerous): Vprp+ Npl, with two interpretations:
(a) as a sg nominal, with N understood as the direct object of V
(b) as a pl nominal, with N understood as the subject of V
For Hank’s purposes in the caption, there’s not much to choose between his exploding fireworks in his pants (interpretation (a)) and (his having) fireworks exploding in his pants, perhaps spontaneously (interpretation (b)); either possibility is alarming — unless, of course, the fireworks are metaphorical, as we should all hope they are.
An earlier posting about 2eros underwear (as in #1): from 3/5/16, “Tinging the scalene triangle”
And the Timoteo ad copy for #3:
Our newest favourite from Timoteo studio, this the new Timoteo “84” collection. It will provide you with the ultimate level of both support and style. Perfect for everyday-wear in and out of the bedroom. Made with high-quality cotton/spandex for fit and comfort.
But let’s get back to Eros / Cupid (on one account, the son of Aphrodite / Venus). Though the two names Eros and Cupid refer to the “same” ancient deity — the winged god of love, with his bow and his arrow that inspires love (or desire) — they tend to be pictured differently: Cupid as a cute infant, Eros as a (sexy) young man.
Here’s a paimting of the latter Eros by David Ligare, Landscape with Eros and Endymion:
In Greek myth, Endymion was a handsome Aeolian shepherd, hunter, or king, the beloved of the moon goddess Silene; he spent much of his life in (eternal) sleep. I’m not sure how Eros gets into the story, but #2 shows Endymion sleeping alongside one of Eros’s arrows — possibly shot to ensure that Endymion will return Silene’s love.
David Ligare is an American contemporary realist painter. Contemporary Realism is an approach that uses straightforward representation but is different from photorealism in that it does not exaggerate and is non-ironic in nature… Ligare was born in 1945 in Oak Park, Illinois. He received his formal artistic training at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
… Since 1978, he has focused on painting still lifes, landscapes, and figures that are influenced by Greco-Roman antiquity. Chief among his stated influences are the aesthetic and philosophical theories of the Greek sculptor Polykleitos and the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, as well as the work of the 17th-century classical painter Nicolas Poussin. A resident of Salinas, California, his paintings often depict the terrain of the central Californian coast in the background.
Winged men. As I’ve noted before on this blog, I have something of a thing for winged men. Eros is another winged man.
The earlier discussion: on 4/17/16, in “Another winged man”. First of all, on
Ganymede (always a beautiful youth) and Zeus (in art, sometimes an eagle, sometimes a winged man, sometimes just a powerful male figure):
on AZBlogX: “Ganymede’s tale” (where I note my long-time fantasy of sex-in-the-air with a winged man)
on this blog: “Ganymede on the fly” (a work of photographic art in which the Ganymede figure realizes this fantasy, magnificently and joyously)
And then, in that posting, a discussion (with illustrations) of the Fallen Angel films from TitanMen.
Now, two more winged images, both from mythology. First, Hermes / Merciry, in an illustration in which his winged cap, winged sandals, and winged staff together enable him to fly:
(I haven’t been able to track down the source of this work. I’ve been able to find a fair number of copies, all unattributed, all on astrological sites having to do with the planet Mercury.)
Somewhat less mysterious, but still rather puzzling, is this image, which I recalled having seen several times, attributing it (almost surely correctly) to art photographer Richard de Chazal (see a 5/14/11 posting on AZBlogX on the artist):
(Initially, I didn’t find the image on de Chazal’s site; but see below. It’s on a fair number of Pinterest boards, always, so far as I can tell, unattributed, and usually labeled as an image of Apollo.)
A winged Apollo was news to me, but this is cerainly a god-like figure with wings on his shoulder blades. I don’t follow all the iconography of the image, but the heart suggests that this is Eros again.
On the other hand, he has the aureole of the sun god Helios. And Apollo is the god of sun and light.
But wait! An exhaustive, image by image, search of de Chazal’s website reveals that this figure is his conception of the zodiac sign Virgo — my sign! — which de Chazal has chosen to visualize as a sun god, akin to Helios and Apollo: he is both male (like Helios and Apollo, but unlike Virgo) and winged (rather than riding the chariot of the sun, he flies on his own power). So he’s the Eros Apollo of the Zodiac, and like his precursor gods, he’s happy with male consorts. A fine astrological deity: he flies! he fucks guys!
(de Chazal is admirably, often outrageously, queer.)
Bonus linguistic point: virgo ‘virgin’ is a 3rd-declension noun in Latin (fem-gender, in accordance with the meaning; the idea of male virgins is a recent invention), but nothing in its declension tells you it’s fem-gender. So a specifically male name Virgo would be declined just like virgo ‘virgin’, which means that a zodiacal deity Virgo could perfectly well be male, and that the name Virgo could be masc-gender.
So Eros Apollo could have the epithet Virgo Alatus ‘winged Virgo’ — in contrast to virgo alata ‘a winged virgin, winged Virgin Mary’.
Explanatory note: the title of this posting, “The Insolence and the Ecstasy” is a play on the book and movie title “The Agony and the Ecstasy”, which is about Michaelangelo Buonarotti (who appears in my caption as Mickey Bono, artistic counterpart to Leonardo da Vinci, aka Lennie Vance). On the movie:
The Agony and the Ecstasy is a 1965 American film directed by Carol Reed, starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II. The film was partly based on Irving Stone’s biographical novel of the same name. This film deals with the conflicts of Michelangelo and Pope Julius II during the painting of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.
(#1)
(#2)
(#3)
(#4)
Image may be NSFW.
