(A guy in his skivvies, nothing of linguistic value.)

Today’s Daily Jocks ad for Jack Adams, with a caption of mine:

Convinced that small
Furry creatures were
Lifting his junk and
Gnawing on his balls,
Croydon recoiled in
Fear and disgust.

Maybe the underwear companies thought the model was expressing intense sexual arousal, but that doesn’t work for me.

The accompanying ad copy:

Ultimate in comfort, the Jack Adams LIFT collection offers a sexy feel and athletic inspired design.

The revolutionary cotton punch-hole fabric is engineered for breathability and to keep you cool all day.

The sturdy & striped straps around the waist and rear add that additional support as well as the body defining fit that Jack Adams is known for.

Fantastic that we live in an age when revolutionary new cotton fabrics are possible! And those supportive, body-fitting stripes!

(Men in minimal underwear, sexual themes, monstrous violence. Use your judgment.)

The most recent Daily Jocks ad, for Garçon Model underwear (Canadian underwear and swimwear marketed with heavy homovibes), with a caption (of mine) telling a bit of a nasty gladiatorial story:

(#1) The Sex Games

Akhnaat in his work clothes,
Steeling himself for hand-to-hand
Combat to the death against his
Slave-mate Jmaal.

A boy is given into sex slavery
At the age of 8, paired with a mate for life, until
At the age of 18, no longer
Attractive to the masters, he relinquishes
His slave collar and harness, is
Stripped even of his slave pouch, to be
Pitted naked against his mate in
Mortal combat with broadswords.
The crowds are enormous, screaming for
Blood, more blood, as one man after another
Kills the one thing in life he has ever truly loved.

On the underwear. The ad copy from DJ for GM:

Special times call for special undies! [In the context of homowear ads, undies strikes an odd note.] Made to provide both unparalleled comfort and sophistication. This is simplicity in artistry. Featuring their new gold detailing!
Garçon Model men’s underwear for the best range of high-quality and performance boxers, briefs, trunks and jockstraps. Garçon Model is designed for men who demand standout style and perfect fit underwear.

As usual, the ad copy sells styling and comfort, while the image sells raw gay sex appeal. And #1 is tame. Consider these three steamy images from GM:

(#2) Experience the Galaxy

(#3) GM Elite Sport boys, pants down, lickin’ the good stuff

(#4) A hunk love triangle, in GM Addicted pouchwear

The gladiatorial theme. The GM image in #1 was the springboard for my excerpt from the wrenching tale of Akhnaat and Jmaal, a story that combines two morally repugnant practices: sex slavery and gladiatorial combat.

From Wikipedia:

A gladiator (Latin: gladiator, “swordsman”, from gladius, “sword”) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing by appearing in the arena. Most were despised as slaves, schooled under harsh conditions, socially marginalized, and segregated even in death.

Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome’s martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim. They were celebrated in high and low art, and their value as entertainers was commemorated in precious and commonplace objects throughout the Roman world.

The origin of gladiatorial combat is open to debate. There is evidence of it in funeral rites during the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, and thereafter it rapidly became an essential feature of politics and social life in the Roman world. Its popularity led to its use in ever more lavish and costly games.

The gladiator games lasted for nearly a thousand years, reaching their peak between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD. The games finally declined during the early 5th century after the adoption of Christianity as state church of the Roman Empire in 380, although beast hunts (venationes) continued into the 6th century.

Representations of gladiatorial combat in popular culture almost always emphasize heroic action and dismiss the systemic evils of the practice. So it is with Russell Crowe in the 2000 epic Gladiator. From Wikipedia:

(#5)

Gladiator is a 2000 American epic historical drama film directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson. It stars Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed (in his final role), Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel, and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays Hispano-Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed when Commodus, the ambitious son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, murders his father and seizes the throne. Reduced to slavery, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena to avenge the murders of his family and his emperor.

Even The Hunger Games fails to fully confront the monstrousness of ritualized murder as public entertainment. From Wikipedia:

(#6)

The Hunger Games film series consists of four science fiction dystopian adventure films based on The Hunger Games trilogy of novels, by the American author Suzanne Collins. Distributed by Lionsgate and produced by Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik, it stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark, Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, and Donald Sutherland as President Snow. Gary Ross directed the first film, while Francis Lawrence directed the next three films.

[the first film:] The Hunger Games (2012): Every year, in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its 12 districts to send a teenage boy and girl, between the ages of 12 and 18, to compete in the Hunger Games: a nationally televised event in which ‘tributes’ fight each other within an arena, until one survivor remains.

Instead, the stories are framed as narratives of triumphant individual heroism.

Gladiatorial combat, involving as it does (in its classic version) sweaty muscular men engaged in one-on-one action, is a favorite theme of gay porn, which spins out fantasies of dominance and submission and non-stop muscular mansex. See my 5/13/11 AZBlogX posting “Gladiators and centurians” for a treatment of the film Centurians [sic] of Rome and other gay gladiatorial porn.

(Prominently featuring men’s bodies and mansex, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Yesterday, Mardi Gras, a day of license and pleasure (in all things, but especially food). And then today is Valentines Day, a celebration of love: romantic love, but also carnal love. Both high holidays in the gay precincts of the world. A matched pair from Daily Jocks and a steamy 3-way from the Lucas porn studios:

(#1) [header:] Hey there handsome…

(#2) Diego Lauzen (left) and Wagner Vittoria (right), lovers in porn and in real life, plus Beau Reed (very much the man in the middle, a Valentine boy for them to share)

Header and text for the ad:

Be Mine, Bareback Valentine!

Lucas Entertainment features the hottest bareback action, award-winning gay porn movies, and the sexiest guys on the web!

Digression on coincidental holidays. From the NYT on-line on the 12th, “Eat, Pray, Love: An Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day Dilemma” by Sharon Otterman:

Ah, steak and chocolate, the indulgent mainstays of Valentine’s Day dinners. And exactly the kind of extravagances that observers of Lent, which also starts on Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, are asked to avoid.

The confluence of the events — occurring for the first time since 1945 — has created a dilemma for Roman Catholics and followers of other Christian denominations who observe Ash Wednesday. How can one simultaneously mark a solemn day when foreheads are tapped with a symbol of mortality as a call to humility and repentance, while celebrating one that glorifies the kisses and champagne of romantic love?

Around the country, Roman Catholic bishops have been issuing reminders to parishioners that the holy obligations of Ash Wednesday still apply. They include abstaining from meat and fasting — which Catholics define as eating one normal meal and two small meals that don’t add up to the normal meal in quantity.

“Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only two days of the whole year on which fasting and abstinence are required,” Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo told parishioners in a video posted online Friday. “Those who are accustomed to celebrating Valentine’s Day might do so, perhaps, the day before. Join it up with Mardi Gras!”

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, took a similarly somber approach, despite his reputation as perhaps the most jovial of American bishops.

“Ash Wednesday has precedence, and the coincidence of St. Valentine’s Day would not lift for us the duty of fasting and self-denial,” he wrote in a blog post on Monday.

The evidence is that in the world of mansex, Valentines trumps Ash Wednesday big time.

Diego, Beau, and Wagner. The image in #1 is a cropped version of the full ad, which you can view in its triple-hard-dicked glory as #1 in my AZBlogX posting today “Lucas Valentines for 2018”. Text from the Fagalicious site on 2/12/18, “Lucas Entertainment: Diego Lauzen and Wagner Vittoria tag team Beau Reed bareback:

Diego Lauzen and Wagner Vittoria have been in a passionate and loving relationship for years. And their sex life has never dwindled: these two beefcake Latinos get as hot and heavy for each other now as they did on day one of their relationship.

The key to keeping their romance on fire is keeping their sex life spiced up. And this Valentine’s Day, Diego Lauzen surprises his partner Wagner Vittoria with a guest bottom for them to share.

And the couple takes their time enjoying every hole the bottom has to offer.

From my 7/6/13 posting “At the X line with remarkably named pornstars”, the smiling couple:

(#3) Lauzen / Vittoria, who shared Tiziano Fuentes in Lucas’s Lovers in Paradise (2013)

This year the man in the middle is Beau Reed, who enjoys it equally and enthusiastically per manum, per os, et per ānum, one man at a time but, better, two at once (he’s spitroasted in #3 in the AZBlogX posting). Another ad for their 3-way video:

(#4) The spitroasting scene is cropped at the bottom of this ad

Note the tighty-whiteys. The three men posing in white briefs in more ad shots:

(#5) Beau offers his butt

(#6) Wagner offers his cock

(#7) Diego offers his dick

Also on the Lucas site, two photos of other sexual encounters, both notable for the facial expressions of the participants. In #4 there’s a suck-fuck with this excellent face:

(#8) Man getting fucked, staring ecstatically at the guy getting sucked (who is focused and composed)

And in an intense doggie-fuck:

(#9)  Craftsman (Man at Work) on Ecstatic

In the end, of course, every man reaches the point of no return and becomes, briefly, an Ecstatic: his pulse rushes, his breathing gets ragged, he moans, his mouth goes slack and gapes open, his eyes go unfocused and wild and roll up in his head.

Facial expressions during mansex are a long-time theme on this blog; I will soon assemble a Page of links to these discussions. [This page has now been assembled.}

Above, facial expressions during fucking. In contrast, last year’s Valentine porn posting — on 2/14/17, “Sex and smiles for VDay” — featured a Lucas ad showing happy fellatio:

In the ad, both cocksman and cocksucker are smiling happily: hey, buddy, this is awesome!

Beau Reed. Discussion of Diego Lauzen and Wagner Vittoria in my 2013 posting. But Reed is new to my blogs. His profile on Men.com gives these stats:

hair: brown, eyes: brown, dick: 6.5 cut, height: 6’2, weight: 230, sexual positions: versatile bottom

His dick size is below the usual pornstar standard (7 inches and up) so it accords conventionally with his preference for bottoming. But 6.5 incles is in fact at the high end of normal, and Reed’s cock is a fine specimen that fits the rest of his body well (see #1 in the AZBlogX posting). His pornstar preference for bottoming is probably a reflection of his preference in real life.

From the Queer Me Now site on 1/31/16:

Some of you might recognize this hottie as BJ Adia from his sex scenes on American Muscle Hunks, Naked Kombat, and Bound Gods. He has just changed his porn name to Beau Reed. He told me he’s now dating Tyler Reed, the porn star and director of Breed Me Raw.

You should follow him on Twitter @xBeauReedx, he shared these two video clips below showing his bubble butt getting pounded by huge cock. I also found many behind the scenes pictures of Beau Reed in bareback sex scenes with Tyler Reed, Shay Michaels, Sage Daniels, and Chip Young.

(Much about men’s bodies and mansex, in plain language, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

On Shrove Tuesday (the 13th), the season of Carnival — etymologically, the time for putting away the flesh (for the season of Lent) — reaches its height. From NOAD:

noun carnival: a period of public revelry at a regular time each year, typically during the week before Lent in Roman Catholic countries, involving processions, music, dancing, and the use of masquerade: the culmination of the week-long carnival | Mardi Gras is the last day of carnival … ORIGIN mid 16th century: from Italian carnevale, carnovale, from medieval Latin carnelevamen, carnelevarium ‘Shrovetide’, from Latin caro, carn– ‘flesh’ + levare ‘put away’.

In the gay precincts of the world, we strive to put the carnal —

adj. carnal: relating to physical, especially sexual, needs and activities: carnal desire. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Christian Latin carnalis, from caro, carn- ‘flesh’.

into Carnival, to flagrantly celebrate the sins of the flesh. Recent bulletins: two Daily Jocks ads that largely abandon the pretense of selling comfort, support, and style in favor of providing outright soft gay porn; and a look back at a gay hard porn classic, Kristen Bjorn’s Carnaval in Rio, with a fond recollection of Gilvan Couto manfully coping with Caio Amaral’s astonishing 14″ uncut black dick (with some notes on race relations in the postcolonial world).

Pitsntits beefcake for Carnival. Combined with a cocktease — trunks pulled down to show the top of a black jockstrap. Open inviting mouth. All for Helsinki Athletica.

(#1) Take a sweaty Finnhunk to bed

Fargo adores his sleek body. Totally self-absorbed while performing a Carnival cocktease in his Code 22s. In public:

(#2) See me, feel me, touch me I

And admires his inflamed pouch:

(#3) See me, feel me, touch me II

Though this ad does come with high-style copy:

(#4)

Carnaval in Rio: a Fat Tuesday cock. From my 2/26/13 posting “Kristen Bjorn”:

I came to Bjorn through the 1989 Carnaval, which is a triumph of hardcore porn, beautifully constructed and photographed

That posting dwelt especially on a long scene pairing lovers Erico Ventana and Renato Soares, but had notes on all sections of the film, including a scene between Caio Amaral and Gilvan Couto, who first encounter each other dancing on the street. From the Bjorn website:

The samba school parade is in full swing in Rio’s famous sambadrome. In the midst of the amazing parade are a pair of hot studs: dark skinned, mega hung Caio Amaral, and fair skinned, handsome Gilvan Couto. After the parade, the two go back to Caio’s place, and before they even have a chance to take off their flimsy costumes, Gilvan pulls out Caio’s gigantic [14″ uncut] dick and swallows it as deep as he can [which is not very deep]. Caio then pins Gilvan against the wall, and slides his huge boner into Gilvan’s tight, pink hole. Caio fucks deep [again, not all that deep, only about halfway in], and pulls out just in time to park a load of cum on Gilvan’s ass. The two then shoot another hot load of cum into each others mouths before the fucking starts all over again. During this scene, Gilvan shoots four times, and majorly hung Caio squirts a total of seven pop-shots all over Gilvan!

It’s all about cock and cum, very intense. You can see Gilvan about to go down on Caio (both still in remnants of their samba costumes) in an AZBlogX posting yesterday “Caio Amaral’s 14 inches”. In a cropped version:

(#4)

From this scene alone, you can see that the 14-inch estimate has got to be close to accurate. One side benefit of Caio’s dick size is that his scenes with a receptive Gilvan are a feast for worshipers of visible cock, since Gilvan can take at most half of Caio’s meat down his throat or up his ass.

Then there’s the black-on-white aspect of the encounter. Not just black on white (though that’s how American viewers of the film will see things, through their own racial lens), but black on white in a modern Brazilian context, where there are three historically relevant social groups — descendants of the  indigenous peoples of Brazil, descendants of the colonizing European population (from Portugal, in this case), and descendants of sub-Saharan Africans brought to Brazil as slaves (plus descendants of various voluntary immigrant groups) — and various groups of multiracial people. Labeling for race and ethnicity is complex; from Wikipedia:

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), that conducts censuses in Brazil since 1940, racially classifies the Brazilian population in five categories: branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black) [the Brazilian Census System uses only these three], amarelo (yellow), and indigenous. As in international practice, individuals are asked to self identify within these categories.

… As the IBGE itself acknowledges, these categories are disputed, and most of the population dislike it and do not identify with them. Most Brazilians see “Indígena” as a cultural rather than racial term, and don’t describe as such if they are part of the mainstream Brazilian culture; many Brazilians would prefer to self-describe as “morenos” (used in the sense of “tanned” or “brunettes”); some Black and parda people, more identified with the Brazilian Black movement, would prefer to self-describe as “Negro” as an inclusive category containing pardos and pretos; and if allowed to choose any classification, Brazilians will give almost 200 different answers.

(In the Census system, Caio is preto and Gilvan blanco.)

In a postcolonial world, the details of race and ethnicity differ startlingly from place to place: the situation in the US in general is not the same as the situation in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, or the British West Indies, and there are significant differences from place to place within these areas. In addition, populations move around, so that we now have (for example) significant groups of Haitians and Cubans in South Florida, and huge numbers of “blacks” in the UK, the largest portion of whom came from the West Indies.

In any case, Caio and Gilvan’s sexual encounter on-screen is racially charged — both transgressive and defiant — though not in quite the same way as it would be in an American or British context. (Kristen Bjorn — it’s a stage name — was born in London but raised in Washington DC, and makes gay porn for primarily American audiences, though set in locations around the world, using local men as actors.)

(Men in sexy underwear, primed for Hot Action Now, so not to everyone’s taste.)

A Daily Jocks ad to usher in the Year of the Dog:

(#1)

The ad copy makes a nod to comfort, but mostly it’s all about pulling guys in to your dick and butt, you dog:

The All New Cellblock 13 Velocity Jock Brief  takes your sexy fetish look up a notch. It features a textured polyamide/spandex pouch that showcases your goods just right, and the softness on the inside will feel great against your package. Butt straps give your ass that perfect amount of lift, and contrast colour banding throughout provides accent.

(It comes in blue, red, and orange, and as a trunk as well as a jock brief.)

The relevant sense of dog, from among the pages of senses in GDoS:

3. senses based on sexuality … (c) (orig. US) a promiscuous man or woman [1st cite 1885; representative cite: 1915 H.L. Wilson Ruggles of Red Gap … His lordship was by way of being a bit of a dog.]

Ad copy for the bodywear company, from Daily Jocks:

CellBlock13 is the raunchy big daddy to its founder Timoteo. Created with a unique style for the man that likes to get down and dirty in his underwear choices, you’ll love CellBlock13’s risqué and seductive designs.

Fantasy homowear. In the Velocity series, homowear for big butch scruffy hairy guys, not at all like the classic underwear model, who’s all sleek and smooth. Shots of the Velocity jock brief, front and rear:

(#2) Ventral view
(#3) Dorsal view

Furry chest, belly, forearms, legs, and butt. Plus an extraordinary fierce tattoo that begins on his right pec and shoulder and continues through on his back. Just the stuff to reel in his prey. Go, dawg.

(Men showing off their bodies. Racy but not X-rated.)

The main image from yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad, for a sale on Code 22 clothing — with my caption:

(#1)

Camo Traplat, the
Darling of the locker room,
Flexes for the boys, from
Pecs to glutes,
Sweats up his red-hot
Training tank top.

The front view:

(#2)

The ad copy, stressing the ineffable virtues of the clothing rather than its carnal attractions:

CODE 22 is an expression of defining men’s swimwear, underwear and sportswear design. CODE 22 gives meaning to the words balance, confidence and masculinity.

Now about the model and his excellent muscular body.

Musclehunks come in a number of varieties. The guy above is wonderfully fit, but notched up a degree into the homofantasy zone: a fantasy sexual partner for many guys, but a body you can appreciate as a beautiful object even if it’s too exaggerated to work as an actual object choice for you. Either way, the guy’s a creation, designed to appeal to men who can fantasize about being him, or doing him, or both.

This particular guy isn’t smooth and sleek like a standard male model, but instead projects a rough-edged butch masculinity: facial scruff and lightly furred body, plus the hyperbolic musculature.

Contrast this with a very different sort of body-type creation: the competitive bodybuilder. Serious bodybuilders aim especiallfor two things: sheer size of muscles, and clear separation of each individual muscle from the others. At its height, this gives us creations like the following:

(#3) Compare this rear view to the one in #1

Two quite different approaches to musclehunkitude.

(Men’s bodies and mansex, not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad, for the Erebus line of underwear from the 2Eros company, an ad that spins out an fantasy of delicious dark sexiness. Two montages showing the new Nightmare color (dark violet) and the new Underworld color (dark blue) — earlier colors are Darkness (black) and Inferno (red) — with my perfervid caption below the fold:

(#1) Darko in Nightmare

(#2) Darko in Underworld

Darko serves Lord
Erebus as his
Acolyte in the
Subterranean world of
Secret mansex

Guiding men to
Delicious release in a
Dirty mensroom stall, to a
Noisy coupling in a
Dim orgy room at the
Gay baths, to that
Perfect explosive moment on the
Altar of sex in the
Bushes at night

Smells of crotch sweat,
Tastes of sweet salty cum

Eyes down in
Shameful pleasure,
Eyes forward in
Insolent knowledge of
Men’s desires

The ad is selling the fantasy of men’s bodies as objects of sexual desire —  that’s just standard for most brands of premium men’s underwear these days — but it’s also wrapping this in an elaborate fantasy of delicious dark dirtiness, made somewhat less outrageous by framing it all as coming from Greek myth. My caption plays up the outrageous.

The myth. From Wikipedia:

(#3) Portrait of Erebus, by Lukartig on DeviantArt

In Greek mythology, Erebus, also Erebos (Greek: Ἔρεβος, “deep darkness, shadow”), was often conceived as a primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod’s Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos.

The name Darko. It suits the character in my caption, but in fact the name has nothing to do with darkness. From Wikipedia:

Darko (Serbian Cyrillic: Дарко) is a common South Slavic masculine given name. It is derived from the Slavic root dar ‘gift’.

Think of Darko above as bringing the gift of darkness to troubled souls.

Recent Daily Jocks ad:

A play on (at least) three senses of fresh.

From NOAD for the adj. fresh:

2 not previously known or used; new or different

7 informal presumptuous or impudent toward someone, especially in a sexual way

Subentry 2 covers several subsenses, in particular ‘not already used, clean’ (He changed into fresh underwear from his closet, just in case he was in an accident); and ‘new to the owner, not previously used by the owner’ (His boyfriend bought him some hot fresh underwear, briefs with a bright red pouch). DJ is selling the latter, but might also be suggesting the former.

They’re almost surely suggesting sense 7 as well: impudent, flagrant, salacious. See almost any of my Daily Jocks postings, featuring homoerotic underwear, some of it outrageously so. And some of it explicit: see this 2/27/15 posting with a section about Curbwear’s IDENTITY line, with waistbands that advertise your sexual preference, including POWER BOTTOM – BLOW ME – TOTAL TOP – VERSATILE.

(Underwear guys, gay male culture, lots of pink, but nothing pointedly carnal. Use your judgment.)

The spur is yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad, for a Marco Marco pink sequin jock-thong, here in two views, with my caption poem:

(#1) Perfectionist in pink sequin
(#2) Patrick’s pouch

Patrick dreamed he
Pranced at the Pansy Party in
Nothing but his
Pink sequin ballcap, his
Pink leather harness, and his
Pink sequin jock-thong

Still shopping for the
Perfect
Pink sequin pumps

The garment. From DJ about Marco Marco, and from Marco Marco about the garment in #1 and #2:

[DJ:] Marco Marco is an American men’s underwear, swimwear, and sportswear manufacturer named after its founder and head-fashion designer Marco Morante. The brand is arguably best known for its underwear, which include street, sport and fashion lines.
Sparkle in the new Sequin Jock-Thong or feel the Island Vibes in the Tropical collection.

[MM, not edited:] A little sparkle and flash never hurt anybody. The JOCK-THONG is a first of it’s kind for us. Combing our comfortably secure jockstrap leg elastic with our sexy and stylish thong. It’s the best of both worlds. Featuring pink sequin fabric which is sure make eyes drop and lined with our super soft core fabric.

Patrick’s Pansy Party ensemble. His ballcap, which he wears backwards (Patrick is a seriously butch pansy):

(#3)

His harness:

(#4)

Finding the perfect footwear. Even if you’re otherwise completely naked at a Pansy Party, your feet need protection. Patrick has yet to find the perfect item, though he’s attracted by these two possibilities, one more butch, one more fey:

(#5) Christian Louboutin glitter mens high top sneakers in light pink

(#6) Toms glitter slipper in light pink

Patrick’s streetwear. For streetwear, Patrick has a pink sequin wardrobe — among them, these two garments:

(#7) hot pink sequin tuxedo vest

(#8) hot pink sequin tuxedo jacket with black lapels (from Alberto Nardoni)

The Pansy Party. The allusion here is to gay circuit parties. From my 6/22/10 posting “Rivers of Babylon”:

A circuit party is a one-day main event involving intense dancing for 24 hours, with accompanying sex, drinking, and (often) drugs, plus preceding events and following ones. Almost all of the participants (up to 20,000 of them at a really big party) are young gay men, many of them shirtless (or in underwear, or naked) most of the time.

Most circuit parties have color names: the White Party in Palm Springs, the Blue Ball in Philadelphia, etc. Yes, there are Pink Parties; here’s a poster for one in 2010:

(#8)

Also Purple Parties. Here’s a shot from the Dallas Purple Party in 2018:

(#9)

As far as I can tell, there is no actual Pansy Party, though pansy is both a color name and a reference to gay men. From my 8/28/10 posting “Pansies”, with subentries from the OED:

The colour of a pansy; spec. a deep shade of blue or purple.

“frequently derogatory” pansy ‘a male homosexual, an effeminate man, a weakling’

Pansies, the flowers, come in a wide variety of colors, including pink:

(#10)

Perfectionist in pink sequin. The title of this posting is a play on two fixed expressions, both titles: Pretty in Pink and Nights in White Satin.

From Wikipedia:

Pretty in Pink is a 1986 American romantic comedy film about love and social cliques in American high schools in the 1980s. A cult classic, it is commonly identified as a “Brat Pack” film. It was directed by Howard Deutch, produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, and written by John Hughes, who also served as co-executive producer. It was named after the song by The Psychedelic Furs.

In my 11/3/17 posting “The Pink Fellowship”, a reference to Knights with pink pouches (men in skimpy pink underwear), taking off on the title of the Moody Blues song “Nights in White Satin”.

Patrick’s dream. Finally, my caption begins “Patrick dreamed he went to the Pansy Party in nothing but…” In my 7/21/17 posting “Getting into harness”, my caption for #2 there is a take-off on the long series of “I dreamed I Xed in my Maidenform Bra” ads from the 50s and 60s. Here it is again.

Just unearthed in my files, a follow-up to my 6/26/17 posting “Put a sock on it in parade season”, about cock socks: a 6/27 message from Aric Olnes:

I got this FB targeted ad for something called a Suspensory, which I had not heard of, that looks suspiciously like a cock sock or a ball sack with straps. I can only imagine typing dick sock or the content of [your] post is the connection. Now FB thinks I need a medical jock strap!

(#1)

From amazon.com:

Suspensory Jockstrap for Scrotal/Testicle Support by FlexaMed  ($13.99)

About the product

Constructed with a solid white waistband and a soft, comfortable knit cotton/rayon breathable mesh support pouch with room to stretch

The suspensory jockstrap for scrotal/testicle support has a generous elasticized hole in front that fits most men

The waistband is adjustable for your specific level of support – one size fits all

Your scrotum/testicles will be comfortably secured

Inconspicuous under clothing and machine washable

The Suspensory Jockstrap for Scrotal/Testicle Support is designed to alleviate pain in your scrotal/testicle area. The suspensory jockstrap supports and protects your scrotum/testicles from external contact and rubbing between your legs. Recommended for large and enlarged testicles, hernia surgery, scrotal/testicle surgery, vasectomy relief.

This is the medical version — other brands and models are available — designed for testicle support, but of course there are fashion versions, designed to display the cock (and maybe to cushion the testicles, but that’s not the point). Also available from amazon.com:

(#2)

CHICTRY Mens Fetish Penis Hole O-Rings Openwork Jockstrap Underwear

Sexy men’s stretchy briefs underwear.

Front strap with 2 press buttons, 2 O-rings connected.

Elastic penis hole, open butt.

Perfect for lingerie night or self pleasure.

The larger O-ring slides around the base of the scrotum, the smaller around the base of the penis shaft.

(From June 2017. Underwear men, Catalonia, gay life, Barcelona beaches, art and architecture, and, eventually, food. First, underwear with my captions.)

The saints of Catalunya
Pretty in purple and pink

(#1)

Sant Jordi the savory in heat
Stretched out on rocks
Homage to Barceloneta
Between sail and fish

(#2)

Sant Joan the sweet
Celebrant of gay pride
Summer solstice confection
Of fruit and nuts

It’s all about Barcelona, the beach, and swim briefs.

(Note: Joan is the Catalan counterpart to John, Jordi the counterpart to George. Between sail and fish will eventually be explained, as will the reference to fruit and nuts.)

NIT swim briefs. #1 (with a purple and pink swim brief) is from a Daily Jocks ad from late in May, announcing a sale on NIT swimwear. The DJ ad text, taken from NIT’s own copy:

NIT – The New Swimsuit: NIT was created six years ago; since then the brand has been in constant evolution in the swimming sector as well as in quality and technology. All products are 100% Made in Barcelona.

#2 is from the NIT site: the Mario style swim brief in pink.

Men’s swimwear comes in several cuts, just like underwear: thongs, briefs, boxers, trunks, shorts. Some have drawstrings, some do not; the rough generalization is that the longer the legs, the more likely the swimwear is to have a drawstring, and vice versa. NIT swim briefs, like the ones above, usually lack drawstrings; they have a trim, clean, sleek look.

The company’s ads have the homoerotic sensibility of many high-end men’s underwear firms, and that fits well in Barcelona, which is in a sense the gay capital of Spain, but the company seems not to be flagrantly queer — unlike another Barcelona men’s underwear firm, ES, that I’ll talk about below, which is entertainly outrageous; consider this ad from an ES “Proud of Barcelona” campaign a few years ago:

(#3)

Abs, packages, and lots of attitude.

The NIT name. It almost always appears in all-caps, so I thought it must be an acronym. I spent hours searching NIT sites, but none explained it.

Eventually it came to me thar it was just the Catalan word nit ‘night’. Sigh. (As an English speaker, I had to push aside the association to the noun nit ‘the egg or young form of a louse or other parasitic insect, especially the egg of a head louse attached to a human hair’ (NOAD)).

The ES Collection. That’s es, as in the country code for Spain.

For the company’s new underwear 2013/14 campaign PROUD OF BARCELONA, this sexy and playful video, showing hunky factory workers wearing nothing but ES underwear and then modeling their wares. Text:

The new campaign strives to come back to the begining, 1958 when the company was created. The video shows how ES Collection produces underwear in the old factory placed in Barcelona like fifty years ago, manually with the best fabrics to obtain the best fit and quality.

In this new underwear collection you will find amazing colors, designs and newly developed fabrics. This will provide self confidence, comfort and sensuality, just try it and you will know!

“This campaign makes us feel proud of our beginings, which will push us to continue with our heritage. This feeling is the only way to achieve the best product ever”, says Eduardo Suñer, ES Product Manager.

Background: geography, language, culture. On Catalonia, from Wikipedia:

(#4) Catalonia up close

Catalonia (Catalan: Catalunya, Occitan: Catalonha, Spanish: Cataluña) is an autonomous community of Spain located on the northeastern extremity of the Iberian Peninsula. It is designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy. Catalonia consists of four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain and the core of the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union. Catalonia comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia (with the remainder Roussillon now part of France’s Pyrénées-Orientales). It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon to the west and Valencia to the south. The official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan.

… After [Francisco] Franco’s death in 1975, Catalonia voted for the adoption of a democratic Spanish Constitution in 1978, in which Catalonia recovered political and cultural autonomy, restoring the Generalitat (exiled since the end of the Civil War in 1939) in 1977 and adopting a new Statute of Autonomy in 1979. Today, Catalonia is one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain. The Catalan capital and largest city, Barcelona, is a major international cultural centre and a major tourist destination. In 1992, Barcelona hosted the Summer Olympic Games. [The Olympics will become significant below.]

… A controversial independence referendum was held in Catalonia on 1 October 2017, using a disputed voting process. It was declared illegal on 6 September 2017 and suspended by the Constitutional Court of Spain because it breached the 1978 Constitution.

The political crisis continues.

On the Catalan language, from Wikipedia:

Catalan is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and named after the medieval Principality of Catalonia, in northeastern modern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only official language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia (where the language is known as Valencian, and there exist regional standards). It also has semi-official status in the commune of Alghero, situated on the northwestern coast of the island of Sardinia (Italy), where a variant of it is spoken. It is also spoken with no official recognition in parts of the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon (La Franja) and Murcia (Carche), and in the historic region of Roussillon/Northern Catalonia, roughly equivalent to the department of Pyrénées-Orientales in modern France. All these territories are often called Catalan Countries.

… Catalan shares many traits with the other neighboring Romance languages (Italian, Sardinian, Occitan, and Spanish). However, despite being spoken mostly on the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan has marked differences with the Iberian Romance group (Spanish and Portuguese) in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary; showing instead its closest affinity with Occitan [in the south of France] and to a lesser extent Gallo-Romance (French, Franco-Provençal, Gallo-Italian)

… Since the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1982), Catalan has been institutionalized as an official language, language of education, and language of mass media; all of which have contributed to its increased prestige. In Catalonia, there is an unparalleled large, bilingual, European, non-state speech community. The teaching of Catalan is mandatory in all schools … There is also some intergenerational shift towards Catalan.

Then there’s gay Spain. Barcelona and Madid vie for the title of gay capital of Spain. Other gay sites in northeast Spain: Sitges (in Catalonia), Ibiza (third largest of the Balearic Islands), Benidorm (in the Alicante region). On the map:

(#5) Northeastern Spain; note Madrid, Benidorm, and the Balearics

On the islands, from Wikipedia:

The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

The four largest islands are Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. There are many minor islands and islets close to the larger islands, including Cabrera, Dragonera and S’Espalmador. The islands have a Mediterranean climate, and the four major islands are all popular tourist destinations. Ibiza in particular is known as an international party destination, attracting many of the world’s most popular DJs to its nightclubs.

As for Sitges, this note from the city’s tourst guide:

17 beaches, some for families, some for all groups, some nudist, one gay

There is one main gay beach in Sitges – Platja de la Bassa Rodona. It sits at the centre of Sitges’ row of beaches. It is often one of the busiest beaches along the strip.

If you are a gay couple and you don’t fancy limiting yourself to just Platja la Bassa Rodona, you will feel comfortable on all of the beaches in Sitges. As a famously gay town, there is an open attitude towards openly gay couples throughout the town and beaches.

[8  –  12 June 2017. Gay Pride Sitges 2017: annual gay pride in Sitges, a beach resort only 30 min from Barcelona and very popular with gay tourists. With parties and other events and a Gay Pride Village at the promenade.]

Barceloneta beaches. From the Barcelona tourist guide:

This page contains pictures and information on the golden sandy Barcelona beaches. There are 4.2 km of golden sandy beaches only 10 minutes from the city centre and 4 main beach areas.

Some notable features: the W hotel, looking like a giant sail against the sky, and then from Wikipedia:

Amongst the attractions on Barceloneta’s beach are German artist Rebecca Horn’s “Homenatge a la Barceloneta” monument, and, where the beach gives way to the Port Olímpic, Frank Gehry’s modern “Peix d’Or” sculpture.

(#6) W hotel

(#7) Horn’s homage to Barceloneta

(#8) The Gehry goldfish

#6: W hotel. From Wikipedia:

W Barcelona, popularly known as the Hotel Vela (Sail Hotel) due to its shape, is a building designed by Ricardo Bofill is located in the Barceloneta district of Barcelona, in the expansion of the Port of Barcelona. … The building … stands in 7 hectares of land reclaimed from the sea surface in the construction of the new entrance to the harbour.

#7: the homage to Barceloneta. On the artist, from Wikipedia:

Rebecca Horn (24 March 1944, Michelstadt, Hesse) is a German visual artist, who is best known for her installation art, film directing, and her body modifications such as Einhorn (Unicorn), a body-suit with a very large horn projecting vertically from the headpiece. She directed the films Der Eintänzer (1978), La ferdinanda: Sonate für eine Medici-Villa (1982) and Buster’s Bedroom (1990). Horn presently lives and works in Paris and Berlin.

… In the 1990s a series of her impressive sculptures were presented in places of historical importance. Examples are the Tower of the Nameless in Vienna (1994), Concert in Reverse in Munich (1997), Mirror of the Night in an abandoned synagogue in Cologne (1998) and Concert for Buchenwald at Weimar (1999). In Weimar, the Concert for Buchenwaldwas composed on the premises of a former tram depot. The artist has layered 40 metre long walls of ashes behind glass, as archives of petrifaction. At the same time, the theme of bodily vitality, which the artist had been exploring since the seventies, was developed in site-specific installations that investigated the subject of the latent energy of places and the magnetic flows of space. This cycle comprises High Moon, New York (1991); El Reio de la Luna, Barcelona (1992); Spirit di Madreperla, Naples (2002). For the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Horn was commissioned to create the steel sculpture L’Estel Ferit.

On the sculpture:

The sculpture L’Estel Ferit (The Wounded Shooting Star) consists of four twisted cubes, stacked seemingly at random. Most people refer to this popular landmark as “the cubes”, and it is a clear reflection of Barcelona’s penchant for ground-breaking art during the Olympic period. However, its symbolism is inextricably linked to the past of the Barceloneta district.

The sculpture L’Estel Ferit pays tribute to Barcelona’s fishing district, the Barceloneta [hence the alternative name Homenatge a la Barceloneta ‘homage to Barceloneta’], and has become one of its iconic landmarks. The German artist Rebecca Horn heralded a new phase in the decoration of the city’s streets and squares. It was 1992, and the city’s most neglected neighbourhoods were in need of a clean up, while they opened up to the sea and adorned themselves with sculptures that were often innovative. In this case, Horn sought to immortalise the legendary seafront bars and restaurants, or xiringuitos, which just a few years before had dotted the Barceloneta coastline. The xiringuitos were shacks that had fallen into disrepair but still retained their essential charm. However, by the time the pre-Olympic city was being refurbished they had seen better days and were removed. Some people say that the cubes represent the [30m-squared] apartments…

Whatever the interpretation, there’s no denying that the artist created an impressive 10-metre-high sculpture, comprising four steel blocks that rise up from a concrete base. Each block, with its glass windows, comprises an individual module. Stacked one on top of another, these cubes look like they’re performing a fragile dance and are held up by chance. Locals and visitors alike don’t seem to fear the apparent instability of the structure, which is silhouetted against the background of the sea.

The name “homage to Barceloneta” is itself an homage of sorts. From Wikipedia:

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell’s personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952, when it appeared with an influential preface by Lionel Trilling.

#8: the Gehry goldfish. From Wikipedia:

La Vila Olímpica del Poblenou (The Olympic Village of Poblenou) is a neighborhood in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain). It was constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games which took place in Barcelona. Its construction was devised by Oriol Bohigas, David Mackay and Albert Puigdomènec as a residential area in the otherwise industrial and working-class district of Poblenou, which underwent regeneration but involved massive expropriation, as well as the destruction of a sizeable portion of the district, including Industrial Revolution factories of architectural value

… The [high-rise building] Torre Mapfre is located in this neighborhood, while the Hotel Arts, the Casino Barcelona and the “Peix d’Or” (goldfish), a large metal sculpture designed by Frank Gehry, are located at one edge of the Barceloneta neighborhood, close to the border with the Vila Olímpica del Poblenou.

Also in the neighborhood, from Wikipedia:

Palau Sant Jordi (English: St. George’s Palace) is an indoor sporting arena and multi-purpose installation that is part of the Olympic Ring complex located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Designed by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, it was opened in 1990. The maximum seating capacity of the arena is 16,670 for basketball, and 24,000 for musical events. It is the largest indoor arena in Spain.

The Palau Sant Jordi was one of the main venues of the 1992 Summer Olympics hosting the artistic gymnastics, handball final, and volleyball final events. Today, it is used for all kinds of indoor sport events as well as for concerts and other cultural activities, due to its great flexibility. [And it includes Piscina Sant Jordi, a public swimming pool.]

A swimming pool where you can show off your NIT swimwear. In any case, we’ve cycled back to Sant Jordi, St. George, in #1.

As for Sant Joan, St. John, in #2: his celebrations mark midsummer, the national day of Catalonia, and (for gayfolk) a high point of Pride Month. From Wikipedia on the traditions of Catalonia:

June 23: Midsummer. Revetlla de Sant Joan: Celebration in honour of St. John the Baptist … takes place in the evening of June 23. Parties are organised usually at beaches, where bonfires are lit and a set of firework displays usually take place. Special foods such as Coca de Sant Joan are also served on this occasion.

June 24: St. John’s Day. Dia de Sant Joan; Christian feast day celebrating the birth of Jesus’ likely cousin, Saint John the Baptist. This is considered to be the national day of the Catalan Countries.

And so it ends with food. From Wikipedia:

(#9) Coca de Sant Joan, sweet coca with candied fruits and pine nuts, typical of Catalan summer solstice celebration

The coca is a pastry typically made and consumed in Spain. [It] is just one way of preparing a dish traditionally made all around the Mediterranean.

The Catalan word coca — plural coques — comes from Dutch during the Carolingian Empire, and shares the same roots as the English “cake” and the German “kuchen”

There are many diverse cocas, with four main varieties: sweet, savoury, closed and open. All of them use dough as the main ingredient, which is then decorated. This dough can be sweet or savoury. If it is sweet, eggs and sugar are added, and if it is savoury, yeast and salt. As regards the topping or filling, fish and vegetables are usual at the coast whilst inland they prefer fruit, nuts, cheese and meat. Some cocas can be both sweet and savoury (typically mixing meat and fruit).

… Coca de San Joan, a sweet coca most typical of Catalonia, eaten on La revetlla de Sant Joan, St John’s Eve.

Catalonian midsummer fruitcake. Patriotic and gay.

From Aric Olnes a while back, a 5/31/17 piece from Hint Magazine, “Weird & Wonderful Men’s Underwear Ads”:

Hilarious and ridiculous, sure, but some of these vintage men’s underwear ads are downright hunky — they just take a little adjusting…

Hint is a fashion magazine covering men’s fashion as well as women’s. The logo:

(#1)

Earlier on this blog: from 11/6/16 “Wearing the 1970s”, with a set of entertaining ads and links to other postings.

Four examples from Hint, with my captions (and some comments):

(#2)

Bruce and Joe had a
Wonderful relationship,
Except for those pesky elves

This is (I think) the weirdest of the four. The text appears to be a play on get into s.o.’s pants, and it’s easy to read the visual as a sexual interaction between two men. But then there are two extra, smaller, legs in the photo, one of them tied to Joe’s right leg, as in a three-legged race. My conceit is that these extra legs belong to elves. I have no idea what the ad agency had in mind.

(#3)

The locker room parties were
Fantastic, though there were
Spirited disputes about
Pitching and catching

The notable element here is the glove in the right-hand guy’s left back pocket. Marking him as a top?

(#4)

Sam in his
Fig missile briefs,
On the town with his
Sexbuddy Greg, that
Wild animal

Especially worth notice: the moose-knuckle fig leaf.

(#5)

Each of them had found the
Nothing But Socks Club by his
Own route, but then it was
Immensely satisfying

Everybody with legs positioned so as to conceal their packages.

These were from the 1970s, when most underwear ads featured “regular guys” relating to each other as buddies (though these presentations sometimes went awry). Since then, premium men’s underwear firms have veered into porn territory, with models presenting themselves as sculpted lust objects, as in this Daily Jocks ad for Supawear from 10/27/17:

(#6)

Note the seductive facial expression and inviting open mouth. One on one between the model and you.

The Daily Jocks ad from yesterday, for a swimwear sale, with a caption of my own devising (below the fold). Not for kids or the sexually modest:

 (#1)

(Hat tip to Aric Olnes for the Scrabble word erective.)

Erective affinities

Mornings at 10,
Black cave on the
Beach, surreptitious
Sweaty flip-fucks —
Never lock eyes,
Never utter a word, just
Fuck-grunts, cause, y’know, it’s
Just sex, it don’t mean nothing

From OED2, adj. erective: ‘tending to erect or set upright’ [dictionary cites from 1611 and 1847]; a rare word, pressed into service above for sexual purposes, in the sense ‘leading to or exhibiting an erection of the penis’.

The Daily Jocks enthusiastic ad copy:

Summer is just around the corner (at least for the Northern Hemisphere) so we have curated a selection of this year’s best Swimwear to make sure you look your best whether you are laying by the pool or taking a dip in the ocean. Check out the hottest looks for this Summer!

And the source of the punning title, from Wikipedia:

 (#2) Opening section of English physician-chemist William Henry’s 1818 twelve-page chapter section Of Elective Affinity, a textbook overview of elective affinity

Elective Affinities (German: Die Wahlverwandtschaften), also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference to others.

And then Magritte picked up on the idea. From the ReneMagritte.org site:

 (#3)

Elective Affinities was an oil canvas painting created by René Magritte in 1933. This impressive artwork was based on Johann Goethe’s human chemical theory. The concept behind this theory is that external forces have a great impact on the will.

The painting depicts the fact that a person’s ideas are hatched into a concrete world that is enclosed by external forces. In terms of thermodynamics, this 1933 surrealistic painting depicts the relation of free will and the concept of chemical affinity. This theory was introduced by Johann von Goethe, a German polymath. Elective Affinities by René Magritte captured the essence of this theory, which explained the rationale behind free will. Although we may feel free, there are always instances or forces that we cannot control. Hence, human beings may feel as though they are caged because of their inability to take full control of the circumstances that occur in their life. These facts of life are encapsulated in this oil on canvas painting by Magritte.

To return to the fuck-buddies in #1: we now can see that forces beyond their control erect their dicks and compel them to screw each other every day at 10. It’s a physical phenomenon.

About bodies and their presentations.

This remarkable image today in a Daily Jocks ad:

(#1)

A deliberate (and elaborate) mix of gender messages, but primarily framed as male — this is a men’s underwear site, after all, and the model has a notable Adam’s apple and really serious musculature (even though such muscles have been achieved by some female bodybuilders — but that’s genderbending too).

But the hair. And especially the clothes.

For comparison, this halter-top two-piece bikini available on Amazon:

(#2)

The description (untouched) on amazon.com:

ADFOLF Womens High Neck Halter Bikini Set Swimsuits 2 Pieces Bathing Suits Black

In #2 the openweave crochet top conceals the model’s breasts but also displays them, by making them semi-visible. In #1 the mesh top technically covers the model’s well-developed pecs and erect nipples while simultaneously dislaying them flagrantly.  (Premium men’s underwear ads are usually celebrations of shirtlessness. Their audience is seriously into the pleasures of the male torso — in addition, of course, to the primary foci, crotches and butts.)

Today’s Daily Jocks ad, for their Underwear Club, with a caption of my own devising:

(#1) Unkind critics

Assailed his claim that the
Dutch of Brabant is the
Original language the
Garden of Eden’s tongue but he
Smoothly fended them off he
Knows all the moves

“Oldest language”. A slippery concept, one that doesn’t bear up under close examination, but has a superficial appeal: the idea that some languages are especially conservative, have changed very little over long periods of time, so that they’re realy old. A typical presentation of the idea, from the culture trip site, “The 10 Oldest Languages Still Spoken in the World Today” by Lani Seelinger 4/11/18, which offers 10 candidates  for the world’s “oldest language”: Hebrew, Basque, Tamil, Lithuanian, Farsi, Icelandic, Macedonian, Finnish, Georgian, and Irish Gaelic.

To see the problem, take Finnish. Why is Finnish on this list and not Estonian? At one time, there was a single language (well, a closely related group of language varieties), from which the languages we now call Finnish and Estonian both evolved, each in its own way; each preserved some features of the proto-language, each innovated (or borrowed from other languages) separately. But (for complex social and political reasons) one of the descendants has been called Finnish, while the other has been called Estonian. But the language Estonian is just as old as the language Finnish.

(This is not to deny that languages can differ in their rates of change. Some sociocultural contexts favor relatively slow changes, others promote more rapid change. So there’s a kernel of fact in talk about “unchanged” languages. But mostly it’s about how we name language varieties.)

“Original” language. If there can be “oldest” languages spoken today, then with luck we should be able to track things back to the oldest of the oldest languages, to reach the “original” language — still, wonderfully, spoken somewhere today. Several of the languages on the “oldest” list — Hebrew and Irish Gaelic in particular — have been touted as the Adamic language (Adamic Hebrew proponents seem mostly to be sober and scholarly, but the Adamic Irish gang come off as colorful nutcases), but mostly as an eruption of linguistic chauvinism rather than the product of any kind of scholarship. And linguistic chauvinism — my language is so well arranged, so perfect, that it must have been the first language — has resulted in extravagant Adamic claims for several other languages, among them Greek (no surprise) and (yes) Dutch.

(Some background on this blog, in my 4/19/16 posting “Some readings on language evolution”.)

Deep weirdness. And where would the antediluvian, Adamic language have come from? Well, of course, directly from God, presumably through the medium of His angels.

Which brings me to Enochianism. From Wikipedia:

(#2) Schutzengel (English: “Guardian Angel”) by Bernhard Plockhorst (1886) depicts a guardian angel watching over two children.

Enochian is a name often applied to an occult or angelic language recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Kelley was a spirit medium who worked with Dee in his magical investigations. The men claimed that the language was revealed to them by the Enochian angels. The language is integral to the practice of Enochian magic.

… According to Tobias Churton in his text The Golden Builders, the concept of an Angelic or antediluvian language was common during Dee’s time. If one could speak with angels, it was believed one could directly interact with them.

In 1581, Dee mentioned in his personal journals that God had sent “good angels” to communicate directly with prophets. In 1582, Dee teamed up with the seer Edward Kelley, although Dee had used several other seers previously. With Kelley’s help as a scryer, Dee set out to establish lasting contact with the angels. Their work resulted, among other things, in the reception of the Enochian or Angelical language.

Footnote: Brabant. From Wikipedia:

The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1482, until it was partitioned after the Dutch revolt.

Most of Brabant ended up in Belgium, and more recently it was divided, according to Belgian custom, into separate Flemish- and French-speaking provinces.

(Underwear guys, but nothing shocking.)

Yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad, for the company Modus Vivendi, with its inflated ad copy (“not just a product or just a brand, it reflects a lifestyle”) and a short caption of my own devising:

(#1)

Their name, Modus Vivendi, is their philosophy. From Latin, Modus Vivendi translates to lifestyle or way of life. Their name reflects their design and manufacturing approach to everything they make; it is not just a product or just a brand, it reflects a lifestyle.

My skivvies are my lifestyle my
Crotch my world I
Reach out to
Draw you in

The guy in #1 seems to have a pretty conventional lifestyle, standard tighty-whitey living, not anywhere near la vida loca. But MV goes lots of other places. You can, for instance, embrace la vida de culito in their C Through number:

(#2)

or playfully troll the beaches of the Côte d’Azur in their polkadot delight:

(#3)

(Guys in sexy underwear, yes, but no more than that. Plus a recent slang idiom.)

Daily Jocks yesterday:

   (#1) SLIDE IN OUR DM’S!

We are looking for hot new influencers to promote DailyJocks products, follow us & like our most recent post for the chance to become a DailyJocks influencer.

We will be sending out products for you to take pictures in & share with the world!

Lots of smiling — I’m big on smiles — in these amateur underwear photos, as compared to the sturdy studly pro shots.

The slang initialism DM (for direct message) I already knew, but the larger idiom slide in(to) (y)our DMs was new to me (but I’m so far from plugged into new things that I should be treated as permanently unplugged).

From the Know Your Meme site:

Slide Into Your DMs (permutations are common and may include: Slide Into Her DMs, Slide Into Yo DMs, Slide Into the DMs, often with the word “like” after the phrase) is a catchphrase which refers to the act of direct messaging another person [whether stranger or acquaintance] on a social media platform, usually for romantic reasons, in a smooth or cool way. While the phrase can be used literally, it is often parodied by being attached to videos or photographs of people engaging in awkward behavior [especially involving sliding].

It’s currently unknown where the term originated. The first online examples, including some GIFS with the tag and a Yahoo answers post, seem to appear in November 2013. At that point, the only social media platforms that allowed direct messaging were Twitter and Facebook; Instagram introduced direct messaging in December of 2013, and Vine premiered the feature in April of 2014.

One of the first popular examples of the term was this hip hop single by M-Boy titled “Slide Into Your DMs,” which was released on January 8th, 2014 [available on the Know Your Meme site].

So slide your body into sexy underwear and offer yourself to DJ customers romantically — but in a smooth, cool way.

As it happens, there are at least three D.M. men’s underwear companies, all into sexiness.

One, just D.M., source of (among other things, this smiley brief:

   (#2) Front view

   (#3) Rear view

Then Don Moris, offering Turkish delights, including this rainbow thong:

   (#4)

From their website (as is):

Welcome to our website. We appreciate your time no matter you are  purchasing or just looking. We are happy to introduce ourselves as a famous professional manufacturer and supplier of sexy men’s underwear ..

We come from Turkey, the manufacturing center in the world and our company, Don Moris, is one of the largest sexy men’s underwear manufacturer. We have what you are looking for and more.

We supply all types of fine sexy underwear such as: boxers, thongs, jockstraps, briefs, bikinis, sexy men’s panties, men’s panties, slips, erotic underwear, swimming wear.

Finaly, Danny Miami / DannyMiami, all beach sweaty-sexy, as here:

   (#5) The leopard

From the website, earnest burbling:

I am so excited you are here and I cannot wait to see you rocking your DannyMiamigear!

It all started with a dream to express my creative vision through fashion. From a very early age, I loved the beach. The beach has always been the ideal place for me to unwind and relax. In younger years, I was obsessed with obtaining the perfect tan. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and wanting to have the perfect body to complement that tan.I knew a little sun made a big difference. It just made me look better all-around specially in swimwear and undies.

Seeing myself in undies after the right tan was everything….. but the underwear itself was always soooo boring. I wanted to wear a piece that felt unique in every way, but my taste was too extravagant for what was out in the market. And that is how everything began.

The idea of having my own underwear line took years in the making. I took designing these pieces very seriously and educated myself in the craft. Additionally, I searched for the best fabrics with the most flattering fits. For me creating incredible patterns was also a must. In all it took years of intense labor and dedication, but in July 2015 DannyMiami.com came into fruition. Hard work paid off and from the start it became an instant success. All pieces were sold out within a month. The receptiveness of my original designs inspired me to continue creating even more remarkable pieces, thus giving rise to the fashion name of DannyMiami.

(Underwear guy, allusions to sexual practices. Imbibe with caution.)

Yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad, an “X-rated Sale” for Mothers Day weekend, with a caption of mine:

  spent husk

drained from a
day in hard harness
sprawled half-conscious
tits jutting codpiece
glistening abs
huge elegant feet
hazy hint of that
hole of male delight

An odd sale offer for Mothers Day weekend, but maybe (as I’ll suggest in another posting) it’s really for Muthuhs Day. That would work.

The ad copy:

GET 15% OFF OUR TOP BACKROOM BRAND THIS WEEKEND.
CellBlock13 is the raunchy big daddy to its founder Timoteo. Created with a unique style for the man that likes to get down and dirty in his underwear choices, you’ll love CellBlock13’s risqué and seductive designs.

The company specializes in fetishwear, but especially harnesses and codpieces. See my 7/23/17 posting “Codpieces on Cellblock 13”.

Then there’s spent husk. From a 1/3/18 posting, “More spent husks”:

SH8: Seized by an empty shell

In my 12/31 posting “El Bruto commands” there appeared two of my collages on the theme Spent Husks (SH #1 “The Wages of Dissolution” in #2 there, SH #2 “The Lost Boys” in #3 there). The theme of the set is the folk-medical idea that ejaculation is using up, spending, a portion of a finite stock of the essence of masculinity, of male strength; in this view, a man has only so many shots in him, so that frequent masturbation and other sexual activity depletes the stock, eventually reducing a man prematurely to a spent husk, an impotent, desexed shell.

Couple this idea with the belief that gay men are extraordinarily profligate sexually, and you get the view that even young, vital-seeming gay men are just pretty, but rapidly degenerating, husks of humanity. Et in Arcadio ego.

From this spring the SH collages.

… (A subtheme in the collages is that of male prostitution, indicated by symbols of financial exchange in [some of] the collages: the idea is that stud hustlers (and other male sex workers) have even more sex than the rest of us, depleting both themselves and their johns.)

(Mansex in street language, not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

As Pride Month approaches, the image from the May 14th Daily Jocks ad, for Breedwell harnesses and underwear (with my caption under the fold):

Flip breeds well

He rocks down to
Electric Underwear and
Breeds harder there

Takes it harder
Gives it harder

Glows in the blue
Bare fucklight

The DJ ad copy:

GET THE HOTTEST SELLING BRAND FROM AUSTRALIA’S MARDI GRAS SEASON IN TIME FOR PRIDE!
The Breedwell Glow collection are the only LED harnesses & underwear available in the market. Be one of the first to light up the night and stand out in the crowd. All Glow products are sweatproof, adjustable, and USB rechargeable.
Be sure to check out their latest releases, The Cross Harness & The Glow LED Leatherhead Cap.

From my 1/11/18 posting “Electric underwear” on Breedwell’s

homowear — harnesses, jockstraps, armbands, suspenders, pouches, even socks. Queer fetishwear that glows in the dark, in four neon colors (blue, green, yellow, red) and rainbow, either in solid or flashing mode, for “guys who are ready to light up the night!”. [with four illustrations]

Posing steamily in shoulder harnesses, armbands, jock pouches and straps, all in LED glowwear from the raunchily named Breedwell company.

The jockstraps come with either plain black or glow pouches (with a highlighting dick strip) and either plain black or glow straps — allowing the wearer to neon-advertise his cock or his ass or both, according to what he wants to put on public offer.

… The name of the firm (like so many of its garments) can be read as insertive or receptive: with agentive active breed (as in He breeds his boyfriend’s ass / his boyfriend well / with gusto); or with midde-voice breed (as in Joey breeds well ‘Joey is satisfying / easy to breed, Joey is a great fuck’).

… seed s.o.’s ass and … breed s.o.’s ass [are] both confined, so far as I know, to descriptions of barebacking male-male anal intercourse.

My caption uses the dual-purpose barebacking verb breed s.o.’s ass and, like my earlier posting, plays with Eddy Grant’s song “Electric Avenue”.

(Underwear and race / ethnicity / nationality / religion among gay men.)

News from Daily Jocks: a birthday for the Australian premium men’s underwear firms 2eros and Supawear (brothers in sexwear):

(#1) 2eros

(#2) Supawear

Notably, Asian models for the birthday celebration. Most sexunderwear firms are very light on black models, Latino models, Asian models (of all ethnicities and nationalities), and, for that matter, identifiably Jewish models. Andrew Christian is, on the whole, a stunning exception: his advertising reflects the use of “exotic” models in the fashion industry rather than the custom in the premium men’s underwear industry of relying on models whose looks are pumped-up mirrors of their customers’. The customers are mostly SAE-D — standard average European-descended — men (“standard average European” here is a little linguist’s joke, making reference to Standard Average European (SAE) languages, in Benjamin Lee Whorf’s terminology); the products either flatter their self-images or feed their fantasies of exotic men (for certain values of exotic).

More flesh. From Supawear itself, more images of the extraordinarily muscled model in #2:

(#3) Supawear’s Sprint line

(#4) Supawear sale

Meanwhile, 2eros has created a site — their Hunk Gallery — with information on its models. So far there are only four men on the site, but one of them is:

(#5) Jason Chee, doing a fine pitsntits presentation

Their puffery on the site (with some corrections to its text):

HUNK DETAILS: Jason Chee is Singapore’s heart throb

PROFILE: Jason is a b[o]dybuilder and personal trainer in Singapore and [has] been in many of Asia’s fitness magazine[s]. What a body!

Sexual politics. An immensely complex topic, but it starts from the fact that SAE-D gay men, reflecting wider prejudices, tend to wall themselves off socially from “minorities”, or even to be openly hostile to them — a situation that gave rise, among other things, to the defiant move to add black and brown stripes to the Pride flag, and the angry resistance to this move by many white guys.

At the same time, some of these minorities serve as powerful  figures of sexual fantasy: black men and Latinos and Arabs as stereotypes of rough working-class masculinity (the thug ideal), Asians as stereotypes of smooth-bodied boyishly playful masculinity (the twink ideal). Israeli men are idealized as tough military men (while other Jews suffer from anti-Semitism).

SAE-D gay men can deal with men from any particular minority separately in different spheres of life: socially, in friendships; sexually, in sexual encounters; intimately, in more enduring partnerships; and imaginatively, in fantasy sex. All sorts of configurations are possible. There are white guys who will have sex with black guys but will not consort with them socially, in friendships or romantic partnerships. There are white guys who won’t have anything to do with black guys at all in the real world (insofar as they can manage that), but use them to power jack-off fantasies. There are white guys who are X queens, where X picks out some minority that they are especially attracted to and seek out — for sex, for more enduring relationships, or as objects of sexual fantasy.

Many men are inclined to think of all this as merely an expression of tastes, in social, sexual, romantic, and imaginative contexts — preferences and dispreferences similar to other preferences and dispreferences in partner choices. Some men have a taste for blond men, or a distaste for redheads / gingers, as sexual or romantic partners. Such tastes can be quite idiosyncratic. On the other hand, they can also reflect much wider patterns of attitudes — think “no fats or fems” — in particular, the constellations of attitudes surrounding race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion. In which case, they can be decidedly edgy.

Look at things from the other side for a moment — from the side of a gay man in one of the minorities I’ve been talking about. Being viewed as an object of sexual attraction because you’re in a specific minority, when your minority status is socially  problematic in general, can be quite uncomfortable. You’re dogged by the idea that guys are coming on to you only as a representative of your kind, not as a person. Ok for a trick, but otherwise uncomfortable.

And you might well find the sexual objectification of your kind offensive and demeaning.

So I’m unsure of my response to images like #1-5 above. On the one hand, I find it refreshing to see models beyond the usual SAE-D ones, and in some numbers. (For one thing, it pleases me that such models can get work.) If they’re being displayed as just like the other models, as offering generally desirable bodies (which might sell some underwear), great. But if they’re being displayed as performing explicitly for our pleasure in their exoticism, like circus animals, then I’m troubled.

These are matters of performance and audience, intent and reception, and they can’t be judged just by looking. You need to know the social and cultural context, and here I’m largely ignorant. The initial audience for these images is Australian, and I just don’t know enough about how Asians, especially Chinese and Southeast Asians, figure in the Australian context, in particular in the world of gay male Australians.

My title. It combines two literary references: A.A. Milne’s Now We Are Six and the Ming-dynasty Chinese novel Journey to the West. (With Six changed to Nine in the first, to recognize the ninth birthday of 2eros/Supawear; and West changed to East in the second, to recognize that the models come from East or Southeast Asia.)The two titles are joined as subordinate and main clause, thanks to the now in Now We Are Nine, which can serve as a subordinator (a (subordinating) conjunction, in traditional terminology): ‘as a consequence of the fact that we are 9 years old, we are taking a journey to the East’. Then there’s a significant ambiguity in to the East that plays a role here: though China, Singapore, the Phillipines, etc. lie to the northwest, not the east, of Australia, they are located in the geographical region conventionally referred to in English as the East (embracing East Asia and Southeast Asia).

First, the literary sources. From Wikipedia on the Milne:

(#6) Cover of the first edition

Now We Are Six is a book of thirty-five children’s verses by A. A. Milne, with illustrations by E. H. Shepard. It was first published in 1927 including poems such as “King John’s Christmas”, “Binker” and “Pinkle Purr”. Eleven of the poems in the collection are accompanied by illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh. These include: “The Charcoal Burner”, “Us Two”, “The Engineer”, “Furry Bear”, “Knight-in-armour”, “The Friend”, “The Morning Walk”, “Waiting at the Window”, “Forgotten”, “In the Dark” and “The End”.

And from Wikipedia on the Chinese novel:

Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng’en. It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. In English-speaking countries, Monkey, Arthur Waley’s popular abridged translation, is most commonly read.

The novel is an extended account of the legendary pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled to the “Western Regions”, that is, Central Asia and India, to obtain Buddhist sacred texts (sūtras) and returned after many trials and much suffering. It retains the broad outline of Xuanzang’s own account, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, but the Ming dynasty novel adds elements from folk tales and the author’s invention, that is, that Gautama Buddha gave this task to the monk (referred to as Tang Sanzang in the novel) and provided him with three protectors who agree to help him as an atonement for their sins. These disciples are Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing, together with a dragon prince who acts as Tang Sanzang’s steed, a white horse.

Journey to the West has strong roots in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, Taoist and Buddhist philosophy, and the pantheon of Taoist immortals and Buddhist bodhisattvas are still reflective of some Chinese religious attitudes today. Enduringly popular, the tale is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a spring of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeys towards enlightenment by the power and virtue of cooperation.

The novel has been filmed a number of times, most successfully as a tv series. From Wikipedia:

(#7)

Journey to the West is a Chinese television series adapted from the classic novel of the same title. The series was first broadcast on CCTV in China on 1 October 1986. The series became an instant classic in China and is still being praised as the best and most authentic interpretation of the novel. Unadapted portions of the original story were later covered in the second season, which was released in 1999.

Linguistic notes 1: subordinating now. From NOAD:

conj. now: as a consequence of the fact: they spent a lot of time together now that he had retired | now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her around for ages.

The subordinator most often combines with a finite that-clause, but in informal style, Ø-marked complements are natural alternatives: they spent a lot of time together now he had retired | now you mention it, I haven’t seen her around for ages | now we are 9, we are taking a journey to the East.

Linguistic notes 2: clause truncation. Another feature of the title, with the interpretation ‘now (that) we are 9, we are taking a journey to the East’, is that the content of the main clause is conveyed by a NP, the clause fragment journey to the East, rather that by a full finite clause. Clauses truncated to NPs are in fact very common in speech, both within sentences and serving as sentences on their own:

Now (that) it’s 4 o’clock, ice cream for everybody!

It’s 4 o’clock. Ice cream for everybody!

It’s then up to the hearer to determine, from the context and background knowledge, how the NP is to be understood.

Linguistic notes 3: to the east/East. In the Chinese novel, the journey is both to the west, that is, in an westerly direction, and also to the West, to the region known as the West. In my title, the journey is not to the east, that is, not in an easterly drection (East and Southeast Asia lie northwest of Australia); but it is to the East, to the geographical region conventionally known in English as the East (because it lies east of Europe; from a Californian’s point of view, East and Southeast Asia lie to the west — but lexical items are as they are, whatever their historical origins.).

In speech, the two interpretations are indistinguishable. In writing, English orthography provides a way to distinguish them visually, as east vs. East. But in titles, all significant words are capitalized, so the two interpretations are again indistinguishable: the title Journey to the East is ambiguous.