Jan 5, 2026

Gemstones Episode 1.2: Thai ladyboys, Italian shoes, Palestinian guys, a rattlesnake, and the Devil's Kiss

 




Link to the n*de dudes


Episode 1.2 continues the plot arc of Jesse confronting the blackmailers who have a video of his s*x-and-drugs party. 
 
Title: "Is this the man who made the Earth tremble?" From Isaiah 14.15: Everyone is amazed at the fall of the King of Babylon. Here we're looking at the fall of Eli Gemstone.

The Ladyboys of Thailand:  The red van in the deserted parking lot.  The head blackmailer, Scotty, wearing a scary devil mask, is talking with his companions, a woman named Lucy and an unidentified man.  He dismisses the  misconception that Thailand is all about ladyboys "hanging out of windows with their cocks in their panties." But: Thailand also has great food, great beaches, "and we're going to be taller than everyone else." 


The ladyboys or kathoey of Thailand have male-coded physical characteristics but present as feminine.  They were traditionally called a third gender, but with the globalization of Western LGBT identities, they are more likely today to identify as femme gay men or trans women.  Scotty's statement suggests that he is into ladyboys, but his companions are not, so he is trying to convince them that Thailand has other attractions, too.

The siblings arrive and drop the bags of money in front of the van.  Scotty gets out to pick it up and -- Jesse attacks!  Lucy, wearing a scary baby mask, shoots at them.  They jump back into their car and run over Scotty, and then Lucy, when she rushes to his aid. The third blackmailer takes off his mask: it's a young man played by Skyler Gisondo.  


The Young Man yells "Scotty!" and runs up and cuddles him like a lover!  They are obviously boyfriends.He helps Scotty up, and they carry Lucy to the van and drive away. 

Scotty thinks that Lucy is dead, so they try to throw the corpse down a hill.  But she's alive!

Did it really happen?:  The next day, the siblings return to the parking lot.  There is no evidence of the blackmailers.  Jesse suggests that it was never real to begin with, and Judy, "a spiritual test that we had to overcome."  Kelvin thinks it was real, but the others criticize him for "projecting negativity."  

The next order of business: how should they divvy up the money Judy stole from the church: give it all back (Kelvin) or give half back and split the rest (Jesse). Why do these people need money?  Aren't they, like, rich? Maybe Daddy controls everything, and gives them an allowance.

Suddenly Kelvin jumps out of the car.  Jesse scoffs that he wants to buy a new pair of 22s, custom shoes hand-crafted by Gabe Apodaca in Italy, keying into his gay-coded fashion obsession.  But he's actually noticed a security camera: they could get the van's license plate number.


Lucy has what Scotty needs:
 At the hospital, Scotty and the Young Man discuss what to tell Lucy about the hill  She's "all f*ked up," but Scotty  wants to do stuff with her.  He waits for the Young Man to offer to do stuff instead, but he doesn't.

Psych!  Scotty isn't planning that after all: he puts her in a wheelchair, and exclaims "We're getting out of here.!"  (Backside shot: his hospital gown is open in the back) Why did Scotty tell the Young Man that he wanted to get with Lucy?  Apparently to make him jealous, but of who?  Lucy, Scotty, or both?

"Did you just blow a kiss at me?": Cut to Jesse discovering that his wife and kids are still in contact with the runaway Gideon.  They even have good news: he just got cast in a Netflix movie; "he's doing well in LA, following his dreams."  Pontius repeats "Hollywood" in a sultry voice, then blows Jesse a kiss, teasing that Gideon is gay.  

Jesse wants to know how they dare to contact him when he "snipped our nuts." Why is moving to California like snipping your father?  



The New Threat:
 Scotty, Lucy, and the Young Man are eating Chinese food at a cheap hotel.  But wasn't she on life support? The hard drive containing the video is ruined, and they don't have a backup. The blackmail plot has failed. Scotty and Lucy blame each other. 

We cut to Jesse forcing his crew to go into the Rimtyme, a real Charleston-area store that sells custom tires and rims, to get the security cam footage.  But the manager doesn't believe their made-up story, and they return empty-handed.  

They return, knock over tire displays, assault the manager, and steal the security machine.  

 We return to Gideon filming Scotty as he issues a new threat: "You can't kill the devil, son!" The blackmail price is now $2,000,000.  The others complain that he doesn't sound realistic.

The Young Man  and Lucy go out to smoke a cigarette and have a heart-to-heart. "This whole thing was my  idea," he announces. "Scotty may act like the leader, but he wouldn't have anything if it weren't for me."  So, he's the dominant one in the triad?  

 Lucy wants to know if they threw her down the hill.  He denies it, but she tells him that he is not  the leader at all, he's sexually and socially dependent on Scotty.  

Matthew Touches Kelvin: Cut to church. Eli is preaching on what happens when you try to do things yourself, instead of relying on Godyou fall prey to the snakes of the world.  This will become important later.  They may be disguised as a caring neighbor or trusted friend, but if you let them in, they will destroy you. 

Jesse and Judy, sitting in the congregation with their partners, excuse themselves and rush upstairs, where they meet with Kelvin and Jesse's crew.  We do not see Kelvin in the congregation.  Why not?  So he won't be shown sitting with Keefe, thus identifying them as partners in a parallel to Jesse/Amber and Judy/BJ?  

The security footage reveals that there are three blackmailers, and they drive a red van.  Kelvin suggest tracking them down with traffic cams.  Jesse likes this idea, and congratulates his "baby bro-bro."  Matthew gives him a bro-butt slap, but Kelvin recoils: "Don't touch me."  You don't like guys touching you, Kelv Baby?  What are you, straight?  Or is something else going on?

So, where will we get that traffic cam footage? "I know someone who can help."


Kelvin touches Keefe:  
To find out who is blackmailing Jesse, Kelvin leads the siblings to the DMV, where Keefe works. He can use traffic cams to locate their vehicle.  "I could lose my job for this," he says, "But I'd do anything for you."  Kelvin touches his arm, and Keefe touches the place he touched.  This is where Tony Cavalero states that Keefe begins to fall in love.  In the last episode, you weren't sure about moving from friendship to romance with Kelvin.  Now you're ready to go? 

They clasp hands, and Kelvin gives him that "I'm desperate to kiss you" look.

The Devil's Kiss:  The Young Man is exercising in the hotel room when Scotty bursts in, ready to attack him because the backup video is broken.  Lucy calls him out and admits to destroying it. Furthemore, she's leaving him because of the throwing-her-down-the-hill thing.  I'm tired of keeping up the mystery; it's super-obvious by this point anyhow: The Young Man is Jesse's son Gideon.

Scotty tells Lucy that it was going to be "just you and me" in Thailand, but earlier he said all three of them.  He seems to have a dominant-submissive relationship with both, and is playing them off each other, telling Lucy "you can easily be replaced" and Gideon, "I might make you my favorite."  Now his dominance is challenged.  He returns to the hotel room and yells at Gideon for telling Lucy about the hill.  "Why'd you tell her?  You like her? You think she likes you?"  His two subs certainly can't be interested in each other!

To restore his dominance, Scotty attacks.  Gideon doesn't want to hurt him, but defends himself with both boxing and martial arts.  He promises to get the money some other way.  

Scotty starts to strangle him, says "If you don't, I will kill you," and covers Gideon's nose with his mouth, signifying raw erotic power and absolute control.  

Bonus n*de Palestinian guys on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

More after the break

Shock Treatment: Romance is Not a Children's Game



In the spring of 1982, I went to a midnight showing of Shock Treatment, which was widely advertised as "the sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show!"  

Actually, I saw it five times, because in the days before video rentals, DVDs, and streaming services, once a movie left the theater, it was gone for good.






It starred Brad and Janet from the original movie, played by different actors (Cliff de Young, Jessica Harper): Barry Bostwick was unavailable, and Susan Sarandon wanted too much money.

Cliff DeYoung (top photo) had been the lead singer of the 1960s band Clear Light, and the star of Sunshine (1973), about a struggling musician with a dying wife. Ugh!  But his signature song, "My Sweet Lady," charted at #14.  He also appeared in Hair on Broadway, and went on to over 80 tv and movie appearances, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The X-Files, Get a Clue, and Diagnosis: Murder. 

Jessica Harper had toured in Hair with Cliff, and starred in Phantom of the Paradise, Love and Death, and Suspira.  She would go on to over 50 movie and tv roles, seven albums, and eleven children's books.

No other characters from Rocky Horror, no references to Rocky Horror, no sweet transvestites, no gay relationships, no references to gay people except for a racist/homophobic anecdote!


But once you get over your initial disappointment, Shock Treatment presents an interesting conceit: the world is a tv studio, and everyone a player (shades of Shakespeare).  Everyone is under surveillance, everyone is acting in a show within a show within a show.  There are no private moments; everyone is always being observed, commented on, controlled.  Sort of like social media today.

And they're trapped.  Like many stories with gay symbolism, there is no way out.  This is the whole universe.

The story is a heterosexist fable: studio owner Farley Flavors is in love with Janet, so he hires Drs. Cosmo and Nations McKinley (Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, reprising their incestuous brother-sister romance from Rocky Horror).  They institutionalize Brad as "an emotional cripple" in their  psychiatric-hospital Faith Factory program.  To make Janet forget about Brad, they groom her to star in her own show.

Jessica Harper has a much stronger voice than Susan Sarendon, the original Janet.  Shock Treatment is worth watching just to hear her paeon to egotism, "The Me of Me"

Deep in the heart of me, I love every part of me
All I can see in me is danger and ecstasy
I'm willing to die for me.
One thing there couldn't be is any more me in me

More after the break

Jan 4, 2026

Austin Lindsay: The casually n*de roommate on "Overcompensating" has a BFA and a lot of depressing shorts. With bonus n*de fratboys

  


Link to the n*de dudes


In Overcompensating Episode 1.1, the gay-but-in-denial Benny is trying to heterosexualize with his buddy Carmen, when his lacrosse-player roommate Trey bursts into the dorm room, knocking them over.  He glances at their n*de bodies and casually walks around them to grab his stuff so he can spend the night elsewhere. 

He returns in Episode 1.2 to be nonchalant about Carmen's pink-eye, and inEpisode 1.3, to casually walk around the dorm room in his birthday suit, disconcerting Benny (who still annoyingly thinks that he's straight). 

Wait -- Trey shows his d*ck


Twice?

He also shows his backside, but  Overcompensating is a backside fest.  We also see the rear ends of Benny, his sister's boyfriend, and the entire fraternity (below).  I'm more interested in the d*ck guy, Austin Lindsay.













Research is a bit difficult. Austin Lindsay is also the name of a University of Missouri wrestler, an actor in Boise, Idaho, a photographer in Salt Lake City, and a baseball player at TCNJ (I clicked on several home pages, and still couldn't find any indication of what it is.  A college in New Jersey?).

But I found our Austin's Facebook, Linkedin, and Backstage resume.  He was born 2001 in North Bay, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Nipissing, about four hours north of Toronto.  

He studied dance and performed with the Performers Dance Company in North Bay.

In high school he appeared in Catch Me if You Can (2015), West Side Story (2016), and Mama Mia (2019), and wrote/directed the short Querencia (2019).  In spite of the title, it has no queer content: an elderly musician reunites with his dead wife.

















 More after the break

Björn Mosten: His "Love and Anarchy" n*de hugeness made him a star, but he's also played a gay boarding school bully and Oddgeir's buddy.

  


Link to the n*de photos


In the Swedish comedy Kärlek och anarki (Love and Anarchy, 2020-22), middle aged publishing house consultant Sofia (Ida Engvoll) and young IT guy Max (Björn Mosten) fight a "dare war,"  trying to one-up each other with increasingly drastic dares:


Dress like pop singer Cyndi Lauper.
Walk backwards for a day.
Get too drunk
Mimic people
Walk into a restaurant and pretend that you work there.
Dribble
Do everything as fast as you can





And:  Get n*de in front of your family.

Uncensored on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  Hint: Our buy is huge.













Frontside and back.

This was the 23-year old actor's only n*de scene in the series (he takes off his shirt a few times), but it was enough to seal his popularity among gay men in Sweden and abroad.

His cuteness and his acting ability too, of course.







The cover story of Kupe tells us that he is "An Overnight Star."  

Björn wasn't planning to become a star.  He was a small town boy, from Dvärsätt in central Sweden (the nearest big city is Trondheim, Norway, three hours away).  In the summer of 2019, he was just finishing up his degree in engineering at Uppsala University, and enrolled in the master's program in Computer and Information Engineering.  Lisa Langseth was casting an IT guy for her new comedy drama.  He had done some modeling, so why not audition?







After Love and Anarchy, Bjorn starred in the theatrical play Jakten (2022), at the Stockholms Stadsteaterat.  

It means "The Hunt," as in "Witch Hunt": a grade school teacher (Henrik Norlén) is falsely accused of assaulting a child in his class.  Bjorn plays Marcus, his teenage son.

Next came the tv series Ondskan ("Evil," 2023): Erik (Isac Calmroth) is expelled from public school due to being a violent thug, enrolls in an exclusive private school, becomes a bullying victim, and commences an affair with the lunch lady. 

More after the break

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