Beefcake, gay subtexts, and queer representation in mass media from the 1950s to the present
Sep 20, 2025
Fifteen glorious Gavins and magnificent muscle Munns from Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Ohio, and Hollywood
The Gay Connection of "Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles"
Ok, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, and the Harry Potter series isn't bad, either. I'll give it a try. Of course, I judge a fantasy novel primarily on gay subtexts: deep, passionate same-sex bonds, or at least a minimum of heterosexual interest.
How much do you want to bet that Ronan gets a girlfriend?
Page 2: Ronan Boyle is a 14 year old intern in the Galway, Ireland garda (police force).
Page 25: He is recruited by the Garda Special Unit, a secret police force dedicated to relations the faerie folk -- leprechauns, trolls, and others,who live in their own world, Tir Na Nog, but like to transfer over from their world to ours to cause mischief.
So far, so good. No hetero interest, but no same-sex romances, either.
Page 35: Ronan is a big fan of Dame Judy Dench, and when stressed, imagines conversations with her. The actress is 84 years old, so it's probably not a hetero-romantic thing.
Page 51: His parents are in prison after being framed for the theft of a 4,000 year old mummified Bog Man, the oldest artifact in ireland, so he's living with his guardian, Dolores, "an absolute delight." No romantic interest mentioned.
Page 60: Ronan arrives at the training academy and meets the other recruits, including Log, a very tall, muscular, thick-limbed girl with the strength of a chimpanzee. Doesn't sound like romantic interest.
Dermot is not pictured in the book illustrations, so let's imagine him as the top photo.
Page 115: He visits Lord Diamond Dooley, who he believes actually stole the Bog Man and framed his parents. Not exactly Voldemort, but close.
Page 131: The Malton Hotel has been robbed of 30,000 euros of wine. The suspect is probably Lovely Liam, a gancanagh-- everyone who sees him falls in love with him.
In the original folklore, the gancanagh is a male fairy who seduces only women. Let's hope that "everyone" here is inclusive, men and women both.
Page 145: Ronan and Captain De Valera, must go to Tir Na Nog to investigate. Ronan respects her, but there is no heterosexual interest implied.
So far, so good -- inclusivity and no heterosexual interest. But it seems that everyone important in Ronan's life is female: his guardian, Log, the Captain, even his police dog partner.
Page 156: The Bridge of Riddles is just the way into the faerie town of Nogbottom. It provides a brief setback -- not nearly worth naming the book after. Someone is trying to emulate Harry Potter "and the Chamber of Secrets" or "the Prisoner of Azkaban."Page 188: Ronan keeps his eyes averted, but both the Captain and a male troll get a glimpse of Lovely Liam and fall in love with him.
Score! An inclusive love spell!
Page 220: While transferring the prisoners to Dublin, Log wants to take time out to visit the wax museum. She wants to see the statue of Liam Neeson, whom she finds hot. Ronan states that he is open to the idea of "meeting a wax Liam Neeson," but would would prefer a wax Judi Dench.
Page 237: They begin the next case, tracking down harpies in County Wexford. There's a fight, and Ronan sees something that will propel the plot into the next book of the series.
Sep 19, 2025
"The Haunted Hotel": A single mom, a ghost uncle, a demonic child, and a boy who likes to kiss boys. With Will Forte and Skyler Gisondo
We've had a lot of tv series and movies about ghosts and humans interacting in a haunted house, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Ghost (UK), Ghost (US), The Haunted Hathaways, and on and on. Will The Haunted Hotel (2025), on Netflix, be unique enough to break away from the pack?
The premise: When her older brother Nathan (Will Forte) dies, single mom Katherine (Eliza Coupe) inherits his hotel -- which is haunted by numerous spirits, some fully sentient, some just repeating the moment of their death, plus goblins, demons, a Cthulhu-being -- and Nathan! They try to fix up the hotel and bring in some human guests, which is problematic with ghosts bursting out of every crevice.
The kids are
1. Preteen Esther (Natalie Palamides), who wants to exploit the ghosts for profit (think Louise on Bob's Burgers).
2. Abaddon, Prince of the Dark Realm, currently trapped in the body of a 17th century boy ("This vessel requires Froot Loops").
3. 13-year old video-game nerd Ben (Skyler Gisondo). After five photo collections, I've about run out of shirtless photos.
In Episode 1.1, Ben is heterosexualized when he falls for a ghost girl who has been stuck in the hotel for 90 years "in a dress I hate." When they touch hands, they explode in...well, you can figure it out.
But earlier, when his sister teases the ghost Stabby Pete, Ben yells after him "I'd let you stab me!" Why does he invite a ghost to stab him? Is he equating stabbing with penetration of another sort? That's the sort of potential queer code that requires further research, so I'm reviewing Episode 7: "Seven Deadly Bens."
Scene 1: While his sister Esther teaches Abaddon, Prince of the Dark Realm, to play Connect Four, Ben and Mom are going through the bills. They have enough money to pay the dentist. "Did he say anything about me?" Ben asks anxiously. "He doesn't respond to my texts."
"You shouldn't be texting your dentist so much," Mom cautions. Trying to discourage his crush on the older man? Another queer code!
In the B Plot, Uncle Nathan keeps falling through floors. Ghosts should be corporeal enough to walk on floors, sit on chairs, lie on beds, and so on, so this is a big problem. I won't have enough space, so I'm skipping it.
Scene 2: Ben is trying to impress the hunky handyman who is replacing the front door after a ghost problem. Uh-oh, he says the door will "settle," but it's obviously still broken.
Mom yells at Ben for not forcing the guy to finish the job. "How was I to know? I've never fixed a door before."
"Why can't you be more confident?" When she leaves, Stabby Pete appears: "That was brutal. I stab people's bodies, but your mom stabbed your existence."
Depressed, Ben goes into a forbidden room, looks in a mirror attached to an old wardrobe, and wishes he was more confident. Suddenly a Confident Ben pops out! "These calves are my best feature," he tells Original Ben, "Followed by hair, eyes, and personality." Dude, you have no calves. You have straight cartoon legs.
Scene 3: They explain to Mom that there are now two of them. She insists that they merge, but they have no idea how. Going into the wardrobe doesn't work.
This could be a problem. What if Original Ben is slowly dying?
Suddenly Scared Ben emerges. And others.
More after the break
Matlock 2024: Kathy Bates barges in like Columbo...um, I mean Andy Griffith. With Tony Danza, some Greek d*cks, and Jason Ritter's backside
Link to the n* de dudes
I did watch part of one episode, because it promised LGBT representation: Matlock goes into a gay bar for some reason, and a young guy instantly pops up and asks him to dance. An old guy in a gay bar is hit on? Is this science fiction?
"Me, dance with you?" Matlock repeats, horrified. Then "No-ooooo-oooo!!!!", shaking his head so vigorously that I'm surprised it didn't fall off. Geez, it wouldn't hurt you to be a little gracious, homophobe! How about "No, thanks, I'm working."
There was also an episode with a murderous drag queen, rather old fashioned in the 1990s.
30 years later, Matlock has been revived in the form of a retired lawyer (Kathy Bates) with the nickname Matlock or Mattie, because the show was big when she was first starting out. I'm not particularly interested -- again, who wants to watch an oldster attorney clunking around -- but I understand that this version has a bona fide gay character, so I'll take a look.
Episode 1: In a coffee shop, a cute but jerky businessman (Marcus Rosner, right) talks about closing on his phone. He overhears Mattie struggling with using the tap function, and hands the barista a $20 bill to pay, and keep the change. Mattie is pleased; "Isn't this a nice way to start the day." But I'm not pleased; I figured this guy would be a main character.
She enters the building at 450 5th Avenue in New York, in Midtown, about five blocks from the Empire State Building, and talks to the lady on the elevator about hard candy: she resisted, but when she turned 65, she had no choice but to buy some. "We become exactly what people expect us to be."
Into the office on the 21st floor, where she suspiciously looks at a floor plan and enters a conference room full of suit men talking about the Mets. Boss Elijah (Eme Ikwuakor) asks Olympia about the police corruption case; she needs more resources to get it done, but he tells her to close it now.
Next Julian (Jason Ritter) brags that they can get his case up to $19 million. Mattie interrupts that he can get a lot more.
"Who are you?"
Matlock. She's come to apply for an associates job, but she can't get an interview due to her age, so she barged into the meeting.
"How do you know how much he is willing to pay?"
She's been tailing his attorney, and "accidentally" overheard their phone conversation in the coffee shop earlier. Old people are invisible, and can get away with a lot of spying.
"Fine, you're hired. You can assist Olympia on the case she's been working on for six months."
Scene 2: Olympia is upset, but she has no choice. She introduces her other assistants. The woman complains that they should be working with senior associates, not senior citizens, but Billy (David Del Rio) befriends Mattie and gives her a tour of the snack station and back patio for crying (I've had jobs like that).
Left: David Del Rio is sort of swishy, and he pretends to be gay in several of his Instagram posts, but he announces right off that he's just joking: he's actually married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and they have two beautiful daughters. I hate it when straight guys jerk us around like that.
The case: Raymond Harris spent 26 years in prison for multiple rapes and a murder. He's been exonerated by DNA tests, thinks that the police suppressed evidence, and wants the State of New York to pay damages. Olympia has a tip: while Raymond was in custody, a prostitute escaped from the real killer, but the police report proving his innocence vanished. They have to track her down; but they have no name or description, and it was 26 years ago.
Left: Why I never watched Matlock.
More after the break
Sep 18, 2025
Gay Comics of the 1980s
During the late 1980s, they stopped being called "comix" (underground, radical) and became "comics" (mainstream).
Here are my favorite gay comic titles:
1. Murphy's Manor (Kurt Erichsen), about a regular guy who works as a librarian in Black Swamp, Ohio, and his various gay and lesbian friends.
The Sparkle Spinsters, led by the flamboyant Duchess (right), sometimes appeared in a separate feature.
2. Jayson, by Jeffrey A. Krell. Jason Callohide is an underemployed liberal arts graduate sharing a single apartment in Philadelphia with his straight gal pal, Arena Stage. They are drawn in the clean, spare style of Archie Comics.
Jeffrey A. Krell has published several trade paperbacks of Jayson's adventures, the most recent in 2012. He also produced an off-Broadway musical, Jayson
3. Poppers, by Jerry Mills, set right in the heart of West Hollywood, starring Yves, a regular guy who works in a bookstore, his hunky best friend Billy, and the flamboyant Andre. It features all of the glitz, glamour, sex, and drugs that you expect in the pre-AIDS era of sexual liberation (it's even named after a psychotropic drug, amyl nitrite)
But beneath all that it's about friends sticking together in a hostile world, about the search for a place where you belong.
Jerry Mills died of AIDS in 1993.
You can get gay comics now on Amazon -- they arrive in mail, hidden from view in a brown box -- but that can't match the immediacy of walking down to the Different Light Bookstore on Larrabee and Santa Monica and grabbing them right off the shelf.
See also: Donelan; Howard Cruse; and Tom of Finland.
Skyler Gisondo's Hot/H* ung Photos, Part 3: Basketball, beach boys, wrestling, giving a guy his leg
Link to the n*de photos
3. Why not? Is the dude homophobic, or does he want you to lie on your back so he can see your abs?
4. Obviously they've been wrestling. I have absolutely no idea what else they could be doing that leaves them on the floor, out of breath.
5. But we're not playing shirts vs. skins, buddy.
6. I dig the lesbian haircut, Sky Baby, but your sweater shrank in the wash.
Eric Brody: Fashion model from Florida shows his d*ck in his first acting gig
Link to the n*de photos
The "problem" comes to a head in Episode 2.3, "It's Ok to Like It," Eric Brody and Taylor Byron Barr play the models in the proposed centerfold, n*de cowboys tired to railroad tracks. Two men together? The editor scoffs: "Not playing to our demographic," by which she means "they look gay."
Taylor Barr fills his instagram with pictures of him hugging ladies and a promo for something called the "Ladies' Patrol," so let's do a profile of Eric Brody instead
You can see his junk in the previous shot, but here we see mostly hair.
Minx was Eric Brody's first acting role. His second, in 2024, was Max the Driver in the short Deuces Wild. It also starred Jake Locrotondo, who graduated from Centennial High School in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in 2021. This will become important later in the research.
Husbands, Wives, and Lovers: The opening theme of a short-lived sitcom offers an escape from the "job, house, wife, kids" mandate
During the spring of my senior year in high school. I devised a clever scheme to avoid having to date girls: I would ask out a supermodel-cheerleader, way out of my league. Then, when she laughed hysterically and hung up, or more graciously had to wash her hair that night, my parents would "console" me by letting me borrow the car anyway. So on Friday nights I went out with boys, to movies, to get pizza, to Leonard Bernstein's Mass at Augustana College, to the spring musical.
We would get back to my place or his place about 9:00 and turn on the tv set just in time to hear the jazzy, risque theme song to Husbands, Wives, and Lovers ("and luuv-errrrs"), produced by gay-friendly comedian Joan Rivers.
It was the first time any man and woman on tv had lived together without being married, and hearing about it made us feel grown-up and sophisticated and sort of dirty. Luuv-eerrrrs....
1. Cynthia Harris tries to get the elderly Stephen Pearlman interested, but he's listening to his own heartbeat with a stethoscope.
2. The vain Charles Siebert wrests a mirror from Claudette Nevins' hand and uses it to admire himself.
3. Lynne Marie Stewart tries to get hunky, open-shirted Eddie Barth (left) interested, but he's busy eating a sandwich.
4. Mark Lonow waits in anticipation while Randee Heller strips, but he doesn't like the results, and rejects her.
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
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?).
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.
Sep 17, 2025
Jordan Gavaris: Gay Degrassi teen, clone's brother, alien's boyfriend, Jerry O'Connell's date. With Jordan and Zach d*cks
In Episode 8.10, Riley arranges a hookup with Nathan (Jordan Gavaris), whom he met online, but when the guy arrives, he realizes that they hooked up at summer camp three years ago. He runs away to take steroids, find a girl to date, and beat up another guy who implies that he might be gay.
In Season 9, Riley continues denying that he is gay, in spite of everyone's suspicions, including his girlfriend's, and beating up guys who offer to talk to him about it. Episode 9.3, he runs into Nathan again while on a date with his girl, pretends not to know who he is, and runs away.
Riley concludes that he is "confused," tries to find a therapist for a "cure," tries to get a girl to turn him straight, beats up more guys, and in Episode 9.18 comes out to himself. Fortunately, there is a hot guy available (Shannon Kook-Chun) to become his first boyfriend. But he stays closeted for two more seasons, and suffers from both internalized homophobia and homophobic harassment through the end of his plotline.
I didn't realize that this story would be so friggin' painful. Degrassi High is in Toronto! Canada! The most gay friendly country in the world. What we down here in the U.S. call Heaven. What's with the angst? But I already started a profile of Argiris Karras...
Whoops, no beefcake photos online, and he's straight. Shannon Kook-Chun has beefcake photos, but he's straight, too. Did they have a policy about not hiring gay actors to play gay characters?
Turns out that this is a profile of Jordan Gavaris.
Jordan was 1989 in Brampton, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, graduated from Mayfield Secondary School, and then enrolled in an actor's workshop. His first on-screen roles came in 2008, in the cartoon series Got to Go and the movie 45 RPM: In 1960s Canada, Parry (Jordan) meets a girl from Calfornia, and discovers "love, loss, and rock n roll." Starting out rather straight, aren't you, buddy?
Next came Degrassi (2009), and Unnatural History (2010): Henry (Kevin G. Schmidt, top photo) the globetrotting son of anthropologists, goes to live with his uncle in Washington DC. His cousin Jasper (Jordan) and Maggie, the girl they are both crushing on, solve the mysteries surrounding weird artifacts like a pony express bag and...an atomic bomb built by Benjamin Franklin? They also crush on other girls. It's girl-craziness all the way down.
Jordan is most famous for Orphan Black (2013-17), a science fiction thriller: con artist Sarah discovers that she is one of several clones produced by an evil biotech corporation -- and now someone is trying to eliminate all of them. She investigates with the help of some fellow clones, her hunky boyfriend (Dylan Bruce), and her foster brother Felix (Jordan, left), an artist and s*x worker.
Sep 16, 2025
Alice and Tommy: There's a new girl in town, with a teen idol son
Most 1970s comedies involved people who lived in big cities like Minneapolis (Mary Tyler Moore), Indianapolis (One Day at a Time), Chicago (Bob Newhart), and New York (The Jeffersons). . But not Alice (1976-85). Linda Lavin played Alice Hyatt, an aspiring singer en route from New Jersey to L.A. to jump-start her career, when her car stalled outside Mel's Diner in "small town" Phoenix (it actually had a sizeable population).Three ladies, a kid, and a bear? I wasn't impressed. Besides, Alice ran on Sunday nights, after the oldster-favorites 60 Minutes and All in the Family, opposite Battlestar Galactica or Chips. I didn't start watching regularly until about 1980, when it was squeezed between One Day at a Time and The Jeffersons.
It was a pleasant surprise. The banter between the four regulars was sharp and witty, the plotlines were not terribly heterosexist, and there was ample beefcake: cowboys and muscular truck driver patrons of the diner, the various men dating the regulars, and Tommy's school friends.
Speaking of Tommy, during the last half of the series, he was 15-19 years old, the prime time for teen idols. But he didn't get much play in the teen magazines, just a couple of shirtless and swimsuit shots.
This was the era of Scott Baio, Willie Aames, and Billy Warlock, so maybe he lacked the muscles to make a big splash.
Several of the cast members were gay or gay friendly. Vic Tayback and Polly Holliday were both rumored to be bisexual, and Phil McKeon, who never married, was rumored to be gay (gay or not, he was more handsome as an adult than when he was playing Tommy). He died in 2019.
His tv mom, Linda Lavin, performed with the Orlando, Florida Gay Chorus. She played the mother of gay sons in The Lyons on Broadway (2012) and Mid-Century Modern on Hulu (2025).

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