Dylan Everett: The depressed Degrassi teen buddy-bonds with three gay guys, wears tight jeans, joins the army. With a lot of backsides and a Dylan d*ck

 

Link to the n*de Dylan

I'm not usually into backsides -- I prefer the side that with the chest, abs, and beneath the belt stuff  -- but the backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends is a thing of beauty.  It belongs  Dylan Everett, then 26, who you probably know as Campbell Saunders on the Canadian teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation. 

 Cam appears in Season 12 (2012-13) as a "good-hearted, gentle, nice, shy, cool, and sweet" hockey player who rejects an offer of friendship from the gay kid Tristan, for fear of being assumed gay himself, but then apologizes.  They hang out, and he begins dating Tristan's friend Maya.  But anxiety and depression take their toll, and his plot arc ends with suicide.

Born in Toronto in 1995, Dylan began acting in commercials at age ten, and moved into television with The Doodlebops, "the ultimate rock n roll band for kids."   He first played the friend of a gay kid in Breakfast with Scott (2007): a "straight-acting" gay couple (Tom Cavanaugh, Ben Shenkman) become the guardians of a flamboyantly femme boy (Noah Benett).

A lot of teencoms and tv movies followed, notably How to Be Indie (2009-2011): the Indian-Canadian girl has two friends, a teencom standard: Abbie (a girl) and Marlon (Dylan), who according to the fan wiki is "always full of bright ideas," but sometimes annoying.  He wears pants that are so tight, he can't sit down, has a gay-subtext boyfriend, John Lu (Jason Jia), and displays no interest in girls -- obviously gay.  At least until the showrunners decided to queerbait by giving him a girlfriend in Episode 49.

Next the busy teenager simultaneously appeared on
Degrassi and starred in the teencom Wingin' It (2010-13): To earn his wings,  apprentice angel Porter (Demetrius Joyette) must help outcast high schooler Carl (Dylan) become popular.  I'm not sure how much of an outcast Carl is, since he has the standard teencom two friends, Jane and Alex (Brian Alexander White), but most episodes involve crushing on girls, competing with Porter for girls, asking girls out, and so on.  Apparently popularity means having a girlfriend.

Dylan played Mark-Paul Gosselaer in The Unauthorized "Saved by the Bell" Story (2014), himself in Dylan (2015), the young Dean Winchester in three episodes of Supernatural (2013-15), and a heterosexual teenager in Undercover Grandpa (2017).  

He has a n*de scene in All About Who You Know (2019): an aspiring screenwriter tries to meet his idol by arranging a romcom-style romance with the guy's daughter. Or you could just call him.

AusCaps has a scene where his friend Austin (Stephen Joffe) wakes up in bed with a guy, and looks surprised but does not recoil in homophobic horror, so maybe he has a gay plotline.

More after the break.  

Phil of the Future's Future: Former Disney teen Raviv Ullman on the Torah, wearing dresses, and his d*ck

  

   Link to the d*ck pics

On an uncomfortably humid episode of Broad City, set during a sopping-wet New York summer -- I've been there -- besties Abbi and Ilana try to beat the heat by buying, borrowing, or stealing an air conditioner.  Humorous or uncomfortable excursions follow, such as sex with a sopping-wet Seth Rogan, and holing up in a dorm room at New York University, smoking weed with -- and making out with -- two boys.  You'd think that someone hanging out in a college dorm room would be a college student, right?  No, they're high school students, age 16.

And one of them is Phil of the Future!

If you weren't watching the Disney Channel on Friday nights in 2004, you might not have noticed, among the girl-centric teencoms like That's So Raven, Lizzie McGuire, and Kim Possible, the boy-centric Phil of the Future.  A time-machine mishap strands a family from 2124 in our century, where they must adjust to primitive technology while keeping their secret. Phil, played by Ricky Ullman, immediately meets a girl, with whom he shares adventures while falling in love. Careful, dude, she could be your great-grandmother.

No gay subtexts here: hetero-romance is the beginning and end of everyone's story.  But there were a lot of cute guys,  or guys who would grow up to be cute, like Evan Peters, whose butt you have seen many times on American Horror Story.  It was certainly better than watching Raven's psychic flashes.

After Phil, Ricky moved on to teen s*x comedies like Prom Wars, grown-up s*x comedies like How to Make Love to a Woman, and Rita Rocks, a Lifetime sitcom about a middle-aged lady who starts a garage band.

The straight-to-DVD Driftwood, 2006, was a change of pace dramatic role: David is sent to an "attitude adjustment camp." He befriends Noah, there to be "cured" of being gay, and helps him solve the murder of his boyfriend.  

This also marks the moment that Raviv dropped the stage name "Ricky" and came out as Jewish. He's actually Orthodox, and devout; his grandfather was a rabbi.

Contest, 2013, features a bully and his victim working together to win a contest.  I haven't seen it, but it appears to be all gay-subtext: the victim also gets a girlfriend. 

Strangers, 2017, not to be confused with Strangers, 2018, is a Facebook series about a young woman who makes extra money by renting out a room.  Isn't that called having a roommate?  She gets a girlfriend -- or two -- it's hard to tell from the trailer. Raviv plays Rory in three episodes.

I thought Raviv starred in Newsies on Broadway, but I can't find any reference. His theatrical credits include Bad Guys, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Death Trap (which features a gay kiss), and Usual Girls. 

This is from Spring Break 83, a "raunchy comedy" set to be released in 2012, but shut down by the actors' and technicians' union because they weren't being paid.

More after the break

Gulliver's Travels: Classic literature, tie-up games, and heterosexism

When I was a kid,  fictional books were strictly divided into "boy" and "girl."  Boys got tales of swashbuckling adventure: Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, Ivanhoe. Girls got families and horses: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Women, Misty of Chincoteague.

Both boys and girls got Swiss Family Robinson and Gulliver's Travels, maybe because they had both families and swashbuckling.

Although the hero of Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire visits many fantasy countries, including Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan, the bowlderized versions we read invariabley concentrated on Lilliput, the land of the little people, and omitted the parody of nitpicking religion.

The main illustration was invariably Gulliver on the beach, tied by innumerable tiny ropes. It was strangely erotic, with Lilliputians walking all over Gulliver's body (sometimes standing directly on his bulge, as if it was a little hill).  It was hard to resist imagining a comparison between a Lilliputian and Gulliver's  endowment.

The oroginal novel ontained no heterosexual romance.  Indeed, after Gulliver's stay among the sentient-horse Houyhnhnms, he can barely stand to be in the same room with his wife. But film versions always had to add some.

The 1939 Fleischer animated version popped up on tv occasionally. It stayed in Lilliput, and had Gulliver facilitating a Romeo-and-Juliet style romance.

The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960) saddled the hapless merchant (played by gay actor Kerwin Mathews, left) with a fiancee who shares in the adventure.

More after the break

Revisiting "Eerie, Indiana"

 

I have fond memories of Eerie, Indiana (1991-1992), although I'm not sure how many episodes I actually saw.  Maybe just one: it aired on NBC on Sunday nights, against a block of must-see sitcoms on Fox: Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Herman's Head, and Married...with Children.  

What I remember is: teenagers Marshall Teller (Omri Katz) and Simon Holmes (Justin Shenkerow) are gay-subtext buddies who investigate humorous paranormal mysteries:  a mother uses magical tupperware to keep her sons from aging for 30 years; a boy they are babysitting gets trapped in a old horror movie on tv; an ATM machine becomes sentient and showers Simon with money.  The mysterious Dash X (Jason Marsden) seems to be the key to the ongoing mystery, but the series ends before it is resolved.

Omri Katz (top photo) went on to star in the Halloween classic Hocus Pocus (1993) and the gay-themed Journey into Night (2002) before retiring from acting.  I assume he's gay in real life.  

Justin Shenkarow went on to star in Picket Fences (1992-1996), and  do lot of voice work.  This is the only beefcake photo I could find on his Instagram.  There are also about 1,000 photos of him and his mother and none of anyone else, so I assume that he's gay in real life, too.

Bob and I have recently been watching/re-watching Eerie, Indiana, and it's completely different from what I remember.

1.  Marshall is hetero-horny.  It seems like he gets all dopey over a girl every other episode.

2.  Marshall gets all dopey over a boy in every other episode, too.  Simon just sits and smiles while Marshall dumps him for the teen hunk du jour:  Gabrial Damon, Cory Danzinger, Tobey Maguire, Scott Weinger, and finally Jason Marsden.  At the end of the episode, when the boy dies, gets zapped into an alternate reality, or just vanishes from the narrative, Simon quietly takes him back.

But when Simon dumps Marshall for a pair of older boys, Marshall gets jealous and tells himself  "This isn't like Simon!  He must be brainwashed!"

3. The tone shifts from humorous to somber at the drop of an episode.  People die, quite often.  A boy is being abused by his father..  A girl is homeless.  A man is mentally ill.  When you tune in, you never know if you're going to get a sitcom or an After School Special.

4. Marshall's 17-year old sister Syndi (Julie Condry) seems to be in another series.  We keep getting snippets of telephone conversations or off-hand comments about things going on in her life, but nothing is ever developed.  In her only B-plot, she thinks that she might want to become a police officer, but her surprisingly old-fashioned parents nix the idea: too dangerous for a girl.  So she changes to firefighter.

5. Marshall's parents (Mary-Margaret Humes, Francis Guinan) are absurdly wacky, authoritarian, or caring and hugging, depending on the needs of the episode, but at least Francis Guinan is cute.  He has 88 film/tv credits on IMDB, and has done a lot of live theater in Chicago, including some plays with gay themes.

He's one of the older guys in a bathrobe in this shot from the stage play Penelope.

Eerie, Indiana is not the show I remember from 1991.  It has even more gay texts and subtexts.

See also: Eerie, Indiana: Omri Katz, Paranormal Investigator

Adam Devine's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 1: Forehead presses, party poopers, divine d*cks, and Kermit the Frog

 

This is a collection of hot or humorous photos of Adam Devine.  I've already posted almost all of his n*de shots available, but not to worry, there are lots of photos of other guys.

Link to the n*de dudes

1. The "I lost my swimsuit in the ocean" excuse is getting old, buddy.

2. Adam's physique has been compared to Schwarzenegger's.  Not favorably, just compared.

3.  "I know he's not much to look at, but he makes me laugh." Girl, you’re looking in the wrong place .

.

4. Oh, for...three years of Kelvin/Keefe forehead presses, and now this!  Just kiss him, and save us all a lot of aggravation!

5. In The Out-Laws, Adam plays a hapless bank manager who butts heads with rival manager Dean Winters, here giving an Oz nude salute.

6. Adam's new commode, for turning bathroom time into fun time. It looks nice and all, but how do you poop?

More Adam after the break

Aidan Merwarth: Finn's wannabe boyfriend, pencil company exec, juvenile delinquent, brat. With 3 d*cks and inconclusive social media

Link to the n*de dudes

In Season 2 of Unprisoned, gay-coded Finn (Faly Rakotohavana) and his family go to group therapy. Mom complains  that he spends all day online, not interacting with anyone in real life, so he'll never "fall in love, get married, and have a nice life."  I'm not getting into the assumption that you have to be married to have a nice life.  The therapist assigns Finn to "make a friend," presumably a friend that he could fall in love with.

He invites Spencer (Aidan Merwarth) to his room, but doesn't want to play video games or watch tv or anything.  Dude, if you're not going to make out with him, at least give him something to do.

Spencer plays with his phone for awhile, gets bored, calls Finn a "baby" (you wanted a real man?), and leaves.  He re-appears at the college fair to taunt Finn again.  Well, can you blame him?  Dude thought he was going to at least get some smooching.

Finn remains gay-vague, his s&xual identity unconfirmed through two seasons.  

I wanted to know about this guy who is playing a gay subtext or maybe gay-text teenager.

He was born in July 2002, so as of this writing he's 22 years old. He's from San Antonio, and homeschooled, which means either he's a fundamentalist Christian, or he goes on so many auditions that he has no time for school. 

 

He has 133 friends on Facebook.  

He's an acrobatic gymnast.  In 2015, at the International Acro Cup in Poland. Aidan and his sister Devon won second place in the mixed pair 11-16 age range

He attended the Los Angeles Film School, graduating with a B.S. in Animation in 2025.

He has eight acting credits on the IMDB.

A Girl Named Jo (2019). on Brat TV, features two girls trying to unravel a mystery at Attaway High School in 1963.  Aidan appears in four episodes as Felix, apparently Jo's boyfriend.

Another Brat TV series, Crazy Fast (2019), has a group of outsiders join the track team at Attaway High. Colin McCalla (n*de picture on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) stars.  Aidan plays Eamon, a runner "whose past with Rowan threatens everything."

Another straight guy, darn it.

The Forgotten Place is a short about Eric (Jeff Locker), who wants a friend.  He finds one (Brian Flaccus), but apparently he means a platonic friendship.

In Saving Paradise (2021), a "ruthless corporate executive" (William Moseley) has to return to his small town when he inherits his father's struggling pencil factory. At Christmastime.  He has to save it and win The Girl (named Charlie, just to fool you into thinking there's a gay romance).

So Paradise is a pencil factory?  I guess it beats saving the annual Christmas festival.  Aidan plays the  rutless corporate executive as a teenager, already in love with The Girl.

But a pencil factory?  When was the last time you used a pencil?  Or saw one?

More after the break

The 5 Most Horrible DMVs

The DMV is the Department of Motor Vehicles, the most horrifying, soul-destroying institution every invented in the board rooms of hell.  Its sole function is to cause you as much pain and torment as possible.

Every time you move to a new state, you must devote at least one full day, probably more, to being tortured at the DMV.

And I've moved to a lot of new states.

 Here are the worst DMVs, in order:

1. Ohio.  There are two places to go, one to get your new license and the other for your registration, on opposite sides of town, neither with titles that sound like what they are ("Assistant County Examiner" or something).  The registration one is only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but not if it is raining: "The license examiners will not examine your car in the rain."  Which make sense, I suppose, but if you have only one month from the date you move to the state, finding a free Tuesday or Thursday when it's not raining is difficult.  And finding several (they always send you back for more documents) is almost impossible.

2. Texas.  When I moved to Texas for my horrible year in Hell-fer-Sartain, everybody was brand new at their jobs, having just moved down from the Rust Belt (80% of the population of Hell-fer-Sartain was from Michigan, Ohio, or Indiana. So the clerk filled out the form wrong, and six weeks later my driver's license arrived at a house down the block, with the address wrong and my name spelled wrong.  Six more weeks later, a "replacement" driver's license appeared.

3. Pennsylvania.  At the entrance, there are two lines, with signs stating "With a picture id" and "Without a picture id."  I don't know why I thought they would be telling the truth, after my experiences in California and Ohio, but like a idiot I pulled out my picture id card and waited.  An hour later, I got to the front of the line, and was told "This line is for people who are getting their driver's license for the first time.  That line over there is for people who want to transfer from a new state."  Go wait over there for an hour and a half.

Did I mention that Pennsylvania requires two exhaust emission tests?  From different places on the other side of town from each other.

4. California. Make an appointment in advance, but even then, you are going to be waiting for six hours, until they close and tell everyone to go home and come back in the morning.  Where they say they will take those with appointments yesterday first.  Maybe they do, but it still takes four hours to go through the various lines.  Ten hours altogether.  I hope you packed a lunch.

5. New York.  Don't even think about moving to New York.  The DMV is a nightmare of epic proportions.

Every time I stood in one of the interminable lines, the clerk would invent some other document I needed.

Birth certificate.

The title (it's a leased car, so I don't have the title).

A form sent by the person sitting at a desk in an archive in Vermont who actually has physical access to the title.

My proof of insurance.

No, not proof of insurance coverage that began three months ago; it has to be a form indicating that you have insurance coverage on this exact day.

I went back day after day, talked to different clerks every time, and got different and contradictory information about what forms I would need to fill out.  Finally, after jumping through hoop after hoop,  I was waiting for one last form for Grace from my insurance company to fax the fifth insurance form that they wanted directly to Debbie at the DMV.

"When this one comes in, we'll be done, right?" I asked.  "You'll allow me to register my car in this state?"

"Yes, that's the last document we'll need," Debbie said.  Then: "Well, I'm going home for the day.  Someone else will help you."

"No!  No!" I yelled.  "Someone else will just invent more documents that I need, and I'll have to start all over again."

"Well, my shift is over.  I'm going home."

"Could I come back tomorrow and see you then?  Every DMV clerk has different requirements, so someone else will make me do different things."

"You'd have to step to the back of the line and wait for another hour. Just go to the next person when your form comes in."

I waited.  20 minutes later, Grace faxed over the fifth insurance form .  I wanted in line for the next clerk.

"Oh, you have everything you need, except for the afidavits that you don't have any DUI convictions at any of the previous states that you have lived in.  Just call the local police department at each of the cities you lived in, and have them send you the forms...."

I just noticed that there's no specifically gay content in this post.  So here's a cute guy to tide you over.

See also: DMV: Workplace comedy set in the Department of Motor Vehicles, with Keefe, the guy from "Peacemaker," and a hung archaeologist

Gavin Munn's Cute/Cool Photos, Part 1: Biking, boating, fishing, turning 15. Plus his dad, Skyler Gisondo, and Joe Jonas

 

Link to the NSFW photos

This is a collection of cute/cool photos of Gavin Munn, who plays Jonathan on Raising Dion and Abraham on The Righteous Gemstones.  He was under 18 at the time of the original post, so no beefcake or nude photos, but I may have included a few of his family and friends.

1. The Big 15.  Time for your learner's permit, buddy.

2. Father's Day with Dad and Big Bro.

3. Gavin and Dad in jungle prints.

4. A boy and his boat

5. A dad and his fish

6. A random rear with no connection to Gavin's dad

More Gavin and friends after the break

'Chad Powers": A-hole footballer disguised as a college student, with a gay roommate and lots of bare chests. And other stuff

Link to the n*de dudes

I have no interest in -- or knowledge of -- football, but when the new Hulu series Chad Powers is advertised by two hunks gazing at each other, ready to fight or kiss, what choice do I have?  

Wait -- the two hunks are both Glen Powell, who you recall from Scream Queens and Top Gun: Maverick.  He's playing Russ Holliday, a famous college football player who was cancelled after an altercation with a kid in a wheelchair (and various other a-hole acts).  He schemes to get back into the game by creating a new identity, Chad Powers, and playing for the  struggling Catfish football team at South Georgia College (like, he's catfishing them, har har).  Presumably he'll take classes, too.   

Glenn's butt on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

In Episode 1.1, he steals a lot of supplies from his Oscar-winning makeup artist Dad to create the character, goes to the campus, and has a meet-cute with team mascot Danny (Frankie Rodriguez), a fashion-and-pop culture junkie who offers to help him with the deception.  "Your new identity needs to be a modest, likeable guy.  Just play the opposite of yourself."  Danny is also a makeup artist. Dude is obviously gay.  

I'm reviewing Episode 1.2, where Russ tries to maintain his new identity at a party at the coach's lake house -- shirtless hunks are promised.

Scene 1:  Russ and Danny are behind the building, near the dumpsters.  Russ roils at his prosthetic cheeks, but Danny insists: "You have to become Chad Powers. But don't talk much."  Dylan (Jordan Mendoza) arrives with his new identification materials and transcripts, "but I couldn't find him a home address."  No problem, he can stay with Danny.  Tell me more. 

Gross -- there's a bug burrowing into his prosthetic cheek!

Frankie Rodriguez is gay in real life, and has played gay characters in High School Musical: the Series, Modern Family, and Will and Grace.  I'm sure that Danny is gay, too, but they may not give us more than a few hints.

Scene 2:  Football practice.  Subplot involves the fussy Coach (Steve Zahn) and his assistant, secretly his daughter (doubtless also Russ's Love Interest). 

Coach calls up Russ/Chad to note a problem with his transcripts: he was homeschooled in West Virginia, in a wilderness surrounded by wolves (nope, no wolves east of Minnesota).  So how did he manage to play high school football?

"Oh, I played...um...with the wolves."

Um...ok, not a problem.  The Coach needs a winning season, or he'll be fired, so he's willing to suspend his disbelief.

Next Gerry (Colton Ryan), from the scout team and backup, introduces himself.  So far, we have five named male characters.  I'm getting a testosterone high. Who cares what a "scout team" and "backup" are?

80% of the photos Colton Ryan's Instagram show him hugging, kissing, and frolicking with a lady, and the other 20% show her alone, dressed as a man, showing her legs, smooching at the camera.  I'm guessing that he's straight. 

Back to Chad Powers: Gerry teaches Russ/Chad his secret handshake, "a p*ssy symbol, because I get a lot of it."  I know -- I've seen the first 300 pictures on your Instagram. 

Gerry may want to be friends, but the other players ridicule Russ/Chad, especially Bully Nishan (Xavier Mills).

They start the practice.  Russ/Chad screws up and is demoted to backup: "Hey, Flowers for Algernon, this is where you grab this clipboard." Literary reference, har har.

Football research: There are two quarterbacks on each team. The Starting Quarterback is chosen for his ability to draw photo-ops, fawning articles, and hefty donations from boosters.  The Backup does the grunt work while the other players call him names.  But if the Starting Quarterback is injured or traded to another team, won't the Backup take over, and the players who thought he was worthless will have to do what he says? 

On the sidelines, Russ/Chad asks his Love Interest why Coach demoted him to Backup.  "The Starting QB hasn't been decided yet," she assures him.  "Coach wants you and Gerry to compete for the role."  

More after the break.  

Fate/La Suerte: Gay law student is forced into driving...a Scene 8 Big Reveal. With two Oscar d*cks and some random backsides

  

I was drawn in to the Spanish tv series Fate (2025) on Hulu, but it does not appear among the five or six television series called Fate that premiered in 2024 and 2025.  Finally I found in the IMDB of star Oscar Jaenada (left): La Suerte: Un Serie de Casualidades (Luck: A Series of Coincidences).

Who was the genius who decided to mistranslate "la suerte" as "fate," and make the show impossible to find?  But it's worth the effort.

Scene 1: David (Ricardo Gómez) is trying to memorize passages from his Criminal Law text while driving a taxi through a party district in Madrid.  Suddenly two guys appear with a semi-conscious third, Gordito (Jairo Sanchez) pile in.  Their friend collapsed during dinner.  They order David to drive them to the hospital -- and don't stop for red lights.

At the hospital, Jero (Carlos Bernardino) orders David to keep the meter running -- while he and the nurses rush Gordito inside.  He steals the Criminal Law book so David will have to wait.

Carlos Bernardino played Armand in Jaula De Grillo, a Spanish language version of La Cage aux Folles, aka The Birdcage.

While waiting, David smiles at a hunky ambulance driver.  He can't be gay, can he?  Ricardo Gomez has played gay characters at least three times.  Could this be #4?

Scene 2: An hour later, Jero returns, telling someone on the phone that Gordito has been admitted to the hospital, but he'll be fine.  David wants to be paid, but skittish loose-cannon Jero points out that the taxi is stolen, and blackmails him into driving somewhere to get the money.  I imagine that it's not really stolen, David has just borrowed it to make extra money while studying for his law exam.

Scene 3: The restaurant where they were eating when Gordito collapsed is now closed, but the owner is a close friend, and opens for Jero.  They left in such a hurry that they forgot "the package."  Uh-oh, these guys must be drug traffickers. And could the owner whip up some muffins?

Scene 4:  Now on to the hotel to get the money.  Jero cautions David to not put down Andalusians -- the last guy who tried that got cut in half.  Just kidding -- or not. 

At the fancy hotel, as they walk down the hall, we see a black rooster wandering around for no reason.  Then a hand with tattoos and rings beckons: "Come in, Jero.  You know you want to."  I can't tell the gender of the voice or the hand. Grinnng, Jero tells David to wait outside -- he'll just be a minute.

Scene 5:  David gets tired of waiting and goes in.  I was expecting a hookup, but it's an elegant party.  One guy is stoking on cocaine, and people are lining up to slap a man's bottom, but otherwise it's subdued.  

Jero introduces David as the guy who saved Gordito, and everyone cheers.  Then he tells David to guard the muffins with his life, and vanishes. This is tremendously surreal.

A guy grabs the muffins, in spite of David's protests, and takes them into the bedroom to present to a shadowy figure in sunglasses.   The muffin guy introduces David as the kid who saved Gordito, and asks "What should we do with him?" That sounds threatening.  Is this like the Spanish Mafia?  

 "Give him a muffin." 

David gets his muffin.  It's not even homemade. 

More after the break

Eight simple rules for determining if Martin Spanjers is gay

  

Link to the n*de photos

Rule 1: Does his character gawk at guys in the shower?

This is a still from Epiosde 3.1 of the  TGIF sitcom Eight Simple Rules (2002-2005).  It was originally Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, about an overprotective Dad played by John Ritter, but when Ritter died, it became a general family-angst dramedy.  I never watched, but in 2004 you could hardly turn on your computer without seeing Martin Spanjers as the teenage Rory gawking at Sam Horrigan.  

Only Seasons 1-2 are available to stream on Disney Plus, so I don't know what's going on in the scene, except that Rory doesn't want to shower after gym class due to his less than adequate package.  Maybe Sam Horrigan is a high school jock?  

2. Does he play a gay-vague teenager?

Fan consensus is that Rory is one of those gay-vague sitcom kids, soft, shy, pretty, and struggling valiantly to act girl-crazy because on American sitcoms, all teenage boys must be girl-crazy.

3. Does he show his stuff on screen?

The next time I saw Martin Spanjers, he was still naked, playing the teenage shapeshifter Sam Merlotte in a 2009 episode of True Blood, about vampires, werewolves, and various other magical beings in rural Louisiana.  When you shift back to human form, you lose your clothes, so he's n*ked when he breaks into a house looking for food or something to steal.

4. Does he have a gay-subtext role?

The house happens to belong to a maenid (minor goddess) named Maryanne, who naturally wants to have sex with him.  He steals $10,000 on his way out, which causes the adult Sam Merlotte a lot of headaches.  

Although the encounter is heterosexual, we can still see a gay subtext. Sam was thrown out of the house when his parents discovered his "secret," like gay kids ejected by homophobic parents. About 40% of homeless youth are LGBT.

5. Does he avoid roles involving hetero-romance?

After Eight Simple Rules, Martin did the usual guest star bit, appearing on as a barista 90210, a chicken restaurant employee on Good Luck Charlie, a kid accused of killing cows on Saving Grace, a rich boy who the Griffins eat on Family Guy,  Well, he had already frozen to death while trying to climb Mount Everest.

He had minor roles in Just Peck, about teen angst, and Little Fish, Strange Pond, about existential angst.

More after the break