Spellbinder: Shirtless hunks in a Polish-Australian fantasy series, including Zybch Trofimiuk and Ryan Kwanten

Spellbinder (1995) which aired on the Disney Channel in 1996, one of the imported Australian series (others included Ocean Girl and Round the Twist) that would eventually be supplainted by the home-grown Even Stevens, Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and Hannah Montana. 

The title is precursor of those annoying one-word Netflix titles: it doesn't describe anything, and it really should be plural. 

But the series was unique: Australian-Polish science fiction-fantasy series about alternative realities.  It starred Zybch Trofimiuk as Paul Reynolds, an Australian boy who somehow finds himself in a Medieval world.  Everyone is terrified of the powerful Spellbinders, who look and chew up the scenery like villains out of Power Rangers.

Paul meets a girl, Riana (Gosia Piatrowska) and together they find a way back to his world.  But now the Spellbinders know that the other world exists, and they want to invade it.

The plotline sounds heterosexist.  Except Paul and Riana never fall in love; indeed, when they return to Earth, he introduces her as a "cousin from Iceland."  And he has a best friend, Alex (Brian Rooney).  When Paul vanishes, Alex is distraught.  When he returns, Alex grabs him with an enormous hug, treating him precisely as a lover.

Plus there were very memorable scenes of Paul changing clothes and taking a bath: a chest shot that endures through the years.

Zybch had a few acting roles before Spellbinder, notably Mike Masters, an astronomer's son, in Sky Trackers (1994). 

 Afterwards he retired from acting, returning for Clean (2005), not to be confused with Clean (2005) about a singer battling drug addiction.  This one stars Zybch as Kane, a boarding school boy who "confronts his own mortality" in a "climate of deception and s*xual intrigue, yearning and adolescence."  Huh?  

In 2024 he was profiled in The Sun: he is now an English as a Second Language teacher, with a wife and kids.  The article says that he is "almost unrecognizable," but he looks about the same to me.  Could we check out your chest, buddy?

Brian Rooney has 22 acting credits, most recently in episodes of Mr. In-Between (2021) and Wolf Like Me (2023).  He's also a Broadway actor with credits including Macbeth, The Cherry Orchard, and Jekyl and Hyde (if it's the same guy).

Sequel after the break

The Top 14 Hunks of "The Bride," including Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, a gay guy, and a lot of queerbaiting

 

Link to the n*de dudes

This weekend we saw The Bride! (2026).  I assumed that it would be a sequel to Frankenstein (2025), but it is not.  The frenetic, lunatic ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, channeling Bellatrix LeStrange from Harry Potter, complains that she died before she had a chance to write anything meaningful (lady, you died at age 53, having published dozens of novels, short stories, essays, travel journals...)  So she possesses a 1930s floozy named Ida, who starts a lengthy diatribe and falls down a flight of stairs.  Frank the Monster (Christian Bale, left) convinces a mad scientist to revive her, and they go on a rampage, channeling the Joker and Harley Quinn, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Me, Too Movement.   

There are a few nods to 1930s gay culture: Ida kisses a lady in the first scene, and takes Frank to a nightclub frequented by a few LGBTQ couples.  But it is ruined by a monumental queerbaiting.  

Detective Jake Willis (Peter Saarsgaard) and his partner Myrna, who has to pretend to be his secretary because female detectives aren't allowed, investigate the murder of a railroad cop in rural Indiana.  After Jake gets intel from the small-town sheriff, Partner Myrna points out that she does all the detective work; all he has to do is seduce small town sheriffs to get intel.  

In the 1930s, all sheriffs were male.  She very clearly and unambiguously states that he has sex with men. 

But at the end of the movie, he admits that he keeps letting Ida get away because he is in love with her; they used to be romantic partners, before her accident.

WTF?  A real life person could be bisexual, of course, but in movies, a hetero-romance obliterates gay references.    Myrna's statement was an outright lie, a nasty joke played on the audience. 

This is not a review of the g*ddam monstrosity (it would get an F----).  I was so angry that I looked through the entire cast list, hoping to find a gay person to profile.  I finally found one, after researching a gaggle of straight hunks:

1. Christian Bale as Frank the Monster

2. Peter Sarsgaard as the queerbaiting Detective.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed, a Fred Astaire-like dancer.  Frank idolizes him, so they travel to all of the sites where his movies were filmed.

4. Zlatko Buric, left, as mob boss Lupino.  The Mafia is involved, too.

5. Will Dagger, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as a guy at a movie theater who is trying to get with his girlfriend in spite of her protests.  Frank and Ida intervene.

6. Louis Cancelmi,  on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as Officer Goodman, one of the cops that the couple kills.

7. Neil Vincent Smith as a patron in a restaurant that the two disrupt.  Sorry, I couldn't find a photo where he isn't hugging a lady.

8. Antony Abbato, left, as another restaurant patron.

The gay guy after the break

"Love Like a Bike": three gay romances, a lot of hot physiques, four d*cks, and a view of Pattaya. Plus s*x work and human trafficking.

Link to the n*de dudes 

Netflix just dropped a Thai tv series called Love Like a Bike (I think; I am not familiar with an expression about life or love being like a bicycle).  The blur promises "three siblings raised in different countries reunited," but the illustration shows six men , so doubtless at least one of them will be gay.

Scene 1:  Pattaya, a resort town about two hours by car from Bangkok.  A slightly cross-eyed young man named Sailom (Tanapol Jarujittranon)  is walking on a path overlooking the shore, when a guy asks for directions and grabs his hand.  He freaks out, screaming "Don't touch me!", and runs into the path of a bicyclist, who is thrown off.  He falls to the ground,  the bicyclist on top of him, mouth to mouth (I don't understand the trajectory -- did the bicyclist, going forward, somehow manage to fall backwards and spin around?).    He yells "Don't touch me!" again and runs away.  Dude must be on the autism spectrum.  And he's obviously gay. That was fast.

He runs into a cafe (English sign) and tells his brother and sister what happened.  They must be the three siblings. Darn, he lost the necklace that his Mom gave him.  They go back to the shore and look around, but can't find it.

The Brother, James, is played by MJ Teachin Paksa (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends)

Scene 2: The bicyclist, Nubnueng (Masu Junyangdikul), ends up at a Mental Health Clinic (sign in English and Thai), where he works as a psychiatrist.  He talks down an angry husband who claims that Nubnueng encouraged his wife to dump him. I'm going to start calling him the Doctor.

Masu's d*ck is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Scene 3: Next stop: The Life Like a Bike Coffee Shop, run by the Doctor's mother and baby sister.  Uh-oh, in the accident, he lost the ring that he planned to use to propose to his girlfriend, but he found a necklace; he'll use that. 

Cut to that night: the Doctor and his girlfriend are having dinner.  They simultaneously tell each other, "I have something to say." He pulls out the necklace, but asks her to go first.  Gulp...she's going to dump you, isn't she?

Yep: cut to the Doctor in a bar with neon Bible verses on the wall, morosely dangling the necklace.  Sailom and his friends drop in.  He recognizes the necklace, and accuses the Doctor of stealing it.  

"I didn't steal it -- here, I'll give it back."  He presses it into Sailom's hand -- hey, no flinching.  

The argument draws security guards, who start manhandling Sailom.  He has a full panic attack, but the Doctor talks him down, and invites him to come to the mental health clinic whenever he needs to.

Later, Sailom takes a bath (some beefcake) and wonder why touching the Doctor was ok.  

Scene 4:  A bike shop.  A customer is harassing the bike guy  (Us Nititorn Akkarachotsopon), demanding that he work faster.  He's interrupted by a news story on his phone: on this day last year, an airplane on a  Bangkok-Chiang Mai flight crashed, killing a young girl.  The bike shop guy was the Pilot!  

 Nititorn (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is gay in real life.  Have we got three gay characters so far?

Scene 5: Dindin (Ta Nannakun Pakapatpornpob) is taking tickets for a boat tour, when two toughs, one named Aish, approach him.  Their boss needs his money right away!  Dindin ditches them and runs down the streets of Pattaya, while they discuss how much trouble they'll be in if they don't get that money to the boss.  As he is running, he gets a phone call.  So he stops to take it?  They want him to sing at the bar tonight.   He also sees a job ad for a baker at the Life Like a Bike Cafe.  So, are you a singer or a baker?  I think I'll call you the Baker.

 I couldn't find n*de photos of Dindin, so I posted a random Thai guy.

More after the break

Rooster: Trashy novelist at an elite college, hetero romance problems, a gay sidekick, Dunster d*ck, and the guy from "Scrubs"

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Robert Heinlein once complained that science fiction was about exploring the vastness of time and space, while mainstream fiction -- the Rabbit Runs, Appointments in Samarra, and  Complaining Portnoys of our college lit classes -- was about men who hate their jobs and their wives.  "For Heaven's sake, get new jobs, get new wives, and shut the f*k up."

I am reminded of that quote when I think of the works of Steve Carrell:  Anchorman, Dan in Real Life,  The 40 Year Old Virgin, Cafe Society,  Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, The Morning Show, The Four Seasons, all about little men trying desperately to find meaning in jobs and wives that they hate. Coincidentally, this is precisely the "job, house, wife, kids" trajectory that I rebelled against growing up.

So I wasn't planning to watch the HBO MAX series Rooster (2026).  Then the promo showed a young man telling Steve, "nice washboard (abs)," referring to the hunk on the cover of his book.  Later he seems to become Steve's sidekick.  So Steve probably writes gay novels, and probably has a gay sidekick.  Enough potential to review Episode 1.

Scene 1:  Famous novelist Greg Russo (Steve) looks morose as he is escorted through the elegant Spanish Colonial campus of Ludlow College (actually the University of the Pacific, Stockton).  He sees a n*ked old guy, who waves -- but his escort, Eric (Myles Perez, left), doesn't see anyone.  A hallucination?

Eric tells him to wait here, then zones him out and refuses to speak anymore.  Fortunately, Professor Shepherd, who arranged his campus visit,  is just walking up. 

He's nervous -- he writes trashy beach novels, not literature: "Characters you like do bedroom stuff characters you don't like get shot in the face."  Why would elite college students want to see him?  

Scene 2: The reading, in a giant lecture hall.  The students criticize his protagonist, Rooster, for describing the Girl in food terms during their 17 bedroom acts (18, if you count the bj). Isn't that sexist?  

Russo counters that she is strong and powerful -- she rescues Rooster, remember? "But she takes off her bikini top to do it."   A jock praises that scene: "The Girl is smokin'!"  Hey, isn't he the gay sidekick?  I'm starting to suspect that I've been tricked.

Scene 3: Next Russo meets the College President (John C. McGinley, the homophobic, sexist jerk on Scrubs).  He strips to his underwear to show off his physique: "You're thinking, most college presidents are bookish shut-ins, but this guy is jacked!" He looks like the n*ked guy from earlier.  So it wasn't a hallucination, just a crazy act that would never happen on any real college campus.

They allude to a "s&x scandal" involving Katie and Archie (not mentioned before), and the President offers Russo a job as Writer-in-Residence.  "But I didn't even go to college."  "Who cares?  It's over-rated."  Academic malaise at its snarkiest. 

 McGinley's backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Scene 4:  Next stop: Another giant lecture hall, a lecture on French impressionism, Monet at Giverny.  It's Russo's daughter Katie, a professor of art history (and the s*x scandal lady).  As the students leave, she notes that her Dad doesn't like interacting with other humans, so they can get extra credit for looking him in the eye and saying "I love you very much."  A student does it!

Next Katie points out that the college has asked Russo to do a reading a billion times; why agree now?  "Admit it -- you're checking up on me, to see if I'm ok after the s*x scandal."  We finally find out what it is: her husband Archie dumped her for a grad student.  Hetero Romance Problem #1.  

She has no idea why. Everything was normal, and then she was moving into the dead hockey coach's house.   Everybody on campus knows, and keeps staring at her and asking questions.  And it's difficult to avoid running into him or his new girlfriend on a small campus.  She's about to crack.

She points them out, sitting on a park bench.  "The girlfriend isn't even hot.  She's like a regular person.  Why did he dump me for her?"  Maybe he liked her personality?

As Russo peeks through the bushes, husband Archie and the girlfriend leave, and a lesbian couple notice him.  They think he's a perv, har har.   He runs away as they film him.  

Spoiler alert: This is set up to have consequences, like Russo being arrested, or the job offer rescinded, but it is never mentioned again.

Scene 5: Russo stops at a convenience store for some water.  Tommy (Maximo Salas), the jock from earlier, praises the Rooster books. Uh-oh, he forgot his id, so Russo buys his beer for him.  If he's under 21, you're in big trouble, buddy.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.9: Five plot resolutions and a funeral. With collegiate c*cks and a Josh O'Connor bonus

Link to the n*de dudes

Title: "Wonders that Cannot be Fathomed, Miracles that Cannot be Counted." From Job 5,9, NIV.  Many terrible things have happened to Job, including physical ailments and the deaths of his children, but Eliphaz assures him that God can perform "wonders and miracles," and rescue him. We'll see what wonders and miracles God performs here.

Baby Billy is Bi:  Still trying to sell the siblings on his Bible Bonkers game show, Baby Billy reveals he is friends with Dusty Daniels, the racing champ.  We cut to a scene of the two, plus famous actor Gene Hackman  (played by Kevin Murray) in Monte Carlo on New Years' Eve, 1999.  They're awaiting the Y2K bug, hugging, dancing, and dropping acid as if it's the end of the world.  

We cut to an after-party, with Dusty, Baby Billy, and Gene Hackman doing stuff.  There's a male c*ck on display, but it morphs into a lady so fast that I can't get a screen shot, so I'll substitute Josh O'Connor (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends). 

We zero in on the guys facing each other.  Baby Billy's partner is a woman, but Dusty's may be a man -- remember that he was established as bi back in Episode 3.2.

"Wait, " Jesse asks, "Did did you f*k Dusty Daniels?"

"I doubt it,  but you never know...we might have touched each other. That's not the important part of the story."  The important part: he can talk Dusty Daniels into leaving his fortune to whoever wins at Bible Bonkers, the Gemstones or the Simpkins. 

So Kelvin came out to the family yesterday after years anguish, angst, self-doubt, backing-and-forthing, and annoyed viewers, and he still hasn't said the word.  Now Baby Billy comes out as bi with utter nonchalance.  Why couldn't he have said something to his nephew during Cousins' Night, or back in Season 1?

El Molino: We cut to a locust splatting on a windshield.  It's Uncle Peter and Chuck, driving the U-Haul full of explosives.  Peter has finally come up with a plan,  He doesn't specify what it is, but since it involves the Gemstones and explosives, it's not hard to figure out.  They're nearly out of gas, and the militia took all of their money, so they stop at El Molino, a real Hispanic supermarket with two locations in Charleston, to use the cash-counting machine.  

While Peter is inside, the U-Haul explodes!  He thinks that Chuck has been killed.

Out to the Family: The family gathers in Eli's parlor to watch a tv news report about Chuck's death.

Wait --when did the siblings stop hating their father?  Was a reconciliation moment cut?

 Notice that the guys are sitting on the right side of the room.  In four shots, Keefe moves from sitting a few inches away to leaning against the chair, his shoulder touching or almost touching Kelvin's thigh. They are so close that Kelvin can't move his hand or foot without bumping into him.

  They used to be very careful to avoid public displays of affection, holding hands under the table and forehead-pressing instead of kissing.  Now they casually cuddle in front of everyone, even family members who did not see the kiss.

They discuss the Bible Bonkers Family Feud-style game show.  The siblings will compete, but they need two more.  They were going to ask Chuck, a big Bible nerd, but he's dead, so it will have to be Karl and May-May.  

Cut to Jesse and Vance Simpkins (Stephen Dorf) at the Cape and Pistol Society, sniping at each other over who will win the Bible Bonkers game. Vance claims that he has the entire New Testament memorized.  

"We're going to humiliate your family," Vance proclaims, "On your own network. Let's see how far the mighty Gemstone Empire has fallen. They're all going to leave you.  Even God will forsake you."  God will forsake him for losing a Bible trivia game? 

Of all the gas stations in South Carolina:  Homeless, friendless, abandoned by his family, Peter sits outside a convenience store.  He prays: "I am in my darkest hour.  I am but a lost sheep in need of a shepherd.  Please give me a sign."

At that moment, Keefe pulls up in the Smut Busters van.  He's using that van for everyday chores?  Surely he and Kelvin have a dozen cars.   

He leaves the key in the van as he goes inside, so Peter steals it.

God saved you:  In the wilderness church, Karl and May-May mourn Chuck's death, clear off brush, and pray -- then she crosses herself   Surely somebody on the staff knew that only Catholics use that gesture.   Suddenly Chuck walks in!  He's alive!

Cut to the family back in Eli's parlor.  This time it's just Eli, the siblings, and the Montgomerys. Chuck explains that he made sure the parking lot was empty, then set off the explosion and ran away, so his Dad would think he was dead and he could escape.  

"Why were you super-mean to us, while we were in captivity?"  Chuck doesn't explain, but he avers that he didn't actually want them to die. Then why were you shooting at them?  Besides, he blew up the van to save them.  Doesn't that make up for the kidnapping?  I thought you blew up the van to save yourself.

So, about Bible Bonkers?  Chuck is a Bible expert, so May-May can drop out. The team will consist of Jesse, Judy, Kelvin, Chuck, and Karl.

Later, at the amusement park, Chuck tries to apologize to Jesse. They bond over having Daddies who are embarrassed by them. 

The Bible Bonkers Filming:   Apparently several weeks have passed. The Bible Bonkers set is finished, and they're going to film the first episode.

In the dressing room, Billy offers to give the sibling  the answers to the quiz questions.  Apparently once a grifter, always a grifter.  They refuse.  He claims that their parents were so neglectful, he practically had to raise them.   

As Gideon drives Eli and May-May to the filming, they see Peter in the stolen Smut Busters van.  He's up to no good!  Follow him! Why didn't Keefe report the van missing?

On set, the band starts to play and the dancers twirl about. Showtime! Baby Billy does a cheesy stand-up bit, then introduces the Gemstones vs. the Simpkins. 

Notice Kelvin's textured single-breasted green coat, "The Attico" from Farfetch, "The global destination for modern luxury."   It will become important later.

 The Simpkins team includes siblings Vance, Shay, and Craig, not seen since Episode 1, plus two young Asian girls.  Apparently they are ringers: there is no indication that any of the siblings has a partner or children.  Compare with the Gemstones, who, for all their faults, have devoted partners. 

Baby Bill asks easy fill-in-the-blank style Bible questions to Jesse-Vance and Judy-Shay.  The Gemstones lose.  

Now it's Kelvin-Craig's turn.  First Kelvin does a self-aggrandizing coat-swirling dance. Keefe, watching from the VIP section with the other partners, responds with a  weird robot thing.  It looks like he's following along with the move they practiced.  

Meanwhile, Gideon, May-May, and Eli follow Peter to the Salvation Center.   Couldn't they have called the police from the car?  Don't these people have cell phones?  He drives to the loading dock, on a day when there are no services, so he probably expects the church to be empty. 

When the Gemstones confront him,  he announces that he has filled the Smut Busters van with explosives, triggered by his fitbit watch.  Wait-- where did he get a second batch?

 May -May yells that both his sons are inside.  Chuck is alive after all.  At this point, Peter would probably give up the plan, but he is interrupted by......

More after the break

Manny and Gavin Scharf: Gay-coded Wisconsin brothers, a wrestler and a bodybuilder, aren't into girls, until.... With some d*ck pics

  

Link to the d*ck pics

Several years ago, I became a friend of Gavin D. on Facebook and some other social media sites. He was a college wrestler from Wisconsin, about 200 miles away from my college town.

I don't give the real names of non-actors, so I'll call him Scharf, "Sharp," German slang for "Hunky." 

He didn't mention girls, but he mentioned other boys quite often.  And he posted n*de photos. I figured that he was gay, but not quite ready to come out yet.

His younger brother Manny was quiet, artistic -- gay-coded, too.

Apparently Manny was feeling left out, with two wrestler brothers and a sister who was a gymnast. At age 14 he joined the wrestling team, then began bodybuilding combined with intermittent fasting.  Strength training is fine for teenagers, but they are generally discouraged from bodybuilding until their bone structure is fully developed, and their body fat should not drop below 6-10%.  

 Manny shredded down to 3%, then to an unhealthy and unattractive 1%.  Soon he was competing in venues like the Brew City Classic in Waukesha, and was the the subject of adulating video and articles "Insane 16 year old bodybuilder!"; "The Wonderkid Bodybuilder"! 

He never actually won a competition; the adulation came mostly from the novelty of a super-shredded teen.  When he got to college, he stopped posting on social media, and I moved on to other things (I lost track of his older brother, too).

There's a n*de photo in my profile of Walker Bryant.  It was in the wrong folder.

More after the break

Adam Basil: Bodybuilder, gay pirate, gay-subtext creature, gay-icon zombie. Are you getting the idea? With his mushroom, n*de Spartacus and Sherlock Holmes

   

Link to the n*de dudes

In the original stories, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes shows no interest in women and a lot of interest in his "roommate," Dr. Watson.  But most film and tv versions aggressively heterosexualize the guys, sometimes with queerbaiting first.  So I had no faith in the new Amazon Prime series Young Sherlock Holmes. 

With good reason: he meets the Girl of His Dreams almost instantly.  Plus the reviews say that he's nothing like the traditional Sherlock; he's a gormless, idiotic, girl-chasing rapscallion.

The rapscallion's rear is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

But there was something of definite interest in the first scene (top photo): Mycroft Holmes goes to Newgate Prison to spring his wastrel brother (set up for pickpocketing, although he always returned the wallets after swiping them), and finds him at fisticuffs with the shirtless muscleman Barney (Adam Basil, top photo).  

Pecs, abs, biceps...dude, you're breath-taking.  Why have I never seen you in anything before?

Turns out that I've seen him in a lot of things, but he's playing characters named The Beast, The Butcher, and The Demon, under heavy stage makeup, so you can't really see his face.  Or physique.

Pity.

I didn't find a lot of biographical information, just what is listed on the IMDB: Adam grew up in the east of England, studied acting, and performed traditional British theater.  His "unusually high levels of athleticism" (meaning his muscles?) led him to creature work.

After a few small roles, Adam became Disney-famous for the live action version of Beauty and the Beast (2017) -- as the Beast, before the spell is broken and he turns into Dan Stevens.

Disney today, Marvel tomorrow: in 2021, he starred in Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage as the sarcastic, gay-coded symbiote who shares the body of journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). Shares the body?  Tell me more.

But it was his role as The Bloater in The Last of Us (2023) that sealed Adam's popularity with gay fans.  

Wait -- The Last of Us is about a zombie Apocalypse caused by a mutated wheat fungus.   The Bloater is completely covered with fungal pustules, which act like iron plates, making him impervious to bullets -- and giving him super-strength, so he rips people's heads off their bodies, like the zombie Samson in 28 Years Later.  

They also make him so disgusting that I had to avert my eyes whenever he appeared.  How does a being like that gain gay fans?

But in interviews in Out and The Pink News, Adam states that the Bloater has become a s*x symbol in the gay community.  He gets DMs that call him Big Daddy Mushroom.

Are you sure that they mean the Bloater, and not your mushroom....

Adam's mushroom is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

More after the break

Daniel DiMaggio: The queerbaiting son on "American Houswife" grows up to play Count Chocula and post selfies

 

Link to the NSFW version

You may be familiar with Daniel DiMaggio, no relation to Joe DiMaggio, as Oliver Otto on American Housewife (2016-21).  I never heard of it, but I wouldn't have watched anyway.  Who wants to watch a sicom about June Cleaver or Donna Reed?  

It starred Katy Mixon as Katie Otto, a housewife who, although not pretentious herself, is immersed in the ultra-pretentious world of ladies who lunch in Westport, Connecticut, along with her husband (Diedrich Bader), two daughters, and son Oliver (Daniel). 

She has a lesbian best friend, and there's a gay character (Jake Choi) in Season 5, so there's a bit of representation.  The main problem fans had was queerbaiting Oliver.  

He is presented as gay, with everything from pictures of muscular men on his bedroom wall to an interest in ballet to a boyfriend, the wealthy, femme Cooper (Logan Bell).  Everyone thinks they are boyfriends, including Cooper, who is upset every time Oliver claims that they are not dating.  But then he backs off and gets a girlfriend.  

Logan Bell (the femme one) is gay in real life, and states that he played Cooper as gay.  So why five seasons of "crumbs" that led nowhere?  Fans were irate when the showrunners were too cowardly to let Oliver come out.

Daniel already has two strikes against him (baseball metaphor, har har) for five years of queerbaiting.  Let's check on his other projects.

He was born in 2003 in Los Angeles, and began acting at age nine in the short Geisho (2010): a man (Horatio Sanz) wants to become the world's first male geisha.  Kind of gender-fluid.

Next, a 2013 episode of Burn Notice, which, I discovered today, is not about a hospital burn unit, in spite of the misleading title.  It's about a spy who was "burned" (fired). How the heck are potential viewers supposed to know that?   Daniel plays the young version of focus character Michael (Jeffrey Donovan). 

More after the break

Luke Blumm: Femme boy survives the Nazis, a cult, and Maine, but not a homophobic Mom. With his twink physique and some co-star c*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Luke David Blumm was born in New York in 2009, and raised in Atlanta in a family of actors.  Dad Matthew Sean Blumm has 36 acting credits on the IMDB, including episodes of queer-friendly shows like Orange is the New Black and Peacemaker. 

Sister Samantha Grace Blumm is best known for Pose, the drama about drag queen/transgender performers in New York during the AIDS crisis. She plays Amanda, daughter of Stan Bowes (Evan Peters, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who begins dating transwoman Angel Evangelista.

Not a bad queer genealogy.

Luke's on-screen acting begins in 2019, in an episode of The Walking Dead. He plays Linus, a kid growing up in brutal survivor colony in an abandoned factory.

 

His first starring role was in The King of Staten Island (2020): Aspiring tattoo artist Pete Davidson befriends long-haired femme boy Luke,  and starts dating his firefighter father (Bill Burr).  Actually, it's just queerbaiting: the guys both get girlfriends. But Luke is definitely being depicted as gay.

Hank Strong appears as a firefighter (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Next came Son (2021), about a long-haired femme boy who escapes from a violent cult with his mom, only to contract a mysterious illness. Emile Hirsch (right) plays Paul, a sympathetic police officer with a secret agenda.

Left: Luke's plus-one at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival in 2024 was Emile's rather femme son Valor.

In 2023, Luke was in his first play, Avenue of the Giants.  It was made into a movie, The Optimist, released in 2026: Holocaust survivor Herbert Heller befriends a young girl, with whom "he shares a 60-year old secret." The plot synopses don't say what the secret is, but I don't think it's being gay. The real Herbert Heller was married, with children.  Luke plays the young Herbert.

Left: A random teen bodybuilder.

On Valentine's Day 2026, surrounded by floating hearts, Luke tells us to: "Check out Lola (2024).  It's a movie about love."

Worried that I was going to see a heteronormative quest for the Eternal Feminine, I read two plot synopses.

Lola, an adult performer and cocaine addict, has a little brother (Luke) who wears dresses and makeup.  She supports his interest, but Mom is abusive, throwing about homophobic slurs and s*xually assaulting him.  Lola grabs the boy and moves out, but Mom lures him back home and cuts off his long hair to turn him straight.  He is so upset that he runs out into traffic and is killed.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.8: Is Peter a woman? Are Kelvin and Keefe boyfriends? With tender bits, an exploding van, soldiers, and the Kiss

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Episode 3.7 was the worst in the series due to its chronological disaster, plot incongruity, annoying misdirections, and assertion that the guys were just good buddies.  Maybe that was intentional,  to disorient the viewers so they would not be expecting Episode 3.8 : It is intricately plotted, and gives us a huge number of queer codes, including one that most fans consider definitive.

Title: "I Will Take You by the Hand and Keep You."  Isaiah 42.6, ESV: "I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you."  We'll see who gets to hold hands.

Reunited with the Loved Ones: After their rescue, the siblings are taken to Rogers Regional Medical Center to be examined.  Gideon must have finally phoned the family, because the partners and kids burst in, coincidentally in the order they need to be in to reach their loved ones without bumping into each other.  

Notice the difference in response:  When they last saw each other, Jesse and Amber were having a marital spat, but they were still together, so they just hug.  

BJ was deciding whether to stay with Judy or not, so he acknowledges her with a forehead-press.  

Kelvin and Keefe had not only broken up, they had a major post-breakup fight.  When Keefe exclaims "Buddy!," indicating that he wants to stay in Kelvin's life in spite of their problems, it comes as a profound relief.  Kelvin buries his head in Keefe's bicep and sobs, mirroring the Isolation Tank Rescue in Episode 1.9.  Keefe didn't actually rescue Kelvin here, but he is bringing him back from the dead.  

We cut to the siblings being interviewed by the police.  BJ and Gideon stand in front of them.  Amber is not present. Keefe waits by the door, still not included in the family; but he does get a bit where he knocks over a trash can and yells "I hate what you had to endure."   They all hate Eli, who left them to suffer and possibly be killed. 

Next, having established that May-May wasn't in on the kidnapping plot, she and Eli bond.  

Which of you is a woman?:  With the marital problem plotlines nearly over, we have time for a deep-dive into the Militia. 

Peter and Chuck are driving a U-Haul full of explosives, followed by a ragtag caravan of militia men. Marshall and Dakota (Sturgill Simpson, Quinn Dunn-Baker) complain that they don't know where he's going.  

Does Peter know?  Two compounds have been destroyed.  The kidnapping scheme has been foiled. Everyone has forgotten the first scheme, which required the truckload of explosives.

They stop at Dodge's Fried Chicken, a real fast-food place on Savannah Highway in Charleston (next to a KFC, har har).  Marshall continues to grumble. Peter asserts that complaining is "like a woman," and Marshall retorts that he drives "like a woman."  They continue to call each other women until Chuck gets tired of it and tells them to focus on the new plan.  Whatever it is.

Peter re-asserts his authority: if they rebel against him, they are rebelling against God, because he is the Keeper of the Word. Uh-oh, another Messiah.

We see again parallels between the Militia and Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2: both societies devoted to the masculine, suspicious of women, informed by homoerotic or homosocial desire. run by a messianic figure. 

The militia is the dark side of Kelvin's God Squad  We can go even farther and juxtapose Kelvin's bodybuilder fetish with the militia's fetishization of the soldier.  

Seasons 1 and 2 featured gay-subtext friendships to counterbalance the development of the Kelvin-Keefe romance.  I was surprised to not find one in Season 3, but maybe it's here, in Peter and Marshall's bickering.

Bedroom Time:  With almost no sleep, almost nothing to eat, and only a bucket to poop in for 36 hours or several days (depending on the chronology), I'd be interested in dinner and bed rather than bedroom time, but after two militia scenes, we cut to the two couples doing stuff.

First, BJ and Judy take a bath together. BJ: "The whole time you were in captivity, I would light candles and just cry."  It sounds like they were held for longer than a day.  Also, his eye, puffed out from his fight with Stephen, is almost healed. Maybe a week? 

He continues: "The best way to reset is with a really good, deep fucking."  They play a game of helicopter-d*ck.  You can sort of see it,  actually a prosthetic, in the swirling water.

Next it's Kelvin and Keefe's turn.  Keefe has changed into a sleeveless leather top with gold studs from the Jim Morrison Mr. Mojo collection.  The Doors' song "Mr. Mojo Risin'" may be relevant here:

I see your hair is burnin' / Hills are full of fire.

If they say I never loved you/ You know they are a liar.

Kelvin has showered and restored his top wave.  After keeping his body under wraps all season, he displays his backside, again becoming an object of homoerotic desire.  Keefe pretends to give him a massage, but slides right past his shoulders to concentrate on his backside.

Like BJ and Judy's bath, this is a prelude to "a really good, deep fucking" -- notice that Keefe is thrusting during their conversation, behaving as if the bedroom activity has already begun. 

After being invited to fondle an ex-boyfriend's backside, most people would assume that he wanted to get back together, but Keefe has received so many mixed signals in the past that he has to be very careful.  His questions are skillfully designed to push Kelvin to a decision: are they going to be post-breakup pals, good buddies with benefits, or lovers?

First he eliminates the post-breakup pal option by asking if Kelvin and Taryn are dating.  Immediately after asking, he has Kelvin spread his legs, feels up his inner thighs, and starts"taking liberties," as Adam Devine reveals.  The actor needed to have a semi so he would look bigger.  In-universe, Keefe is answering his own question.

Kelvin: "Nah. She ain't my type." I've heard gay men say "You're not my type" to reject a flirtatious woman without coming out, but why would Kelvin feel the need to be closeted with his ex-boyfriend?  This must be a structural ploy to avoid having him say "gay."  

He continues: "I hated all the forced claps and laughter and fun times.  I like doing claps and laughters with you."  I've analyzed this scene in detail, and I still can't think of an in-universe reason for bringing up Taryn's work performance. That wasn't the question, and besides, Kelvin quit his youth minister job, so he's in no position to hire Keefe back.  

But Keefe assumes that he's talking about the assistant youth pastor job, and responds in kind: "I love getting the children zazzed up and excited to learn about Jesus with you." 

Now Kelvin clarifies that he was answering the "Are you and Taryn dating" question, not "Can I have my old job back?"    "I mean, Taryn was nice and all, but she's not you." She was nice, but you can't build a romance from niceness.  You need passion. 

Keefe understands:  "She tried to replace me, but it was a failed try." They're going to be romantic partners, combining eros and phileo, trying to "build something" for the future., reguardless of its impact on Kelvin's career.  Which shouldn't be a problem.  He's not working for the church anymore.  They can move to Atlanta and march in Pride Parades. 

Protesting People who Protest Statues: The militia stops under a highway overpass to grumble about the small portions of fried chicken that they received and ask again, what's the plan?  Peter wants to do something with the explosives in the U-Haul, but the guys want to protest people who are protesting statues, a reference to the attempts to remove some of the Confederate monuments in the South. To date, 44 monuments have been removed, but 771 remain.  

I thought these guys were Doomsday Preppers.  Have they switched to being Christian Nationalists or neo-Nazis?  But where's the racism?  No one in the militia has made a single racist comment.

Back at the mansion, Chuck sneaks a phone call to his brother Karl, to complain that escaping put him and his dad in a bad spot with the militia. Oh, was not wanting to be murdered inconsiderate?  Terribly sorry, Bro.  He insists that he wouldn't really have killed his cousins. Everybody's got excuses.

I can be true to myself:  The siblings meet for lunch at Jason's Steak House, and discuss how the kidnapping ordeal has changed them.

 Judy: "Things are better than before the kidnapping." You and BJ having a second honeymoon?  

Kelvin: "Makes everything snap into focus, that's for sure." You and Keefe having a second honeymoon?  

Jesse: "I can be more honest, true to myself." He's stopped dying his sideburns, letting the natural gray appear.

Jesse asks them to return to their jobs at the church, and they agree. They don't mention Keefe returning as assistant youth minister, but it's implied: everyone has apparently forgotten about the Smut Busters scandal. Then they hold hands.  In this season, holding hands has been awkward and uncomfortable for the siblings, so this is an important milestone in their relationship.  

Not much left in the episode, but what's left includes most important scene in the series. 

More after the break

Reid Miller: Femme boy plays mostly gay characters, closets his partner's gender. With Marky Mark's underwear and Tyler Gray's abs

 

Have you noticed that muscular actors rarely have hairy chests?  I guess they shave so you can see their muscles better.   So seeing Reid Miller with a bare hairy chest was something of a treat.

He sort of has to, since without a bare chest he looks like a girl.  Especially when he wears dresses. 

There are many photos of Reid with his partner on his social media.  He is shown doing the usual couples things with them: they hug, kiss, duck lips, stick out tongues, tell viewers to "stick it", pretend to strangle each other.  But I can't tell the partner's gender.  They have a boy's haircut and usually wear masculine clothes, with makeup and girls' dangling earrings.

Reid describes them extensively as "the most wonderful person in the universe, the love of my life, my reason for living, the person who gives my life meaning, the person who makes me ecstatically happy every moment of every day."

You'd think that somewhere in all of that gushing, he'd give a name or a pronoun.  Maybe they're nonbinary.

Wait -- in one of the posts, he gushes about "my incredibly amazing, wonderful, beautiful, incredibly gorgeous wife!!!!!!!!!"  So she must identify as female.  

He genders her once, at the end of 16,000 superlatives. Why so circumspect?  Does he not want his followers to know that he's involved in a boy-girl romance?

 

Pop quiz: Is this Reid or his partner?  Feminine face, girl's haircut, masculine physique. 

Gender is a continuum, anyway.  Let's go on to see if Reid has any gay roles.

He was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and grew up in small town-Texas, where he appeared in local theater.  A femme drama kid in small town Texas?  It must have been hell.

He was homeschooled from 4th grade on (no wonder), and then moved to L.A. to pursue his acting career.  The IMDB list begins with shorts, around 2014-15, and episodes of two tv shows with gay content, The Fosters and Mr. Student Body President (2016).  

Wait -- that's the one about the gay teen who wants to become student body president as a stepping stone to a career in politics, so he pretends to be straight, right?

Update: No, I was thinking of The Politician, starring Ben Platt and Russell Posner.

Next Reid got a starring role in A Girl Named Jo (2018-2019), one of those interconnected Brat Network shows.  Dad (John Charles Meyer) goes to prison (for a crime he didn't commit), which results in his son Allen (Reid) being verbally abused and beat up, and his house set on fire.  The family moves away to avoid the harassment, but ten years later, when Mom can no longer take care of him, Allen is sent to live with his recently-released Dad.  Then Dad shoots himself.  Dang I thought this was a teencom

Another starring role in Play By Play (2017-2019), with adult sportscaster Peter Hickey (Reid) giving us a play-by-play of his adolescence. Here he snoops with Max Amor, whose Instagram shows a girl with purple hair giving her followers the finger.

He wrote, directed, and stars in Flikker (2018),  a 9-minute short about a teenage boy being overcome by a malevolent force.  While n*ked.  (Don't worry, in 2018 Reid was 18 or 19).

More after the break