Brainerd Boyfriends

Brainerd, Minnesota, population 13,000, is  on the Mississippi River about 2 hours north of Minneapolis and 2 1/2 hours east of Fargo.  It's in a lake-abundant resort area, as you can probably tell from the sights:

Paul Bunyan Land, featuring a 26-foot tall talking animatronic Paul.

Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf

Three Bears Water Park (what do bears have to do with sliding into water?)

Trip Advisor also suggests the Crow Wing County Historical Museum and the National Pacific Railroad Shops Historic District, a series of railroad repair buildings.

Brainerd High School, enrollment 500, has a gay-straight alliance.  There's an article in the Brainerd Dispatch on Valedictorian Bri Storlie, who is gay.  She states that when you put up 50 posters, all but two are torn downthe next day, and when they scheduled a Day of Silence to draw attention to homophobic bullying, some students showed up with anti-gay slurs on their t-shirts.

In addition to the homophobia, Brainerd beefcake is hard to find.  I found a few photos online, but most were from the Brainerd Dispatch, which prohibits downloading them.

So we're going to make do with "dreamy boys," fully clothed objects of romantic fantasies for the tween crowd, for whom faces are more important than physiques, and holding hands is the ultimate in physical contact.

Some bored-looking wrestlers.

The captain of the swim team, and his buddy.  If only I were 30 years younger.

A football player.  Is he benching only 90 pounds?  Oh, well, it's all about the face, not the physique.

The high school's best all-around athlete.  I like the little striped bow tie.

The Top 10 Dreamy Boys of "Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn"

Remember when the shows on Nickelodeon were actually good?  By "Good" I mean that adults could watch them without being bored to tears, the stars were teenagers, not toddlers, and there were gay subtexts.

Drake and Josh  had amazing chemistry.
Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide was as good, or better, than anything on prime time.
Even True Jackson, VP could be clever.

Now it's "girl who wants to be a singer" and "raucous, screaming preteens."

Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn (2014-) is about raucous, screaming preteens, 10-year old quadruplets.  I watched ten seconds of the first episode before my eardrums exploded.

Besides, I was absolutely certain that those preteen boys were going to be portrayed as hetero-horny girl-crazy sex machines, and I didn't need another rendition of "heterosexual desire is universal human experience!  Every boy is wild about girls!"

Well, four seasons have passed, and the kids have grown into teenagers -- they're in high school.  Plots involve boyfriend-girlfriend miscommunications, attempts to impress hot girls, and dates, as well as the usual "a mishap floods the school" and "scream real loud" sort of thing.

  No gay characters anywhere, no gay subtexts, "discovering girls," "girls are the meaning of life," all of those tropes that erase LGBT teens from existence.

But at least the gay boys can look at the beefcake.  Granted, it might not appeal to adults, but NRDD is flooded with "dreamy boys," the sort that made you feel all flushed when they smiled at you back in junior high.

Dreaminess was not a characteristic of the physique: slim and androgynous was actually preferable.  And nobody in junior high was checking out baskets.  It was all about the face, and more, about the attitude.  We called boys "dreamy" when they were super-confident A-game golden boys; dark, troubled, dangerous delinquents who we could save; or shy, quiet boys who we could bring out of their shell.


Here are the top 10 Dreamy Boys of NRDD:

1. Garren Stith as Connor (top photo).  For "dreamy," physique is irrelevant, but Stith has some nice abs.

2. Aiden Gallagher as Nicky (left), the goofy, trouble-making, not-so smart quad.  Ok, his head is too big for his body, if that actually is his body and not a photoshop job, but you've got to admit, his hair and eyebrows are dreamy.

3. Casey Simpson as Ricky, the smart, neatnik, gay-coded but totally hetero one.  The blue eyes, red lips, and sharp chin pull off a sort of snow-queen look.

4. Jack Griffo of The Thundermans, playing himself.  Some pecs, but kids are sighing over his windblown hair and goofy half-smile.

5. Lincoln Melcher as Mack.  Thick hair and ten-dollar smile.

More after the break.