**Link to the n*de dudes**

The celebrity d*ck site posted some photos of a retro Playgirl spread, bringing memories of the days when you could only see pictures of n*de guys by buying an expensive monthly magazine. But the gay ones (Mandate, Blueboy, In Touch) were not sold outside of gay neighborhoods, so you were stuck buying Playgirl, and saying it was for your sister.

Today, when you can see a hundred n*de guys before breakfast, it's hard to remember how special it was.

Is this really a flashback to our mostly-closeted gay past, or a recent homage. Time to research the model, Ronnie Kroell.

There's an Instagram for Ronnie Rise Kroell, filled with photos of Ronnie holding hands with his wife and asserting that vaccines cause autism; schools assign gay pornography for homework; and he thanks God every day for bringing us the Orange Goblin. He's the chair of the election committee for Leo Zacky, running for governor with the slogan "Take Our California Back" (from the gays?).

I suppose it's possible to pose n*de in Playgirl and be a homophobic, transphobic Orange Goblin fan, but it doesn't seem likely. Surely he knew that many of Playgirl's readers are gay men. Maybe Ronnie Rise is Model Ronnie's son, or a cousin.

The IMDB lists an actor Ronnie Kroell: he was born in Chicago in 1983, attended community college, did some modeling, and became famous by competing on the first season of the reality tv show Make Me a Supermodel in 2008. He was runner-up to Holly Kiser.

A lot of subsequent articles and photo-spreads mention Ronnie and his boyfriend, actor Taylor Proffitt. Eight acting roles followed, almost all in gay-themed movies:

Eating Out: Drama Camp (2011): They're performing Taming of the Shrew, with love triangles and closeted guys. Casey (Daniel Skelton) thinks that his boyfriend is too eager to kiss his co-star Benji (Aaron Milon, right) on stage, so he stands in, and the dude gets acive! So Casey dumps the boyfriend and rebounds into the arms of fellow camper Beau (Ronnie)

More after the break

Into the Lion's Den (2011): Three gay men (Ronnie, Jesse Archer, Kristen-Alekzander Griffith) on a cross-country trip enter a redneck bar, with violent results (according to the IMDB); or go on a blind date with a local who turns out to be a psycho-killer (according to Tubi). The c*ck belongs to Jake Steele as GAttendant.

Scrooge and Marley (2012), with Ben Scrooge as a gay bar owner who spends all his time working on the business and neglecting his boyfriend, who dies of AIDS in 1986. Ronnie is the producer, and plays the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The Men Next Door (2012): A gay guy (Eric Dean) unknowingly begins dating a father and a son (Mark Cirillo, whose very large dick was on display in The Seminarian).

Birthday Cake (2013): Soap star and his husband (Chad Darnell, Rib Hillis) want to throw their daughter a birthday party.

Kissing Darkness (2014): Some gay college boys skip Pride to go camping in the woods, and run afoul of a demonic force.

Nothing after 2017, but a 2021 article in Shoutout LA reveals what Actor Ronnie has been up to lately: painting and starting an art gallery, struggling to write a book, starting a perfume company called Thrive, and launching the Friend Movement.

The Friend Movement was an attempt to fight bullying with The New F-Word, photographing a variety of people giving bullies "the bird." Beginning with celebrities like Adam Lambert and Lance Bass, but Ronnie and cofounder Elliot London wanted to photograph 10,000 people in 40 cities in 90 days. I don't know if they succeeded. It seems like an odd way to fight bullying.

Actor Ronnie is obviously the model in the Playgirl pictures. But what is his connection to Ronnie Rise? Father and son? Cousins?

I checked Ronnie Rise's Linkedin. It says that he has 23 years of experience as a political and nonprofit strategist. He's the Senior Policy Advisor for the Log Cabin Republicans (the gay Republican group that keeps getting kicked out of caucuses). In 2024, he was LGBT Outreach Coordinator for the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President Campaign.

Why would the homophobic, transphobic dude want LGBT outreach? "Are you tired of civil rights? Anxious to be fired for being gay? To go to prison for holding hands with your boyfriend? Vote for me, and help bring the 1950s!"

I don't understand why someone would support policies that brand them as a criminal deviant, but I know it happens. I was dragged to a meeting of the Log Cabin Republicans once.

But the biographies of Actor Ronnie and Ronnie Rise still don't fit together well. This is 2026. 23 years ago, Ronnie was 17, and working as a conservative political strategist? How was he fighting against gay rights while posing nude for Playgirl? And who is this lady that Ronnie Rise keeps hugging and holding hands with?

See also: "Angels in America": A tearjerker about AIDS, Mormon angels, and some 1950s guy. With d*cks to keep your spirits up