Matthew William Bishop: leatherman, muscleman, actor, LGBTQ advocate. With bodybulder bonus

 

If you saw this guy wandering through Central Park, would you

a) Run away screaming

b) ask for his phone number

c) skip the phone number and go downtown

Link to n*de bodybuilders

How about now?

He's Matthew William Bishop, who gave up a career in corporate public relations in 2021, when the acting job bit.  His Some Kind of Wonderful, about four gay guy looking for love in Palm Springs, won four awards for Best LGBTQ Film. 

Then he hit the big time playing the silent supernatural Big Daddy, a symbol of AIDs in American Horror Story, NYC. (Set during the first years of the AIDS epidemic.)

Matthew is also a bodybuilder, obviously. He took first place at the 2023 Miami Muscle Beach Contest in the NPC Open Super Heavyweight Category.

And a philanthropist, devoted to recovery, AIDS awareness, and LGBTQ advocacy.  10% of the sales of this "Make the Deposits" shirt go to the New York LGBTQ Community Center.

More after the break

Hank Strong: Bodybuilder, firefighter, enforcer, leatherman, gay daddy. With some butts and dicks

Link to the nude photos

The Brooklyn-born Hank Strong (Henry Akinsaya) graduated from Xaverian Brothers High School in Westfield, Massachustts in 1998, then studied pre-law at NYU.  

He competed in some amateur bodybuilding competitions, worked as a bodyguard, and did some modeling where he had to show his abs.  

His acting career began in 2018, when he was cast as Lunkhead, enforcer for the villain Zachary Trumble. in an episode of Gotham (2018).   

Hank moved on to play more enforcers, bodybuilders, and scowling musclemen, notably, the fighter Iron Long on Ray Donovan.

 

He appeared in two episodes of Godfather of Harlem as Big Dick Buster. Crime lord Bumpy Johnson, a real figure from the 1960s, keeps "Big Dick" on retainer to rape men who rape black women

As a firefighter in The King of Staten Island, he takes his clothes off, of course, to bond with Pete Davidson.

In 2020, Hank played Jericho, a member of Kelvin's God Squad in Righteous Gemstones Season 2. When they threaten Keefe, he defends himself by swatting Jericho's nipple.  (Actually a courageous act, since Jericho is nearly a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than Keefe).

More Hank after the break

"Hightown": Is it homophobic to show some gay leathermen beating up a straight man?

 

I was conducting research for that other website when I came across a short video of two leather masters (Hank Strong, left, and Mark Haynes, below) pulverizing a guy, punching him in the face, the chest, and the crotch until he's a bloody pulp. Great, keying into the stereotype of gay men as violent predators.

Further research revealed that it was a scene from "White Whale," Episode 1.6 of Hightown (2020). The show has a depressing premise: "Set in the world of beautiful but bleak Cape Cod, one woman's journey to sobriety is overshadowed by a murder investigation dragging her into its fold."  The episode description sounds like you need a scorecard: "Jackie and Junior struggle to cope in the wake of a traumatic event. Ray's investigation picks up speed. Ray is there for Renee when she really needs him."  But at least I discovered that the pulverized guy is Junior, played by Shane Harper.

The cast list sounds rather homophobic. There's a Muscle Queen, played by Michael DeMello (left).  What does he do, lisp and limp-wrist his way across the screen?

Plus a Creepy Guy and a WeHo Queen, played by Isaac Josephthal.

But wait -- a review on Out states that the show is queer-inclusive: the main character is a lesbian, played by a bisexual actress. But you can be a lesbian ally and promote stereotypes about gay men -- it happened all the time when I lived in West Hollywood.

Watching the scene in the context of the episode, it becomes a little less problematic.  Junior, a drug dealer, is devastated by the death of his girlfriend.  While making a drug delivery, he notices that his clients are three buffed leathermen, and gets an idea: he overcharges them.  

Leather Daddy #1 (Mark Haynes) becomes irate and asks "Do you think I can't fuck you up?"  Junior replies: "Yeah, on steroids and meth.  Doesn't make you a man."  The Leather Daddies proceed to pulverize him.

No matter how homophobic you are, it's stupid to insult three bodybuilder leathermen.  But Junior is smiling: he wanted to get pulverized, or maybe killed.  Suicide by leatherman.

Frontal, bulge, and rear photos of the actors are on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriend.

Sean and the World of Gay Leathermen

During the 1960s and 1970s, gay men carved niches for themselves, separate neighborhoods where they could be free from homophobic harassment, separate social institutions to replace those they were excluded from in the "straight" world.  And one of the institutions they devised was Leather, aka S&M.

The look: muscles, hairy chests, and clothing based on the motorcycle gangs of the 1950s: chaps, vests, boots, jackets.  Black, sleek, rigid, gleaming.  No fluffy sweaters, no chinos, no designer shoes, no perfumes, nothing but raw masculinity


The acts: erotic "scenes" involving dominance and submission, power and pain.

Leathermen were excoriated by the heterosexual press, which kept squealing: "Look!  Look!  We told you that gays were all perverts!"

In Cruising (1980), the subculture was savagely derided as a bunch of masochists and murderers.

Even the mainstream gay movement was leery, thinking that they would scare the heterosexuals and forestall the quest for tolerance.

But they survived.  During the 1980s, even people not into the culture started experimenting, since S&M activities don't transmit HIV.

It became commonplace for men hitting their mid-30s to shift their allegiance from twink bars to leather bars like the Spike, the Eagle, the Gold Coast, the Faultline, and Bill's Filling Station.

There were motorcycle clubs, leather clubs, S&M clubs, bear clubs, fetish fairs like Dore Alley, contests like International Mr. Leather, magazines like Drummer, Mandate, and Bound and Gagged.

All illustrated by a cadre of gay artists: Tom of Finland, Etienne, the Hun, Cavello...and their undisputed leader, Sean.

Sean, aka John Klamik (1935-2005), who was a fixture in West Hollywood from the 1950s, painting murals for leather bars,  publishing cartoons in leather and mainstream gay magazines, illustrating the novels of leather greats such as Larry Townsend, and publishing his own graphic novels.

He and his partner, Jim Newberry, were also well-known in West Hollywood politics, instrumental in planning each of the Gay Pride Marches and Festivals from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Sean drew his inspiration from the impossibly buffed, impossibly endowed Tom of Finland men, but he put them into much more graphic situations.

So graphic that it's hard to find one to illustrate.





And his themes and situations veer far from the jubilant eroticism of Tom's men. There are acts of torture, punishment, and revenge.    

For instance, the famous Biff Bound (1982), which I found at the adult bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana, is a pantomime comic book about a super-muscular, super-endowed blond who hitch-hikes in search of willing partners.  But instead, he is grabbed, tied up, and sexually assaulted by three toughs, who then steal his clothes and his suitcase.

He is rescued by a group of gay leathermen, who give him a new leather outfit, then help him capture the toughs.  They tie them up, have sex with them, force them to have sex with each other, and finally retrieve Biff's suitcase.  

Heavy stuff.  Is it promoting sexual assault?

Certainly not, Sean said in an interview.  "It's a fantasy."

It was about empowerment.  Gay men in the mainstream press of the day were portrayed as perpetual victims, of homophobic assaults, of discrimination, of AIDS, of their own "uncontrollable urges."  But they didn't have to be. They could be strong, powerful, in charge of the situation.  They could save the day.  They could triumph.

See also: Tom of Finland;  The Mystery of Cavelo; and The Bear with the Sweeney Todd Fetish.

Tom of Finland

When I was in grad school in Bloomington, Indiana in the early 1980s, I used to buy a gay porn magazine at College Avenue Books:  In Touch for Men, which featured not only pictures of naked men, but articles on gay history and culture, dating tips, movie reviews, and even comics.

I was particularly drawn to a series of non-verbal, single-panel comics featuring macho icons like bikers, cops, lumberjacks, and cowboys, impossibly muscular and impossibly well endowed, interacting with each other.  Aggressive, athletic, and masculine, they were a sharp contrast to the contemporary mass media depictions of gay men as soft, willowy sissies.

They all had the same "look": they had wavy hair, Castro Clone moustaches, long faces, and square jaws.  They were always smiling, enjoying every moment of their lives.

There were occasional romantic or humorous moments, but mostly the comics were about sex.  Not the furtive, guilty sex of the 1960s tea rooms -- this was bold, aggressive, joyful, in public, in full view of passersby, who, more often than not, would ask to join in.

There was no homophobia in this world, but not much gay culture, either. Not many gay rights marches or meetings of the Gay Activists Alliance, not a lot of scenes set on Christopher Street.  Impossibly muscular, impossibly well endowed men interacted in police stations, gas stations, army barracks, tattoo parlors, in the woods.  It was a raw, primal world of same-sex desire.  I had never seen anything like it.

The artist was Tom of Finland, aka Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991), who began publishing drawings in the early Physique Pictorial in the 1950s.  By 1973, he had become so famous that he was able to quit his job in advertising and devoted himself full-time to his art.  He published in In Touch, Mandate, the Meatmen series of gay comic anthologies, and eventually in comic-book length (but wordless) tales of Kake, a gay man on the prowl.

By the time I discovered him, in the 1980s, Tom was falling out of favor.  His work was not political enough, ignored homophobia and AIDS, and portrayed gay men as obsessed with sex.  Besides, it set the bar for male beauty impossibly high, ruining the self-esteem of those who didn't fit his rigid standards of age, size, and body type.  

Ok, but sometimes you just want to look at hot guys.


Today Tom has been rediscovered.  There are retrospectives of his work in museums in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, and Helsinki.   You can buy Tom of Finland books, dolls, and a cologne.  In September 2014, Finland released a series of postage stamps featuring iconic Tom's men.

See also: Sean and the World of Gay Leathermen; The Mystery of Cavelo; and Gay Comics of the 1980s.

The Mystery of Cavelo

When I was in grad school at Indiana University, the only place you could get gay books and magazines was in the adult bookstore.  Of course, they had porn, too.

I was particularly drawn to two albums from Zeus Studios featuring wordless comics drawn by someone named Cavelo:

The Cavelo Portfolio (1979).
Hercules (1981).

He drew buffed, fully nude men in mild bondage and S&M situations, usually in the historic past: ancient Rome, the old West, the French foreign legion.

The models had amazingly ripped physiques, drawn darker and with much more contrast than the characters around them.

There was no sex, no activity of any sort.  Cavelo always depicted the men in the moment before.

He published three albums, plus cartoons and illustrations in six issues of Drummer magazine, all between 1978 and 1985.  A limited repertoire, compared to his contemporaries, Sean and Tom of Finland.

Then his work ended, leaving fans to wonder: where did this spectacular beefcake artist come from?  Where did he go?

Thirty years later, they are still wondering.

Recently many of the great gay artists who published anonymously during the 1970s and 1980s have been identified, their stories told, their contributions lauded.  But Cavelo remains a mystery.

We know only that he lived in Los Angeles, and his real name was Leon Carvalho.

There's a Leon Carvalho living in Los Angeles today, a marine recruiter.  Probably not the same one.

See also: Tom of Finland; Sean and the World of Gay Leathermen