The Homophobic Horrors of Gym Class

The homophobic horror that is gym class began in 1855, when the state of Ohio made the ill-fated decision to require it of all students.  It took off during the 1920s, when "physical culture" was all the rage in Europe, and students were doing gymnastics in the yard.

By the time I entered junior high, the diabolical structure was in intact.

1. The "class" was actually called Physical Education or "p.e.," but only girls said that.  Boys had to say "gym," even if the teacher insisted.  

Got that?  Better not slip up, or you would be called a "fairy" or a "girl."

2. The two most gifted athletes in the class would then become team captains, and choose their team members.  "Fairies" were constantly ridiculed and degraded during the process, and left unchosen at the end, while the two team captain argued over who had to take them.  "I'm not taking the fairy -- you take him!"  "No way -- no girls on my team -- you take him!"

Then we played a sport.  No instruction in rules or strategies -- the "teacher' assumed that we already knew the rules.  If we asked, we were yelled at: "Don't be a smart-ass!  You know the rules!"

3. In junior high the sport was usually dodge ball, which involves trying to kill each other with hard round projectiles while yelling homophobic slurs: "Take this, f*g!"

4. In high school the sports were football in the fall, basketball in the winter, softball in the spring.  Same procedure: no instruction, two jocks picking teams and deriding the "fairies" while the "teacher" looked on.

Football was the worst.  "Stand here, facing this big, hulking man-mountain.  You're going to try to stop him from passing this line."

I just stepped aside and let him through.

We also got brief instructional tours, single class sessions, of golf, archery, and tennis, barely enough to learn what the equipment looked like. 

And rope-climbing.  I never understood that one.
I was very happy during my junior year, when the "teacher" gave up and just gave us free days to do whatever we wanted.  I ran around the track.  No homophobic taunts, no humiliation, and no projectiles hurled at you.

See also: My Job as an Athletic Trainer

More Alfie Williams: In the pub, in the pool, on holiday. With gay friends, a disability advocate, some Jimmy d*cks, and Corey's backside

  

Link to the n*de photos

This is a collection of cute/cool photos of  Alfie Williams, star of the zombie apocalypse movies 28 Years Later (2025) and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026),  and the upcoming thriller Banquet, with Corey Mylchreest.  Plus a few photos of some adult co-stars. 

1. Corey tied up.

2. Alfie and Dad on the green hills of home: Gateshead, just across the river from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

3. Milking a cow (for fun, not for a part).  But it's not a real cow, and I don't think that's milk coming out.

4. The Bone Temple features a post-Apocalyptic cult where everyone is named after and dresses like 2000s English media personality Jimmy Saville.  Here Alfie and his Dad are hanging out with his two favorite Jimmies.

Across from Alfie is Maura Bird (Jimmy Jones), a nonbinary, genderfluid actor who uses she/they pronouns.  

Next to them is Robert Rhodes (Jimmy Jimmy), who is gay in real life.

Alfie is always drawn to LGBTQ people and guys who have played gay characters.  I can't imagine why.

5.Robert Rhodes is also an advocate for people with visual differences.  When he was starring in House of the Dragon, he received some hostile and derogatory comments, and the fans who came to his defense "used very unpleasant language."  Call it a scar or a difference, not a disfigurement or deformity.

6. Sorry, I couldn't find any n*de photos of Robert, so what about Sebastian Rhodes? 

More after the break

Knox Gibson: Australian swimmer, model, "Hunger Games" baddie, disability advocate. With some n*de costars and random twinks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

As of this writing Knox Gibson. aka Captain Knoxie,  is 17 years old,  so I won't be searching for n*de photos. But he's not shy about showing off his physique.

And I have some n*de photos of his co-stars and some random Australian twinks (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Knox grew up in Orange, NSW, a small town about 250 km (150 miles) from Sydney.  His first love is swimming: he was selected for the Australian Age National Championships four times, and placed for the breast stroke  (2021, 2024) and the individual medley (2023). 

He also swims for his high school, St. Stanislaus College in Bathhurst. In 2024, he represented NSW in the all-Australia School Sport Games, and won the silver medal in the breast stroke.

Knox's second love is modeling, both fashion and runway. 

In  2020, he wore Tommy Hilfinger for New York's Fashion Week.  

In 2023, the Bonds company did a "As Worn By Us" campaign, showing Australians of every age wearing their clothes.  Knox appeared as  "Age 16."

More after the break

10 Things I Hated About Summer (and Still Do)

Finals are all submitted, graduation is over, the students and faculty have scattered.  Summertime is here.  Three months of boredom, sitting in the house all day every day except to go to the gym, nothing to do but prep for the fall and gain weight.

It was the same way when I was a kid.  My favorite season was fall, when school started, with new books and classes, and the leaves started to change, and there was a little chill in the air.  And it was marked the beginning of the great holiday season that began with Halloween, picked up momentum with my birthday and Thanksgiving, and careened into Christmas.

Winter was great, too, with bright skies and biting cold air, wrestling tournaments, sledding, and snow men. I even liked shoveling snow (my brother and I started a snow-shoveling business).

Spring was ok, but a little rainy and muddy, and no good holidays.  Valentine's Day?  St. Patrick's Day?

And summer -- don't get me started!

Here are the Top 10 Things I Hated About Summer  

1. With school out, there was nothing to do.

2. It was too hot.

3. But my parents insisted that I play outside, where there was nothing to do.

4. I could get sunburned in 10 minutes (in those days, we didn't use sunscreen).

5. There were thunderstorms almost every night, so we had to unplug the tv, thus missing our favorite programs.

6. There was nothing good on anyway, just reruns.

7. I had to go to bed when it was still daylight, and I could look out the window and see all the other kids in the neighborhood playing.

8. My parents kept holding barbecues, picnics, and other activities where you had to eat outside, off paper plates, with the bugs and the dirt, and the wind that  blew everything away.


9. We always went on a horrible week-long camping trip, with nothing to do but swim in muddy water, sit in a rowboat waiting for a fish to bite, and walk around in the woods.  What gay kid wants to mess around with that gross stuff?

10. And I spent another week at Nazarene summer camp, sleeping in drafty cabins, with nonstop sermons (mostly about boys liking girls) and sports, and the bathroom down a mosquito-ridden path

But there were a few things that made summer bearable (almost).

See also: the Kensington Runestone.

James Whitcomb Riley: Even Dull, Depressing Poets Can Be Gay

When I was growing up in Rock Island, teachers thought it their duty to lecture incessantly on local writers and artists, like Carl Sandburg, gay jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke, and Isabel Bloom.

My cousins in Indiana were hearing about their local writers and artist, of course, and whenever I visited, I had to hear about them, too: Theodore Dreiser, Gene-Stratton Porter, Hoagy Carmichael....

The one I hated the most was James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), the "Hoosier Poet," the official poet laureate of the state of Indiana.

My Aunt Mavis scared me and my Cousin Buster to death with her rendition of "Little Orphant Annie":

The goble-uns'll git you ef you don't watch out! (The "git" was accompanied by a sudden grab.)

And "Nine Little Goblins":

You shan't wake up 'til you're plumb dead!

My Cousin Joe had to read "My Bachelor Chum," about a guy who is old -- nearly 40 -- and fat, who claims that he loves being unmarried -- he can smoke and drink and stay out late, and there's nobody around to nag him.  But then he sneaks off to a private study, looks at a picture of a woman, and starts crying.

Not only heterosexist, but depressing! Can you believe that James Whitcomb Riley was one of the most popular writers of his era, and all of his books were best-sellers?

Glancing through a copy of the Selected Poems that was on every bookshelf in Indiana, I found nothing but death, despair, lost heterosexual loves, dying soldiers, and more death.

They loved that kind of thing in the 19th century.

Riley's most famous poem is "The Old Swimmin' Hole": an old man reminisces about how as a boy he used to enjoy skinny dipping with his chums, but now he just wants to die:

I wish..I could dive off in my grave like the old swimmin' hole

Wait -- he liked to swim naked with his chums?

Could Riley have been gay?

His biographer, Elizabeth Van Allen, says certainly not, but what biography doesn't try desperately to establish the heterosexuality of her subject?

She admits that he sought same-sex friendships through his life, and described them in passionate terms; to physician James Matthews, for instance, he wrote: "I love you, and no knife shall cut our love in two."

But that's just a 19th century convention, she explains: "he understood that there was a limit to what was socially acceptable between people of the same gender."

Of course there was.  The same limit exists today -- it is expected, encouraged, and demanded that same-sex relationship be platonic, and cross-sex erotic.    Being gay crosses that line.  But that simply means that gay people must spend a lot of time defending themselves against the accusations that they're trying to destroy the world.  It doesn't mean that they aren't gay.

Or that they never experienced glimmers of same-sex love while writing their dull, depressing poems.

See also: John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Philips Andover Aquatics: Beefcake since 1912

Phillips Andover Academy, an elite private school in Andover, Massachusetts, has trained hundreds of notable people, including Edgar Rice Burroughs (creator of Tarzan), Presidents Bush Junior and Senior, gay writer Paul Monette, and my friend, crazy-as- loon Matt.

It has had an aquatics team since 1912, with team photographs from each year posted on its website.

Notice the chest-covering swimsuits in the early years

In 1938 a few brave souls pose bare-chested for the camera; it was still considered a bit indecent, illegal in many cities.

By 1945, they're all bare-chested.  They play the Olneyville Boy's Club, the Boston Boys' Club, Harvard Freshmen, and Gardner High.  The captain has the odd name of Chips Lazo (real name Mario; his father designed airports).

In 1963 we see the first nonwhite athletes.  They also start looking younger.  I've noticed that in a lot of old photos: before the 1960s, teenagers looked like men in their 30s today.

Through the 1970s they're all photographed wearing white jerseys.  Got to cover up those chests.

In 1986 we see the first Asian boys.

More after the break

Christian Tessier: The Six-Pack Abs of Nickelodeon

The Tomorrow People (1992-1995), an early Nickelodeon sci-fi series about mutant teenagers (a remake of the British version), starred Christian Tessier as a super-genius named Megabyte.

The 14-year old Canadian actor had been a fixture on Nickelodeon for several years, with roles on You Can't Do That On Television, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and elsewhere.

He first stated to bulk up in Tomorrow People, but it was in Natural Enemy (1996), as a collegiate swimmer stalked by his stepfather, that we really saw his spectacular pecs and six-pack abs.

Plus impressive speedo shots.

He also stripped down in Habitat (1997).

Then came a series of adventure and horror movies with little beefcake on display (I assume; I haven't seen any of them), plus guest spots on a number of tv series. Two starring roles: Joey Passamontes in All Souls (2001) and "Duck" Clellan in Battlestar Galactica (2005-6). 

Not a lot of specifically gay content, except for  Ice Blues (2008), with Chad Allen as gay detective Donald Strachey.

He's also released two songs, including "Whatever It Is," with the Religion Beats.  I never heard of the group, and I can't understand any of the lyrics, but no doubt it's religious.

Swim Teams of Yesteryear

Back before tv stars commonly took their shirts off and gay porn was unheard-of, Grandpa got his beefcake by watching sports.  Wrestling was the best for bulk and baskets, but for the most exposed skin, you had to go with swimming. 

Here's what Grandpa (or Great-Grandpa) was looking at in 1952.

The University of Melbourne.















The Burton School.

The University of Texas

The University of Georgia

The Salem YMCA

Beefcake and Bulges in Recent Swim Team Photos

Ready for another assorted set of pecs, abs, biceps and bulges from the swim teams of yesteryear?  This time we'll go from the 1960s to the present.

Kelly High School, Chicago, 1967.  Some of these kids look a little young for high school, but there's a nice basket in the eyeglassed guy second row right.

University of Southern California men's swim team, 1976.  I was in high school at the time, but I don't remember all the porn stachs.

Cleveland State University, 1984.  Less than ten years later, all the porn staches have vanished, but the skimpy, bulge-displaying swimsuits have been retained.

Burnesville High School, 1985.  Some gym-toned physiques, but all of the bulges are hidden.

More after the break.

Beefcake and Bulges in Old Swim Team Photos

I love old high school and college yearbooks, now usually digitized and put online as "Alumni Memories."

You can see hundreds of men and boys who have left us now, or who are elderly and reminiscing about their lives, when they were energetic, powerful, full of hope, when they had all the world to choose from.

When they had tight, muscular physiques and bulges that wouldn't quit, judging from old swim team photos.

This is Brighton College in England, 1946, guys about the age of my older uncles, looking forward to the post-War world.  Some nice bulges.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the boys' swim team at Jackson Junior High (West Virginia) clowns around.

California State University, 1949.  No baskets on anyone in the front row except the second from the right.  They must have put the other bulgeworthy boys in back on purpose.  Some nice physiques, though.

Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, 1951, at the beginning of the conservative 1950s.  Every guy has his hands demurely folded over his basket.  I like the hairy chest and thinning hair of the college boy second from the right.

University of Georgia, 1952.  Notice the sharp crewcuts and extended ears.  Also notice that the boys are all white.  Segregation was in full swing.

More after the break.

The Collegians: Muscle and Gay Symbolism of the Silent Movie Era

The Silent Movie Blog has an interesting post on The Collegians, a series of silent movie shorts (1926-1929) directed by Wesley Ruggles, about buddy-competitors at Calford College, Ed Benson (George Lewis) and Don Trent (Eddie Philips).  They spend their time playing sports, stripping down in the shower, and finding excuses to grab and fondle each other, while generally ignoring girls.


In Flashing Oars (1927), for instance, Don Trent goes out drinking on the night before the big rowing race with rival Velmar College.  In order to sober him up, Ed and his friends grab him, strip him out of his clothes, and throw him in the shower.



Meanwhile, Doc (Churchill Ross), a nerdish bookworm, explains why he goes to all the games, even though he hates sports, and hangs out in the locker room afterwards.

Supple vertebrae, right.


The Relay (1926) is about a boys-vs-girls swimming match, with the boys ripping each others' clothes off and wrestling in a swimming pool.  Oh, and the girls swim too.

There is occasionally a hetero-romance, or a scene of boys mooning over girls at the Hula-Hula Hut, but merely as film conventions, secondary to the plots that require the boys to get as naked as possible, as often as possible.

About a third of the 44 films survive.  The Relay is available on Amazon.

See also: The Four Devils: Lost Beefcake of the Silent Era; and Buster Keaton