Jay R. Ferguson: The "obviously gay" teen idol of the 1990s moves on to play a 1960s sleazoid and the dad of two gay sons. With Jay and Carter c*ocks

 

Link to the Jay and Carter c*ocks

In the early 1990s, I was living in West Hollywood, and completely immersed in the LGBT community.  Media from the Straight World was suspect, if not homophobic than heteronormative, presenting men and women gazing at each other as the meaning of life.  So we chose our television programs carefully. On Monday nights, it was Fresh Prince of Bel Air (Carleton, sigh!), Blossom (Joey Lawrence, sigh!), and Designing Women (drag queen inspiration Suzanne Sugarbaker).  Certainly not Evening Shade (1990-94), with Burt Reynolds as a football coach (ugh!) in a small town (ugh!) in Arkansas (ugh!).

So when this photo of a shirtless, partying young man began appearing on all of the gay celebrity websites, we had no idea who he was. 

The photos kept coming.  We discovered that he was Jay R. Ferguson, who played Taylor, son of Burt Reynolds' character Wood.  Wood?  Really?

 Generally he was swishing it up, as in this iconic photo: apparently saying "Hey, Girl!" in a classic twink outfit, a short top. a bare midriff, and jeans with a club bulge.  Obviously gay!  

In the days when television was entirely heterosexist or homophobic,when even the most flamboyant actor stayed in the closet or saw his career fade away, seeing "one of us" was amazing.  

Unfortunately, the only way to conduct research was to buy a teen magazine -- and the Different Light bookstore on Santa Monica did not stock Tiger Beat.  

The show ended, the photo stream ended, and we forgot about the obviously-gay Jay.  .

For thirty years.

Until 2025, when The Real O'Neils (2016-2018) appeared on Hulu:  a conservative Irish-Catholic family having to deal with a number of problems: Dad wants a divorce; the daughter is an atheist; the oldest son (Matthew Shively) has an eating disorder; the youngest son (Noah Galvin) is gay.  

Yeah, I don't like "gay" being portrayed as a problem, either, but I like Noah Galvin.

And the hunky dad is played by...Jay R. Ferguson!

Three questions:

1. What has he been doing in the years since Evening Shade?

2. Any n*de photos?

3. Is he really gay?

1. What has he been doing?

Jay's first project after Evening Shade was Higher Learning (1995), which is not a teen sex comedy: Omar Epps (left) stars as a student experiencing racism at Columbia University.  But Jay did show us his backside (whilewith a girl).

And an under-the-covers e*rection.

Next  Jay moved into teen horror (Campfire Tales, 1997),  sex comedy (Pink as the Day She Was Born, 1997), teen angst (Blue Ridge Falls, 1999), and dark secrets (The In Crowd, 2000), before finding his niche in television:

Glory Days (2001-02).  Oddly, it's not about soldiers, it stars Eddie Cahill as a writer who dished the dirt on residents of his home town, and is surprised when he returns to find that they don't like him.  Jay plays the sheriff.

Judging Amy (2003-4), which is not about a judge named Amy.  A woman has problems with her mother, husband, and child.  Jay plays a doctor.

In a 2005 episode of Medium, Allison realizes that her troubled half-brother Michael (Ryan Hurst) has a "secret."   One assumes that it's being gay, but it's actually that he shares her gift of seeing the future.  Jay plays his buddy.  That's as close to a gay character as he gets.

Surface (2005-2006):  Marine biologist Lake (Lake?): her "will they or won't they?" sparring partner, insurance salesman Rich (Jay), and a teenage boy (Carter Jenkins, left, recent photo) discover a "new and dangerous" species of marine life.  This one actually looks interesting.

By the way, Carter, who went on to star in Shadow Diaries, has an adult video (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Jonathan Taylor Thomas: The teen idol superstar plays gay characters, retires from acting before he can show us his d*ck. Probably

Link to the n*de photos

During the early 1990s, ABC offered a "family-friendly" lineup on Wednesday nights, beginning with The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage courting the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.  We sang a parody of the theme song, the Beatle's "With a Little Help from My Friends":

What would you do if I spat on your shoes?
Would you get up and kick me to the moon?

Before turning the channel to CBS, with The Nanny and Melrose Place.

But we knew about each of the shows, because you knew about every show in the era. They included:

Doogie Houser, with Neil Patrick Harris (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) as a 13 year old doctor named Doogie.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a coach.

And Home Improvement, with Tim Allen as a grunting, sweating macho man who hosts a tool-themed tv series and tries to instill grunting, sweating masculinity into his three sons.  Zachery Ty Bryant (playing Brad), the eldest and most muscular, was promoted as a teen idol to draw in teenage girls (they weren't aware of gay boys).  But oddly, it was Jonathan Taylor Thomas (playing Randy) who took off, causing millions of teenage and preteen girls to tune it (again, no gay boys exist).  It quickly jumped to #2 in the ratings.

Wait -- Brad is a jock, a football star, a letterman who every girl in the school swoons over.  Randy is soft, bookish, somewhat femme, playing "a fairy" in the school play, an aspiring actor and journalist.  How did Jonathan Taylor Thomas do it?

The showrunners were stumped. They should have realized that straight girls and gay boys just starting to recognize their romantic interests prefer soft, cuddly, and relatable: Malcolm, not Reese (Malcolm in the Middle), Chris, not Drew (Everybody Hates Chris); Adam, not Barry (The Goldbergs). 

In the mid-1990s, Home Improvement moved to Tuesdays, in the hope that its popularity would help stragglers like Spin City.  We still steered clear of the grunting, sweating Tim Allen, quickly changing the channel to Frasier (CBS) and then back for Drew Carey (ABC).    

But we could hardly ignore JTT; he was on every magazine cover, in every talk show.

He presented at the Emmies and the Golden Globes.

We saw him waving in Thanksgiving and Christmas parades

He appeared in specials honoring Tom Cruise and Lauren Hutton

He praised James Bond in a documentary about the super-spy.

Elton John hugged him.

He played Tom Sawyer opposite Devon Sawa's Huckleberry Finn in Tom and Huck (1995), with a story only vaguely related to the original novels.

An adventure boy opposite Devon Sawa (right) and Scott Bairstow (left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) in Wild America (1997).

More after the break.  

Noah Centineo: The Boyfriend of your Dreams, with five butts, three bulges, two d*cks, and no gay characters.

  

Link to the N*de Dudes

I've used stills from Noah Centineo's adult video as illustrations twice, but I don't know who he is, only that he filled in when Jake T. Austin left The Fosters. So, time to do some research.

He was born in 1996, and first appeared on screen with a kids' film, The Golden Retrievers, in 2008.

He appeared in three episodes of Austin & Allie, the first Disney Channel teencom to feature a canonical gay character, but he didn't play the gay character.

More guest spots on teencoms like Marvin Marvin and Shake It Up, and then his first starring role, How to Build a Better Boy, 2014.  He plays Jaden, the jock that science nerd Mae is crushing on, so she builds a cyber boyfriend to help win him. Matt Shively, left, plays her brother.

There's some some adult pictures in SPF-18, 2017, but it's not Noah, it's Jackson White, a depressed musician.  The focus character has to choose between Jackson and Noah, who is mourning the death of his father.  It gets a 3.3 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, probably because it is advertised as a romantic comedy, but is actually a depressing angst-fest.  

After 53 episodes of The Fosters, 2015-2018, Noah starred in To All the Boys I've Loved Before, 2018, but he's not the one loving the boys.  He's the Love Interest of focus character Lana, whose letters to her secret crushes are made public, destroying her life. 

In Sierra Burgess is a Loser, 2018, loser Sierra gets the help of the school's It-Girl to win the Boy of Her Dreams, Noah.  It also stars Will Peltz, left, as Spence, the It-Girl's boyfriend who dumps her.

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

Aidan Merwarth: Finn's wannabe boyfriend, pencil company exec, juvenile delinquent, brat. With 3 d*cks and inconclusive social media

Link to the n*de dudes

In Season 2 of Unprisoned, gay-coded Finn (Faly Rakotohavana) and his family go to group therapy. Mom complains  that he spends all day online, not interacting with anyone in real life, so he'll never "fall in love, get married, and have a nice life."  I'm not getting into the assumption that you have to be married to have a nice life.  The therapist assigns Finn to "make a friend," presumably a friend that he could fall in love with.

He invites Spencer (Aidan Merwarth) to his room, but doesn't want to play video games or watch tv or anything.  Dude, if you're not going to make out with him, at least give him something to do.

Spencer plays with his phone for awhile, gets bored, calls Finn a "baby" (you wanted a real man?), and leaves.  He re-appears at the college fair to taunt Finn again.  Well, can you blame him?  Dude thought he was going to at least get some smooching.

Finn remains gay-vague, his s&xual identity unconfirmed through two seasons.  

I wanted to know about this guy who is playing a gay subtext or maybe gay-text teenager.

He was born in July 2022, and grew up in San Antonio, where he was homeschooled.  So either he's a fundamentalist Christian, or he goes on so many auditions that he has no time for school. 

 

He has 133 friends on Facebook.  

He's an acrobatic gymnast.  In 2015, at the International Acro Cup in Poland. Aidan and his sister Devon won second place in the mixed pair 11-16 age range

He attended the Los Angeles Film School, graduating with a B.S. in Animation in 2025.

He has eight acting credits on the IMDB.

A Girl Named Jo (2019). on Brat TV, features two girls trying to unravel a mystery at Attaway High School in 1963.  Aidan appears in four episodes as Felix, apparently Jo's boyfriend.

Another Brat TV series, Crazy Fast (2019), has a group of outsiders join the track team at Attaway High. Colin McCalla (n*de picture on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) stars.  Aidan plays Eamon, a runner "whose past with Rowan threatens everything."

Another straight guy, darn it.

The Forgotten Place is a short about Eric (Jeff Locker), who wants a friend.  He finds one (Brian Flaccus), but apparently he means a platonic friendship.

In Saving Paradise (2021), a "ruthless corporate executive" (William Moseley) has to return to his small town when he inherits his father's struggling pencil factory. At Christmastime.  He has to save it and win The Girl (named Charlie, just to fool you into thinking there's a gay romance).

So Paradise is a pencil factory?  I guess it beats saving the annual Christmas festival.  Aidan plays the  rutless corporate executive as a teenager, already in love with The Girl.

But a pencil factory?  When was the last time you used a pencil?  Or saw one?

More after the break

Andrew Stevens: Teen idol gave us queer codes in "The Fury," took off his shirt a lot, but never played a gay guy again

Nazarenes weren't allowed to go to movie theaters, so during my senior year in high school, I began telling my parents I was heading to the library or a friend's house, and sneaking out to the Showcase Cinemas to see The Chicken Chronicles (Steve Guttenberg, sigh), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, High Anxiety, Coma, The End, Big Wednesday, and in March 1978, The Fury:  Robin (Andrew Stevens, top), who has psychic powers, is kidnapped, so his Dad, former CIA agent Peter (Kirk Douglas, bottom) enlists a girl with psychic powers to find him.  

Everyone is heterosexual, and the guys both die at the end, which would be a major red flag today, but as a high schooler a few months away from recognizing that I was gay, I found many queer codes and a lot of beefcake. 

I had some idea that Andrew became a member of the Brat Pack in the 1980s, starred in some buddy-bonding angst dramas, and was called a "f*g" by Molly Ringwald (who would go on to play a pro-gay Mom in Stranger Things).  But that turns out to be Andrew McCarthy.  I haven't seen Andrew Stevens in anything else.  Here's why.

Born in 1955 in Memphis, Andrew started his career as a cute teenager, subtly muscular, with shaggy hair and a goofy smile, for "heartwarming" roles as cute or wounded kids in tv series like Apple's Way (1974), Police Story (1975), and Shazam! (1976).  I didn't like heartwarming.

In the 1980s, hair straightened, muscles bulging, tanned, Andrew began playing  suave playboys or con artists in the tv soaps Emerald Point N.A.S , Dallas, and Hotel.

Soap operas?  No way!



















More after the break

My 16 teen idol fave raves, from Rock Island to West Hollywood, with David's d*ck and Adam's super-d*ck

  

Link to the n*de photos

This is a list of my favorite teen stars from 1975-2000, when I was growing up in Rock Island and a young adult in West Hollywood (with three years in New York at the end). The profiles are posted for nostalgia, for fun, and for aesthetic appeal -- when I investigated these guys as adults, a surprising number turned out to be gay, or have n*de photos posted online, or both.

1.Michael Cade.  The only reason to watch California Dreams (1992-97),  Saved by the Bell-light.

2. David Naughton.  The cutest guy of the Disco Era taught us how to "be a Pepper," and showed his stuff as an American werewolf (in London).

3. Glen Scarpelli.  The femme boy who valiantly pretended to be straight on One Day at a Time grew up, came out, and moved to Taos.  

4. Jeff East. The Disney teen graduated to play a n*ked fratboy.

5. Zach Galligan.  The Gremlins guy ruined my childhood, sort of, but showed his d*ck as an adult.

6. Mat Botuchis.  The chest that launched a thousand fantasies.

7. Andrew Keegan The original Teenage Caveman played a gay guy in The Broken Hearts Club, and kissed Superman himself, Dean Cain.

8.Chad Allen.  The heartthrob who made Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman a must-see.  He came out and started playing gay detectives with n*de scenes.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

"Alice": There's a new girl in town, with a teen idol son

Used to be scared, used to be shy

Funniest thing, the saddest part is I never knew why

Kickin' myself for nothin' was

My favorite sport

I had to get out and start enjoyin'

'cause life's too short

On Alice (1976-85), a tv adaption of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), "start enjoyin'" meant working as a waitress in a small-town diner.

When her truck driver husband dies, Alice (Linda Lavin) heads out to L.A. to jump-start her singing career.  Her car breaks down in small-town Tucson, and she's out of money, so she takes a temporary job at Mel's Diner.

It lasts for nine years, but it gives her an opportunity to form a chosen family with her boss, gruff, beefy Mel (Vic Tayback) and fellow waitresses: gutzy Flo (Polly Holliday), whose risque catchphrase "Kiss mah grits!" became a phenomenon (and led to a short-lived spin-off); and mousy Vera (Beth Howland)

Left: Vic didn't actually have a beard on the show, but this was the only semi-shirtless picture I could find.

Alice also had a cute, wisecracking son, Tommy (Philip McKeon, left). 

Three ladies, a kid, and a bear?  I wasn't impressed.  Besides, Alice ran on Sunday nights, after the oldster-favorites 60 Minutes and All in the Family, opposite Battlestar Galactica or Chips.  I didn't start watching regularly until about 1980, when it was squeezed between One Day at a Time and The Jeffersons. 

It was a pleasant surprise.  The banter between the four regulars was sharp and witty, the plotlines were not terribly heterosexist, and there was ample beefcake: cowboys and muscular truck driver patrons of the diner, the various men dating the regulars, and Tommy's school friends.  

Hunky Denny Miller even played a gay character, the school coach: after he comes out, Alice hesitates about allowing Tommy to go on an overnight camping trip with him, but finally relents. Score one for tolerance in the homophobic 1970s.

More after the break

Nick Stahl: A career of playing scarred, traumatized teens, with being gay as one of the traumas. Plus zombies, DeKay d*ck, and a gl*ry hole

Link to the n*de photos

In the summer of 2001, everybody in the East Village was talking about Bully, starring 22-year old Nick Stahl.  The South Florida teenager beats up his friend Marty (Brad Renfro), assaults him, and humiliates him by forcing him to become an entertainer in a gay bar. They even make an adult video to sell in gay bookstores.

 Bobby also assaults Marty's girlfriend Ali, while forcing her to watch gay movies and when his own girlfriend Lisa announces that she is pregnant with Marty's child, watch out!  The three friends set out to deadify him, with the help of Ali's new boyfriend (Michael Pitt).

It was not a pretty movie -- girl parts outnumber boy parts ten to one, and the gay world is portrayed as unfailingly sordid and decadent.  Nevertheless, every gay magazine -- In Touch, XY, The Advocate -- gave it a favorable review as a cautionary tale about the effects of internalized homophobia.  If only Bobby had the guts to come out...

Nick was born in Harlingen, Texas, in 1979 (Texas...ugh!), moved to L.A. in 1992, and was cast in a few small roles before his big break, playing opposite the then-famous Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face (1993).  The Man and the boy are both gay in the original novel by Isabelle Holland, but straight in the movie.

My Son is Innocent (1996), Eye of God (1997), Promised Land (1997), and Disturbing Behavior (1998) cast Nick as scarred, traumatized, victimized, violent teenagers, leading to Bully.  Afterwards he did a horror movie (Taboo, 2002) and a true crime (Bookies, 2003), but found himself being manipulated by older women (In the Bedroom), doing stuff with men but denying being gay (Twist), or murdering young girls (Sin City). Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) must have come as a welcome relief.

In the Terminator mythos, John Connor manages to save the human world after it is destroyed by a sentient internet, so Arnold Schwarzenegger is sent back in time (n*ked) to kill him.  In T3, he returns (n*ked) as an ally, to protect young adult John and his future wife Kate (who is unfortunately engaged to someone else). 

Nick was the second actor to play John Connor.  There have been several others, including Thomas Dekker (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) and Christian Bale.

Carnivale (2023-25) features paranormal beings working in a carnival during the Dust Bowl of Depression-era Oklahoma.  Nick plays Ben Hawkins, a farmer, chain gang fugitive, and healer who joins the carnival and eventually becomes an Avatar of Light.  He's hetero, but one of his girlfriends, Sofie, is a lesbian.

Tim DeKay (left) plays Jonesy, who runs the ferris wheel, and Michael J. Anderson, the backwards-talking dwarf on Twin Peaks, his boss, Samson.

More after the break. 

Freddie from ICarly Finally Shows Us His Chest

Remember Freddie, the nerdish video engineer on Nickelodeon's ICarly (2007-12)?  It had some rather homophobic scenes, including a queer-coded Big Bad, but at least Carly and Sam had a gay subtext relationship, big brother Stuart was obviously bisexual, and Freddie was cute.

Then actor Nathan Kress started to bulk up.

Fans waited patiently for some shirtless shots, if not on the show, then on Instagram, Facebook, Myspace, Snapchat...anywhere?  On the beach?  Demonstrating your workout?  Taking a selfie?

Nothing.  Nathan never even wore a sleeveless shirt.

Did he think muscles were incongruous with Freddie's nerd image?  Or as a fundamentalist Christian, was he worried about his body sparking lustful thoughts in teenage fans?

Who knows?  Physique aficionados eventually gave up on him, and moved on to guys who weren't so stingy with muscle displays.

Well, it's been six years since ICarly ended,  and Nathan is 26 years old, still buffed, still fundamentalist, only now with a beard, wife, and kid (I mean an actual beard).

He's done guest shots on other Nickelodeon shows, some voice work, some directing, and some acting.  His major projects include disaster (Into the Storm), horror (Tell Me How I Die), something about teen dancers (Breaking Brooklyn),  and a web comedy about an Apocalypse that didn't happen (Alive in Denver).

His new show, RadioActive Dads, will premiere on July 24th.

He's still shy about displaying his physique, but there are two shirtless shots amid the hundreds on his Instagram site.  Both taken at the same time.

Here he seems to be saying, "Ok, fine, here I am with my shirt off.  Happy?"













Not really.  I mean, you're hot and all, but was it worth all the secrecy? What's the big deal? Everybody has a chest.

See also:

Nathan Kress, Freddie from ICarly, grown up. Is he still homophobic? Is he still shy about showing his d*ck?

ICarly

12 Forgotten Beefcake Boys of the 1980s

When I was living in West Hollywood during the 1980s, we didn't go to movies much, due to the rampant homophobia. Nearly every movie featured a discussion of how much the main characters hated gay people.  In Teen Wolf, Michael J. Fox protests that he's not a "f__."  In American Werewolf in London, David Naughton calls Prince Charles "a f__"  In Breakfast Club, Judd Nelson writes a warning on his school locker: "Keep out, f___"

But in spite of the homophobia, there was a lot of beefcake.  Men took off their shirts regularly, in frat houses, swimming pools, locker rooms, on wilderness treks.  Some famous, others obscure.  Here are 10 forgotten beefcake boys, actors who surprised us by displaying impressive physiques in one or two movies, and and then vanished.

Or at least never took off their clothes again.

1. Anthony Edwards stripped down to his rather impressive underwear by customs agents in Gotcha (1985).  He went on to teen s*x comedies and eight seasons of ER, but never showed his impressive equipment on screen again.

2. Dan Shor talking to his dad n*de in Strange Behavior (1981).   The backside that "sealed his popularity" in West Hollywood never appeared again, but we got a nice view of his front in Tron (1982).

3, Ilan Mitchell-Smith buddy-bonding in a cut-off t-shirt and blue shorts in underwear in Weird Science (1985).  He retired from acting and became a history professor. Also starring a semi-n*de Michael Anthony Hall and a bare-backside Bill Paxton.

4. Tim Curry lookalike Kevin van Hentenryck runs down the street n*de in Basket Cases (1982).  It's a long shot in the dark, but you can definitely see the bouncing.  There are two more Basket Case movies, but no more Kevin c*cks.

5. Don Michael Paul (left) took his shirt off in  The Brotherhood of Justice (1986) and Aloha Summer (1988) before settling down to a fully-clothed career in writing and directing.  He specialized in horror movies.

6. Nick Corri was  killed while n*ked in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and went Full Monty in a locker room in Wildcats (1986).  He changed his name to Jsu Garcia and became a spiritual teacher.

More after the break