NySocBoy's Beefcake and Buddy-Bonding

Oct 17, 2016

The Boys of Lassie 1: Jon Provost

As a kid, I liked Flipper and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, but I wouldn't be caught dead watching Lassie (1954-73). The soppily sentimental theme song, the collie's maudlin whines, the heart-tugging plotlines, the nauseatingly cute boy-owners -- I thought it was fit only for grandmothers and little girls. I'd rather watch something a little more macho, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, The Young Rebels, even Wild Kingdom if I had to.

But some gay boys liked the boy owners -- their cuteness, their lack of any perceptible interest in girls -- and, as they grew into adolescence, their hunkiness and the frequency with which they took off their shirts. There were three of them, but the most famous was Jon Provost (born in 1950), whose Timmy lived with the dog from 1957 to 1964.

Timmy started out a blond kewpie doll, saying things like "golly-gee" to his adopted parents. But he didn't stay a kewpie doll long.

When his stint on Lassie ended, Jon was 14 years old, well into his adolescence, and gay boys and heterosexual girls were starting to take notice.

He hung around with other teen idols, such as Davy Jones (left), Kurt Russell, and Kevin Schultz. No boyfriends, but according to his autobiography, Timmy's in the Well, gay buddy Sal Mineo once got a little too grabby during a three-way with his girlfriend.

Jon tried his hand at singing, and starred in some movies: This Property is Condemned (1966), The Secret of the Sacred Forest (1967), and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1970), starring Kurt Russell.

The teen magazines responded with swimsuit and extra-tight painted-on-slacks photos.

But he was too typecast as Timmy to get the full teen-hunk treatment, so Jon retired from acting, except for a recurring role on The Adventures of Lassie (1989-92). He got his degree in psychology, and settled down to a civilian career. He still attends fan conventions, and is gracious to the boomers, both male and female, who had crushes on him as kids.

See also: Katts and Dog

The Boys of Lassie 2: Tommy Rettig

The Boys of Lassie 3: Skip Burton

Oct 14, 2016

Saved by the Bell: Thinking of reasons for Mario Lopez to take his shirt off

Mario Lopez has been unfailingly pro-gay (except for a tweet proclaiming his love for love for Chick-Fil-A, which was quickly removed). But what about his Saved by the Bell buddy Mark-Paul Gosselaar?

He hasn't been quite as vocal in his support, but he seems cool with gay fans: "There are people out there who desperately want me to be gay. I don't have the heart to set the record straight."

My friend Infinite Chazz claims to have dated him.

Born in 1974, the child star burst -- literally -- into teen idol fame in 1989 when he was hired to play one of the supporting players in the Hayley Mills vehicle Good Morning, Miss Bliss, about a caring junior high teacher.

But after a year it became Saved by the Bell, with Zack Morris, Mark-Paul's glib teen operator the undisputed star. It lasted for four years, spawned two spin-off series and innumerable Saturday morning clones, and gained 24 Young Actor Awards nominations.

The plots of Saved by the Bell mostly involved demonstrating that the teens were heterosexual -- falling in love with the wrong person, deciding if the kiss meant anything, having two dates on the same night -- with a smattering of minor social problems, like smoking or cheating on tests.

But same-sex desire was always lurking just beneath the surface. Zack, gay-coded as blond, pretty, stylish, fashion-conscious, and vain, is often the butt of jokes about misdirected or misinterpreted desire.

When Zack qualifies for the track team so they can beat Valley High, Principal Belding (Davis Haskins) hugs him and cries "I love you!" Seeing the suspicious looks from passing students, Belding backtracks into an arm-clasp and "I like you!" More suspicious looks, so he backs off altogether and says "Uh...I mean good job, son."

There's a knock at Zack's bedroom door. Thinking that it's his girlfriend, Zack opens it wide and exclaims "I love you!" The school weirdo Screech walks in, waits for audience howls to die down a bit, and says "I love you too...but only as a friend."

Strangely, none of these jokes involve Zack and his constant companion, sullen jock Slater (Mario Lopez). Maybe they can't occur with passionate partners, or they would bring their unstated romance too close to the surface.

After Saved by the Bell, Mark-Paul played mostly conventional, even old-fashioned heterosexuals: a horny college boy in Dead Man on Campus (1998), a computer exec who moves back to his quaint small town in Hyperion Bay (1998-99); plus the standard detectives and cops. His Detective John Clark on NYPD Blue (2001-2005) had a number of risky sexual encounters with women to assuage his grief after his girlfriend dies.

And there was very little beefcake, at least on screen. An accomplished athlete, Mark-Paul was often photographed swimming, scuba diving, and engaged in other sports that involve bulges or bare chests.

In Franklin and Bash (2011-2014), Mark-Paul returned to buddy-bonding, playing Detective Bash to Brecklin Meyer's Detective Franklin. Though both are horndogs, the homoerotic subtext is strong and obviously intentional, an attempt to cash in on the 2000s bromance fad.

Truth Be Told (2014) was a buddy comedy starring Mark-Paul and Tone Bell as odd-couple best friends.

And fans got to see more of Mark-Paul's still impressive physique than they have in twenty years, in spite of TV Guide's heterosexist assurance that he goes shirtless only "for the ladies."

See also: Infinite Chazz is Dumped by Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

Oct 11, 2016

Jake and Logan Paul, the Internet Brothers who Became Superstars

Getting famous today doesn't require an agent, a recording contract, or a public relations firm. It requires a social media account, creativity, and killer abs.

Jake and Logan Paul are brothers from Cleveland who started posting goofy photos and videos on the social media sites Vine and Youtube, and before they knew it, they were stars.

6.5 million followers on Instagram, 5.2 million followers on Vine, 1.0 million followers on Twitter.

My blog has 7.5 million page views. Logan's Vine has 4 billion.

When he's not posting, 21-year old Logan is a former high school wrestler now studying industrial engineering at Ohio University and doing some acting.

He's appeared on Law and Order: SVU, Stitchers, and Foursome, and stars in the Youtube Red movie The Thinning.

19 year old Jake dropped out of high school and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career, and found that being a social media star opened a lot of doors. He has appeared in the teen comedies Dance Camp (2016) and Mono (2016), and is now starring in the Disney Channel's Bizaardvark.

He has published nude full-frontal selfies in Instinct magazine, making him probably the only actor to pose nude for a gay magazine while starring in a Disney Channel teencom.

You can see the nude photo on Tales of West Hollywood.

Oct 10, 2016

A Gaggle of Rockies from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

Arguably one of the main draws of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is Rocky, the gold lame-clad muscle hunk who is created by Dr. Frank-n-Furter and experiences sexual awakening:

I am just seven hours old, truly beautiful to behold,
But somebody should be told, my libido hasn't been controled.
Now the only thing I've come to trust, is an orgasmic rush of lust.

Where else in cinema of the 1970s are you going to see so much bodybuilder physique? And ever after, in the many Rocky imitators who gather every week for "absolute pleasure."

Here is an assortment of Rockies from various stage productions and homages.

Frank says specifically that Rocky has "blond hair and a tan," so this guy s technically doesn't qualify, but he certainly has the physique for the job.