Vintage gay erotica 80s magazines leather
‘Menergy’ exhibition brings 1940s-1980s gay magazines out of the closet
Throughout the mid-late 20th century, many parts of queer existence in the Together States were relegated to the shadows, to a labyrinth of disguises, of chance encounters in bathrooms, or handkerchiefs with concealed meanings. Accompanying this nature of secrecy was a universe of often underground magazines and publications that informed their group, while providing an outlet for pleasure and connection.
“MENERGY,” an exhibition in the fittingly-titled Little Underground Gallery of the Jefferson Market Library in the West Village, offers an introduction to the clandestine world of gay male magazines published between the 1940s and 1980s, bringing them out of the closet and into the spotlight.
Most of the magazines on present, both in their original pocket-sized format and reproduced as larger-than-life prints, highlight photographs and drawings of scantily-clad and often muscular men, catering to a different type of male gaze than heteronormative society is accustomed to. But don’t write them off as nothing but sexual content: At their core, many also carried overtly political mess
Exhibition dates: 2nd November 2013 – 26th January 2014
MOCA Pacific Design Center
PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART WORK OF MALE NUDITY AND EROTIC IMAGES OF GAY MALE SEX – IF YOU DO NOT Enjoy PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN
Bob Mizer (American, 1922-1992)
Physique Pictorial Volume 16 Number 4, February 1968
1968
Publication
Printed with permission of Bob Mizer Foundation, Inc .
What a fantastic pairing in this exhibition and in their relationship in real life. We must remember that Tom of Finland was a ground-breaking artist, one of the very first to picture masculine gay men, “robbing straight homophobic tradition of its most virile and masculine archetypes (bikers, hoodlums, lumberjacks, cops, cowboys and sailors) and recasting them – through deft proficiency and fantastic imagination – as unapologetic, self-aware and boastfully proud enthusiasts of gay sex.”
He would have only just been in his twenties when he started drawing men in the early 1940s, inspired by the soldiers and uniforms he saw around him from the Second World War. With no outward gay culture in Finland, let alone in America u
The Last Gay Erotica Store
By the cash register at AutoErotica in San Francisco’s historic Castro gayborhood, a little sign sticks out from a plastic container of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Have One, it reads, written in pink marker. You’d expect to look the chocolates when visiting your favorite uncle, not in a store packed with so many male bodies on display. The gold foil wrappers gleam against a framed 1970s ad for poppers—a white bottle blasting off through space—and a 1978 poster for a Chicago bathhouse bash. There’s another for the 1988 International Mr. Leather contest. And, of course, there are the dicks. On the walls, slim studs ripped from magazines lean back on couches at occupied salute. Illustrated Tom of Finland daddies showcase boners spilling out of leather chaps. Framed male nudes flank bins of vintage gay porn magazines with titles like Honcho, Mandate, and Blueboy.
Owner Patrick Batt opened this store in 1996, long before the Starbucks and the SoulCycle moved into the neighborhood. Before the current renewed interest in lgbtq+ historic material (though for some, that spark never died) saw vintage magazines sell for upwards of $100 a pop on eBay. Before th
We’re Obsessed With This Hilarious (and Sexy) Parody of Trashy ’70s Lgbtq+ Porn Mags
“I’ve always loved gay porn from the ’70s because it was a lot more down to earth than the porn we notice today,” says Greg Scarnici, a New York-based comedian who recently released Hot Rods, a new book parodying a beloved format of adult entertainment from times gone by, the vintage gay erotic magazine.
“There was no manscaping — just natural, hairy physiques on lean men who weren’t overly worked-out,” he says. “Everyone had a beard, or a mustache, and shaggy, unkempt hair. The men I saw in those magazines were a lot more relatable than the perfect Adonises we see today.” And that’s exactly the type of guy you’ll find throughout the 100 pages of Hot Rods, courtesy of some purposely cheesy shake-N-go toupees.
Scarnici’s parody of the vintage gay erotic magazine is able to complete two things at once: titillate with sexy photos of muscly hunks in various ‘classic gay porn predicaments,’ and induce belly laughs with its tongue-in-cheek take on the horribly written erotica that was all too common with this type of mag.
“The grammar was horrendous, the writer always seemed to fix