Boys showing off their junk!

We live in the Age of Porncreep, where everyone aspires to be a porn model — from the boy next door to the store-bought boy on DVD. The Under-Thirties just can’t take off their clothes for the camera fast enough.

And yet…What could be more wholesome and natural, to quote Tallulah Bankhead, who when Chico Marx tried to get a rise out of the lanky glamorgirl with a crude “I intend to fuck you, Miss Bankhead,” replied, “And so you shall, you dear old-fashion boy!”

Old-fashion boys have always been proud of their displays — the peacock (not peahen) flares open his tail to reveal a starry twilight sky out of the Arabian Nights, and this magnificence finds its boydom equivalent in the raging two-handfuls of hard-on.

Indeed, what could be more wholesome and natural …. with one slight but very modern twist.

Here we invoke the shade of the now forgotten Jeff Gannon:

In the wake of the gay-escort scandal that would reveal Jeff Gannon to be not only a Republican mouthpiece planted at White House press briefings to ask friendly, Bush-idolatrous questions but that he himself — a studly Lex Luthor lookalike with bald, cue-ball head — was a gay hustler with a website that sold dates, underwear, and his own bodily secretions … in the wake of this the most delicious “Family Values” scandal of 2005, ol’ Jeffrey faced the hostile questioners with a bland Lex Luthor smile and the sort of uncanny clairvoyance usually left to Allison DuBois. (more…)

Half-naked men!

It’s hard to top full-frontal nudity. But some half-dressed men — like the one at left — manage to do it with the sheer menace of their stare… the size of their arms! … the rip of their abs!

Why is it that certain stages of undress appear more naked than outright nudity?

The answer, I think, lies in the eye of the beholder.

Certainly we gay men look at half-naked men more aggressively than women do. The difference has little to do with homosexuality, a lot to do with the male sexual gaze.

“Men look at women,” gender scholar John Berger famously observed. “Women watch themselves being looked at.”

It’s a crucial difference. I think it is this eye-hunger, the frank aggressiveness of the male gaze, that explains why the half-nude seems more maddening to us than the Full Monty.

There is also the fetish power of clothing. Fetishes, for the most part, are about clothes — particularly those sexually charged costumes in which the body appears to be both naked and not naked at the same time: (more…)

There are so many things right with this picture of the ultimate alterna-boy, Jonathan Rhys Myers, returning to his car after shopping for dinner that we feel compelled to point them out to you.

In fact we feel these photos should be used as instructional examples for all aspiring male sex symbols to study before ever venturing out into public. (more…)

When you begin life as a Mouseketeer on the Disney Channel and you’re heading into elderly twinkdom, you get a little … well, desperate.

You might suddenly want street creds and ghetto bling, gold teeth and inky tattoos.

Anything but the naked, virgin chest of yesteryear’s Boy Band sensation.

You might want to be Justin Timberlake, who this month will debut in the film Alpha Dog as a white gang banger.

Think Emenem — but not repellent. Think, actually, babydoll cute with a slaveboy haircut and a lovely sun-kissed six-pack constantly on display.

Yes, Justin is all Street — except the street is Rodeo Drive.
(more…)

Why am I not surprised? We are, after all, still living in the reign of George II, King of the Second-Rates. American Idol’s two best vocalists — Elliott Yamin and Paris Bennett — hit the bottom two last night. So let’s see, that leaves the show’s next best vocalist Katharine McPhee lodged in the number three slot with the Monotone Maven (Chris Daughtery) and Gray Charles (Taylor Hicks) in the top two.

Let’s skip the psychics and decode Idol’s new “official” photo (right) which was released this morning. The tableau tells us exactly how the next four weeks will play out. Photo’s often reveal more than we dare hope for, and this one … well, this one’s got me crying in my beer.

Elliott, smushed to the edge and with the lowest height, will be the next Idolette to follow little Paris down the chute.

Nerves did him in during Tuesday’s opener, a notoriously bad placement on the show. There’s a reason long-time viewers of Idol call it the Death Spot. (more…)

In the immortal words of Susan Powter: Stop The Insanity. We know it’s only an ad campaign, but who wouldn’t run for a copy of Zolar’s Dream Dictionary to make sense of Dolce & Gabbana’s latest excursion into Consumer Mind-Fuck?

Not even Freud could decipher this hallucination. (more…)

Cary Grant, believe it or not, had figure problems. Studio costumier Edith Head used to keep special mannequins of the stars she worked with on a regular basis, and when George Hamilton — a sort of deeply tanned Cary Grant update — was first sent to her, he was shown the many secrets and countless sins that a good suit could conceal.

In an interview I once did with Hamilton, he told me how he marveled at Grant’s strategic tailoring, suits padded here and there to disguise a mild case of chicken chest and a tendency toward round shoulder.

Not that you’d ever notice. In those Edith Head suits … well, Cary had the sort of special-occasion sex appeal that nudity would have lessened. You sort of wanted to have sex with him while you were both in tuxedos.

Every great picture of a man in a suit has echoes of Cary Grant — that’s how strong his impact was. Grant was the platonic ideal of Man in Suit. Never stuffy, quietly elegant, all effortless man chic (caught with great economy by celebrity cartoonist Al Hirschfeld, above.) “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant,” the actor once famously said. “Even I want to be Cary Grant.” (more…)

The Indians were right. They believed photos captured the soul. How else to explain the soulful picture above: President Bush, making a speech from a beribboned balcony, appears to be wearing a big ole patriotic skirt. Something you’d expect to see on Miss America during a Miss Universe pageant. The only thing missing is the Statue of Liberty torch. (more…)