Artist Roundup: Jozef Szekeres

Boy, haven't done an Artist Roundup in a while. Remember when this was the centerpiece of the entire blog? I suppose the reason it hasn't been around in a while is that great undiscovered muscle boy artists are a little like oil: there's a finite amount and eventually you start to dry up.

Every so often, though, someone new and impressive shows up, just like new oil wells are drilled or discovered.

This guy is Josef Szekeres, who is unapologetic about the beauty and almost androgynous sensuousness of his men. These aren't rugged pioneers with a five o'clock shadow, but etherially beautiful, sensual and youthful men. His favorite artistic subjects are fairy tales, elves, and Mer-Men.

Visit his deviantart gallery here. I highly recommend it. His art is the sort that can't be contained by tiny blogger windows.

Agnes Varda, my favorite French director ever, had a great line in LE PETITE AMOUR, one of her best movies: "Do all women love boys...or just those without sons?" The film was about a divorcee with two girls that makes herself sexually available to a nervous, awkward young man because she wants to revisit her youth. I am reminded of that quote now with his art.

The single piece of his that made me a fan was this one:

Now, I never had a bad thought about a ginger guy before, but the idea of a brawny sauna stud with freckles all over his beautiful torso, arms and legs? Now that's just great. I'd love to count the freckles on his body.

New Ulisses Williams Jr. Fashoin Shots

I'm sure everybody's tired of me blabbing on about him by now, but it's so rare to find him in new images.

Take for instance, the new Ulisses Jr. shots, an overwhelming ten pages of glamour pictures at Fashoin Stock Photos.

See the Ulisses Jr. Gallery Here

Man Candy: Jason Scott Lee

Jason Scott Lee, like Charleton Heston, spends the majority of his career without pants on. Good for us, because of his startling legs: they're quick and rhythmic, like a ballet dancer's, that you can just fantize rhythmically making love to you. Thighs like that should be outlawed.

I never entirely bought Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee in THE DRAGON STORY, because while Bruce Lee was unquestionably a great athlete and actor, his appeal was that he was a likeable everyman, a working-class sort (which is why he is so very identifiable). Jason Scott Lee, though, is a Greek God, clearly handsome, the hottest guy playing beach volleyball.

The very best movie of JSL's career was RAPA NUI. RAPA NUI (1994) is a fascinating movie about a fascinating time: the last days of the vanished people on Easter Island. The most overused word on IMDB is "underrated," but RAPA NUI really was underrated and unappreciated: it's easily one of my ten favorite dramas of all time. The story was based on class conflict. Two suitors want a woman, one of the high-caste long ears (Jason Scott Lee), the other of the low-caste laborers that build the Moai, the giant stone heads that adorn the island, who compete for the love of a woman in the Bird-Man, a supreme triathlon that challenges JSL's hard, agile muscles.

The story is about the insane drive to build the Moai at all costs, and is easily the strongest performance of Esai Morales's career, his anger and rage palpable at an unjust society. The images from it stick with you: one of my favorites was Jason Scott Lee weeping as he clenched the very last tree left on the entire island to prevent it from being cut down.

Easter Island is a lonely place: no land anywhere for 1,000 miles, the inhabitants see only infinite ocean in every direction, with themselves as the only people on earth. The ecological theme speaks for itself, all the more frightening because it was something that actually happened.

One of the best Jason Scott Lee movies was Steven Summers's JUNGLE BOOK, which is easily the best A-list Tarzan movie ever. Yeah, I know it's about Mowgli, but c'mon. There was no "boy" anywhere here. The story had animal sidekicks, a wild man struggling with whether he was human or an animal, and lots of Tarzan-esque plot threads like wooing a beautiful English woman of society with competition from a handsome but douchey civilized suitor (here, it was Princess Bride's Cary Elywes at his absolute hammy best), and that most Tarzan-esque of all plots, the discovery of a lost city.

Most Asian actors only get "Asian-guy" parts, however, it's interesting to note that Jason Scott Lee played a Mexican (BORN IN EAST L.A.), a Polynesian (RAPA NUI), an Eskimo (MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART), an Indian (JUNGLE BOOK), a Hawaiian (LILO AND STICH, voice only). The only thing he has yet to play is a Swede, but then again he's not dead yet...

Tarzan Lives

There are certain things that Hollywood can and will do over and over, no matter how many times it's been done before. Every five to ten years there's always another THREE MUSKETEERS, Sherlock Holmes, or Tarzan.

Recently, there are rumors going around of another Tarzan movie, to be directed by Steven Sommers (who did a "stealth" remake of Tarzan with his excellent live-action JUNGLE BOOK, starring the always brawny and charismatic Jason Scott Lee). Now there's something exciting to look forward to. The last halfway decent beefcake movie was the intriguing BEOWULF.

Me, my personal favorite Tarzan was always Gordon Scott, who had a great physique, and one of the most startling v-shaped torsos ever: it's like he was an upside-down cone.

For the handsomest Tarzan, it had to be the extremely dashing, debonair Mike Henry. Wow, what a cutie! Nothing better than those cute dumbo ears of his.

Cleveland Thomas: Everything is bigger in Texas

In general, natural bodybuilders tend to be better looking and have more symmetrical, healthier physiques than the hardcore non-natural kind, sexier and more aesthetically pleasing. Most of my favorites have been natural: Mike O'Hearn, Ulisses Williams Jr., and so forth. The same goes for big, sexy Texan Cleveland Thomas.

And now here comes the startling Cleveland Thomas, who has easily the best arms I've ever seen: tall and peaked, a massive orange collected in a single ball that rises to a point.

Here, watch it flex.

Here's another of Cleveland Thomas in a striptease. Everything is bigger in Texas.

Despite the name, it's impossible to confuse these two:

And....

BONUS: Here's another Cleveland Thomas video.

Attack of the Fifties-Man Bodies

In the Classical World, there is nothing more spectacular than the way they glorified the male body, magnificent, muscular, pleasingly well-proportioned and athletic. In fact, the reverse is usually true of the fifties, when blocky Pro-Golfer physiques were everywhere. A good example would be gut-hanging TV joke Adam West.

One of the best and most typical "Fifties Man" bodies would have to have been sported by wrestler Dara Singh in the surreal Bollywood "bakhti" or devotional/religious movie JAI BAJRANG BALI (1976).

Fifties-Man bodies started to go out of style around the time Steve Reeves became popular, and gradually vanished until there weren't any in pop culture come the early 1970s.

Bob Paris

If they're ever going to do a schmaltzy, triumphant sports movie about bodybuilding, there'd be no better story than that of the devastatingly handsome Bob Paris. He was a homeless teenager that emerged from absolutely nowhere to win the Mr. Olympia at age 23.

Alas, ladies, Bob Paris is one of the few openly gay bodybuilders...as in actually gay, instead of having a gay-for-pay biz on the side to keep them in soy powder and Brazilian horse steroids. Bob Paris fights for civil rights and dignity for homosexuals, which is admirable and makes him one of those "role model" types that "overcome adversity," like Colin Powell and so forth.

There are a few openly gay bodybuilders, natch. Most of them work for Cher.

And now a word from our sponsor...

I've never understood the objective of milk commercials. Milk is a part of our culture, in everything to the point where it's downright unavoidable (as those of us that are lactose intolerant are aware). Doing commercials for milk is as pointless as doing commercials for oxygen.



Even by the standards of milk commercials, this one is harebrained. "I was a tiny Freshman, but I was huge as a senior a mere four years later?" Egad, what mysterious process has taken place here? SURELY MILK MUST BE RESPONSIBLE.

I guess it all goes back to the zeitgeist, the eighties, the second golden age of muscles. Muscles were like milk: in everything. As movies turned away from director-centered films and onto Spielberg-esque escapism, the musclemen actors (descendants of the rugged Lloyd Bridges mixed with equal parts Eastwood and Steve Reeves) took over macho movies. It's an interesting time to examine from this perspective, something I don't think has ever been done.

YouTube Roundup II

I'm tiny, so I just need to smell alcohol and I get wasted, which is exactly what happened last night with the Obama victory celebrations. People here in Queens were hugging perfect strangers and cheering.

Thankfully, a brigade of my loyal gay guy friends were able to flank me and take me back without me being taken advantage of. I felt like Louis Farrakhan. Thanks for sending the enforcers, Pink Mafia!

I don't ordinarily comment on politics (at least on this blog), but there is such an overpowering sense of history in the making with my pal Barry getting elected, that to not mention it in this blog would be living in denial of the world around me. Congrats, Barry!

To celebrate, here are a couple YouTube Videos.



Now that's what lats are supposed to look like!

Steve Reeves Forever!

There is one thing I will absolutely never get tired of, and that's looking at vintage physique photography of Steve Reeves. As an undergrad, when I still lived in housing, I had a giant Steve Reeves poster on the wall above my bed, which I used to give a light "good morning" peck to when I got up in the morning. Classically handsome, chiseled, with a physique like an Olympian god. He was perfectly cast as demigods like Hercules; only when playing mere mortals did he ever seem unbelievable. For actors, usually the reverse is true: it's hard to swallow that they're larger than life beings. I suspect this is why Reeves was so seldom seen outside Sword n' Sandal, a genre that was particularly perfect for him. It's hard to believe Reeves as a Rock Hudson-esque "suitor next door" in a romantic comedy, for instance. He was too blue-eyed, classically perfect and mythically physiqued.

It's hard to believe Steve Reeves turned down the part of James Bond in the original DR. NO, and the Clint Eastwood part in A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS. Sergio Leone's FISTFULL, incidentally, marked the end of the assembly-line S&S movie in Italy, as overnight they switched to producing the "Spaghetti Westerns." I have a feeling Reeves regretted that move, because he was from Montana and he always saw the highlight of his career was his one and only Western. It's funny how lead actors in Westerns and Sword n' Sandal pics are so very interchangeable.

I have no idea if Steve Reeves was approached to play Captain Kirk before Shatner was, but that would have been too perfect. There would be another role they had Reeves in mind that went on to become an institution with another actor. Reeves is the only person that would have been a worse. Actor. Than. William Shatner.

It may sound like I'm a little harsh on Reeves there, but I suspect one of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood is that Charleton Heston was actually a pretty crappy actor. But Heston had a presence that filled a movie. Much the same way Reeves's presence did the same for his films: you didn't pay to see acting, you paid to see a personality.

Healthy, massive, flawless, without roid-bloat, Reeves gets you nostalgic for a different kind of male physique ideal than the current, crazy "size over everything" crowd. I'd have a hard time calling him the handsomest man ever as long as Ulisses Williams Jr. exists, but that is certainly a label that, if it is an exaggeration, it isn't much of one.

Some might complain about the black and white photography, but I think this is missing the point. First, the reason most older physique pics are in black and white is because the world was black and white back then. Second, physique photography is meant to be in black and white. It turned limitation into a necessity by the use of contrast between light and dark on sun-glistening flesh.

Steve Reeves will be missed. I'm especially sad he died before he could make his cameo appearance in Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR. Now that would have been interesting.

I wonder...will the angels ask to feel his arms in heaven?

Jeff Dwelle

Here's my Halloween treat for you: handsome Jeff Dwelle, who came to my attention with his jaw-dropping M&F cover a few months ago.

The trouble with muscle guys prepped for competition is that they generally look fake. I swear, I've probably seen more orange skin than Tropicana. But Jeff Dwelle actually looks GOOD that way - the only other guy that has skin that reacts that way would be Mike O'Hearn.

I know what you're thinking, because it's the exact same thing I'm thinking: "does he have a brother?" The answer is yes - his brother Richard is also a bodybuilder!

Also: he has massive thighs to die for. Squee!

BONUS TREAT: Johnny Jackson has the most astonishing chest I've ever seen. Watch those things bounce and pop!

Just remember, this Halloween, that the best costume of all is a good physique. If it's good enough, it's recognizable all by itself.

(Hmmm, who could THAT be? :-) )

When does the interest in muscle guys start?

Here's something I've noticed about people that like brawny, studly muscle hunks, whether male or female: it's lifelong. I've never met anybody that was "turned" to muscle guys, the way Janet was in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW - it's a lot more hardwired than that.

Most muscle carnivores can't identify a time they didn't like muscle guys, even going back into early childhood. Depending on the age and generation, they can identify responding sexually to a whole variety of things. For me it was cartoons: I remember having a big crush on Lion-O and He-Man from saturday morning television.

Members of the previous generation have similar stories, watching muscleman movies on television: Sword n' Sandal pictures, Tarzan and gladiator pictures, and so forth.

There's a commonly held fallacy in our culture that awareness of and interest in sexuality starts at a certain age, and I think this is intriguing.

YouTube Roundup

I thought I might kick off a great new section on this blog, "YouTube Roundup" by posting some great selections of muscle guys from YouTube. Unlike a lot of other women, I'm very visual about sex, and one thing that's always been missing from still pictures are the element of movement, the way muscles bunch and slide under the skin like pythons under silk sheets, powerfully clench and tighten and burst like popcorn kernels, flexing rhythmically.

I'm often curious how they get these videos, but I'm betting it involves midget cameramen.



Everybody here knows how much I love Sagi Kalev, one of the most studly and gorgeous hunks in the world, but apparently here's a tape of Sagi training a protoge, youthful, cute and strong Kevin Perod. Wow! He's a big, sexy Texan that could be a movie star, and I expect the best from him.



Keeping with the Texas theme, here's Adam Young. Watch his arms go. This may be the first occasion I'm NOT against gun control!



This one has a bodybuilder yank his shirt up.



Here's a handsome Jason Powell at work. My favorite part is how you can see his pecs move at the slightest motion of his arm.



This guy moves like a cat. Still pictures don't do him justice.




Incidentally, it occurs to me that after a few months, people reading this post in archive form may not be able to see the videos, which is inevitable but tragic...I'm embed linking and that's how the internet works.

Tippy Teen #25

Continuing the theme from the last post of upbeat Americana (or Mexicana, as it was last time) here's the cover of TIPPY TEEN from 1969:

I've always thought it interesting that on a lot of occasions featuring muscular guys in popular culture, they're often portrayed as vain, sexually disinterested, self-absorbed, and utterly unthreatening to other men.

Now this just took my breath away

It's interesting how, with some fictional characters, a good illustration is always more buyable than any actor that has played the role. Tarzan comes right to mind, for instance.

One fictional character that definitely comes up when it comes to studly beefcake is the immensely tanned, masculine and blue-eyed Mexican hero Kaliman, whose covers often had a sensationalist, barely contained sexuality like the adventure, crime and pulp mags of the 1940s.

Kaliman is drawn as physically ideal, a composite of some of the best movie stars.

Now, if only some superheroes north of the border could look this yummy...!

Muscle Growth Comic

My very first blog post all the way back in May was about my good friend, Spanish artist and beefcake artist Chocomus. He certainly has a way with fantastic looking muscle studs, from tight, pert bubble-butts to his thrusting pecs. What I like the most is not only how sensual his proportions are, but also how realistic they are. The trouble with a lot of growth comics is, they always go bigger and bigger, to the point it becomes a little grotesque. He, on the other hand, gets them just perfectly proportioned. Woof! Woof!

My favorite part of the article is Chocomus's guys going commando at the gym. You know, I bet that happens all the time.



It's always disappointed me Chocomus spends so much art time on goofy stuff like leg growth with Dragonball Z characters. It's a little like Michael Jordan leaving basketball for golf. It's good to see Choco back to top form. Kudos!

A few announcements...

First Announcement: I apologize for not updating in a while - it's funny how, in graduate school, things can just appear from nowhere, and I hope I haven't lost any regular readers. I intend to post at least twice or three times a week now.

Also, my good friend TheMM just announced he has a blog, TheMM: the Serious Side. Visit it here. TheMM is a guy interested in muscle growth and muscle, but he's also bisexual, which means he can find me hot, yet we can gab about guys together. This is something like a middle aged woman finding a guy that's into chocolate, church and cats. It's called the JACKPOT, ladies. If anybody wants us, we'll be in a threesome with an adoring, doting Ulysses Jr. (This is called "The Rotissierie.")

Visit The Serious Side here.

The "Serious Side's" blog's title is an inside joke to TheMM's self-appointed role as a goofball on the Musclegrowth.org forums, where, apparently, TheMM is under the sad deleusion people think he's funny. ;)

Third Announcement: I officially declare October Ulysses Jr. Month!

European Musclemagazine Covers

Have you ever noticed that European muscle magazines are more likely to sex up their magazine covers? With some, I can't tell if it's a fitness journal or a beefcake pictorial.

I guess it's because, for some reason, Italian muscle mags are more likely to have dark Mediterranean, Italian men. (I wonder why...)

When I was a post-pubescent girl, I didn't go for Tiger Beat, I went for the muscle man mags (at least when I wasn't accompanied by someone and I quickly checked to see that no one in the store was looking). This was in the mid-to-early nineties when the handsome Mike O'Hearn was required by law to be on every single magazine cover.

One of the great regrets of American bodybuilding mags is the gradual transformation of MUSCLEMAG into the magazine of choice for douchey, homophobic jocks whose pictorials center on unaesthetic, somewhat grotesque guys that remind me less of Adonis or Hercules, but the "Gammas" from Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD. I'm not so much offended by their "wink, wink" subtle endorsement of full time juicing, the insane hardcore "gruntgruntbulgeBIGGERharder" mentality, or the fact it's homophobia and misogyny (strange how the two go together!) became so ruthlessly overt it could actually be called an editorial position.

Rather, I'm offended by their cancellation of the Max Rep comic strip! Good luck getting anything like that today into the dead serious Musclemag. It was the funniest comic strip of all time to people that like jokes about soy powder.

In many ways, European muscle mags are something of a throwback to the days when the purpose of the muscle mag wasn't just to give exercise tips, but to sell a lifestyle with photogenic and handsome male bodybuilders with sensual and perfect bodies that were usually clutched adoringly by submissive women.

In fact, it's interesting to speculate how early physique magazines functioned as a kind of early, unannounced gay porn.

In fact, visit this website for a GREAT collection of vintage physique magazine covers.

The Blog Manifesto

I've been blogging for several months now, and now that I have something of a handle on my blogging style, I can write, in a single post, exactly what this blog is about - besides the obvious, that is. Why do I do it? The answer is I have a different perspective I can share. For one thing, I'm female, and thus I have a different perspective from others that I can share. Likewise, I am a Masters student in psychology, and sexuality is an interest of mine.

When it comes to sex, most of us are a little like cows in a hailstorm: we don't understand what's going on, we just run for safety. Of all human activities, sex and attraction are the least analyzed.

I study psychology - and I am committed to it - because I believe in human rationalism, and psychology is a part of explaining the world in a way that removes terror from it and replaces it with knowledge and treatment. In the Middle Ages, older, vulnerable women that suffered from conditions we now call hysteria and schizophrenia were feared and condemned as witches.

This video speaks for itself...

...so it needs no introduction other than to say every single muscle lover should see it, because it absolutely pushes all the right buttons. Before you watch it, get any flammables out of the house, as this vid may cause them to ignite.



I had to save it to my hard drive - the idea of going without a vid like this is too much to take.

The sexiest muscle men of today Part II

For the first time in this blog's history, it is my pleasure to sport a guest blogger, David artist and all-round cool cat ManOfSteel. (David, remember? Go here) He wrote an illustrated response to the previous post that I knew I just had to post! From here on, my comments are in red. The comments of MOS do not necessarily reflect my own personal opinions or views, just those of the guest blogger.

Take it away, MOS:

Who do I think are the sexiest men of today? Wow. That's a hard one, because we'd need to define "today". Does "today" mean in the era of modern bodybuilding and male pinups? Or does today mean actively in front of the cameras today? I'll assume it's the latter. If you had asked me who were the sexiest men at the beginning of the decade, I could name quite a few, but interestingly, I think there's been a change in the look recently. Friends and I have often commented that you just don't see the big, handsome specimens the muscle and porn studios featured ten or twenty years ago. That's when I think to myself, "Oh my god...has it been that long?" Time flies. There was a time when a handsome face on a big, muscular body was the goal.

(No arguments here, MOS. It's true there are often geologic shifts in the appearance of people. Faces come and go, in style and out of style. That's one of the reasons I was so shocked by the appearance of Kate Winslet: she really DID have a face like someone from the 1910s. Likewise, it's weird how some of the muscle studs and men from the start of this decade seem to vanish without any of us realizing it, though with Brett Mycles, there's actually some tragedy that is the cause.)

Nowadays it seems that the big, muscular body is enough, which is fine for some, or an athletically muscular body with a handsome, young face is the goal. I don't mind seeing either one, but I remember COLT models like John Pruitt, Doug Perry (Darrin Lannaghan), and Buck Hayes who were just awesome, and bodybuilders like Dennis Newman, Bob Paris, and Gary Strydom were wonderful to see.If the truth be told, I don't feel there are many bodybuilders active today that I really think are very sexy...but that's sexy to me. Denis Sergovisky has an awesome build, but his face doesn't fit my version of handsome. And I hate curly hair. Same thing goes for the late Brett Mycles. However, I'm right there with you on Sagi Kalev and Paul Telfer. Let's see...who else:

Chad Ray Martin

See, I must confess, I think it's the "white boy" thing that gets me. Chad isn't male model handsome, but he has that rough, almost good-looking redneck, cockiness about him.

Mark Dalton

Same thing. If I ever see him though, I will slap him for getting those tattoos.

Jim Romagna




The thing about Jim Romagna is that he reminds me of the hunks in high school. They were enjoying a flood of testosterone coursing through their veins and it seemed as though their muscle mass was rising day by day while their voices went deeper and deeper. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I think they knew the torment us gay guys were going through when we looked at them. All they had to do was move...throw a football, swagger down the hall, leave a few shirt buttons undone, and it was as though they were saying to us, "Look at what I will never let you have."

Gunter Schlierkamp



Not sure if he's still competing, but he seems to have stayed in the scene a lot longer than his contemporaries as I have a lot of pics taken from a relatively recent contest. The man has that kind of 1960's suave, debonair handsomeness about him, and when he poses he uses his face as well, giving that butch, serious, grimace that narrows his eyes and sets off his jaw.

(No arguments here! This is, by the way, of all your pics, in my opinion, the best one. The trouble with a lot of male movie stars and actors is their youth. Now I have no trouble with that look - Chris Jalali after all, is on my own list for that reason - but there's something to be said for a rough, very kind of masculine face that shows maturity.)




Frank McGrath

I love this guy. It's the "in your face" mass that gets me. A real meat monster. But unlike other modern bodybuilders, Frank still has a waist, and does not look like he's pregnant. You see, it's not just the mass, it's the symmetry. There are a few other professional bodybuilders I like: Eddie Moyzan (I'll kill him for getting those tattoos), Lee Priest (I'll kill him for getting those tattoos), Art Atwood (another mass monster but his mass is not distributed well), and Branch Warren, but they've all opted for the rugged, tough-ugly, shaved-head look. Frank would be devastating if his face were a little more square and he let his hair grow and parted it on the side.

(The secret to a muscular physique, I've thought, is a small waist. It makes the back a massive wingspan, makes the shoulders look bigger, and in general gives a lean sleekness. It's not all about mass or size, but, like you said, proportions. Muscle can be ugly when used improperly.

As for the tattoos, I suppose it's a generational thing. Nowadays, every guy has a chinese character or two, and even fashoin models have these glamorous sort of Polynesian prints. Then again, I like sleek bad boys with motorcycles...!)



Cameron Mitchell (Caesar)



First, let me just say that I'll kill him for getting those tattoos. (Sigh!) I didn't use to like him, but lately he seems to have been hitting the 'roids (sigh...safely I hope) and has really bulked up. Although I am a big fan of the classically handsome face, he is yet another example of someone who is not pretty in the traditional sense, yet oozes sex. Dirty sex. Raunchy sex. Throw caution to the wind sex. Do me now sex.

(Also, he's got thighs to die for. Woof!)

John Cena


This guy has the face of a Mountie, or superhero. I can just see him in a Captain America outfit.

(Well, I'm nowhere near overweight enough to qualify as a female fan of John Cena. Professional wrestling in general seems like the type of ironic entertainment that is actually pretty entertaining, sort of like monster trucks or sumo wrestling.)



Chris Cook



Chris has beautiful proportions and a handsome face. I don't even mind the bright, blond hair. But I'll kill him for tweezing his eyebrows.

(Now that's what I call a back! He could hang-glide with that thing.)