Visit a Photomanip Blog

I generally don't like photomanips for the same reason that I don't like most muscle growth themed art: a lot of artists don't quite understand that the best kind of photomanips, the most believable sort, are small, subtle twists for more pleasing proportions, and "extreme" level photomanips fall into the "uncanny valley," where something is obviously fake and your mind rebels against the idea.

Also, with the near-universal availability of programs like photoshop, there are a lot more bad photomanipulators than good ones.

With the blog BigDudes, the very best photomanips are the most recent ones where he just tweaks them for masculine dimensions instead of inflating them grotesquely. It's actually possible to see him improve: the first few images are unrecognizable masses of grunting overstuffed bulges, whereas the recent ones are sleek, unbelievably massive and well proportioned. Perhaps I don't "get" photomanips as well as others do, but I like to think for a woman I'm more visual about sexuality and attraction than normal. However, it is true that with any celebrity or photographed figure, the more they're airbrushed the worse things get.

Visit his work here.

Special emphasis should be paid to some of his more robust muscle posteriors and backs. This blog is definitely one to watch for.

An interesting comparison picture

I found this absolutely remarkable photoshop job that compares Arnold and Ron Coleman at their primes.

It's easy to think, "hey, maybe they took one of the best Arnold pics and matched it against the worst of Coleman's and make Ron look bad," right? Actually, the Coleman pic was taken from the 2000 Mr. Olympia, which incidentally, he won.

It just goes to show there's been a transformation in the aesthetics of the bodybuilding world, and it rhymes with "steroids!"

To be as clear as possible: the problem isn't just bad pharmacology, because chemicals have always played a role in bodybuilding and sports. Rather, the problem is how they've transformed the exercise patterns of bodybuilders, how they've gone from a supplementary role to the centerpiece of training. Previously, bodybuilders trained year-round. Now, bodybuilders train for several weeks prior to a competition and pump their bods full of chemicals. The winner isn't the person that's trained the hardest, but the guy with the genetics to blow up like a sponge in a few weeks with heavy training.

The problem isn't just steroids, but how bodybuilding has totally deviated from ideals of health and beauty and has started to speak its own language. Mass and training have become ends in and of itself, and the press (notably the mysoginistic, homophobic IRONMAN) have become so insular. Because of the development of bodybuilding as a niche subculture that speaks its own language, there's an extreme lack of introspection. Nobody ever tells these guys, "y'know, your thighs look like a bagful of cats." A generation or two ago, bodybuilders produced movie stars like Steve Reeves and Lou Ferrigno; it'd be impossible to do this today.

The net result of all this is an unwholesome, bloated, somewhat grotesque appearance with big roid guts. For heaven's sake, look at Ron's calves and compare them to Arnold's: they look like a bag stuffed full of cats.

What happened to the idea of bodybuilding promoting a physically healthy, attractive ideal male body? Ron, the winner of the Mr. Olympia and thus the poster boy for the entire culture, has an unattractive body with an emphasis on mass alone, trained and bloated by pharmacology with a build that is something like the human evolutionary equivalent of a peacock's tail, without the peacock's tail's attractiveness.

It's worth noting the only truly good looking bodybuilding men are the naturals: Konstantin Ruzanov, Ulisses Jr., Denis Sergovisky, Mike O'Hearn.

Denis Sergovskiy, all 6'1" of him

An interesting thing about bump-n-grind male revue beefcake dancers from Russia: there are occasions that it's obvious they were trained at Soviet state run circus and dance schools. For instance, at Denis Sergovskiy's old Las Vegas show, "From Russia With Love," they position a female audience member on a chair, over which the big Russian does a handstand right over it...and several lift the chair and hoist it above the air.

As if that wasn't intriguing enough, supposedly they were going to also have an aerial wire-work scenario. It's Cirque de Soleil stuff like that, that really just makes Vegas muscle revues so memorable.

Denis Sergivskiy is a shockingly huge 6'1", with startling symmetry and definition; he's like a Greek statue, if one of them decided to get a little bit more in-your-face massive.

Listen to Denis's strikingly baritone, masculine voice in this vid. Considering other muscle athletes (ahem, Ron Coleman) have voices that are a cross between Minnie Mouse and Mike Tyson, this was something of a relief.



If you don't want to watch this whole thing, just skip ahead to 0:50, for the poolside shots.



The near transparent muscle shirt that Denis Sergoviskiy is playing dress-up with here is actually not just an oddball male stripper prop, but is in fact a real piece of clothing: it's a variation on the Cuban guayabera worn in the Phillippines.

Although Denis, we love your legs and bouncy, tight muscled butt, but please, do avoid the bicycle shorts. You're not going for the Olympic kayaking events.

"Mr. Ukraine" Konstantin Ruzanov

It's very disappointing when a bodybuilder, especially a very good looking one, walks away from bodybuilding as Konstantin Ruzanov did. He was a "natural" and left the sport when he saw what it took to succeed at the higher levels, chemically speaking.

I say, good one on you, Konstantin! The insane quest for size, the bizarro "hardcore" bodybuilding grunt culture personified by MUSCLEMAG, has to end somewhere. The days are long over where bodybuilding was a masculine, healthy pursuit: it's funny how Reg Park and Steve Reeves outlived many that came after them. Besides, natural bodybuilders look better anyway: better proportions, zero 'roid bloat.

If Konstantin Ruzanov ever made it in movies, I have a feeling he'd play bad guys, or do costume dramas. If he's any good as an actor, he'd make a great Count Vronsky in ANNA KARENINA. On the other hand, I can see him as a "Conrad Veidt" type: a guy best known for playing the Nazi heavy in movies like CASABLANCA despite the fact he left Germany because of the Nazis.

Incidentally, I had a Konstantin Ruzanov pic as my desktop wallpaper for a few days (I change it, on average two or three times a week, and I almost never have beefcake pics). I was working on a research assignment with a fellow grad student, a girl that was the daughter of immigrants from Trinidad.

When I went to show her my work on my laptop, as it booted up, she approvingly looked at Konstantin Ruzanov and said, "wow, now he's a black woman's kind of white guy."

I have absolutely no idea what she meant by that, but it's worth noting that in her own apartment, there was only one "sexy" pin-up poster: a white wifebeater clad Justin Timberlake. Hmmmm...!

A few YouTube vids:

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...

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.)

The Sexiest Bodybuilders of Today

As much as I admire musclemen, all of whom are great athletes whose dedication I respect…but a lot of them aren’t that hot. It takes a long time to really develop mass, and so a lot of the more famous ones are older men.

There are a lot of sexy, handsome, chiseled studs with unbelievable physiques these days. They give us an Olympian ideal of strength combined with masculinity and traditional, classical handsomeness. In short, they’re guys with the whole package.



7. Brett Mycles

I like my men the way I like my steaks: beefy and All-American.

(I don’t eat meat anymore, but just...go with it.)

That’s Brett Mycles, or should I say Rob Sager: he’s the studliest, cutest jock you ever knew in high school.

If you ever want to see a good looking guy, just rent some gay porn. There’s lots of yaoi sensuality as a bonus factor. It’s always depressed me how in straight porn, none of the men are ever good looking. I suspect this is because of homophobia: most straight men wouldn’t want to have an accidental “gay” moment.

Unfortunately, Brett Mycles’s story doesn’t have a happy ending: he died in his thirties back in 2006, leaving his family, girlfriend and others. He’s doing wet, shirtless pictorials for the Angels now in beefcake Heaven.

Incidentally, I’ve already picked out my own porn name: Carmen Tangier. They ought to give me a call next time they want to do “The World’s Naughtiest Psychology Grad Students.”

6. Chris Jalali

He’s so cute!

I never read Tiger Beat, ever, as I had dignity and wasn’t the sort to get swept up with the crowd. But Chris Jalali activates the atavistic part of my brain remaining from my middle school girl ancestors.

The best part about Chris Jalali are his cute little nipples. They’re like tiny saucers. I could lick them all night.

5. Deidre Pagnanelli

I’m not just including the Italian-born Deidre as the “token” female on this list, but out of sheer astonishment at how well this beautiful Mediterranean woman can smoulder. Remember "Big Dragon II?" She's a dead ringer for how I pictured the post-ring Morgan.

4. Paul Telfer




God Bless Scotland!

The thing I like the best about the Brad Pitt-gorgeous Paul Telfer is his rough quality. He has a muscular build that's rough and blue collar. You just know he won't be gentle in bed: he'll throw you on the bed and take advantage of you like the handsome, big brute he is.






3. Sagi Kalev

Here’s what astonishes me the most about “Mr. Israel” Sagi Kalev: they never did the single most obvious pictorial to do, namely, “Man In Uniform.” He’s not just a dark, chiseled guy that looks like Dylan MacDermott with a Herculean brickhard build, he’s an honest-to-goodness war hero in the Gulf.

I’m sure Sagi Kalev’s got what it takes to please all the size queens too, male and female. It looks like he keeps a live guinea pig in his trousers.

2. Denis Sergovisky

It’s an interesting thing about Denis: anybody that’s ever criticizes his appearance generally says something like “he’s too perfect.” Well, I’m of the opinion that you can never be too perfect, along with being too rich or too thin.

“Blue-Eyed Beast” just doesn’t cover it. He’s so good looking, so perfect, you have trouble accepting what you see as real.

1. Ulisses Williams Jr.

Oh, come on. Could #1 really be anybody else?

He’s like something out of an episode of Desperate Housewives: a personal trainer for successful women. In a lot of film studies, they argue that the reason movie stars are so successful is because they’re “a reconciliation of opposites.” For instance, Will Smith’s success is due to the fact he can be goofy, yet sexy at the same time. Marylin Monroe was approachable and a goddess at the same time.

Ulisses Williams on the other hand, combines two qualities that would otherwise be contradictory. He’s handsome and sophisticated and stylish, but he also has a heat and grind like a male stripper. The man is nothing short of sex personified, a black Adonis with the body of a Hercules.

Of all the physiques I’ve ever seen, Ulisses Williams is the most astonishing. Healthy, strong, without roid bloat, natural, with delineated abs, he looks like something a genetic scientist would create, with his wide wingspan back, delineated chicklet muscles around the abs, and glistening, flawless dark skin. If I had to create my perfect man, it would be someone very much like Ulisses Williams Jr.

The sexiest professions?

I'm a New York City girl through and through, and for a lot of women of my generation that have independence, degrees, education, and careers of their own, it's usually less important to choose men on the basis of how well they can "keep" you. More and more, you see lots of women that are choosing young, handsome men for sexual purposes, to show off, and have sexy arm candy. In other words, women are choosing men for the same reason men have traditionally married young trophy blondes. I suspect this trend will increase as women get a lot more power in our society.

If you're a guy, this may be either bad news or good news. On the one hand, if you're a brawny, sexy guy, you have the possibility for a "sugar mama." On the other hand, it may make a lot of guys uncomfortable: after all, men aren't used to being sexualized. They're used to doing that to women! I've heard a persuasive argument that the origin of homophobia is the fear among men they might get treated themselves the way they treat women.

Sex tourism among wealthy first-world women is a pretty big event these days. Older gals love muscular, tall guys in places like Kenya and Jamaica, where a crop of giggolos lives to please visiting English and American divorcees.


1. Firefighters

There was a whole routine in Sex in the City about how the one thing you’re not allowed to talk about is the idea the reason Firefighters are such a big fantasy is a result of the desire to be rescued. The moment Cynthia Nixon mentioned it, the temperature dropped 20 degrees, especially among the hip, independent New Yorker career gals the Sex and the City types are. To admit it wasn’t okay.



But other than that, it’s not hard to understand why firefighters are such a big deal. They’re heroic, frequently covered in sweat and grime, hardbodied, brawny, frequently engage in lifting. They’re usually tanned, darkhaired Mediterranean types. In fact, they’re required to be strong: the average firefighter is required to be able to lift a 200 pound adult and run with them, for obvious job-related reasons. They're alpha males, confident and physical.



(And I made it through this one, successfully resisting the urge to use a single “hot” pun! Yay!)




2. Male Stripper



One of my asshole guy friends made the kind of observation that only assholes can make, which at first sounds like classic guy douchery, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. We were talking about the income gap between men and women.



“Oh, the gap doesn’t matter so much, because women can be strippers.”



I hit him on the arm as hard as I could for that.



“Hold up, think about it,” he said. “Unless you’re really really fat or old, most women could work as a stripper. Guys though? You can only be one if you have this superhuman, built bod almost no guys really have.”



I found this line of reasoning really hard to argue with.



The reason male strippers are sexy are not just because of their superhuman builds and desire to please and be sexualized, but because of their gift for accessorizing. Nothing is sexier than little bowtie collars, or leopard print jungle-man man-scraps.



One of the more absolutely jaw-dropping moments in the history of bodybuilding would be that time the unbelievable, supermasculine stud Ulisses Williams Jr. turned a regular flex and posing routine into something with a stripper heat and bump n’ grind.




3. Personal Trainer



I’ve joked about this before, but I’ve frequently imagined that once I turn forty, I would divorce my husband and have an affair with some sexy 20-something pool boy or gardner.

The reason personal trainers are sexy is because of the promise of secret, scandalous affairs.



4. Cowboy



Dark, tanned skin, chapped lips, an open grin, friendly eyes, a big rugged chest bursting out of an unbuttoned flannel shirt…yeah, there’s nothing like a cowboy. There are very few real men left on earth.



5. Serial Killer


This isn’t a fantasy of MINE, but I’m listing it here for the sake of completeness, because of all the girlfriends I know that think Sylar from HEROES is extremely hot. The appeal I can totally understand: women are frequently sexually attracted to things that make us afraid, and aggressive, predatory men with real intensity can be a turn-on.


I like to think I have a little more sanity and common sense than these silly people, of course, but it would be a lie…this entire nutty blog would be proof!

A big dick isn't a big deal

I am concerned that some have misinterpreted my previous post a few days ago. Yes, I am a size-queen, but a big dick isn't really that big of a deal. On the list of male bodyparts, it comes 37th, if that, and if I was being honest, I'd say a smaller-than-average one is actually pretty sexy too.

When a person has anxiety about something, and fears something, the easiest thing to do is a mental process called reductionism – something is easier to understand and be a lot less nervous about if it is reduced in complexity. This happens in, for instance, foreign policy, and the media. Take for instance, the coverage of the recent Russian invasion of Georgia: it’s much easier to do what the press does, blame it on scary aggression by our old sparring partners, the Russians, as opposed to analyzing the historically complex, three way nature of the conflict between Georgians, Ossetians, and Russians.

If it’s something you’re scared of, reductionism can make it easier to deal with. I’ve argued previously that the entire basis of the website EpicLust is anxiety about women. That’s why there’s a fascination with large penises at EpicLust: if you’re afraid of women, if our motivations are imcomprehensible and unknowable, and it’s hard to understand what it is we want, it must be very reassuring to say that the secret to attracting adoration from women is to pack a superendowed protein pistol. For a great deal of men that don’t understand complexity in attraction, this can be a very powerful fantasy: the reduction of human sexuality to just having a big dick. Really, it’s just not that simple and never has been.

The gay fascination with muscle guys

I’m a female muscle growth writer, which surprises a few guys, and I often get very bizarre comments like “Wow, I thought only men were into this!”

By far, the single question that annoyed me the most is, “Why do you think more men are into muscle men than women?”

There’s no way I can answer that question without acknowledging an absolutely outrageous premise, like “do you still like to beat children?” So many women like muscular men, or find them sexy, and so many gay men think visible veins are icky.

But hey, don’t listen to me, listen to science. Not a day goes by some behaviorist institute puts forward the idea that as a whole, women have a sexual preference for muscular men, and muscular males are more likely to have lots of previous female sexual partners than non-muscular brethren. Wow, now there’s some shocking results. Who did the survey, the Institute for Figuring Out Really Obvious Things? I guess science has dedicated itself to proving that High School actually happened.

But it is undeniable that the muscular male physique is seen as a fundamentally gay interest. This has led some to believe that there’s something hard-wired about loving muscle for gay men, or something about women that leads them to not like it – an idea that I reject. Rather, the current gay love of all things muscle is mutable and non-biological and had its basis on historical and cultural factors that are actually very recent.

When my mother was growing up in Brooklyn in the sixties and seventies, she knew a lot of gay men, and all of them, she said, were thin, harmless “fairies” that were bad at sports. There may be an element of stereotype in this, and it is one person’s subjective experience, and there may be class and regional factors in play, but it is true that the emphasis in gay culture was not on muscle. Prior to the 1980s, the most famous figures associated with homosexuality were Andy Warhol and David Bowie (who once famously said that he was a “closeted heterosexual”).

Good physiques have been valued since Ancient Greece, but the beginning of the modern gay fascination with muscle men starts in the 1980s with AIDS. It’s impossible to compare the horrifying devastation AIDS had on gay communities, especially before modern drugs were able to make AIDS something less than a total death sentence. AIDS is a wasting disease, and being muscular and built says, “hey, I’m healthy.” That’s when we start to see the gay fixation on bodybuilding. Gay gyms were not new to the 1980s, but their prominence and central role in gay culture was new, and the new desire for size and strength dovetailed nicely with traditional Western ideas about the male appearance.

I (HEART) Asian Men!

Of the five guys I dated in college, two of them were Asian. They're something about their exotic looks, midnight-black hair and gold skin that drives me crazy. They absolutely look great with muscles. Take for instance, personal trainer Stan McQuay, who is like the ultimate surfer stud, the kind of beach god you have a crush on over a whole summer. He's got great glistening gold skin, sexy tattoos, a flawlessly cut, brawny bod. His very hot, well groomed and pointed beard kind of makes him look like a sexy version of Dr. Fu Manchu.

What a Beast!

And we've also got old school physique favorite, former 1970s Mr. Japan title holder Ken-Ichi Suemitsu, who looks as glorious and godlike as an Ancient Greek statue. This was back in the day when bodybuilding emphasized proportions and sheer beauty over raw size. Absolutely magnificent looking man, with the best abs and narrow core I've seen this side of Gordon Scott.

Unlike Asian men, I've never dated any Asian women yet...but if I did, I'd be sure to save a little for Polynesian/Chinese fitness queen and exotic dancer Sasha Ogata, who's got me white-hot with lezzie lust.

Pre-Sound Muscle Stud Movies

Imagine this. It's 1894, and you're Thomas Edison. You've just invented a new technology, the kinetiscope, and you've captured motion. What's the first thing you're going to film?

Why, a muscle guy, of course!

And not just any: the strongest man in the world, Eugene Sandow.

Here's a 1894 film of Sandow:



Here's a clip of the winners of the first Bodybuilding Competition ever held in 1904, featuring the most perfectly developed man and woman:



And then you have the first great muscular movie star in history, long before Steve Reeves and Arnold: Bartolomeo Pagano. According to legend, Pagano was a Milanese stevedore that director Pastrone saw when walking by, and on the spot, hired him for his movie.

The movie was 1914's CABIRIA, one of the most influential and important movies in film history. Martin Scorcese has written a lot about it; supposedly, many of the innovations we credit to D.W. Griffith were actually developed by Pastrone a great many years before.

Bartolomeo Pagano, as the muscular black slave Maciste, was nothing short of the star of the show, interestingly enough, the first and last muscleman to be a good actor.

Watch CABIRIA!

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Bartolomeo Pagano's awesome biceps, dominatingly huge height, and cut physique let him muscle his way into the Italian film industry, where he did nothing less than 25 spin-offs featuring the superstud slave Maciste.

The most famous of these was 1925's MACISTE IN HELL, which supposedly is the movie that made Federico Fellini want to be a director. Even today, it's one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, a film made of awesome, as wild and epic as the Shaw Brothers' INFRA-MAN. Maciste punches and pummels his way out from Dante's Inferno. I guess even Satan is no match for pecs of steel. It has these brilliantly bizarre intertitle cards with lines like "The Dragon - Hell's Aeroplane" and "You fool, you blasphemed, and now you are in my power!"

The Archive doesn't allow direct linking, but here, have a look at MACISTE IN HELL.

While in Hell, all the lustful she-demons want a little of Maciste because of his splendid physique!

Internet Archive: Maciste in Hell

Things that turn me on

Thought I might compile a list of things that turn me on, especially about muscle guys.

1. Older-Lady-Younger-Guy. After marriage, I'm probably going to leave my husband for a 20 year old, brawny boy-toy. In fact, that's probably going to be the topic of my next story: a cougar and her cougar cub.

2. Big Thighs. Seriously, nothing's better than clutching thighs the size of granite and as wide as tree-trunks. Nothing's better than seeing a guy in jeans, whose thighs fill them up like walnuts in a condom, whose teardrop shaped muscles make his legs look sunken.

3. Dark hair/Light Eyes combination. Nothing makes me melt like a blue or (especially!) green eyed guy with dark hair.

4. Well-groomed goatees. The handsome, charismatic Robert Downey Jr. (one of my five favorite actors of all time, incidentally) had one in his latest adventure movie, and I have to say, it looked GOOD.

5. Deep voice. Love a guy with a deep, growly voice that makes my toes curl. The best one would be some combination of Orson Welles and Barry White.

6. Tarzan. This one is self-explanatory. Tanned, hard, rugged wilderness guy that can fight tigers for me with his bare hands.

7. Captain Jack from Doctor Who. That man was put on earth to thrill women.

8. Accents. My personal choice for the sexiest? North Italian. Or maybe a Jamaican.

9. Bisexual guys. Nothing's hotter than a guy that wouldn't mind "sharing." Paul Telfer's supposed to be bi.

10. Daniel Dae Kim. You know, the Korean guy from LOST? Seriously, ever seen that guy shirtless? He's got abs that could break a bowling ball to glass.

11. Tattoos. I love a man like I love my coffee: hot, black, and covered with scorpions. I like "nice guys" but deep down, there's a motorcycle riding bad boy I secretly want!

12. Places to have sex. On top of the hood of a lowrider.

13. Smutty-minded men. Remember the old urban legend that guys think about sex once a minute? Ha ha, if only. But it's a nice thought, isn't it?

14. Well-Endowed Men. Any girl that says it doesn't matter has a boyfriend that isn't very large. Nothing feels better than a massively endowed stallion, especially if he's got muscles to match. It's not so much important if he's big, so long as he's THICK, an iron-hard girthy girder that makes you feel during sex that he's touching you in the neck.

15. Smart guys. I guess you figure I probably added this one so I don't look shallow, but really, this is very important to me. Ideally, a guy should be like the men of Ancient Greece: handsome, well-developed bodies, but with well-developed minds. Our school system should encourage the Greek Ideal!

16. Rich guys. Always make sure to look for the bulge in the back of the pants, as well as the front!

17. Feats of Strength. Nothing's hotter than a guy that tears phone books with his hands, can crack a walnut between his pecs, or bend a penny in between his abs with a crunch. Not to mention popping a measuring tape with his neck or bicep flex! What's more dramatic is popping a measuring tape with the TRICEPS - those muscles are really the part that give the arm its size.

18. Vampires. Some girls are waiting for their Prince Charming. Me, I'm waiting for Dracula.

19. Aussies. Love Australian guys! Bronze-tanned, rugged, from Outback cowboys to surfer guys, they grow 'em big and cute Down Under!

20. Small Waists. A big upper torso and wide back isn't as dramatic or sexy unless the guy has a small hard waist for it to spring from.

21. A big tongue. Sticks it out, and it stretches six inches or more. This is even more important than big genitals at least for me. A long tongue is great for those, ah, hard to reach places.