A site I stumbled on — FU(UU)CKING YOUNG! (sometimes one U, sometimes three), F.Y! for short — which combines a passion for edgy men’s fashion (with great attention to the shows and the models), young men, and queertopia (my word, not theirs). The logo:
(#1)
Gaudy rainbow colors (though not in canonical order), the shock of fucking (the expletive intended here as a degree modifier), and absolutely no hint as to what the site, and now its companion print magazine, are actually about. But eye-catching, really eye-catching.
And the whipped cream on top: a frothy statement of purpose.showing signs of both postmodern rhetoric and translation from Spanish.
Still, the site is entertaining, and it has some fascinating feature pieces — recently one about Bob Mizer’s Athletic Model Guild, on the occasion of a two-volume summary of Mizer’s physique photography, which was fairly crude at first but eventually developed into a genre of extravagant homoerotic art, both earnest and extravagantly playful in a way that reminds me most of Pierre et Gilles.
From the magazine’s (Spanish) site, “curated by” Eduardo Garcia & Adriano Batista:
F.Y! A brief in men’s fashion and culture
FUCKING YOUNG began as an inspirational platform focusing on youthful aesthetics derived from manly hemispheres. Our freedom allowed us to merge established with emerging artists, thus aiding the latter reaching their own public. A synergy that owed most to a passion for the arts has since grown to a state where not only do we promote content created by others, moreover we sponsor and collaborate in birthing such work. Now we also celebrate this community’s creativity with our printed magazine, which intends to better shelter our love and presence in the youthful hemisphere of the current times.
It would be hard to beat “an inspirational platform focusing on youthful aesthetics derived from manly hemispheres”; I’m afraid that “manly hemispheres” brings muscular masculine buttocks to mind. But never mind: this is the place to learn about Wilhelmina’s young male models and view some outré fashion designs, meanwhile keeping on top of ideas in the world of young gay men.
The print magazine has topical issues. Some titles: Outsider, Blond, 1997, Future, Museum, Mountain, Zodiac, Obsession
Now: from the site on the 15th: “Bob Mizer: Two volumes and two decades of top physique models!”, by Adriano B.:
In 1945 Bob Mizer began taking photographs of strapping young men on Muscle Beach in Venice, California. In December of that year he formed the Athletic Model Guild to market his photos, and “physique photography” was born. Before Mizer there were bodybuilders and men who photographed them, but AMG photos, even those of the same men, were different, subtly provocative, discretely aimed at a gay audience. They weren’t nude, but showed as much as the law allowed in 1945.
In 1951 Mizer launched Physique Pictorial, America’s first indisputably gay magazine, bringing his photos of top bodybuilders to grateful readers worldwide. By the late ’50s Mizer had photographed over 1,000 men, moving from the beach to his quirky Los Angeles studio, where he introduced props including Greek columns, Roman headdresses, rear projection, and famously, his mother’s glassware, for theatrical Hollywood effect. In 1957 he published a catalog featuring all his men, titled 1000 Model Directory. In 1968 a second 1000 Model Directory followed, with the men photographed in the intervening years. The little 98-page books became instant collectibles, but the photos were so small, 12 to a page, that they were as frustrating to view as they were titillating.
Now we have this volume:
(#2)
Almost everything Mizer did was over the top; this one is fairly restrained. There’s a more extravagant image on the cover of Dian Hansen’s big 2009 book Bob’s World: The Life and Boys of Amos Bob Mizer, reproduced as the fourth image in a 7/26/10 posting of mine with “a remarkable mutual-gun-fellatio (and mutual-gunbelt-fondling) image of two horny young cowboys”.
More cowboys on the Fucking Young! site, this time facing up to an Indian, everyone clad in a thong and bearing a phallic weapon.
Eventually, Mizer was able to move to full nudity and to indulge in a wider range of subjects, including a considerable amount of bdsm, though usually with an antic twist. Three of these later photos are in a posting of today on AZBlogX: first, a naked young man suspended upside-down in chains (an image that had to go on my X Blog because it shows his asshole); then a naked boy, his cock, and his dog; and finally, an agonistic portrayal of two naked Roman soldiers, one with a sword, one with a scepter. (Phallic images abound in Mizer’s photos, reinforcing the actual phalluses in the later works.)
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