(Content warning: men’s bodies, references to sex between men, not suitable for kids or the sexually modest. On the other hand, there will be some delightful birds.)
Yesterday’s Daily Jocks sale ad (for harnesses, plus accompanying jockstraps and athletic socks) via e-mail, featuring the model I’ve called Reggie. In the ad, we see Reggie in character as Thilopyrus flamminips, the fire-nippled flit, performing his mating ritual; note the characteristic cruising facial display (narrowed eyes, intense direct gaze) and the inflamed party plumage (rainbow harness and jockstrap), but especially the left nipple actually on fire (when both tits ignite, the flit spontaneously ejaculates, at the same time producing his climax cry, a fierce, drawn-out whoop: “Fuuuuck”)
Reading the face and body that nature gave me — what do these features mean? and where did they come from? — and the face and body that I have fashioned, and re-fashioned, over time — what was I aiming for, and why? and what did others make of it? — and my face and body as I use them in action, presenting myself to the (sociocultural) world around me — what sorts of persons do I think I am? and what sorts of persons do others see in me? (Yes, persons. Like everyone, I am a conglomerate of identities and personas.)
Well, yes, life, the universe, and everything. But I can bash at a bit of the answer — if not 42, then maybe 2, or 3, or even 7, or at least some satisfying ancillary information about 2, 3, or 7.
The raw material for these musings is pictures of me collected in my 5/20 posting “Forty facial years”:
1958 through 1995, so not quite 40 years. For my face, in 8 shots, the last two providing more of my body as well. Today just the visuals, with little commentary, beyond locating the photos in time, place, and occasion.
(also, significantly, noting facets of my appearance and of the way I’m presented in the photos).
Taking off from a delightful ad for Romperjacks on Facebook back in November and December:
Here I give you the ad photo, and inventory some of the things it inspires me to write about in future postings (several being themes from earlier postings on this blog).
What I posted to Facebook on 4/8, on the occasion of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. My follow-up said that, yes, the reference was to Agee (the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, on which more below) and added:
I can’t begin to say how pleasing KBJ’s appointment is to me.
To amplify a bit. This is not the Promised Land, but it is nevertheless a Big Fucking Deal. One of the things about my hero John Lewis that moved me especially was that he truly believed that we could reach the Promised Land in this life (not in an afterlife on Jordan’s other bank) — just not in his life, it would take some time. [More below on Lewis and this astonishing bit of faith on his part.] Meanwhile [Lewis believed], we have to keep moving on the path. KBJ is a highly visible step on the path, and that’s a big thing, a moment of joy.
(There will be a few excursions in passing about men’s bodies and man-on-man sex. If you can manage an appearance or two of the sexual verb fuck, you’ll be ok.)
From Ann Burlingham a couple days ago, a greeting card with a photo from the 2020 Australian Firefighters calendar, showing a man and his dog:
(#1) How to read the man, how to read the dog, and how to read the relationship between them
It turns out that there’s an amazing amount of content packed into this photo — I’ll try to reveal a bit of it here — and the photo leads to much more, including andirons, Dalmatians, lexicography, and the cartoonist George Booth.
(hunky men modeling underwear or underwear-adjacent garments, classical male nude statuary, references to the male body in sometimes intimate detail, so some might want to exercise their judgment about this posting)
Today’s Daily Jock’s e-mail ad offers an eye-catching vision of an ideal male body, an athlete posed at rest, his gigantic sculpted musculature held powerfully in reserve as he strikes an attitude of Greco-Roman male beauty, his unfocused gaze directed down and to the side. A decidedly modern and calculatedly homoerotic presentation reproducing the pose of the Westmacott Athlete, from a very different aesthetic and cultural context, in which the beauty of a boy athlete conveys the moral ideals of goodness and truth embodied in balanced strength, nothing in excess.
The DJ ad for the Cellblock13 Kennel Club Bandit collection of harnesses and jockstraps (available in four intense colors), marketed as fetishwear — that is, as homowear, for display, rather than as gymwear, in actual athletic gear:
(#1) Bandits in intense blue (they also come in intense red, pink, and gray), worn by a superhumanly muscled model; try to imagine him as sculpted in warm brownish marble
(A little tribute to, among other things, man-on-man anal sex in the Cowboy position, and the facial expressions and gaze accompanying the act — so definitely not for kids or the sexually modest. There are fuzzed-up images below; the photos with the genitals untouched are in a parallel posting “The locked gaze” on AZBlogX today.)
(Note the title. Stud hustling and men tricking with men, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)
The Daily Jocks ad in my e-mail on 2/7 reproduces the archetypical cruise pose, deployed in both hustling (for sale) and tricking, or hooking up (for play), by men for men:
(#1) [ad copy:]
NEW: UTILITY SHORTS
BE READY FOR ANYTHING
Everyday practicality with weekend style, your new favourite shorts have arrived at DailyJocks.
(Attractive men modeling underwear, some of them contemplating their genital packages. But nothing raunchy.)
Yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad with the model I’ve called Helgi in Helsinki Athletica Kasper long johns, contemplating his own handsome body:
(#1) Helgi4, following three previous DJ photos of this model set in a trendy bathing room; like Helgi2 and 3, modeling long johns, this time in an off-white with just the slightest touch of pink (a shade DJ calls Dusty Pink); like Helgi1, casting his gaze downward to admire, Narcissus-like, the weighty excellence of his own genital package, but now sliding his right hand down his firm belly under the waistband of his underwear (man’s got a hand in his pants)
(Men in various states of undress, visibly tumescent while minimally clothed, looking for sex with other men — so not for everyone.)
Yesterday’s mail ad from Daily Jocks, a carefully composed, even elegant, presentation of a muscular young man posing in fashionable form-fitting long johns that highlight his weighty package, while he fixes us with an intense gaze that gay men use in cruising for sex with other men (in another context, it’s the intense, fixed smoulder that straight men use in trolling for sex with women):
(#1) Call him Helgi (it’s Scandinavian and heroic); he’s posing in the trendy bathing room from two other recent appearances of his — on 11/12 in a much cruder pose but still in Helsinki Athletica long johns; and then on 11/3 in very brief white DJX Signature briefs, apparently contemplating the excellent penis contained within
I’ll revisit those two appearances (with notes on the sociosexual worlds of gay men) and then turn to the English garment lexicon, focusing on long johns, tights, leggings, and the union suit.
But first, a bit more about the presentation of Helgi in #1.
