Archive for the ‘Gender and sexuality’ Category

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The shirt and the scent

November 28, 2021

Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro takes us to the Men’s Department, where a salesman of extraordinary style purveys clothing, shoes, accessories, and men’s fragrances:


(#1) The striped shirt is a marinière, and the two scents are jokey takeoffs on men’s fragrances (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)

From my 2/16/21 posting “Hello, sailor”, this description of

la marinière, the cotton long-sleeved shirt with horizontal blue and white stripes; characteristically worn by seamen in the French Navy, it has become a common part of the stereotypical image of a French person

More on the shirt below. Meanwhile, the cologne Horse Soccer (from Barf Lauren) is a play on Polo (from Ralph Lauren); the source of the name Royal Whiff for the other cologne is still a mystery to me, but no doubt an enlightened reader will explain the joke to me (though Royal Whiff would be an entertaining name even if it has no direct model).

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Posted in Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Smell | Leave a Comment »

zhuzh it up!

November 25, 2021


(#1) Available as a sticker from Redbubble, also as a t-shirt

Enter Monica Macaulay (in Wisconsin), who posted this ad for seasoning packets from Uncommon Goods on Facebook yesterday, with her innocent comment:



(#2 & 3) Monica: “zhuzh it up! apparently a well-known expression”

Well, yes, well-known in some circles (dictionary resources, in considerable detail, to come below). It was popularized earlier in this century in the US by the tv program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; but then back in the 1960s and 70s in the UK by the BBC radio program(me) Round the Horne, with high-camp characters who made much use of a secret lexicon called Polari.

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Posted in Clothing, Fashion, Gender and sexuality, Masculinity, Slang | Leave a Comment »

Cruising in his long johns, take 2

November 16, 2021

(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.

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Posted in Art, Books, Clothing, Etymology, Facial expression, Gaze, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Male art, Photography, Underwear | 1 Comment »

The long johns, the erection, and the cruise face

November 12, 2021

(Significant mentions of erections, plus a photo of a barely covered one, displayed with carnal intent — so not to everyone’s taste.)

This morning’s ad from Daily Jocks offers extremely form-fitting long johns from Helsinki Athletica, modeled in such a calculatedly raunchy way that I broke out in helpless laughter.

The ad copy for the garment (illustration under the fold):

SPECIAL PURCHASE: 40% OFF LONG JOHNS

The Helsinki Athletica Long Johns [AZ: note Ad-Copy Capitalization] are made from premium modal [AZ: modal fabric is made by spinning beech bark cellulose] which forms to your skin with ultimate comfort, whilst showing off your best assets. [AZ: If you got ’em, flaunt ’em!]

These Long Johns are only available for 1 week per year! [AZ: I’m not sure we could survive an extended display of them.]

USD $19 | AUD $27 [The DJ company is in Oz.]

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Masculinity, Phallicity, Underwear | 4 Comments »

From the legends of Brino and Bantam

November 11, 2021

(Mostly just silly, or chicken-oriented, but there are two interludes involving male genitals and sex between men, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, in which a superboy swings with a miniature superchicken:


(#1) Wayno’s title: “Wardrobe Choices”(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are only 2 in this strip — see this Page.)

Interlude 1: I have a poem for this:

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

Dick Dino decor

November 9, 2021

(Well, yes, penis-simulacra heavy on the ground, so unwelcome to some eyes, though it’s all pretty silly. But there’s the warning.)

It started with this dickosaurus photo from Aric Olnes:

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and animals, Language and the body, Phallicity | Leave a Comment »

The Crosse-Jones spunk affair

November 6, 2021

(The spunk in question is semen, so, yes, we’re going on another adventure with men’s genitals and sex between men, so this posting isn’t suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

[Background note: see my 10/30/21 posting “Bearing the face for our era”, about the faces of Carolus-Duran (late 19th-century European art world) and Peter Korn (early 21st-century Silicon Valley tech world).]

Today’s story starts with my coming across Face 1 below (from a Lucas Films photo), on the cover art for the gay porn DVD London Spunked.


(#1) On the expression: narrowed eyes, lowered brows, intense gaze, somewhat tight mouth — possibly conveying a challenge, or dominance

We are all attentive to faces: we usually look at them first when we view a scene with figures in it, we check them to see if they’re familiar, we try to interpret their facial expressions, and so on. In this case, I think that, in any context whatsoever, on a quick view I’d have identified Face 1 as belonging to the same person as Face 2, a face I know very well (as a favorite actor in gay porn):


(#2) A different facial expression: eyes somewhat widened (especially his right eye), brows somewhat raised (especially his right brow), gaze alert but not intense, corners of the mouth slightly raised to make the hint of a smile — possibly conveying friendly interest

The two men have the same hair style and facial hair style, though #2 is darker and longer in both respects, but that could be just a temporary matter of grooming. #2’s skin tone is more golden-brown than #1’s pale skin, but that could just be tanning, or the lighting of the photos. #2 has a furry chest (visible at the neckline), while #1 is smooth, but that could just be a matter of trimming (in fact, the guy in #1 is not very furry, but keeps his chest trimmed down but not actually smooth, while the guy is #2 is naturally furry as above, but often trims his chest hair in similar fashion.

But then, but then …

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Posted in Faces, Facial expression, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Verbing | Leave a Comment »

Superhero action

October 31, 2021

(Male genitals and sexual acts discussed in street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest)

In my 9/15/21 posting “Items of gay decor”, the section on The ritual of the action figures displays the Action Three — Leather Carlos, Tom of Finland’s Rebel, and Army Tyson (all of them hyperbolically homomasculine articulated toy figures variously labeled as dolls or action figures) — in the company of their woolly mammoths, under the blazing sun in one corner of my bedroom

And now, having contemplated (in my 10/28/21 posting “His fathers’ powers”) the complex lives of the superheroes (especially Aquaman, his husband Plastic Man, and the superhero son of their mating — superheroes have come a long way since the days of my childhood with Superman), I invited three D.C. Comics superheroes to join the Action Three, to serve as their power guides: Batman for Tyson, Superman for the Rebel, and the Flash for Carlos. It was time for some Superhero action.

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Slang, Toys | Leave a Comment »

Seven faces

October 29, 2021

Seven portraits of men (from 1875 through 1910) by John Singer Sargent, evoking character and state of mind, or celebrating male beauty, or both. Spurred by the appearance on Pinterest of this extraordinary charcoal sketch (from 1900-1910) of the young Italian man Olimpio Fusco (with his address on it!):


(#1) Fusco appears in at least one other drawing of Sargent’s — more explicitly sensuous —  in which he’s lying, naked, on his back in bed; these two drawings have led critics, with great caution, to describe Fusco as perhaps a “romantic interest” of Sargent’s

Put that aside for a moment, while I add that Sargent can fairly be described as having been a compulsive artist — always ready to dash off  a sketch or draft of pretty much anything he saw that caught his eye: colorful flowers, children playing, women’s clothing, faces (all kinds of faces, but especially men’s), street scenes, landscapes and seascapes, whatever. He did this sometimes with an eye to developing the sketches into works that could be exhibited or sold, but often just for his own pleasure. Sometimes for his very private pleasure, as in a large body of male nudes (many quite sensuous) created over the years, a selection of which were published finally in 1999, in this volume of John Esten’s:

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Posted in Art, Facial expressions, Gender and sexuality | 4 Comments »

DI Halloween

October 27, 2021

In the 10/26 daily cartoon by Ellis Rosen on the New Yorker site, Halloween comes to two guys on a Desert Island:


(#1) In real life, trick-or-treaters sometimes appear at a house unexpectedly, causing the residents to scramble to find some candy, or something, to give them — now, relocate this mundane scene to a cartoon-memic Desert Island

Pretty much anything that a cartoonist transports from real life to the DI situation is going to be deeply absurd: Where, on a tiny bit of beach in the middle of a tropical ocean, would some candy be stashed, especially without the castaways knowing about it? And how did a boat of trick-or-treaters find their way to the island? (Why, in fact, would they go to such trouble for such a slight chance of reward?)

But then every Desert Island is a theatre of the absurd.

So much for the basics. Now to branch off in several directions.

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Posted in Books, Comic conventions, Gender and sexuality, Linguistics in the comics | 2 Comments »

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