Better than a Valentine's Day Card

1974 cock play

After seeing the hairy set of balls on one our vintage Valentine smut models (Feb 12th posting of a hairy man receiving a friendly blow job from his enthusiastic friend), VGMH follower Evan was kind enough to share some photos with me. Now for those who appreciate a handsome man in his au' natural state, with hair growing up the shaft of his magestic penis, this is one beauty for sure! Please look for the rest of the photos here and tweeted to VGMH followers this weekend-thanks again, Evan!

Thank You, Evan

After seeing the hairy set of balls on one our vintage Valentine smut models  (Feb 12th posting of a hairy man receiving a friendly blow job from his enthusiastic friend), VGMH follower Evan was kind enough to share some photos with me.  Now for those who appreciate a handsome man in his au' natural state, with hair growing up the shaft of his magestic penis, this is one beauty for sure!   Please look for the rest of the photos here and tweeted to VGMH followers this weekend-thanks again, Evan!

Amercia's First Gay President?

 COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Some homophobic people still refuse to acknowledge that America's had at least one gay president.  Even though the man in question is routinely regarded as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, they still don't want to elevate the standing of  a "homosexual" to that prestigous job title--it's just not as easy to try and brand all gays with molesting and bestiality arguments when there was a Commander in Chief who had a long-term love affair with another man.  And the president's likely lover? He once held the title of United States Vice President.

THEIR ARGUMENT
As the 15th President of the United States (from 1857 to 1861) James Buchanan was as they say, a 'life-long bachelor' and the only U.S. president to have never married.  But that doesn't mean he was gay, right?   Sure, there's also the fact that for 15 long years (prior to his presidency), Buchanan lived with his dearest friend, Alabama Senator William Rufus King.  So what if King never married in his lifetime, either.  But that doesn't make them gay.  Lots of men lived together back then, but they usually did so because of money--these were two wealthy gentleman.   And so what if they wrote many intimate letters to one another, personal enough in content that the president's nieces destroyed most of them upon the president's death?   All of that doesn't prove anything they argue--there is nothing in that record to confirm without a doubt his sexual preference. And this is true.

CONNECTING THE DOTS

 

Yet it's more than just these facts that's lead respected historians to believe he was gay.  It's looking at not just selected parts of his life, but putting everything together that forms a conclusion.  The argument made, that it's totally inappropriate to apply today's values and living standards to other eras, is absolutely correct--however even for the time peiord in which Mr. Buchanan lived, rumors were circulating about his sexuality.  In Professor Loewen's book, "Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong," the scholar asserts that Buchanan's long-time living companion, King, was referred to as "Aunt Fancy" by the era's Beltway crowd.  Who were these beltway gossips and why would anyone believe them?  Oh, people like Andrew Jackson, who liked to refer to King as "Miss Nancy." There's also Aaron V. Brown ( Governor of Tennessee and Postmaster General in the Buchanan administration) who spoke of the two as "Buchanan and his wife."  The point is, Buchanan's sexual orientation was widely rumored  while he was still living, to the point that when people talked about "Mrs. Buchanan" they typically knew it meant Mr. King.

Yet despite this bitchy name calling, there were no Moral Majority or Bible thumping fundamentalists in politics strong enough to plague them or ruin their lives. The King-Buchanan liaison was generally accepted (and snickered at) as a political and personal fact of life.  Rightfully so, the nation was consumed with real issues like freedom and slavery.

Horned Attraction: Men in Heat

OLAF ODEGAARD:

"I was born a man with two talents, one for the theatre and one for art. I pursued both of these arts from the time I was very young. I started drawing in kindergarten. I was working with oils by the time I was in fifth grade and had my first exhibition at that time.

When I reached puberty I became entranced by what was happening to me sexually and I drew hundreds of drawings of my erect cock. While I had been drawing men since I was five, I now began to draw them with less clothes and more visible genitals.

 

In the seventies, I saw the Satyr as the perfect symbol of gay men in that period. In Greek myth, satyrs bring joy and love into the lives of men.

I praise the beauty of masculine men in my art, of their grace, of the passion of their sexuality. Of the peaks and valleys of their fleshscape. Of their raw power. Of their gentle kindness. Of love between men. Of their hardness of body, the wealth of hair on their chest and bodies, of their sense of companionship."

February 1996

(from Beasts & Beauties: The Erotic Art of Olaf )

 

Academy Awards circa 1993

PHILADELPHIA

If a film has the ability to bring awareness of an important issue (that people don't really understand because of fear), then I think it has definitely achieved something phenomenal. 


Philadelphia won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks) and Best Song (Bruce Springsteen) for "Streets of Philadelphia".  It was inspired by the story of Geoffrey Bowers, an attorney who in 1987 sued a law firm for unfair dismissal in one of the first AIDS discrimination cases. When Jonathan Demme, having won the Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs, decided to direct a major studio film about AIDS, he took on the opportunity of making it into a movie mainstream audiences might actually come to see (and maybe even learn something about gay men, not just the stereotypes they already knew). It worked! This film's gay hero, Andrew Beckett, was listed on the American Film Institute AFI's list of the "Top 100 Heroes and Villains" in motion picture history.

In the movie we meet Andrew Beckett, a gay lawyer with AIDS, who's fired from his conservative law firm out of fear that they might get AIDS from him.  But it's more...they also don't like "fags" as we learn.  After Andrew's fired, in a last attempt for peace in his life, he decides to sue his former law firm...with the help of homophobic African American lawyer, Joe Miller (Denzel Washington).  During the court battle, Miller sees that Beckett is no different than anyone else and sheds his homophobia.

It's telling that concerns about offending straight mainstream audiences for the era had less to do with showing the horror of AIDS, and more to do with showing two men in love who are living a "normal" life together.  In the movie, Beckett's longtime lover Miguel Álvarez (played by Antonio Banderas) barely gets any scenes...just enough to let the audience know that these two are as happy and committed as any straight couple. In an interview for the 1996 documentary The Celluloid Closet, Mr. Hanks remarked that scenes showing more affection between him and Banderas were cut, including a scene showing him and Banderas in bed together (the DVD edition of the film includes that scene).  Especially great however is the portrait of Beckett's family, who's there to support him and his partner through the course of the difficult trial and his sickness Here's a family that is presented as a strong loving unit, something refreshing to see in a mainstream film with gay men.

If a film ever has the ability to open audiences' eyes to something like the early AIDS epidemic, to not gloss over its impact on society but to deal with the real fears of people honestly, and then to show that gay men are normal humans too, that is an accomplishment worth celebrating... and Philadelphia is that movie.

Academy Awards: Milk Turns Gold

In 2009 Dustin Lance Black won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the 2008 film, Milk. 

Raised in a strict Mormon household (he won two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work on the television series Big Love).  Growing up surrounded by Mormon culture and military bases, Dustin said he worried about his sexuality. He told himself, "I'm going to hell. And if I ever admit it, I'll be hurt, and I'll be brought down" when he found himself attracted to a boy in his neighborhood at the age of about 7.

Dustin spoke movingly of the day he read Harvey Milk's real life story. Milk, who was shot dead in 1978, was the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. "It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married," Black said.

"If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are 'less than' by their churches, by the government or by their families: that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value. And that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you. And that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours. Thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk."

 It's reported that his acceptance speech was censored in 50 different Asian nations by pan-Asian satellite TV network STAR, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.  STAR spokeswoman Jannie Poon defended the network’s muting of the words “gay” and “lesbian” by saying STAR has “a responsibility to take the sensitivities and guidelines of all our markets into consideration.”

Retro Movie Hunk Sean Connery

 This past week, the 85th Academy Awards included a tribute to the James Bond movie franchise, which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. “We are very happy to include a special sequence on our show saluting the Bond films on their 50th birthday,” said producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. “Starting with ‘Dr. No’ back in 1962, the 007 movies have become the longest-running motion picture franchise in history and a beloved global phenomenon.”  It's a mega-franchise that's based upon the raw machismo sex appeal of its lead character as much as anything else.   Cool.  Confident.  Always "up" to take advantage of the endless women who threw themselves at him.  The original 007 still remains a sex symbol: Sean Connery.  As the blue terry clad image from the movie Goldfinger highlights below, 007 was a hunk of handsome (and hairy) man.  And many of the women in the audience (and more men than would admit it back then) enjoyed the beefcake as much as the action.

There's no denying that long before his current incarnation as a an grizzled old Scottish sage, Sean Connery was a major sex symbol during the 1960's and 1970's playing the spy.   In fact, Sean was voted People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989. But young and sexy Sean was turning heads long before James Bond, as VGMH will take a look at below...

Thomas (Sean) Connery was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1930.  By the age of 9, Sean began to deliver milk before he went to school.  In 1944 at 14, he quit school in order to work full-time delivering milk. But he also seems to have delivered more than milk to ladies...in a 1999 interview, Sean mentioned his "experiences" with the route's neighborhood women (working as a milkman) while their men were away from home serving in the war. In 1946, he enrolled himself in the Navy for 12 years because he wanted to see the world. But he and the navy didn't seem to agree with one another, and after three years of service was discharged with a stomach ulcer. But he and the navy didn't seem to agree with one another, and after three years of service was discharged with a stomach ulcer.

 

Trying to find himself while making ends meet to survive.  Sean drove horse carriages,was a swimming pool attendant, and football (soccer) player.  He also began to exercise and work out in gyms. In 1950, on the advice of a gym buddy, he joined the Dunedin Amateur Weight Lifting Club. During off hours, he picked up extra cash at the Edinburgh School of Art where he posed as a nude and semi-nude male model (photograph, ri.  In 2007, a painting of Sean was made available at auction (above, left). The picture was painted in 1952, when Connery was just 22, by jazz musician Al Fairweather who was a student at the art school.

 

Athletic Connery continued to train his body. In 1953, he participated in the Mr. Universe Competition at the London Scala Theatre where he made it to third place in the tall men's class.  In the lineup photo (above), that's Sean wearing the white posing trunks in the center.  It was also in 1953 that he found his way into acting. When he participated in the Mr. Universe Competition, he was looking for a new job. Other competitors told him they were working for the choir of the musical South Pacific. Stage legend has it that Connery took off his shirt, got the job, and he played for three months at the London Theatre in Drury Lane. He also sang in the choir of There is Nothing like a Dame and toured for 14 months through England and Scotland.

American actor Robert Henderson, a friend from the choir who later became a theatre director, encouraged Sean to act.  Sean himself considers the years of 1951 to 1956 as his learning period in which he educated himself.  Between 1956 and 1957, Connery had a series of appearances in television and big screen films, among them are Requiem for a Heavyweight, No Road back and Operation Tiger. In 1957, 20th Century Fox took him under contract.  By 1959 he was the star of Darby O'Gill and the Little People (photo, right) when he was loaned to Disney, and s already discussed in a previous blog post, Sean had a minor role in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure.

Shaken and Stirred: Sean Connery

He was rugged even while wearing a tuxedo and confident in his abilities to bed anyone he desired.  Part of the appeal of 007, as  played by Sean Connery, was that he knew he was attractive and would have sex with anybody he wanted.

007 Sean Connery

March 1979 Hunk Bill Davidson

Bill Davidson

According to the narrative, Bill was working for a Chicago-based advertising agency, and he posed for some Suzuki motorcyle dds while working his way through school.  It turned out Suzuki was a client of his future advertising agency.   Please stay tuned for part two.