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picture by Remixing Reality 

AI art by Remixing Reality

All captions are by mitchmen 

 

Bat Flirt

 

Bubble Bath

 You thought that AI stood for Artificial Intelligence?

 Welcome to Moonrise Boulevard!

(Inspired by the stories of mishandling of aspiring models at a well-known fashion brand).

  

 

Free Checks at the Pump 

RR has a portfolio of sexy encounters between petrol pump attendants and drivers. Some are romantic. Others show one or other of them making the first move. Mature men and sexy jeans add pleasing dimensions to this one. You just don't do this to a thirty-something!

 

Pumping Gas

 I particularly like this one. The customer shamelessly flaunting his body is a great image in itself. He seems bemused by the pump attendant's comic response, but then it's pretty obvious that erotic subtlety is not his style!

 

 

Where D'ya Want It?

RR also visualises the pump monkey as a bit of a himbo who dresses in skimpy shorts at the behest of the owner to draw in customers. New boys who are unfamiliar with exotic car models may be the victim of mischievous customers, exploiting their naivety.

 

Dressed For A Hard Ride

Paths that wind through woods are a favourite stomping ground for AI art creators. You never know who you might meet on the trail so it's a good idea to wear suitable gear. 

 

Careful What You Wish For

Secluded trails are prime territory for cruising. RR invokes the 50s look in this eager, young face. He might be a bold, new boy learning the ropes, but looks are sometimes misleading. Nice to see that this stud takes precautions but doesn't discriminate.

 

See also otk-lad Part 3

 

Pillion Pupil 

There's a retro look here as well, which is apt in the context, as the biker who picks up the surfer type can be traced back to the 60s imagery of Etienne's 'Road Kings'. This biker isn't wearing leathers but a leotard, which replaces mysterious, dark sexuality with sporty freshness. It wouldn't earn him any brownie points from a safety point of view, but does no harm at all to his sexual allure. The opportunity to embrace him from behind, astride a bike, is one not lightly refused!

 

 

Cow Pokes

This was the golden age of American teenagers enjoying the freedom of driving and posing in their parent's cars and hanging out at drive-in venues of all sorts. However, the gay flirting pictured here was at best discreetly under the radar.

 

It was a time when men were starting to show their bodies, and there's some great imagery of shorts here. Not sure about the boots, but they do enable a comical slant. This image complements the ongoing 'Scout' posts at the Royale Studio gallery, which were contemporary.  

 

God Bless Jeans 1

One of the distinctive features of RR's work is the use of media mock-ups, like this billboard for jeans. There's a whole series of these with varied brands and different wearers, plus a range of rips and tears. It's hard to improve on the basic, undistressed look on the right bottom, though. Capable of provoking a range of imaginings. The bike parked underneath makes it look like he's just hopped off to pose in the magic window.

 

God Bless Jeans 2

I like this one because he's older and doesn't look like showing off his ass comes naturally. As if that rip only just happened, and he wouldn't have been showing it to us at all if the photographer hadn't made him lie that way round. He can't wait to make his escape!

 

~ 

 

More RR to come ....

 

Official site, visit Remixing Reality  

 

 Previous RR post at mitchmen The Fearful Gladiator

More Remixing Reality captions at 'X' 

Art by Steve Masters 3

Steve Masters - 'Silky' The Pride of the Pits (1961)

The term 'silky smooth' is sometimes applied to the smooth running of a well-tuned, well-lubricated motor engine, but the title of this piece also seems to mainly refer to the garments the guys are wearing. A great deal of effort has gone into making the driver's top look flimsy and clinging. However, silk is a fabric more associated with horse riding than oily motor sport, and in fact, a tear can be seen in the mechanic's top, allowing his nipple to show. 

The mechanic's posture, bent over and astride a tyre, has an obvious erotic significance, as does the phallic object right under his nose. The driver in the foreground seems to be preparing to engage gear with him. Even the oil cans on the floor (with leaking nipples) are joining in. A range of spanners on the wall, like the 'kill' badges on the cockpit of an air ace, suggest the mechanic has size capabilities exceeding his outward appearance.

The punchy decoration of the men's outfits with bold, but seemingly random symbols is a typical Steve Masters' technique. He commonly uses shoulder flashes, their body enhancing effect quite likely inspired by his experience with the fashion industry. The red discs are more obscure, but this one draws attention to the driver's backside, whilst simultaneously half-obscuring the 'sucked-in' look which might imply enlargement on the far side. Its shaping also seems to reference the leather inserts of horse riding pants.

 

Steve Masters - 'Polo' The Pride of the Stables (1961)

This picture is an obvious companion piece, picking up the horse riding theme and set in the equivalent of The Pits for that sport. The reference to the Sport of Kings in the title provides an erotic pun for UK viewers (see Polo) questioning who Polo is. 'Stable Boy' is an expression of status not age, but Masters' is flirting with dangerous territory. 

Fortunately, the erotic messaging here is more muted than in 'Silky', with the Stud simply enjoying the hero worship by a fan who kisses his bicep (with some trepidation, it must be said) and his mount, who kisses his fist. Hmm. He's hiding his riding crop from both of them. 

The near-explicit rendering of the Stud's endowment reflects his pleasure at the attention. It is disguised on many surviving versions of this image and may well be toned down on this one too, but the shadow of it on his thigh has escaped 'correction'. 

I don't have the coloured version of this image, but the Stud's knee pads look like they may be more red circles (suggesting another aspect to his sexual character). The fit of his shirt resembles the treatment of the driver's in 'Silky'. 

 

Steve Masters - First Tattoo (1961)

Masters' was also interested in the direct decoration of men's bodies with tattoos, although the iconography he used was less bold than his clothing designs, being more intricate and more plentiful. In the picture above, tattooing is depicted as a rite of passage, but interestingly, it's the two mentors that exhibit sexual excitement. The figure in the foreground is actually pointing his out to us. The eagle taking flight out of his pants provides a graphic illustration of the erotic impact of well-considered tattoos. 

The initiate seems hesitant, the passive recipient of a badge of ownership. Like college hazing, joining 'the club' entails submitting to the control of the existing members. There's a hint that eagle man may be marking the occasion, too, adding a new 'kill badge' to his extensive collection. Its' not a romantic gesture, more like a blood-brother ceremony with an intensely erotic subtext.

 

Steve Masters - Tattooed Man (1962)

This image shows a man's body completely covered with tattoos. It reflects an obsession reminiscent of the work of some of the Japanese Masters like Hasegawa and Mishima. However, Masters doesn't depict dense blocks of ink like them, his tattoos are delicate and in black and white they seem to emulate the effect of lace and sheer-patterned fabrics. If you look at the tattooed man's thighs, it's as if he's wearing nylon stockings. This image is an intriguing combination of male and female expressions of allure.

The man is wearing a cape*, which creates the impression that he is a circus performer. In fact, the whole background is circus-y. To the left of him is a poster about a fire-eater. He's breathing his flames over the tattooed body. That's a rare clue to Master's interest in S&M that inspired his choice of artist's name. This detail offers further insight into the ritualistic significance of tattoos for him. For the avoidance of doubt, the snake's head on the opposite side doubles up (oh so subtly!) as a hand manipulating a cock preparing to anoint the tattooed torso.

* The cape also serves as a device to separate him from the complex background. It, too, is faintly patterned, but will have been a different colour in the original picture. 

 

Steve Masters - Trapeze Artists

 Masters' had a special interest in Circuses and there are surviving images by him which show trapeze performers simply posing in their tights, without any additional erotic subtext.

 

Steve Masters - Circus Sneaker (my title)

This image seems to show an acrobat preparing to deal with a young man, caught sneaking around the 'Big Top'. The sack on the ground suggests he might have run away from home to join the circus, he might end up, end up and wishing he hadn't! 

Masters' characteristic 'random' lines create the 'double vision' impression that the youth is bare-topped, and that we can see his lean muscularity. Similarly. the detailing of his jeans around the backside is faint and ambiguous. The acrobat's top blurs the boundaries between clothing and tattoos, with looping lines creating just a sense of his hunky muscles. A 'dimple' on his backside seems to deliberately double up ominously as a flaccid cock. Notice too how the end of his belt is entangled with the youth's feet, suggesting his capture and being drawn into the acrobat's orbit.

 I published this image before in a post about little-known vintage spanking images. 

 I don't know if Masters had a personal connection to the Circus or was just picking up on the popular culture of the 50s, which produced numerous television programmes and films on the subject, (notably 'Trapeze' in 1956 which had a gay subtext). Tom of Finland also produced a Circus series around this time and featured acrobats in tights in some of his best known images.

 

Steve Masters - Circus Sneaker 2 (my title)

 This picture seems to revisit the same subject, except that the young man here seems to be exiting the tent rather than entering it. A thief leaving with his swag, perhaps. This one looks older and more muscular. The picture is obviously cropped, which means that the lines around his bicep and waist, plus the turn-ups of his jeans, are the only indication that he's actually wearing clothes. It's almost as if Masters is imagining the acrobat has X-ray vision. We can only imagine what erotic delights were chopped off by the editing process, but it's still left behind a suggestive image.

The acrobat seems to be waiting to spring his trap. He's drawn with a majestic grandeur, echoed in the eagle rising just behind him. It's a contrast with the bulky build of the previous image, but no less imposing.  

His belt is ready in his hand. The end of it curls as if he's just given it a preparatory snap. Stars on the board behind his backside seem to reflect his thoughts. His hand rests on his thigh as if he's itching to stroke himself - or just has done. Masters' has coloured a panel in his tights to simulate a posing pouch and added crease lines to suggest weight. It heightens the ambiguity between clothing and nakedness elsewhere - and possibly cloaks a more overtly erotic outline. 

 

Steve Masters -Cover Art for 'BIG'

 All Master's clothing designs look like Circus garb, but I've never seen an acrobat as daring as this. If only. It would give audiences the added suspense of him accidentally unstrapping mid-performance.

Masters was the design editor for BIG and all their covers featured 'cubicle' style* images like this 

(*see Part 2).

~

Part 4 will feature a different style used by Steve Masters.

Read from Part 1 of this article  

Other posts about Steve Masters are at 'X'

Circus Sneaker

Steam Baths 

Steve Masters Part 3 is coming soon

Steve Masters - Now Hear This! (1962)

This interim image shows Masters' returning to one of his favourite genres, the American Sailor. It seems like the equivalent of a wolf whistle. The elevating guns in the background provide an erotic commentary, but the orientation seems to indicate admirers on the right who we can't see. Likewise, the number '6', missing its usual companion, number 9, doesn't seem an obvious fit with what we actually see. It may be that some of the image is missing, but the positioning of the signature suggests not. 

 Steve Masters Part 3 is coming soon

Read from Part 1 of this article  

 

101 Uses for Belts - No 24 Artistic Expression

Image redacted 

Refer to Artistic Expression

~

 

For other posts in the '101 belts' series,

 click on the 'Belts' label below

 

 

Art by Steve Masters 2

Steve Masters - Al Fresco

 If the convict image that topped Part 1 of this article is one of Master's most memorable, this must be the most intriguing. This is the best quality copy I have of it, but it's not the most complete, a version I have assembled from two other sources (below) shows more of the composition at both the top and the bottom.

Steve Masters - Al Fresco (extended)

Looking at this expanded version, you get the feeling that there's probably even more to see in the artist's original. The fragment at the top seems chopped, but it does seem to be the uppermost floor, because it doesn't have a staircase leading further upwards.

But what does it mean? At one level, you might see it as simply a vehicle for figure studies. Most of Master's compositions have that 'posed' quality, with limited interactions between the characters. In this picture, the men interact with the architecture more than they do with each other. However, one window does show a couple who might have just had sex, is this an imagined house of boys, then? 

At the other end of the scale, you might see this as an allegory of the gay lifestyle. Bedsit boys, living mostly solitary lives and constantly looking out at more showy men who have the courage to strut the fire-escape in public view. Close by, but out of reach, and ultimately just as trapped as they are, in the gay ghetto. That subtext would have had some resonance in the early sixties, when many gay men really were trapped and the gulf between the closet and the secret, 'out' world was far more substantial than it is today.

Steve Masters - Cubicles (my title)

 If you are inclined to dismiss this interpretation, this picture might make you think again. Nine men in panels depicting toilet cubicles, and one of them is having sex if you look closely. None seem to be actually using the toilet. 

This image depicts the wide variety of men that haunted restrooms. The original was clearly coloured, as many of Master's images were. and that would have enhanced the sense of variety - in dress at least. 

It's intriguing though that the individual portraits are cropped so severely. In places, it creates the illusion that the men are having sex with each other, with an impressive daisy chain in the middle. The overlaps in the outer panels create the same effect in a different way.

Squeezing the images together does create a sense of fleeting visits and of the individuals merely registering as an impression. But there's a negative flip to that, which echoes the suggestion of isolation and loneliness in 'Al Fresco'. 

The artist Rex also played with the cubicle device later on. His images contain gay men actually interacting and having sex in their own partitions (which are closer to hotel rooms or bath house cubicles than public toilets). As individuals, they have much stronger identities. Both men are reflecting their times, of course.

 

Steve Masters - Rock Climbers (1962)

A young man is helped across a crevasse to join his companion, who strikes a godlike pose. It's a scene reminiscent of renaissance art. There's a calmness about this picture and a complete absence of innuendo, although their nudity (contrasted with residual clothing and kit) does suggest a sexual context. The shedding of all clothes means there's none of the showy display that characterises so much of Masters' work.   

 

The elements of creativity and design which dominate the previous images can be seen differently here, with a relatively simple composition embellished with what appear to be fragments of commercial marble images, such as might be seen on kitchen worktops or tiles. It creates an effect of a jagged, alien reality as the background and obstacle to the climbing. 

 

 

Steve Masters - Bacchanal

 

This image has a similar, striking design featuring realistic marbling, but it couldn't be more different to Rock Climbers. The design effects almost overwhelm the whole composition. 

 

When your eyes focus, it's dominated by an image of Bacchus with a dragon headed snake between his legs, discharging his lust from its mouth into a pool. The snake seems to be actually entering his body at the rear. An incongruous cupid rides behind him, seemingly trying to restrain the creature (or simply distract unwelcome prudes). 

 

Oblivious of them, a group of naked sailors loll drunkenly on the edge of the pool, full of a milky white substance, which probably isn't asses milk. (Shades of Stephen's 'Troopship'!). The sailors are subtly connected by hands and overlaps into a chain of shared, sexual sensuality. 

 

At the very back, another humanoid creature sits cross-legged, presiding over the activities. He's shaded in a different tone to the sailors, I suspect it's a different colour in the original image, to distinguish him from them. A disembodied head like a gargoyle hovers in front of his groin, obscuring it from view. It looks like a device added later to sanitise the image. 

 

I suppose this image simply expresses the view that gay debauchery is (reassuringly) sanctioned by the Gods, nay it's directed by them. Despite the difficult presentation of the subject, its sheer complexity is impressive. The figure of Bacchus and his snake is a homoerotic gem.

 

Steve Masters - Watching Men (my title)

This earlier piece shows the same interest in placing men into places with striking design features. The less exotic chequerboard patterns show a link to contemporary commercial art, although I can't quote chapter and verse on that. There's no attempt to construct a story line, but there's a very clever message... 

 

In the background, we see a couple of attractive, scantily-clad men engaged in healthy exercise. Another two are getting undressed for a bath (together? really?).  In the foreground, a fifth man in a jockstrap sits on a platform watching them, almost furtively. He seems a lonely, excluded figure, rather like the souls looking out of windows in 'Al Fresco' - and perhaps like the figure crossing the divide in 'Rock Climbers'.

 

 

Steve Masters - Boot Clean

Words are the striking feature of this image, with enough gay innuendos and puns to satisfy the most playful mind (soles rimmed?) These signs refer us back to the key character, who we see presenting himself - alone - and in a cubicle(!)  Not exactly trapped, though - or is he? 

 

The multiple offers of service around him are supplemented and clarified by the fact he's holding his cock in his hand. Masters has cloaked him in conventionality by draping a fashionable cardigan over his shoulders, an appealing connection for some.

 

The hint of a fairground connection can be seen in other work by this artist, in Part 3. 

 

Steve Masters -Handy Man

Words serve a very different purpose here. At first, we only see a fit, muscular man with a revealing shirt and a suitcase. We can visualise him arriving in a new place, looking for work and somewhere to live. So far, so very homoerotic. 

 

Then through the blizzard of words we see he has no right arm and no, it's not just one of Masters' design flourishes. He's a veteran, returning as a casualty of war. Immediately, those sexy innuendos and offers around him take on a bitter irony. His face acknowledges the reality of being able-bodied and yet not. He, too, is alone and isolated.

 

This is 1961, the year that American involvement and casualties in Vietnam began to escalate. With the Korean War a recent memory, Masters seems to anticipate and protest the inevitable consequences and the toll it would take on so many young men.

 

~ 

 

Part 3 of this series looks at Masters' less intense work.

 

Read Part 1 of this article  

Art by Steve Masters

Steve Masters - Wolf (1961)

This is one of Masters' most memorable works, imagining life in a prison. There's a strongly masculine flavour and a clear sense of who's who. Overlapping hands establish a connection between the prisoners (illicit for it's time). It can be interpreted as menacing ownership and exploitation - or secret tenderness. 

Masters often used words in his images to spin homosexual puns, but I confess the significance of 'Machine Shop' escapes me. 

 

Steve Masters - Convict (1961)

This convict image shows the flip side of the coin, with a heavily manacled convict being toyed with by the prison guards. It's from the same year (and the same thought process, judging by the prisoner's sexy, sagging pants in both pictures). 

The styling here is closer to Masters' trademark style, with geometric, conflicting and seemingly random lines creating a sketchiness (e.g. the guard's chest) but also a clothes layering effect with the suggestion of a bulging pouch inside the Guard's trousers. 

The ambiguity - is the prisoner expected to lick the Guard's feet or to service that bulge? - is reflected in the second guard's reaction, look at his left hand is doing.

 

Steve Masters -Bulkhead (1961)

This picture was often cropped in its day to focus on the two sailors in the background, undressing and hanging up clothes on a washing line. That playful cameo is framed by two more sailors in the foreground playing out a more serious game. 

At the right, a bare ass tar who stands, arms folded, as if he's waiting for his pants to dry on the line. He looks round, embarrassed and uncomfortable. It's as if he senses he's being eyed up and is uncomfortable about it. Below him, another sailor lounges. He winks at us conspiratorially, as if his catch is in his sights, but he's biding his time to land him. The title encapsulates his thoughts, one man's bulk, another man's head, an abbreviated pun. 

 The lounger still has his pants on, but the fly wide is wide open, revealing plunging abs and sexual intent. There's a substantial arousal within, which doesn't take much spotting, and there's an illusion of teasing detail in the folds. In the complexities of this drawing, these pants double up as very brief shorts, looking through different eyes.

Steve Masters - Fisherman and Frogman

 Steve Masters often drew men in bodysuits and tight-fitting clothes, so the 60s vogue for underwater exploration and adventure (Sea Hunt etc) naturally interested him. He's juxtaposed it here with another favoured theme - fishermen. 

 

In this curious image, the hands of the two men are again superimposed, establishing a mutual connection via the phallic, harpoon gun. The frogman's giant catch has a vaguely phallic look too, but there's nothing vague about the fisherman straddling the rudder of his boat. Not only is the post jammed suggestively between his cheeks, the tiller arm (unseen by us) sticks out between his legs towards the frogman.  The symbolism can be taken further to embrace the function of the tiller - determining the direction the fisherman wishes to take.

 

The Frogman's suit is decorated with a snazzy 60s design, which Masters generally did. That modernity contrasts with the timeless sexiness of the fisherman's skimpy singlet and drooping pants (with rolled up bottoms as per Royale fishermen for example). Low rise trousers were another 60s fad, a sexy rebellion against the high waists that had defined men's fashion for as long as anyone could remember. It culminated in a race to have the shortest zip, only 1" long.

 

Steve Masters - Scuttlebutt (1962)

Rough fishermen and a 'sailor' collide in this image too. It looks like it might be a fashion shoot being conducted on a working jetty. Despite his practical-looking sea boots and jeans, the sailor strikes a catwalk pose* which accentuates his backside. A seagull balances comically on his shoulder, presenting its backside threateningly.

 

* pre-dates the familiar Jim French/Colt image (below) 

Colt - Sailor with Ventilation (my title)

 The fishermen just ignore him, smoking and eating fruit from a phallic arrangement in their lunch boxes. The nearest one is depicted in a very traditional manner, with boots and cockleshell hat. His straightness is challenged by the words on the box he is sitting on. The other, smoking a pipe and with his captain's cap jauntily canted, looks more mature, except that his muscle vest is tight with snazzy 60s flashes and a design suggestive of a nautical Hell's Angels. He's totally naked below the waist - apart from tattoos. He has attracted the sailor's attention, they seem to be exchanging 'looks'.

 

The photographer watches all this closely. He is the modern equivalent of the artist drawing his model, a common device in gay images of this era to legitimise the admiration of a naked man. It may represent Masters himself, he was a fashion photographer.

"Scuttlebutt" means rumours or gossip, originating from a nautical term for the water cask on a ship where sailors would gather to drink and exchange information. The pun on butt is obvious with three on display in the picture, scuttle meaning 'to sink' is a sexy connotation but slightly obscure.

 

~ 

 

View another Scott Master's fisherman at mitchmen 

 

~ 

 

Steve Masters - False Alarm

More sailors at play. This isn't a particularly good copy, but it's an interesting example of Masters' visual innuendos. Here a naked matelot has been called upon to put out a fire by two of his shipmates. They seem to be giving a novice the ship's initiation rites, because the idea of a fire bucket (full of water or sand) catching fire is as ridiculous as the notorious glass hammer or tartan paint used to haze apprentices. 

 

However, the naive young novice has little choice and clumsily feeds the hose between his legs like a snake. The nozzle ends up looking like an extension of his dick. Aligned with the open fly of one of his tormentors, it also looks as if he's jerking him off, with the resulting fountain (not looking very much like water) dousing the fire. Another sailor watches the fun through a porthole. 

 

 

Steve Masters - Reveille (my title)

This looks like another hazing ritual. A young military recruit is suddenly awakened by a bugle blast and finds his bed surrounded by men in strange, sheer bodysuits, He looks around for help or an avenue of escape but one of them, (totally naked like him), is sitting on his legs, so he can't move. 

 

These pranksters have moved his bed in the night and placed it outside the captain's office. Inside, we glimpse miliaria - and a coil of rope that bodes ill for him if he doesn't co-operate. He is ordered to lay his head on the pillow, where it will be inches away from a dangling cock. The remaining two men are poised to explore his ass.

 

More Steve Masters in Part 2 

 

Steve Master's Biography  

 

Mike Miksche photo album