Men Sharing Clothes No 24 - Skimpy white briefs

Seth Fornea by Kevin D Hoover

When Seth Fornea got into this pair of cotton briefs,

 those threads could not have imagined what they were in for!

It's to be a stretching experience for them.

Seth Fornea by Kevin D Hoover

You have to hand it to the photographer here, ginger men don't always photograph well but Seth's majestic masculinity booms out of the picture and those briefs are bearing the brunt of it!

Fiery pubes boil over the top from the steamy brew within.

Seth Fornea by Kevin D Hoover

Seth eases them down for comfort.  

Funny how that oil (or something) gets everywhere!

Tommy by Kevin D Hoover

When Tommy comes to try them on,

he looks down as if something isn't quite right.

Sensing Seth's previous oily presence perhaps?

Nevertheless, the garment's magical ability

 to arouse and enlarge seems totally undiminished.

Soon more oil and stuff impregnates the fibres.

Michael Prince by Kevin D Hoover

 Another day, another oily ginge, 

putting those long suffering undies through their paces

but he too is looking like he's not quite sure about this.

Rocco Steele by Kevin D Hoover

If Tommy and Michael seemed disturbed, 

Rocco Steele looks positively repelled by something.

His credentials would represent the biggest brief test yet 

If only he could bring himself to stuff them in.

 

Jason Williams by Kevin D Hoover

But sometimes it's just nice to feel the snug fit of a well-worn garment

and the closeness of all those other men.

With thanks and apologies to Kevin D Hoover and all his models for the images

I'm sure he treats them (and his underwear) well.

For more fantasies of men having to share working clothes,

click on the 'sharing' label below. 

Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 2) - Crack Units

During the Second World War, both sides became renowned 

for inventing new and ever more exotic weapons

 and novel ways to overcome the opposition.

Italy 1944

Some artists produced incredibly detailed artwork for these stories
 and each book consisted of around 130 panels.
The covers were painted scenes of some quality (see No 1 in this series).
A lot of effort went into the production of each issue.

Go to No 3

Read series from No 1 

Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 1) - Lick My Boots!

Jim was supposed to distract the sentry while his Unit carried out their mission. 

His approach was easy, the man wasn't even looking out to sea, nor watching the beach.

The surf and the squawking seagulls hid the sound of his movement through the grass. 

But now, up close, he found himself fascinated by the sentry's immaculate, gleaming boots.

He could smell their leather, see them flex as the man shifted his weight in them.

Boyhood memories stirred deep within him, of  booted, celluloid screen heroes

flamboyantly overcoming their opponents, forcing them to kneel and submit.

Jim felt a strange temptation to reach out, touch, to smell them, even.

Suddenly the sentry stirred and stretched lazily, he turned and saw Jim lying there. 

"Himmel, ein Englander!" he exclaimed, hastily un-slinging his gun and aiming it.

Their eyes met. A sort of recognition passed between them.

Jim forgot his orders, in that moment he knew what he had to do.

~

War Comics like this were part of my formative influences. I can't recall seeing this one and probably would not have caught on to the fetishistic interpretation even if I had. Not consciously anyway. Once you have spotted it however, it's hard to imagine that it wasn't intentional. 

This second image reinforces that fanciful impression. Notice that Jim's hand appears to be actually touching the boot here. It comes from a completely different story and although the styling of the boots and other details is similar, it's not by the same artist.

At the time, the so-called 'jackboot' was popular shorthand for the despised militarism and aggression of the regime. Both creators are drawing on that to create a sense of looming menace, but you can't help wondering if there's more to it than that! Most of the ordinary soldiers in the conflict actually treated prisoners with respect given the chance, but it makes for good suspense.

~

 These stories were supposed to inspire British boys with tales of valour, sacrifice and triumphing over adversity. The heroes were attractive and masculine and some of the images were highly homoerotic as they got themselves into and out of fixes or just did manly things, in and out of uniform. The artwork varied in quality but was often very attractive as you can in the two examples shown here. I plan to explore that imagery further in future articles for it's erotic and artistic interest,
(hopefully managing to avoid the minefield of racism and violence attached to the stories).

 Images adapted from War Picture Library, (Fleetway Library)

Go to No2 in this series

The Look of Dismay

The look that says "Oh no! Don't go floppy on me now!" 

For other meaningful 'looks' click on the label below

Tom's Circus Acrobats

 Tom of Finland's 'Circus' story (1975) was one of his 'Pekka' might-have-beens. It's birth (according to Hooven's biography) was mired in conflict between writer and artist. As a piece it suffers from the same limitations as the other 'Pekka' stories (see my recent Pekka 'Loggers' article) . However it is notable for it's depiction of muscular acrobats in skimpy tights.

This surely must be one of Tom's most erotic, indeed romantic pictures, 

with Pekka falling under the spell of a classic homo-erotic stereotype.

There's a fascinating 'is he or isn't he?' ambiguity
about just how intimate their contact is in the lower regions.

The man in the Top Hat is not the Ringmaster, but a magician 

who has just materialised a clutch of (chicken) eggs from Pekka's pants.
(I'd like to see that on "Britain's Got Talent"!)

 Word like 'skimpy' and 'revealing' scarcely do justice to the design of the acrobat's performing outfits in this scene and it's little wonder that the author thought his serious writing was being compromised. If you hadn't spotted this feature in the previous picture you might find my comments make more sense now if you go back and re-read my commentary. With tights, Tom's mining a potentially rich vein of eroticism, but this open arrangement discards part of the very essence of the garment.
It doesn't leave the imagination anywhere to go. 

A slightly more demure 'bulge' might have made a more thought-provoking image.  

Tom's design purpose becomes clear in this fanciful sequel. The performance of 'The Flying Fuckers' is the spectacular climax of the 'Circus' story. Tom illustrates it with a further group of 3 more Pekka-style sketches showing other erotically-inspired leaps and 'catches'.

Tom doesn't quite overcome the ultimate improbability of aerial intercourse, but does succeed in capturing something of the flight and balletic grace of the entertainers in these pictures. However the reversion to simple sketches at this critical point in the story (a puzzling feature of the Pekka series) means the piece ends with an visual anti-climax after a promising build-up. 

I'd have been fascinated to see the result if he'd done this series about fifteen years earlier and relied on more subtle signals to suggest an erotic interaction between these two flyers, hinting at intimacy to come. As it happens, Tom had portrayed acrobats 15 years earlier, as part of another 'Circus' series in 1961, but not as adventurously as this (below).

Tom - Acrobats from the 1961 'Circus' series

This picture is the only acrobat image in the 1961 Circus series. Tom shows their packages discreetly but it's decipherable to the trained (and seeking) eye. However, this is not so much an erotic image as an admiring one. It is positive and affirming, as the young man is awarded the applause for his accomplishment by his generous partner and mentor. The slightly germanic blond on the right was a stock character in this period of Tom's work, appearing in various guises and invariably portrayed as a happy, desirable man. This image gives him a rather 'manly' character.

There's a further group of what appear to be acrobats

in Tom's 'Dare Devils' series of 1962.

Tom clad the 'The 3 Dare Devils' in skimpy briefs in preference to tights and they have the distinct air of bikers about them with their Sam Browne belts and leather wrist supports. There's an astonishing gulf of explicitness between this picture and the 1961 acrobats which makes me wonder if that picture could be older than I supposed an not part of the 1961 series.

I have never discovered an image of the 'Dare Devils' performing on the trapeze, so their occupation is really supposition on my part based on the name, I suppose it could equally be a 'Wall of Death' motorcycle display team. Whatever they did, I'd have liked to have seen them in action! 

The '3 Dare Devils' have a story of their own which I will describe in separate post.

~

Influences contributing to Tom's dabbling with Circus imagery are not hard to find. Acrobats made a dramatic appearance in popular culture with the controversial 1956 movie 'Trapeze' starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. The actors played out a mentor/student relationship with a strong suggestion of homosexual love thrown in. Tom must have known of this film and there's a hint of the Lancaster-Curtis cross-generational relationship from 'Trapeze' in his 1961 picture above, although his 'older' man is less removed in age and less grizzled than Lancaster. (This movie connection adds to the case for an earlier dating of Tom's image).

In the 10 years that followed 'Trapeze' there was a rash of films about the circus and a TV series 'Circus Boy' which ran from 1956-58. This is still well before Tom's 'Circus' in 1975. However, a reference from this era that stopped me in my tracks and prompted this article was the story of Ricky and David Nelson (shown below).

Ricky and David Nelson

Ricky Nelson (left) was a top-selling rock and roll/pop singer in the 1950's, one of the first teenage hearthrobs with a string of 30 Top-40 hits from 1957 to 1962, and he was very cute! (see below).

Ricky Nelson publicity shot

What I didn't know about him was that in the late 50's he also performed with his brother David as a trapeze artist in 'The Flying Nelsons', their act being shown briefly on TV in 1960.  The resemblance between David's costume in the picture above and the indecent acrobats in 'Circus' is quite uncanny! I'm sure Tom will have heard of Ricky Nelson but possibly not his acrobatic career. However, given Ricky Nelson's world-wide fame at the time, it's quite likely that this picture (highly revealing for it's day) would have been shown to Tom.

Sadly, Circus is one of those performing arts that does not reward close-up scrutiny or regular viewing and whose collective, diverse nature demands too much patience from modern audiences, who have grown accustomed to a fare of continuous indulgence and high excitement, undiluted by lesser pleasures or tradition. Tom was a child of the 30's and old enough to have experienced the post-war revival of Circus. He captures a flavour of it's history and declining years in his two forays but his attempts to inject erotic interest perhaps show too much respect for the authenticity of the traditions he was trying to draw on.

also from this blog: more Men in Tights and Men in Tights tied up

Other articles on Tom of Finland