James Seely bags John in the shower

In the previous installment of the James Seely saga, we saw him studiously ignoring John Manning's lustful looks in a dual posing session. This is what happened afterwards, sort of, in the shower. It provides two more examples of Seely's amazingly wide range of facial expressions.

Back in the bad old days, solo shower scenes were a standard part of the physique photo offering. They offered a thrilling glimpse into the private and intimate cleansing rituals of the studio's male pin-ups. Provided they were photographed with discretion, they also allowed publishers to gush about the cleanliness of their models and the healthy nature of sport of body-building which provided muscular models and a sheen of respectability for their subversive skin-pix. 

Sportsmen routinely showered together in real life of course (and sometimes workers did too if they had dirty jobs like miners). Nevertheless, squeezing two naked men into a tiny cubicle intended for one was not regarded as at all normal......

James Seely and John Manning - Sharing

Bob Mizer concocts an excuse for James Seely to get into the shower with John Manning after their exertions in front of the camera, it's in order to help him wash that tiny area between the shoulder blades that most of us cannot reach ourselves (just ask Siegfried!). Just in case you might suspect that there's something else going on here, James' arms (but nothing else) are smothered in nice, clean, soap suds. A teasing, bubbly trickle runs down over Manning's buttock.

John's serious face is probably meant to suggest he's giving directions to his helper, like someone having an itch scratched. But there's an element of distaste his look as though Seely's arrival is unexpected and unwelcome. I suppose this might be a deliberate, mocking attempt by Mizer to cast Manning as a straight man in a sudden onset of homosexual panic (see Holzman 'Merchant Navy').

Seely's cheerful grin looks nervous and mischievous as though he's planning a surprise. Darker sceptics amongst you might wonder (perhaps like John) whether his clenched right hand is actually holding any soap and even if it is, what is he thinking of doing with it next?   

James Seely and John Manning - Careless Hands

Seely's plan (whatever it was) has turned into a disaster it seems. (Apart from my frivolous, sex-obsessed inventions, he may have treated Manning as gay man when he isn't or as being receptive when isn't!). . Manning looks both shocked and very fearful. He melodramatically raises a defensive, clenched fist. His fist is about shock, anger and latent aggression, not fetish sex, sorry!

I'm not sure there's an English  word for Seely's expression here but it's absolutely priceless. It's the combination of realising he's blundered, profound embarrassment at it and rising panic that he doesn't know how to get out of it. It looks as if he's about to close the shower door so that their mutual embarrassment is no longer on public display, but blockading the two of them inside together doesn't seem like a very good solution in the circumstances (particularly if my interpretation is right!). 

In the midst of this furore, both men desperately try to hold their modesty flannels in place*

*The device of models draping a wet flannel over their private parts was intended to make these images decent in the eyes of the authorities. It would be surprising if it worked. because although you can't see any naughty bits (apart from a cunning glimpse of Seely's crotch hair that looks very sexy indeed), the sheer artifice and flimsiness of the arrangement draws attention to the fact that these two men are naked together in this confined space and could drop their guard at any minute and initiate an indecent, homosexual coupling. Indeed they might well have done so and publishing this picture is telling other deviants that they got away with it. Later, Champion Studio, who also used shower scenes, converted the dangling flannel into a posing pouch which was either brilliant satire or a particularly weird example of lateral thinking.

~  

 This No 34 in 'The Look' series at mitchmen blog,
click on the label at the foot of this post to view the others

or use the mitchmen search function (top right in sidebar)

~

The James Seely series so far:

The Abandoned Slave

Vintage Bondage - James Seely

James Seely meets Naked Men

next post: James Seely Nude