AI art by hongd542 - Part 2

Read Part 1 First?

 

 Jerry was pleasantly surprised by the bedclothes the Clinic gave him to wear.

They were top quality, stylish and made him feel sexy, which wasn't what he had expected

after the court sent him here to have his anti-social behaviour surgically corrected. 

Whatever that meant.

 

 

 The Doctor explained what he planned to do in great detail using medical language.

Ben didn't really understand what he said, but he didn't like the look of it.

 

 

 Downstairs, the glitzy comfort of the private Clinic transformed into a starkly utilitarian reality.

James was dressed in a protective one-piece suit, restrained, gagged and then drained by hand. 

That was troubling, but he wasn't prepared at all for followed.

See the devastating dénouement at Hong's DeviantArt site, it's too hot for here.

 

 

 The Doctors were troubled. 

The procedure had been an exciting challenge.

But was it ethical?

 

The boys in the gym would never be the same again.

 

~

 

 

Officer Sutherland had an unconventional approach to 'persons of interest'.

He insisted that they took off and handed over their clothes to be searched,

so that they would not be embarrassed by clumsy, groping hands. 

Of course, if no little plastic bags containing dubious substances were found, 

A common alternative hiding place was then already available to be searched. 

Sutherland often found that the mere suggestion of a deeper probe, in private,

would prompt an involuntary, urgent disclosure by the suspect. 

 

 

 

The disciplinary hearing had not gone well for Curtis
But at least he still had a job.

 

 

 Being assigned to 'Pride' duties felt like a crushing rebuke to Dexter.

But at least he didn't have to venture into that cauldron all alone.

Still, he wasn't sure he liked the sound of his colleague's offer

to familiarise him with gay culture so he'd feel more comfortable. 

In fact, he was sure he would feel just the reverse. 

 

 

 

 

Officer Bergman had a large portfolio of informants,

which embraced all sections of the community, 

He often went way beyond the call of duty,

but did sometimes lose focus when exchanging favours.

(Uncaptioned Original)

As they say, there's no smoke without fire.

 

~

 

more Hong542 next time 

Read Part 1

More Art by Oliver Frey

This article adds to my original A-Z review of Oliver Frey's work

Frey - Tennis Victory

 This image was my first glimpse of Oliver Frey's incredible talent for portraying the energetic wrestling of men gripped by lust. The image of bare buttocks pressed against the net still sends a shiver up my spine! In 1970's Britain, visualising gay sex taking place in front of a audience and in a setting of a place like Wimbledon Tennis Club, the epitome of the Establishment, was defiant indeed. 

He also applied his imagery to the equally unlikely sports of Golf and Cricket.

Frey - Bikers in a Dark Alley 1

This image of bikers getting hot in a dark alley was closer to reality but it's frankness also struck a blow for gay freedom of expression. It was gay art of a sort never seen before - high quality and spelling out what gay means without pussy-footing innuendo.  

Frey - Bikers in a Dark Alley 2

Frey revisited the biker subject in many other images of varying degrees of raunchiness which were, astonishingly, published in glossy, top shelf gay magazines without attracting reprisals from the Police, despite the efforts of conservative pressure groups.

Frey - Leather Lube, Biker Oil

The biker persona was perfect for expressing a boisterous, roughly expressed, bursting out of the closet and entering into forbidden places that reflected the spirit of those heady days when gay men felt that even if they weren't completely free exactly, not really able to realise these fantasies in real life, they nevertheless finally had a legitimacy that would enable them to push open doors that had been closed for all those years.

Frey - Biker Elopement

Frey's pictures did not just express excitement, there was an exuberant joy in them.

Imagining the trappings of conventionality and self -restraint being ripped apart.

It was an exciting time to be gay.

Frey - Lover

But he did not just portray excitement and lust

He also showed a vision of gay love as a beautiful thing, 

performed by beautiful people, beautiful men. 

Frey (as Zack) - Splash

His artistic skills here transform the old, tentative, AMG, shower hook-ups into something much more memorable. A loving shared experience of cleansing vitality with fierce, needle-like sprays of water battering and enveloping the two lovers.

Frey - Chains Broken

Frey's character rogue set the scene for a series of gay, comic book heroes whose masculinity was unquestionable and who were assertive and comfortable in their gay sexuality. Rogue's apparent taste for young virgins seems dubious in retrospect, but at the time reflected the common experience of a youth lost to unrequiteable desire. At that time most gay men of all ages probably were virgins or not long out of it and many no doubt saw themselves as his willing victims, given the chance. 

Bill Ward's later creations - Drum and King - were able to be more balanced characters in that respect 

Frey - Hard Wrestle

Frey's depictions of hard, rough sex were about showing the inherent masculinity of gay men, 

a reaction against years of being universally labelled as effeminate and soft.

Frey - Devilry

If homosexuality was the Devil's work, Frey's men boldly embraced that identity 

Frey - Mortal Combat

That vision of gay toughness also pervades his non-gay, fantasy work.

Frey - Tribal 2

Oliver Frey 1948 - 2022

A gay hero

This article adds to my original A-Z review of Oliver Frey's work

see also Night Visitor in the 'targeted' series

James Seely Naked

In this series of articles featuring James Seely (see foot of post), I've posted numerous images of him in which he is genuinely naked (despite the restrictions of the 1960's) , but none of them are frontal nudes, which were considered to be indecent. The 'shower post' illustrated how clumsy and contrived some of the cover-ups were to comply with this ban. 

This picture of James Seely totally nude is attributed to Denny Denfield by Tim in Vermont. Apparently he photographed models as a hobby but did not sell the pictures. He lived in San Francisco and knew Bob Mizer which is perhaps how he came into contact with James. However, I confess I know very little else about him or any other images of James taken by him.

1

Looking at this image of James today it's hard to comprehend what all the fuss was about. It shows a beautiful physique and although he looks very attractive 'out of pouch' it barely qualifies as erotic. Very close to the ideal of ancient Greek statues. I suppose the oily sheen on his physique might be thought dubious, but it was then, and still is, a standard device used by body builders to highlight their muscle development to contest judges. 

Later on, in the 70's, Mike Arlen would anoint his model's cocks with oil as well as their bodies

and produced spectacularly sexy results never seen before.

2

This photographer has taken pains to ensure that Seely does not look aroused, which would have made the picture not just indecent, but pornographic. Similarly James' facial expression, which is often entertainingly animated in other images, is sober and serious here allowing a claim to be made that the image is purely artistic (which is what the column is there for of course).

It's not surprising to discover that, faced with a naked model, photographers took frontal nude shots of them (which was not of itself illegal). However, the photos could not legally be sold or sent through the postal system. Photographers had to resort to coded advertisements and catalogues and post the pictures to buyers in plain envelopes, hoping that the postal authorities would not intercept them. Unfortunately, photographs require stiffened envelopes and were quite often spotted, inspected and the contents confiscated. It's clear though that much of the material did get through, the Post Office couldn't open every envelope and no doubt there were plenty of postal workers who ignored them.

3

Here James poses with another lusciously muscled man who I have not yet identified (info welcome)

Any gay man would see the eroticism simmering in this coupling, but the photographer has pre-empted accusations of smut by placing the models either side of the same pseudo-classical column seen in 1 above. It's effect is rather like the pillow down the centre of the bed, supposedly used by Hollywood film makers to legitimise putting movie stars in bed together. 

Nevertheless, the models' hands are tantalisingly close together on top of the column, and the fingers of James' partner (both hands) look as if they are itching to get up to mischief. In fact, you might have taken the model's facial expressions to indicate that they just have. Fortunately all is calm down below. 

Purveyors of nude images presumably took precautions to prevent intercepted images being traced back to them and recipients sometimes took elaborate precautions like using Post Office boxes and Post Restante to prevent their addresses being discovered by the authorities on envelopes and mailing lists (and also to hide the material from their wives and other people they lived with). Police in the UK went out of their way to expose gay men to their relatives and employers, ruining many lives. Not all gay men lived in fear though, if you lived your life openly the risk of fines was worth running.  

 

4

 With the models down on one knee the separating effect of the column is increased, allowing the models to face each other, but not look at each other. To the knowing eye, though, the phallic connotations of the column itself are clear enough.

5

In this image, a low, tin box has replaced the column but the raised knees of the models continue to shield their nether regions from each other. However, they also open up their stances and it almost seems like there is a 'musical chairs' style race to clamber on top of the box. Both men seem to be struggling to keep a straight face

~

Apart from Denfield, James Seely only seems to have posed for Kris of Chicago and Bob Mizer and I believe the photographer who took these black and white images was Kris. Kris didn't go in for Greek Columns very much but a very similar object can be seen in the catalogue page shown below (in No 7). A drum-sized version, painted black, also appears in several of his images.

In addition to this match, the original of one of the nude images above (No 2) has the inscription 'R-27' on it and you can see above that this is how Kris numbered his sets in his catalogue.

~

 The James Seely series:

The Abandoned Slave

Vintage Bondage - James Seely

James Seely meets some Naked Men

James bags John in the shower

Male Art by Fury Updated, Uncensored

 I have considerably updated and extended the old A-Z article on Ed Fury (aka Marc Ming Chan) with a number of more explicit pictures which take advantage of the more relaxed approach to nudity and sex allowable behind the sign-in barrier Blogger has imposed on this blog*. 

~

*I only became aware of this change a short while ago. It was triggered by my post on the Art of Cas. I had imagined that article to be pretty innocuous, but there was an image which could conceivably be seen as over-explicit or racially sensitive or legal age challenging - or all three. Who knows? Blogger doesn't say, but I wasn't sure the picture was by Cas anyway, so I removed it and the  amended post has not been queried - yet!

I don't object to Blogger putting the barrier there, although when I was a teenager access to the sort of material posted here would have been life-changing for me. However it shouldn't be viewed by younger kids and in any case the world is changing.

Classic Homoerotic Images 8

This joyous image by Colt of a leather man joyfully celebrating his sexuality and the freedom to express it marked the high point of 'liberation' around 1980 when anything seemed possible. Men who didn't subscribe to this magazine probably saw the cover advertised. It couldn't have failed to warm the cockles of their heart. Despite the leather referencing, it seems to embrace the whole gay community, what gay men shared rather than what differentiated them. It was an assertion that gay men were masculine, happy and balanced as individuals.

Colt - Gene Winchester

The full image, seen in this slightly different variant, was rather more racy, more assertively gay you might say. Gene Winchester clutching his crotch and failing to hide a generous bush of pubic hair. You might see PlayGuy's 1978 cover adaptation as a cop-out, but it's actually rather effective at implying what you don't see and they did have a full-frontal, centre page spread of this model inside. 

This magazine, by aping the title of the famously 'acceptable' heterosexual publication, represented a stab at equalisation, an attempt to secure a permanent place for gay magazines on the 'normal' bookshelves, away from the sleazy top shelf. Consequently the contents rarely lived up to the promise of the cover. It did managed to survive, however, without further compromise  until 2009 by which time the boys of Bel Ami had elbowed Colt musclemen out of the way.

I adapted this imagery myself in one of my early pictures - see next post.

Classic Homoerotic Images 6

 I have taken the liberty of repeating this image from a recent post 
to accord it it's rightful place in my series of homoerotic classics.

Tom Of Finland - Leather Lovers (1963)

Tom's image of two leather men sensuously nuzzling dicks a classic.

Their affectionate embrace is a bold assertion of the true nature of gay sexuality.

It has deservedly become a much-loved expression of Gay Pride.

Arguably the greatest Homoerotic Image of them all.

Contrast this image with the superficially similar image of cowboys helping each other to dress by Colt. It was pirated by Vivienne Westwood to adorn T-shirts during the punk era, a supposedly shocking product. Colt's image is 6 years later than Tom's and it's deliberately camp. It's another valid view of gay relationships but one that only embraces sexuality in an amusing, titillating way. Westwood's use of it may have been a public recognition of the gay world, but did little to alter perceptions of homosexuality.

Tom of Finland's 'Thieving Cowboy'

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 01

 The villain of the piece spies on his target.

He is a young man dressed in very tight jeans and a leather jacket,

a garment that shows off his dinky bubble butt to perfection.  

He's not obviously a cowboy though, despite the implication of the title.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 02

Seeing there is no-one around, he ventures into the tack room and lifts down a saddle.

He doesn't have the face of a villain, maybe he only wants to sniff it. 

A passing cowboy spots what he is doing and stops to investigate.

But it looks as though it's those juicy buns that have really caught his eye.

We can only imagine his reaction when he sees the impressive shaping at the front,

looming large and unprotected as the young man leans across the box.

The glimpse of  his 'belly button' under the jacket is a delicious detail.

In this sensitively copied image you can see the glorious sensuality of Tom's shading 

which has been largely washed away by the 'enhancement' of image 1. 

(see introductory article )

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 03

He is challenged by a muscular, bare topped cowboy,

You can almost hear the poor lad stammering as he tries to explain himself.

With the passage of time, the striped trousers Tom has given the cowboy to wear have become an incongruity that's hard to swallow. I don't think the fashion was that popular even in the 50's, not in the UK anyway. Now they look as though they belong in a circus rather than a ranch. By contrast the young man's classic jacket and jeans have hardly aged at all although young men don't wear them as tight as this any more (worse luck!).

 

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 05

It's not obvious here whether the cowboy has tried to apprehend the intruder

 or grabbed his jacket or attempted something even more scary for the young man.

It turns out he's not the pussy he looked, having grown into real beefcake all of a sudden.

He sends his attacker reeling away. I'm not quite sure how he's done it though. 

A slap? A head butt? (or BO perhaps?) 

The collapsing cowboy seems to present his crotch bulge to his dangling hand.

But a second cowboy interrupts them at this dramatic, suggestive moment.

I've left a gap in my numbering before this picture

 to allow for the existence of a more explanatory intermediate image 

(see introductory article re: numbering)

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 06

The intervention of cowboy No.2 turns the tables. He puts the hunky intruder into an arm lock, making him bend over, seemingly perched on his thigh. Coincidentally, a degree of lumpiness has resurfaced in those tight jeans. This is one of Tom's great physical domination images, easily ranking alongside the careless motorcyclist and coffee-spilling sailor classics. 

Cowboy No 1 lies dazed on the floor displaying considerable assets of his own in an indecorous, open legged pose. It's similar to another seen here recently in the Colourised Royale Guardsmen post. 

I salvaged this fragment from an old Royale Studio ad with some fairly crude editing but it gives a good idea of the original picture. The struggling pair in the foreground are the essence of the composition, one of the better images in this set. I've also attached an AI-enhanced version that goes to the other extreme but shows what might have been.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 07 

Somehow the captive wriggles free and lunges at his attacker knocking him over. 

He also appears to be taking the chance to grope his opponent's bottom.

In doing so he presents his own backside to the other cowboy 

who returns to the fight with hand outstretched towards the alluring sight.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 08

Cowboy No 2 goes down and the intruder leaps on top of him, fist flailing.

The two men's groins are pressed together but Tom steers clear of the provocative, homoerotic nuzzling of his slightly later, leather lovers (shown below). The slight crotch displacement he uses instead fortuitously produces hint of top and bottom in the alignment. The arched body of the man underneath enhances the impression both of fierce resistance and sexual pleasure.

No 2 seems to be having another go at removing the visitor's leather jacket.

I recovered this image from the same ad as No 6 above and it suffers from the same shortcomings in quality, but there's no mistaking the impressive sense of desperate struggle Tom has managed to capture. He used a similar fight composition in other stories of the this period.

Tom Of Finland - Leather Lovers (1963)

Tom's image of two leather men sensuously nuzzling dicks is a classic.

Their affectionate embrace is a bold assertion of the true nature of gay sexuality.

It has deservedly become a much-loved expression of Gay Pride.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 09

The two cowboys eventually get the upper hand.

They begin to  mete out punishment to the impertinent intruder.

No 2 ties a rope to his ankle to quell his resistance 

while No 1 distracts him with  an open hand spank.

The sequencing of the fight images 5-9 is not completely obvious and there's a temptation to place this image 9 adjacent to No 7 but the initiation of the roping sequence anchors it at the end. The cowboy's hat plays a merry dance of it's own throughout these pictures and is no guide to continuity.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 10

The young man's ankle is tied to a convenient post. The opposing pull of the rope and his restrainer's gagging action produces a flash of curvaceous buttock, a delicious arching of his torso and a look of utter display as he sees his chance of escaping from these men going up in smoke. 

It looks like his jacket is finally coming off.

   

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 12

A few minutes later his other ankle is also tied, spread-eagling his feet wide.

One of his wrists has also been tethered and is being pulled out taut.

His jacket is gently eased off his last untethered limb.

A hand clasps his pec and his arousal shows no sign of abating.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 13

For me this is a most exciting moment.

Having secured their captive in an uncomfortable X-stretch,

one of the cowboys starts to extract his belt from the loops in his jeans

The other starts to undo the flies of his jeans.

The captive recoils, but his his indrawn abs are a futile act 

that only adds another sexy detail to the alluring display of his body

He can only watch what they are doing and wonder where it will go. 

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 14

With the captive now stretched out helpless, 

cowboy No 1 begins to spank him with his own belt.

His colleague watches the captive's response to the punishment with a faint smile

his jeans are showing signs of strain just below his own belt.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 15

With the spanking in full flow, the recipient bows his head.

Tom brings out the dense muscularity of the spanker's back

which serves to underline the intensity of the punishment.

The on-looker extends his forefinger as though furtively pleasuring himself. 

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 16

Finally they release the captive and he sinks to the ground massaging his bottom.

The spectator seems to be showing his approval at the performance,

or is that upraised thumb symbolic of something else?

Notice how their feet are entwined.

Tom of Finland - The Thieving Cowboy 17

No 17 is another nicely drawn, sexy picture which benefits enormously from not having been 'enhanced'.

The thief flees, holding up his jeans but minus his expensive leather jacket.

The blond cowboy could be shouting that he's forgotten his jacket,

but both of them have seemed to be trying to get it off him throughout.

So at this point you might wonder who exactly is the thief ?

You can see that in this picture the offender's ass is completely uncovered. Although we saw the top of his jeans being undone in picture 13, they seemed to remain firmly in place in the images that followed. However the drawing of the waistband in 16 looks as if it may have been an afterthought, a sanitisation of nude buttocks (although this might be a misleading effect of the imperfect picture quality). His X-spread restraint would have prevented complete removal of his jeans anyway, but could it be that between pictures 15 and 17 he was spanked on his bare butt?  

Of course that rueful massage of his buttock could be the aftermath of a more invasive come-uppance. We know from the early biker set discovered in 2015 that Tom was drawing sexually explicit endings to some of his series at least and there are hints throughout this piece that the cowboy's interest in him has a sexual dimension (naturally!). Whatever happened to him was sufficient at any rate to persuade him to abandon his coat and would potentially furnish enough additional material to boost the number of images in the set towards Anderson's claimed total of 26. (See Introductory article)

More Tom of Finland articles at mitchmen

More about Tom at Tom of Finland Foundation

Royale Guardsmen Colourised

These fascinating, colourised versions of three Royale Studio photos showing two Guardsmen wrestling, bare-top were kindly submitted to me by Roo Morgan. The colouring transforms these images. The flesh tones draw in the eye, promising erotic interest, which is there if you care to look - the hand placed on the one man's raised buttock , the forearm embedded in the other's own crotch and as for the hidden head, we can only surmise what that is doing. Their interlocking itself is supremely intimate

The uniforms these men are wearing are genuine and Roo has given them authentic colours persuading us that these are real soldiers, real Guardsmen, which they probably were. Men chosen to represent the heights of maleness and strength in our society. The wrestling scenario amplifies those manly characteristics and these two even have tattoos, a badge of uncultured maleness in the 60's, not a fashion.

Royale's predilection for real servicemen gave their images a thrilling tang of reality. Making them strip and touch each other in erotically interesting zones like buttocks, implied that the manly veneer conferred by their uniform concealed undercurrents of bold, homo-erotic desire. In this picture the hint of physical domination and submission to intimacy seems to epitomise that.

It subverted the whole military service ethos of obedience, discipline and working together.
No wonder the establishment was alarmed.

These images show the two Guardsmen in undignified poses, not the sort of image to command the respect their superiors would want of the Services. The upraised bottom and open crotch are hugely suggestive sexually, distasteful even today and socially unacceptable then. There's already a suggestion of mutual embracing here but these two, carefully contrived poses only need to shift a little horizontally to become a simulation of oral sex. A typical example of 60's hidden eroticism which gay men would spot but would go over the head of the average 'man on the Clapham omnibus'. 

 If you haven't visited the new Royale Studio Blog and Gallery yet I encourage you to do so. 
There are several new or upgraded posts there that have never appeared here:

Sailors Wrestling in the Rigging - expanded from one picture to four. 

Peter George in Underwear (the missing PUN-1?)

Peter George's Storyettes (new list)

Peter Watts tied to the rigging (new information)

Plus a whole series of posts about Royale and how they operated
and index of forthcoming storyettes.

~

I welcome any feedback (via comments)

about how you find the design of the new site