Punishment of a Sailor

The creator of this video snippet calls it a 'Pirate Dunking'. That might suggest it's the fate of a captive, particularly as he's dressed in rags (just about!). But it's a disciplinary scenario that might be applied to any sort of vessel from the age of sail. Both civilian and military ships could be blessed with captains who applied severe punishments to excess. But, at least this unfortunate has escaped the dreaded 'keel-hauling', keeping his superb physique in tip-top condition for the next time.

An impressive example of what can be done with AI in hands not constrained by commercial considerations. He's conjured a great homo-erotic scene without causing offence to anybody! 

It would be nice to see a modern version with the dunkee dressed in white underpants, say, or other revealing, wet clothes. 

More on this artist next time.  

 

 Subscribers to the 'follow me' feed need to visit the blog to see the video:- Punishment of a Sailor

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  

 

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 

Etienne's 'Sailor Beware' comes to life (briefly!)

Etienne - Desert Trek from Sailor Beware

 

 The recent flurry of posts on Etienne's Art gets another boost with a new, AI-animated version of the Desert Trek scene (Stephen's original version above) posted by Planet Gay this week at his 'X' site.

This follows his terrific AI reconstruction of the same image, which was posted here recently.

The image reproduced above comes from Etienne's revised version of the story, which is posted in full at mitchmen in this post. 

A more recent post pieces together the original 60's version using fragments which I unearthed in some old beefcake magazines.

 

 

That article also highlights the inspirational cross-fertilisation between 'Sailor Beware' and Royale Studio's 'Shanghai'd Sailor' which may have been the egg for Etienne's chicken.

~ 

More Etienne at mitchmen  

 

Etienne's Medical Images

Where Would You Like It, Sir?

 I have added this better copy to the
 Index of Etienne Articles at mitchmen

 

Are You OK With Needles, Sir?

 Medical imagery by this artist is rare, but this one turned up recently in my uncatalogued collection.  

 

It's For Your Own Good!

 

I'm not sure that this really counts! 

Nevertheless, it's worth a look, if only for the wonderful

 expression on the patient's face! 

 

Medical Assessment

This one is from the Troopship story.

 

 

Medical Evidence

This one is a bit irregular too. A rating who has complained about being assaulted by the rest of the crew (a lot of them, anyway) is examined for evidence by his Senior Officer, instead of being sent to the ship's Doctor. The Officer's ulterior motive is easy to spot! 

 

from 'Navy Grease' 

 

Any other suggestions from Readers will be welcome

(via comments is best) 

 

Art by Holzman - Merchant Navy (revised)

Holzman - Merchant Navy 1

This Hussar advert in 'Fizeek' magazine in 1963 introduced a new artist to the gay scene, Holzman, with a 'playlet' about a nautical thief. The illustration shown is one of the opening images of the series showing the 'toughie' arriving on board the boat with his kit bag. You can tell he's tough because he's got a torso-revealing, open jacket (leather?) and a cigarette drooping from his mouth. You sense he's a man with attitude, although the cant of his head and squint here is what smokers do to keep their cigarette smoke out of their own eyes. In that respect this is a neat little piece of observation by Holzman, documenting a practice that's gradually dying out now. The tough is thoughtfully examining something that he's found, his seaman's papers perhaps, although I suspect it's a bottle  (see below). 

I have 15 of the advertised 16 images in this story but no information about their sequence and have therefore  simply numbered them in what seems to be the logical sequence based on continuity.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 2

The new boy climbs on board with a long, butt enhancing stride and a determined look on his face. 

The texturing of his jacket and jeans suggests they might be leather, which in the 60's was thought of as the uniform of wild bikers. However, the presence of turn-ups and the styling of the jacket with visible seams is more suggestive of denim, a more suitable material for working on a boat.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 3

Below decks, the toughie examines a bottle of alcohol which has a label promising serious gut rot. It's enough to make him drop his cigarette, which apart from being a breach of good manners, is liable to start a fire on a boat, a danger to life and limb. 

Despite these shortcomings in his character which we are learning about, he's portrayed as a sexy beast. The 'Latin look' was quite common iconography at the time and very exotic to UK eyes. The exaggerated fleshy lips and dark-rimmed eyes seem to be borrowed from female notions of sexual allure (regretably, for the image of gay men). A distinctive vocabulary for the male equivalent had yet to be developed (and probably wouldn't have been accepted by society at large anyway).

The straw-clad carafe of wine in the cupboard behind him is a nostalgic image from a less sophisticated era in the UK. You might also recognise the 'Heinz 57 Varieties' label on the tin on the bar, amazingly it hasn't dated in 60 years and I suppose the same is true of his fashion wear.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 4

In this image it seems that the new crewman has removed various articles to his cabin and is about to hide them in his kit bag, furtively concealing his actions from a member of the crew working on the deck just outside. It must be a hot day because everyone seems to be undressing. The enticing glimpse of flesh through the porthole is the calf of a crewman walking towards the left of the picture. 

You could be forgiven for thinking here that the glimpse of flesh has sparked an impromtu massage with the bottle or even that the thievery entailed drinking some of the liquor and then topping up the bottle with piss to hide the theft. This clever 'hidden eroticism' deserved to have escaped the attentions of the censors, because it's very nicely drawn picture, a neglected classic. 

The villain has become more Anglo-Saxon-looking in this image, but I think it is the same character. judging mainly by the turn-ups (see image 2) and the presence of the two tins from picture 3. The Latin look does return later but only in one special example.

The smoky effect at the left, by the way, is not the result of his dropped cigarette but a scanning effect. It has fortuitously added a nice texture of dappled light to an otherwise 'flat' image.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 5

The villain's activities are disturbed by the arrival of a 3rd crewman (also apparently wearing a leather jacket). He too starts to undress, whistling as though routinely changing into his work clothes, which judging by the porthole vision in the previous picture might consist of very few clothes indeed. The thief is horrified, presumably imagining he's about to be exposed - as a thief, according to the story line, or, in the more subversive sub-text, as a man who has problems with naked male flesh. 

Holzman's picture here copies classic, film noir imagery, with the unsuspecting innocent making himself ever more vulnerable to a hidden threat of which he's unaware. The hidden eroticism in this image surrounds the ambiguous interpretation of the bottle, angled just right to suggest the villain is getting other ideas about this new arrival. The coat hook just above his head provides a more graphic hint of what he might have in mind with the backing plate suggesting a tight fit could be his reward. 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 6

This growing tension seems to be triggered into a full-blown crisis, by the arrival of a third man. He appears to be the skipper of the vessel, previously glimpsed through the porthole in picture 4 and now revealed to be dressed only in a cap, skimpy slip and sea boots (the last a worrying link to the label on the bottle!). At this point the undressing crewman has lowered his underpants. In fact they are nowhere to be seen, presumably lost in the folds of his jeans, unless they're ripped to pieces on the floor.  

The villain's reaction seems a bit over the top. In the story plotline he seems to think that his exposure as a thief is imminent and so goes into self-defence mode, smashing the bottle to use as a weapon 

(or it could be that he's suddenly revolted by the thought of having drunk it's contents!) 

Alternatively, in the delicious ambiguity that pervades this story, the young skipper's sexy appearance here offers an erotic explanation of the actions of the villain back in picture 4. His panicky reaction now is triggered by the rapidly accumulating male nudity and the sudden prospect that he might be about to witness something unspeakable going on between these two men, whom, we should remember, didn't know he was there until he announced himself by smashing the bottle. He might even be drawn into it, producing an explosion of a different kind.

There used to be a accepted legal principle of 'homosexual panic', i.e. a fear of being in imminent danger of being raped by a homosexual. This was advanced as a legitimate excuse for assaulting gay men and even killing them. In some cases the reaction hid the fear of having his own, secret, homosexual leanings exposed. This concept perversely confers on gay men, a power over straights that is erotically appealing, if entirely fanciful.

 Holzman's rendering of the hunky skipper is masterly but some severe cropping seems has gone on at the sides. It has spoiled the depiction of his crewmate (left), while the villain's aggression act has been converted into a disembodied, eerie 'manifestation'. This may have been intentional, to amplify the sense of panic and the shock to the sailors. However, it was also common practice in this period to publish incomplete images in order to encourage viewers to buy the full artwork.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 7

Somewhat surprisingly, the villain chooses to confront the defenceless, nearly naked seaman with the bottle rather than the Captain. It's him (or his nudity) that he finds most threatening, or it could be that this crewman has challenged him or is attempting to calm him*. Interestingly, his jeans have now dropped round his ankles and the villain is suddenly sporting a recognisable manifestation of excitement in his jeans rather than the generalised bulge seen occasionally in the preceding pictures. 

*Perhaps Holzman simply thought cropping it made a better picture. Whatever the case it's a great image using a challenging viewpoint. The quality of these pictures in both technical and dramatic terms is certainly on a par with the emerging stars of this era - Tom of Finland and Etienne.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 8

The captain intervenes with a mighty upper cut. By this time, his half-undressed crewmate is down on the floor, on his knees (and with bare ass raised in a classic, passive pose). The broken bottle is nowhere to be seen, suggesting that he managed to disarm the villain before he could do any damage with it.

Holzman has included the coat hook (from picture 4) in this image, positioning it a short distance from the villain's half-open mouth. It sort of matches the sweep of the Captain's fist but also suggests there's an erotic forfeit in store for him, one that is slightly off-piste at this point.

I don't have a satisfactory copy of this picture but it's too important to leave out. 

The cartoonised version below gives a neater sense of how the original might have looked.

Holzman - Merchant Navy 8 (AI variant)

This more balanced variant gives a better sense of the drama of the moment. It also brings out the nudity of the fallen sailor, almost seeming to suggest that the other men are fighting over him (hence, I suppose, the presence of the phallic coat hook, which, in a bizarre AI tweak, is suddenly dripping!). 

However, we can also see more clearly that the fallen sailor's arm is entwined with the villain's foot, confirming his active role in overpowering him. 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 9

The thief is down but not yet out as the crewmates pile onto him. The captain's hands are clasped tightly together round the villain's neck but he is struggling manfully to detach them. The second crew member, having disentangled himself completely from his jeans and underpants, has grabbed the villain's free arm and is pulling it into his uncovered crotch, where it can't cause any mischief (but feels nice). 

Ominously for the villain, his flies have come undone and his Y-fronts are pushing up through the gap and being nuzzled by the skipper's shin (entirely accidentally, I dare say). His choice of underwear makes the downward pointing bulge in picture 6 improbable, although the picture below shows they are not a very tight fit, so maybe it was an escaper.

 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 10

The sailors turn the villain upside down, perhaps hoping to see what will fall out of his pockets, which is the traditional way of exposing a thief in kids' comics. It also has the effect here of pulling his jeans off completely, which will enable them to conduct a more thorough search (or something like that). Losing his pants also makes it a tad more difficult for him to run off, but I suspect that being undressed by these men is only going to intensify that instinct.

You may think you've seen this picture before and you'd be right if you're a regular visitor to this blog, because exactly the same picture appears in my article on the Art of Cas. The same that is, except that it is signed there by Cas. Cas and Holzman are the same person.

Another Cas-Holzman picture can be seen at the mitchmen Royale Studio blog in the 'Timeline' post section 63.1. It's in an ad, emblazoned with the Cas logo, but a contact address has been positioned on top of the original Holzman signature. The background to this name changing is a mystery. Perhaps something to do with publisher's exclusivity.

 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 11

 

This picture and 12 to 15 below have all been retrieved from tiny thumbnails in Hussar ads, hence the inferior, fuzzy quality. They suffice to allow us to understand what is going on, however. 

If any reader can supply better versions, please get in touch!

 

The crew have manhandled the villain so he's draped astride a convenient drum. 

 There's a provocative view of his underpants as they prepare to punish him.

The Captain is holding a knotted rope in his hand.  

A loop of rope hanging on that peg behind them offers further restraint options. 

 

It's unclear what the crewman on the right is doing. He appears to be holding a cane in which case this image might also be sequenced to follow on from the next one. However, there's no cane in the other pictures, I think it is just a flaw. He might be hand-spanking him however. 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 12

The captain begins, flogging him with a knotted rope. His crewmate (underwear restored to preserve decency) sits on the villain's head to hold him down (with his balls resting on his shoulders where they can enjoy the villain's movements as he reacts to the thrashing). His pose here, with the characteristic turning of the head is very reminiscent of the contemporary artist, Spartacus.

The skipper's fleshy physique does not disappoint in this picture but his face has now transformed rather unpleasantly into an appearance similar to that of the villain when he arrives at the boat. This seems to be a look chosen by Cas to represent nastiness and it's been gradually developing in the Captain in the preceding pictures, like something out of Dorian Gray. 

Cas seems to be playing with a very dubious stereotype of foreignness here and unnecessarily so since it would perfectly OK for the cute, hunky, young man in picture 6 to maintain order on his own boat without turning into a demon. I suppose there's a certain satisfaction in the villain being 'out-nastied', having underestimated his intended victims. 

 

 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 13

The villain must have struggled energetically during the assault because the Captain has lost his cap and the two sailors have had to tie him down over the barrel with his arms and legs spread wide. The crewman who was earlier threatened with the broken bottle, still has the miscreant's head between his legs. He pulls it up by the hair so it's snugly wedged in his crotch, almost face upwards here so it gets the fullest experience. He takes his turn flogging him with the knotted rope, no doubt enjoying the villain's struggling movements between his thighs. These exertions seem to be dislodging his already skimpy trunks (much in the style of Tom of Finland).

The skipper watches them, flexing his muscles triumphantly. He even seems to be rubbing his packet with his left hand, but that may be wishful thinking on my part!

 

 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 14

  

Finally the villain seems to have collapsed, or at any rate he has stopped resisting. The crewmen lift him bodily almost as if intending to pitch him overboard. Their bulging trunks symbolically almost touch in a sort of low five (or three) you might call it . The rope and barrel have been restored to their places against the wall*. The enhancement and clarification of this image has brought the villain's underpants into stark relief, stretched tight round his buttocks and deep between them. 

*This detail doesn't seem quite right, it would seem more natural for this image to sit before image 11, where the same loop of rope can be seen on the wall. Unfortunately that creates a different continuity problem - with the Captain's hat, which is on his head in images 10 and 11. 

Holzman - Merchant Navy 15

In this final image, again recovered from an advert thumbnail, the punishment seems to finished. The scene has shifted to a bedroom with a washbasin in the corner and the chastised villain meekly seeks the comfort of a cushion to sit on, on the bed. He's now without any underpants at all and there's a faint suggestion of criss-cross weals on his buttocks. It's possible that a bare-ass final spanking was the subject of one of the two missing images.

His two adversaries stand, lording it over him, with undisguised enlargements in their pants. One of them is resting his arm on a long pole which faintly suggests the punishment may even have reached into internal regions in some shape or form. The Captain, restored to normal handsomeness, breaks out the liquor that seems to have been the root cause of the problem. The villain hasn't got much to celebrate but it doesn't look like he's free to go just yet . You sense the affair is not yet over.

~

These images were obtained from the internet and some from TimInVermont,

enhanced by mitchmen where my logo has been added.  

More about artists featured by Royale and Hussar

 

(First published 8th May 2024)

Vintage Bondage - Leonard Chambers chained, roped and nude

 Leonard Chambers was the subject of the very first Vintage Bondage post at mitchmen blog, back in 2015. Those images were chosen because they had more of a sense of a restraint about them than was usual in the 1950's. I added some more images from the same shoot to it not so long ago so you might like to check them out using the link just above.

Leonard Chambers in chains 1 (AMG)

The original post featured rope bondage on a bench. These images feature chains and upright poses but they also capture the special qualities of this popular model. His canted head in the image above conveys a sense of thoughtfulness and sadness, as though he's a man contemplating his choices and the punishment for them. There's a better sense of his luxurious physique than in the first set, nicely oiled. The position of his hands obscures enough of his pouch to give a good sense of nakedness (with scope for lewder interpretations of what's going on out of sight). 

Leonard Chambers in chains 2 (AMG)

This picture obliquely suggests that the punishment might be a visit to the whipping post. Chambers strikes a proud, or you might say arrogant, defiant pose while facing the prospect of a barrage of pain. His raised arms give another a great view of  his torso. The often maligned, posing pouch is fully visible but has the virtue of looking as if there is something inside it, neatly packaged. It's a puzzle to me why photographers didn't opt for a loin cloth design for images like this, when it was a common enough sight in the 'Sword and Sandals' movies of the time.

These images seem much influenced by traditional, medieval notions of martyrdom. That association may help to make them look more convincing but you have to give a lot of credit to the model here for creating a dramatic moment, when it is apparent on closer inspection that he is not secured to the post at all but holding it up and the supposed 'marble pillar' looks suspiciously like a roll of floor covering. 

Leonard Chambers in chains 3 (AMG)

He adopts the same look for this pose, but arguably looks more annoyed than defiant, perhaps because the level of restraint here is barely rudimentary. The chains don't look as if they'd withstand much force and even if convincingly secured it would be more symbolic than real. Just like the prison bars at the back, to be fair. Despite such quibbles, it's still a great image of a captive muscle hunk. The loop of chain brushing the front of his pouch adds an erotic frisson.

Leonard Chambers - Sheath 1

This extraordinarily atmospheric image is not an example of bondage exactly but the model has swapped his posing pouch for a 'sheath' that encloses his sex organ in fashion that seems to anticipate the chastity devices of recent years - symbolically again but still rather sexy. Notice that the background has become a classical ancient building, conjuring up fantasies of enslavement. It's the best image yet of Leonard's physique, when it's his turn to stand on the rostrum, he should fetch a good price!

Leonard Chambers - Sheath 2

In this open-legged frontal pose, Leonard looks more youthful, waiting with barely controlled agitation. His abs are tensed, clenched even, producing a startling effect of connectivity running down and disappearing into the sheath, which you can now see has a simple, draw-string hem, like a purse of olden days. It's a matter of taste whether this clever effect turns you on but it brings out something more widely appreciated - that the model's lower torso is shaved completely smooth for as far as the eye can see. The sheath may provide a cloak of modesty, but it draws attention to this nakedness. He is now seated before a Moorish arch raising the spectre of a different style of enslavement. No wonder he looks worried.

Leonard Chambers - Nude 1

After the tantalising sheath, a genuine, frontal, fully nude shot posed before a classical column.

We are fortunate that quite a lot of AMG images of Leonard like this have survived.

He looks relaxed and confident here having comfortably passed the male nudity size test.

Leonard Chambers - Nude 2

This image posed with a curtain pole brings out the full extent of Leonards shoulder development and upper body bulk. Model's training techniques in those days seemed to produce physiques with a natural, most attractive 'plushness'. Once again there's a vague connection with the bondage theme of this post, 

the pole keeps the model's hands out of the way behind him and leaves his treasure trove unprotected. You only have to image his wrists being tied to the pole.

Leonard Chambers - Nude 3

This image creates a dramatically different torso effect. With Leonard's arm raised we see the intensely detailed muscles and stand-out veins of a body-builder training for competition by shedding fat. Presumably this is the same shoot as Nude 1, but the effect couldn't be more different. 

Again there's a hint at bondage restraint, tied to the column.

Leonard Chambers - Rope 1

There's a strange affinity between naked men and thick rope. I suppose it hints at masculine labours. Leonard here looks back fearfully as if expecting a whiplash any minute to make him pull harder. 

Rope also has a phallic quality for those inclined to see it (especially when it's dangling just in front of the model's pouch). It alludes to bondage fetish too although this one is really too thick for that purpose.

Leonard Chambers - Sailor with Rope 

Ropes like this are also inextricably linked with with sailing ships and sailors and few gay models escaped from beefcake posing sessions without having had to don the US Navy's distinctive sailor cap. This image was probably inspired by the many War movies of the era which showed bare chested, hunky sailors sweating under the pacific sun. Leonard looks as if he's trying to diligently perform a routine task in the nude (acting on perverse orders) but without losing his modesty. It makes a charming image, suggesting a man of sensitivity, needing protection and whom anyone might fall for. 

Leonard Chambers - Nude 4

This was the barely legal nude in the 50's. It can be seen as a prissy, slightly feminine pose but Leonard gives it a great deal of dignity, preserving his modesty with a slightly anxious expression that suggests he's waiting for the call which will may oblige him to reveal all. Maybe an instruction to mount the rostrum he's standing on. His oily skin lends his lean physique a harder look here. The absence of hair on his flat, lower abdomen again creates a subtly erotic accent of total nudity. 

Leonard Chambers - Pouch

This version of the sitting pose is rather less dignified, positively coquettish, but it's interesting to see a very typical 50's glamour pose for ladies performed by a male. The angling of the lower body modestly obscures a woman's 'sensitive' areas but makes a man look uncharacteristically coy without hiding anything. The pouch too is less much elegant than a bikini but looks sexily loaded. If you've fallen in love with him, this image won't change your mind!

~

For more vintage bondage and related mitchmen posts click on the labels below