IFNB is the Most Popular 'All Comers' Post in 2019

 A recent post at IFNB showing a Mr Alpha contestant and his support assistant

 celebrating victory with a cup of juice.

According to my Blogger 'hit stats', out of all the mitchmen articles published to date,
those registering the most hits during 2019 were as shown below.

Table 1 – mitchmen Articles with Most Hits in 2019

Position (& last year)	Article	Published	Hits in 2019	Hits in 2018
1 (6)	IFNB A Fantasy World of BodyBuilders	2018	11665	2516
2 (3)	The Milking Factory	2017	9421	4406
3 (2)	Priapus of Milet - 1	2012	7119	5722
4 (1)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Cavelo	2008	7007	6574
5 (-)	Milking Factories -3	2018	5955	974
6 (-)	The Art of Homoeros – 6 (cross )	2018	4593	699
7 (5)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Jotto	2009	3880	2836
8 (10)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Julius	2009	3298	2208
9 (7)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – The Hun	2009	2936	2507
10 (-)	Milking Factories – 4	2019	2820	-
11 (4)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Mike Carcel	2010	2697	2894
12 (-)	The Art of Homoeros -1 (beefcake)	2018	2592	1110
13 (-)	Chirenon 'A New Life For Our Airforce Boys'	2017	2536	1686
14 (-)	Another Milking Factory (No 2)	2018	2328	867
15 (11)	Mitchell A Christmas Criminal (ep 1-5)	2015	2256	2169
16 (-)	Homoeros Gallery	2019	2238	50 (est)
17 (8)	Hunk Hunt – Mitch Colby 5 (spank GIF)	2017	1954	2489
18 (-)	The Art of Sparkieshock	2018	1933	1045
19 (-)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Teddy of Paris	2014	1778	799
20 (-)	The Art of Homoeros – 4 (abused)	2018	1741	861
21 (12)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Malex	2010	1686	1691
22 (18 )	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Kalabro	2009	1622	1311
23 (13)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Martin of Holland	2010	1571	1550
24 (9)	Bound & Gagged Magazine - 4	2014	1567	2217
25 (-)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Franco (Part 2)	2017	1524	888
26 (16)	Vintage Spanking Art	2014	1459	1342
27= (19 =)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Heredia	2009	1392	1202
27= (-)	Tentacles in Action	2018	1392	864
29 (-)	IFNB is most popular new 'mitchmen' post of 2018	2019	1302	-
30	Mitchell's Last Chance Saloon	2018	1284	477

This table only shows hits registered during 2019 but for all articles, not just those first published in 2019. The titles in all the tables link to the original posts. Please tell me if you have difficulty with any links. Stats collected 31/12/19

These tables are usually dominated by the older articles on classic artists, but this year relative newcomers have overturned that. IFNB A Fantasy World of BodyBuilders, in it's first full year captured the top spot overtaking the original Milking Factory article which was already poised for success last year at No3. IFNB finished ahead by a substantial margin. There was an equally large gap down to Priapus of Milet-1 at No 3 (down 1 place). The phenomenal popularity of the IFNB and Milking Factory posts was very obvious to me during the year and the winning total was 75% higher than last year's winner A-Z of Fetish Artists – Cavelo (down to 4). Cavelo recorded just under 10% more hits but that wasn't anywhere near enough to hold back the new wave, or to prevent Priapus of Milet - 1 regaining the upper hand in their 3 year tussle. Priapus showed a 25% rise in hits which was the same as the overall increase in visits to the blog.

While The Milking Factory was pipped for top spot there was compensation of sorts from 3 other posts in the series which came in at 5, 10 and 14. With 2 further articles in the series appearing in the 2019 new articles list, this is definitely 'The Year of the Milking Factory'.

The other tsunami to sweep the chart this year was of course Homoeros who snatched 4 places (6, 12, 16, 20) including the surprise success of the Homoeros Gallery article which I talked about in the new articles list. His crucifixion images (The Art of Homoeros – 6) seem to attract most interest, more than double that of the first article in the series (The Art of Homoeros -1) which is a good indicator of the interest in his wider work.

Given the dominance of these multi-part series I'm also showing, this year, the next 10 articles in the table who might otherwise have made the higher positions. Most of these are ejectees from the 2018 top 20 but there are some interesting new entrants towards the bottom.

The notable (and gratifying) increase in visits to the blog recently (they've doubled in the last 3years) has helped to drive up the hit rates for new articles. The top 20 cut-off figure this year was 1741, compared with last years 1202, and this puts the historic performance of older articles under pressure. It will be interesting to see what the cumulative hit chart looks like this year. The visits picture this year went a bit crazy with extreme fluctuations from month to month which I can't explain. It doesn't seem to relate to the new posts I am making, because most visitors still go to the older stuff, as you will see if you look at the top 10 gadget which I added this year. The modest presence of two 2019 articles in the top 20 also reflects this preference.

One casualty of this turmoil was former perennial chart-topper Mike Carcel which dropped to No 11 with a small decline in new hits for the second consecutive year. I have lost track of where he is posting now (if anywhere) which may account for this dip. However Cavelo, Jotto, Julius and The Hun made a good fist of defending the 'old school' presence with decent increases in views. That was supplemented by the unexpected appearance of Teddy of Paris at No19. It's the first time he has registered in any of these charts and I'm absolutely delighted that his superb art is still garnering admirers. The continuing high levels of interest in traditional, fetish art sets the bar for new arrivals who have yet to show their own durability.

Two other distinctive representatives of the new wave made also welcome entries this year Chirenon 'A New Life For Our Airforce Boys' and The Art of Sparkieshock are representatives of fetish-inspired art that's very much of the 21^st century

On a personal note it's nice to see A Christmas Criminal (ep 1-5) hanging on to a top 20 spot at 15. This article also effectively carried the flag for spanking this year. I don't regard myself as a spanking artist, but it features prominently in this particular story. There was also spanking support from Hunk Hunt – Mitch Colby 5 (which contains a spanking GIF). Mitch Colby (no relation!) is also the sole wrestling representative in the list and his is the only photography article. Of the rest, 3 articles are photo-manips, 11 are computer based art and 5 traditional art. It adds up to a resounding vote for imaginative, creative art.

That conclusion is reinforced by the 'Index of Artists' Page which recorded 13951 hits in 2019 (up 30%). This feature of the blog (introduced in 2015) is probably mainly responsible for the increase in visits overall, total blog visits this year were 696K, up 24% from 2018. The growth also coincides to some extent with a switch of focus at the blog from traditional, historic fetish art to more modern exponents as the A-Z series came to a close. Either way I'm glad visitors are finding the index useful and hope it will lead many more newcomers to a fantastic heritage of gay art they never saw before.

Total mitchmen blog visits for all years are now 3.57 million (2.88)

Next time I will reveal the all time table of cumulative hits

did Mike Carcel keep his spot at the top?

Thanks to all of you for your continuing interest and support.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas (Bareass Blogs Special No 40)

Bareass Bottoms-Up Band Beating the Retreat

"We've made sure those 12 bloody drummers 

won't be coming down our street on a Sunday morning next year!"

(and by a happy chance 12th night falls on a Sunday this year! 😉)

Originally published in greyscale as part of my

"This Christmas will be .....different" series

(which is available in full at mitchmen club at Adonis Male) 

Go to No 41

 View Bareass series from No 1

Milking Factory 4 is mitchmen Most Popular New Post of 2019

 At this time of year it is my custom to review the last year's posts to see which attracted the most visitors. This year I have changed my approach by including some posts from the previous year which were published too late to get fair recognition last time and ranking them all based on a time-averaged hit rate. The full rationale for this change is explained here.

Detail of Sarander's 'Alien Semen Farm' (from Milking Factories-4)

According to my Blogger 'view count' stats, the 20 posts listed below
 are the most-visited mitchmen articles out of the 127 published in 2019
 This total compares with 119 in 2018. The titles have links to the individual posts.

2019 Most Popular Post Table based on average hit rate (not total hits)
2019 Rank (total hits rank)	Title	Hit Rate pa	Publication Date
1 (1)	Milking Factories – 4	2949	Jan
2 (2)	Homoeros Gallery	2186	Dec '18
3 (7)	Milking Factories No 5 – The Development Lab	1811	May
4 (5)	Kasee's Wrestling Humiliation	1672	Mar
5 (11)	The Art of Ephorox	1535	May
6 (13)	Milk Outlets	1361	Jun
7 (4)	IFNB is most popular new 'mitchmen' post of 2018	1316	Jan
8 (18)	The Art of German Twister	1185	July
9 (6)	The Art of Ivan Bubentkov	1136	Dec '18
10 (16)	The Art of Hasegawa (New)	1036 est	Jun
11 (20)	Get Carter!	883	May
12 (10)	The Art of Colt 1	865	Nov '18
13 (14)	The Art Of Oscar Waldes	833	May
14 (8)	The Art of Bowen	830	Sep '18
15 (9)	Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 4) – Unlucky in War	745	Aug '18
16 (19)	Mitchell's Fetish Art for April – Sports Star Captured	718	Apr
17 (22)	Taken Off The Streets - 1	688	Apr
18 (12)	Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 8) – Bizarre Brutality 2	668	Dec '18
19 (23)	The Art of Turquine (Update 1)	652	Apr
20 (15)	Most popular 'mitchmen posts of all time (end 2018)	640	Jan
21 (17)	The Humiliation of Ray	624	Feb
22 (21)	Seamus O'Reilly, Beautifully Bound in 'Simon's Night In' (Part 2)	617	Mar

Stats collected on 31st December 2019

This new style ranking contains a large number (6) of 2018 posts but 4 of them (including the highest 3) were published in December or November 2018 so their inclusion is not very hard to justify. I excluded Wrestling Arsenal (also from December 2018) because it actually made the 2018 list - an exceptional occurrence. The 2 posts from earlier in 2018 are slightly more controversial, but their hit counts have been averaged over a much longer period and so demonstrate a significant sustained interest which what this exercise aims to identify. However I have also included 2 extra 2019 posts in the list to allow readers to cancel out these 'anomalies' if they wish

The rankings in brackets are based on the old-style 'total hits' method which obviously favours older articles but doesn't change the top spots as much as you might expect.

The list is dominated by the three 'Milking Factory' posts at 1, 3 and 7 which have emulated the spectacular success of their predecessors, helped a little, I suspect, by the introduction of the 'Popular Posts' sidebar at the blog which has been dominated by this series recently and channels more readers to view them. The winner this year (reproduced above) was way ahead of the second-placed article but at 2949 did not quite manage to catch the previous years scores of Wrestling Arsenal (an exceptional 9195) and IFNB (3096). Wrestling Arsenal would have also finished 5^th in this years list had I included it, but enough is enough!

The success of the Milking articles was not a surprise but the appearance of Homoeros Gallery at No2 was. This article is no more than a guide to that artist's websites but there was a surge in visits in the closing weeks of the year which lifted it into this lofty position. 
It's a reflection of the level of interest in the artist.

Seeing 'Kasee's Humiliation' at No 4 did please me. This is (almost)the 'wrestling' article I have always wanted to write, ever since I saw a handsome novice being thoroughly humiliated by an old hand on late night TV many years ago. (I say 'almost' because the 'victim' in the match I remember more resembled Kasee's tormentor, Cason, and his nemesis was much bigger and older). Anyway, Kasee and his handsome tormentor followed up the previous success of wrestling articles on Wrestling Arsenal (2018) and Mitch Colby (2017). The 'Humiliation of Chace La Chance' (great body, terrible name!),  published in May, narrowly missed inclusion but has a chance(!) of making next years list.

There are 8 'Art of ...' articles in the list this year headed up by the excellent Ephorox, a long overdue arrival at this blog. Ivan Bubentkov was a notable and worthy beneficiary of the change in my ranking inclusion criteria, I recently discovered more of his work I hope to share here in 2020. The retrospective feel of his art was complemented by 2 golden oldies – Colt and Hasegawa. These two are genuinely great artists and I'm glad my followers appreciate them too. Modern artists TooBoShoo and Chuckie79 missed the hit count criteria this year but look certain to feature in next years list. Only 3 of the top 20 articles were based purely on photographs (Kasee, Get Carter! and Taken off the Street-1). It reminds me that although I like to have a varied magazine format at this blog, most visitors come for the Art.

The Hasegawa article is another minor anomaly in this years list. This was a comprehensive rewrite of my 2009 A-Z article on him but, unusually for 'upgrades', I published it completely anew this year. That's why I've included it in the 2019 list (plus the fact that I admire him so much!). I had to adjust the hit count to isolate this years figure. Unfortunately, (and astonishingly) the original article had never made it's way into my 'top articles' spreadsheet so I had no record of the opening count for 2019, I've had to rely on memory, hence the est(imate) tag in the table, but I am certain he's in the right position.

Hasegawa was part of an informal 'Asian Festival' which I instigated this year, prompted by the slightly embarrassing realisation that Chace La Chance's opponent, Jessie Lee, was probably the first model of Asian heritage to ever get decent exposure here (although I have featured Asian artists here many times, so don't shout at me!). Most of these articles were in the second half of the year and missed this year's cut. I plan to run this feature into the New Year with posts on Fundoshi and the Speedo erotica that Asian men seem to have made their own.

I've put more of myself into the blog in recent years so I'm gratified to see one of my own pictures (and it's one of my personal favourites) in the top 20 again this year - Sports Star Kidnap at No 16. I was surprised however that the colourised 'nude' version didn't attract so many viewings. Perhaps many of you share my prediliction for modest, traditional underwear wearers in fetish encounters! Even more unexpectedly, 2 of my 'War Comic cuts' squeezed in at 15 and 18 (also helped by the rule change this year). These articles don't seem to generate much excitement when they are first published but the interesting fetish content (captives staked out or tied to railway lines) seems to have been recognised more gradually over the course of the year.

The appearance of last years MPP, 'Top Post' analyses at 7 and 20 is also flattering in a way and suggests new visitors are finding them interesting and helpful but I'd have preferred these places to have been occupied by meatier articles.

These small, personal successes have been some compensation for the upheaval of Yahoo zapping my permanent gallery which had been on display at the mitchmen group since 2007. As I write the fate of the mailing list seems to be hanging in the balance too, but we all move on and the replacement 'Club' at Adonis Male is shaping up to be an even better showcase.

Remember, this comparison is only made for entertainment, since I don't really know how accurate Google's stats are, I suspect they don't even count people who just browse through the blog roll.

Thank you to all my readers for your interest in my blog,
I will publish the updated all-time list of favourites shortly.

Happy New Year!

Most Popular Posts Listing - A Change In Method

Naked Thinker

At this time of year it is my custom to review the posts for the year just ended to see which attracted the most visitors. This year I have changed my approach to try and produce a more representative selection. For this year's list I have included some posts from the previous year (2018) which were published too late in that year to impact on the list. I have evened out the distortions caused by different publication dates by ranking them all based on a time- averaged hit rate*. The full result is shown and discussed in Most Popular Posts of 2019, this article explains the new methodology

Rationale for change of method

I have agonised in recent years about the arbitrary nature of this annual survey. As it is simply based on accumulated hit counts, the timing of publication significantly affects the opportunity to score and hence the position in the table. Thoroughly deserving posts often don't get chosen at all. Typically posts after mid year don't have enough time to register anywhere in the top 20. Wrestling Arsenal (December 2018) was a startling and unique exception last time, but notable recent anomalies were 'BuiltByTallSteve' and Chirenon's 'A New Life For Our Airforce Boys' both published in late 2017. Neither of these got a mention in their year of publication despite turning in a top 10 performance in their first 12 months.

This year (2019) nothing after July made the cut based on total hits. At the other end of the scale several posts from December 2018 registered counts during 2019  that would have got them into the top 20 in any year since records began (as they say) had their publication date been more favourable.

To address these issues I have cast my net a little wider this year, looking right back to mid 2018 to see if any of those posts ought to be recognised. Based on my usual criteria (i.e. considering 2019 posts only) the cut-off point for inclusion in the 2019 top 20 would have been 475 total hits or if I based the selection on an average hit rate* that irons out duration differences, the cut would have been 617 hits per year (pa).

I compiled a short list of posts from 2019 and the second half of 2018 which met both these criteria but excluding those that had previously made it into the 2018 chart. This gave me a list of 23 posts in total which left me some scope for 'tweaking' anomalies in the final top 20. 

The cut-off figures of the top 20 in this selection were lifted by about 10%  by this process, but for the top 23 they were exactly the same as they would have been under the old method. This is because the 2018 additions in the new list were offset by the loss of 2019 posts which met the total count criteria but had taken much longer to reach it.

Under this new method, late posts from 2019 still get excluded, but they have a second chance of inclusion next year when they have proven more durable appeal.

The table below shows all the affected articles listed in order of total hits since publication
2018 articles brought in under the new method are shown in red italics.
2019 articles excluded under the new method are shown in green
Column 2 shows how the table would have looked under the old system.
I discuss the results after the table.

Old Style Table Based on total hits since publication
New Rank	Old Rank	Title	Hits	Publication
1	1	Milking Factories – 4	2820	Jan
2		Homoeros Gallery	2288	Dec '18
3		Wrestling Arsenal	1697	Dec '18
4	2	IFNB is most popular new 'mitchmen' post of 2018	1302	Jan
5	3	Kasee's Wrestling Humiliation	1269	Mar
6		The Art of Ivan Bubentkov	1176	Dec '18
7	4	Milking Factories No 5 – The Development Lab	1166	May
8		The Art of Bowen	1051	Sep '18
9		Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 4) – Unlucky in War	1031	Aug '18
10		The Art of Colt 1	1002	Nov '18
11	5	The Art of Ephorox	938	May
12		Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 8) – Bizarre Brutality 2	701	Dec '18
13	6	Milk Outlets	690	Jun
14	7	The Art Of Oscar Waldes	639	May
15	8	Most popular 'mitchmen posts of all time (end 2018)	605	Jan
16	9	The Art of Hasegawa (New)	602 est	Jun
17	10	The Humiliation of Ray	544	Feb
18	11	The Art of German Twister	539	July
19	12	Mitchell's Fetish Art for April – Sports Star Captured	537	Apr
	13	Cavelo is most visited 'mitchmen' post during 2018	528	Jan
20	14	Get Carter!	520	May
	15	A-Z on Brick Revised	518	Jan
	16	Mitchell's Fetish Art for Jan – Devil's Work	505	Jan
21	17	Seamus O'Reilly, Beautifully Bound in 'Simon's Night In' Part 2	504	Mar
	18	Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 9) – Bizarre Brutality 3	489	Jan
22	19	Taken Off The Streets - 1	486	Apr
23	20	The Art of Turquine (Update 1)	475	Apr

Stats collected on 31st December 2019

This table vividly demonstrates the effect of publication timing once again, with nothing after July 2019 making the cut and the first seven posts published in 2019 all getting in. Unsurprisingly the older, newly-included 2018 posts do well in this basic hit count table, but the top 2 posts are actually the same under the new system too with the same winner romping away with the title
 (see final MPP ranking article for 2019).

The three 2019 articles excluded from the table by the new criteria are shown in green above. All these articles had a full 12 months to make their score so replacing them with three far better performers from December 2018 is not an earth-shattering injustice. I scored a bit of an own goal by excluding No 16, but the 'War Comic' article that's linked to it gets into the new ranking at No 9 so I'm happy with that.

The winning total of 2820 comfortably exceeds last years record by IFNB of 2519 by about 12%, but this primarily reflects a longer scoring period (12 months for Milking Factories vs 9 for IFNB). Also, total visits to the site increased by 24%. this year so this performance probably doesn't count as a meaningful 'record'.

The full final results produced by the new system come out slightly different and are discussed in Most Popular Posts of 2019

*The Average (Annualised) hit rate was calculated as follows

(Total Hits) divided by (Days since Publication) multiplied by 365 (days in a year)

This does not produce a 'real' number, the formula reduces the counts of articles that have been around more than a year and inflates those published less than 12 months ago but they end up on a level playing field for comparison purposes.

Remember, these comparisons are only made for entertainment only, since I don't really know how accurate Google's stats are and I suspect they don't even count people who just browse through the blog roll.

Thank you to all my readers for your interest in my blog,
I will publish the updated all-time list of favourites shortly.

 

Happy New Year!

The 4 Seasons

Okawa - Winter - Snowbound

A beautiful body and a compelling bondage scenario.

More Okawa

Vincent - Easter - Spring

You knew about Santa bringing presents
Now you know where Easter Eggs come from!

More Vincent

 

RW Richards - Summer

Those hazy, hairy, lazy studs by the pool

I've posted this image before in RWRichards but I can't think of an image that better depicts the atmosphere of a classic summer heatwave with it's steamy sights.

Mark Vulfing - Autumn Leaves

Valentine - Autumn Leaves and Fetters

Prison escapers R&R

More Valentine

Manflesh Exhibition transfers to mitchmen blog

Manflesh - Lt Steele whipped

 The Exhibition of Art by 'Manflesh' which has been showing at the mitchmen Yahoo Group

for some years, has now been transferred to this blog as an extension to the Manflesh A-Z article.

Visit my A-Z article on Manflesh to get the link to the exhibition

Pirate Booty

AbsolutBleu - Summer Booty

The Pirate is one of the B-list homoerotic icons, a swashbuckling rogue with a taste for seduction and an inclination to uncover his upper body in the heat of battle (usually with a supporting cast of similarly half-naked reprobates). AbsolutBleu captures those qualities delightfully in this image with some luscious, plump muscles and an intoxicating cock that's battling to escape from (what looks like) a very cute pair of speedos. (Note the similarity with Muscle Matt's 'balls bra').
The leather boots and belt make authentic-looking fetishistic accessories.

Pairing him with the mythical merman, seems an entirely appropriate choice for a seafarer of yesteryear. It looks like he's made his catch by fishing with a giant dildo* that apparently fulfils the role of bait and hook, attracting suitable prey to suck on it but going into the mouth easier than it comes out. The merman's bound hands are a very acceptable fetish icing on what is already a delicious cake.
Great picture!

(*I confess that the anachronism of a plastic dildo in the age of sail jars a bit with me. 
A belaying pin would be an interesting and equally versatile alternative, a minor geeky quibble).

Mermen don't get the same press as their female counterparts so we can only presume that they have a similar character, i.e. that of an attractive, alluring, but normally, unavailable tempter. I have a small collection of mermen posts at the mitchmen 'Gateway' site plus one by Yomero here which demonstrate there's a fascination for this creature amongst many gay artists. AbsolutBleu's spectacular, spiky tail and ear designs are unusual and suggest this is a rare and exotic specimen indeed, possibly one with a sting! The erotic conundrum is about what happens below the waist of course, where does the fishiness begin? AbsolutBlue seems clear that the mer-anatomy has all the desirable manly traits, including balls if you look closely, and this catch is not going to evade the Pirate's lusty interest. 

Topless Pirates were amongst my earliest drawings as a teenager (but now lost). I featured a Pirate by Julius in  a post last year and there's also one in bareass blogs (No11). They make a memorable appearance in my article on Valentine's art (image 5). Also one handsome devil in my recent Christmas day post  (penultimate image)

Surprisingly, I've only featured AbsoluteBleu here once before, see Winter Snowman