Beautifully Bound - JR Matthews

I'm a fan of tight and simple bondage and these studies of JR Matthews neatly parcelled up are terrific examples.  This model has a deliciously muscular physique and strangely sexy face.

 

 

 

Admittedly, the simplicity lies in the composition of the imagery rather than the detailed ropework, but the uniformity conferred by using a single type of rope in a symmetrical pattern also contributes to a neat sense of balance and completeness.

 

 

 

There's a sense of serious purpose in the care lavished on this captive.

The densely woven bindings completely immobilise him.

He is put on display and casually manhandled like the meat in an auction.

This upward looking view seems to resemble religious veneration,

like that accorded the victim of an ancient fertility rite.

 

 

 With his feet on the ground the effect is slightly comical and humiliating.

But once he's flown in the air the awkardness is replaced by something more elegant and awesome.

 

JR's chunky buttocks framed and parted by rope provide an unexpected burst of pure eroticism.

 Edging in suspension must be a very strange experience.

In this vast empty space it has an eerie, dangerous feel.

 

See more of JR Matthews at Men on Edge (Kink 32255)

For more Beautifully Bound men, click on the label below

Most Popular mitchmen article of 2020 is a big surprise! (MPP2)

Etienne - 'Truckstop'

 

According to my Blogger 'hit stats', the most visited mitchmen articles in 2020 were as shown below. This table only counts hits registered during 2020. The titles link to the original posts. Please tell me if you have difficulty with any links.

Table 1 – mitchmen Articles with Most Hits in 2020

Position (& last year)	Article	Published	Hits in 2020	Hits in 2019
1 (-)	Etienne/Stephen - Index to Articles	2016	15671	667
2 (1)	IFNB A Fantasy World of BodyBuilders	2018	9435	11665
3 (2)	The Milking Factory - No 1	2017	8863	9421
4 (5)	Milking Factories - No 3	2018	8037	5955
5 (16)	Homoeros Gallery	2019	7803	2238
6 (29)	IFNB is most popular new 'mitchmen' post of 2018	2019	4934	1302
7 (3)	Priapus of Milet - 1	2012	4583	7119
8 (10)	Milking Factories – No 4	2019	4515	2820
9 (4)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Cavelo	2008	3732	7007
10 (-)	The Art of BrosFate - 3	2020	3407	-
11 (13)	Chirenon 'A New Life For Our Airforce Boys'	2017	2904	2536
12 (6)	The Art of Homoeros – 6 (Crucifxn)	2018	2564	4593
13 (-)	Milking Factories - 5 (The Development Lab)	2019	2412	1166
14 (14)	Another Milking Factory (No 2)	2018	2380	2328
15 (12)	The Art of Homoeros - 1 (Beefcake boys)	2018	2377	2592
16 (-)	The Art of Amalaric - 1 (A Slave to Passion)	2020	2103	-
17 (7)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Jotto	2009	1880	3880
18 (-)	The Art of Baron	2014	1857	1086
19 (11)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Mike Carcel	2010	1735	2697
20 (15)	Mitchell's 'A Christmas Criminal' (ep 1-5)	2015	1722	2256

  Stats collected 31/12/20

 

The big surprise this year is the sudden appearance at No 1 of the 'Index of Etienne Articles at mitchmen'. It scored 9 times as many hits this year as it had in the previous three put together, most of it in the few weeks between early November and 15^th Dec after which visits abruptly plummeted. I've not been able to trace the source of these visitors, it's probably another blogger temporarily displaying a link. The interest seems to be in the medical, headline image not the contents of the index as it doesn't seem to have resulted in a great uplift in visits to any of the articles listed there. I've chosen an image from the Etienne series 'Truckstop' to headline this post.

Below that (and a considerable way behind on hit count) it was business as usual with IFNB and Milking Factories shuffling positions at 2, 3 and 4. There are three other Milking Factories in the top 20 making 5 in all, one more than last year (which I prematurely dubbed as 'The Year of the Milking Factory' !). The phenomenal popularity of this series is not hard to understand, the mixture of sexual excitement, bondage and control is the essence of S&M fetish.

At 5 & 6 come two other articles whose popularity has often baffled me:- 'Homoeros Gallery' (a guide to accessing that artist's work ) and secondly the equivalent of this MPP article from 2018, when IFNB topped the table. Unlike the puzzling Etienne post at No 1, traffic to these two articles has been consistent throughout the year, but all these posts have memorable, headline images

In a way, Homoeros can claim to be the top individual artist overall this year since he had two other articles in the top 20, one featuring crucifixion, the other being the first article in the series reviewing his work, which is the default starting point for new readers. This is one less article than last year but he has captured equally good positions in the table (5, 12 and 15 compared with 2019 when he secured 6, 12, 16 and 20^th places).  

To look at other charts for earlier years click on the MPP label at the foot of this post.

The entries this year are evenly spread between Traditional drawing styles, photo-manipulators and Computer aided artists (including renderers). There are no pure photography articles although I continue to post these as part of my 'magazine' format and simply to share sexy images!

Etienne's success seems to indicate that the 'old school' of traditional art drawings are far from losing their appeal but a few more of the 'greats' covered in the 'A-Z of Fetish Artists' series dropped out of the top 20 this year. The ever-popular Cavelo is still hanging on at 9^th position, however, with Jotto at 17 and Mike Carcel at 19. My own 'Christmas Criminal' story which is also traditionally drawn, just clung on at 20. This article effectively carried the flag for spanking again this year and I was delighted when Mark featured one of it's illustrations in his series of classic spanking art re-creations at Jockspank.

The photo-manipulators this year are boosted by the arrival of a pioneer in the genre with 'The Art of Baron' (published in 2014) appearing in this chart for the first time. Another long established artist, Amalaric, also makes his debut at 16. They join Priapus, IFNB and Chirenon.

Computer-aided artists are well represented by Homoeros and by artists in the Milking Factory series but the 'new wave' CG artists that I have been featuring more and more at the blog are championed by BrosFate's impressive arrival, I hope to see more of them making their mark on this table next year.

Overall, visits to the mitchmen blog fell slightly this year with a pronounced dip between February and September. Presumably that was due to the virus draining erotic impulses although I had imagined that boredom would have produced the opposite effect! The drop was partly offset by a surge in the last 3 months of the year which saw the monthly totals in November and December reach new record highs, led by the 'Etienne effect' and great interest in the Amalaric series. Overall, hit scores in the top 20 rose slightly but the entry cut-off at 1722 was a tad less than last year's 1741.

Somewhat surprisingly, most years since the blog started in 2008 are represented in the table with BrosFate bringing in 2020 with his sparkling entrance at 10. His score of 3407 hits was a record for a mitchmen new article but it's still just a fraction of those at the top of the chart. Notice there is also a sizeable gap between 5^th and 6^th places. Even if the No 1 entry is discounted as an anomaly, it's clear that some of the older articles consistently record high levels of visitors, year after year. That's something that I take great pride in.

This effect is partly attributable to the mitchmen 'Index of Artists' feature which recorded 11,948 hits in 2020. This was slightly down from 13,951 hits in 2019, but it still registered enough hits to have taken second place if I included it in the general top 20 table. 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 didn't know about.

Given the dominance of the Milking Factory and Homoeros, multi-part series, with 9 articles between them in the top 20, I'm also showing this year, the next 10 articles in the table which might otherwise have made the higher positions.

 

 

Table 2 - Articles Just Outside The Top 20 

Position (& last year)	Article	Published	Hits in 2020	Hits in 2019
21 (-)	The Art of BrosFate - 1	2020	1671	-
22 (8)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Julius	2009	1580	3298
23 (-)	Ehrlik's 'Test Subject'	2020	1575	-
24 (-)	Milking Factory 4 is the most popular new post of 2019	2020	1553	-
25 (-)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Facchini	2009	1513	-
26 (-)	Ehrlik's 'A Hero Dragged to his Fate'	2020	1470	-
27 (9)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – The Hun	2009	1439	2936
28 (-)	The Art of Amalaric - 2 'Ancient History'	2020	1399	-
29 (-)	Priapus of Milet – Shooting the Past 2	2020	1377	-
30 (-)	Little Known Incidents of WWII (No 8) – Bizarre Brutality 2 (Loco Peril)	2018	1340	-

  Stats collected 31/12/20

 

There are a couple of ejectees from the 2019 top 20 in this list but most are new entrants, the majority being from 2020 and already discussed in my previous article 'Amalaric and BrosFate battle to be top new post of 2020'. However there are a couple of other interesting quirks in the list with the A-Z article on Facchini popping up at 25, no doubt driven by the transfer of the Exhibition of his work from the now defunct Yahoo! Group to this blog. Last but not least is one of the mitchmen 'War Comics' articles at 30. The hidden and not-so-hidden erotic potential of this imagery has much occupied me in recent years, so I'm glad someone else likes it!

The casualty list from the top 30 also makes interesting reading. 

 

Table 3 - Casualities nudged out of mitchmen Top 30

Position (& last year)	Article
31 (18)	The Art of Sparkieshock
35 (30)	Mitchell's 'Last Chance Saloon'
36 (21)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Malex
37 (20)	The Art of Homoeros – 4 (abused)
40 (22)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Kalabro
50 (23)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Martin of Holland
53 (25)	A-Z of Fetish Artists – Franco (Part 2)
57 (19)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Teddy of Paris
68 (27=)	A-Z of Fetish Artists - Heredia
66 (27=)	Tentacles in Action
87 (26)	Vintage Spanking Art
137 (24)	Bound & Gagged Magazine - 4
138 (17)	Hunk Hunt – Mitch Colby 5(inc spank GIF)

The first few here have simply been edged out by popular new arrivals but the last three have suffered dramatic falls. Two of them are photography-based articles, two have spanking themes and one wrestling. These are all areas which I have neglected this year which may explain their falls as collateral damage. In between there's a clutch of 6 aging articles from the A-Z series which, again, I have not added to or promoted this year. 

 

Total mitchmen blog visits for all years are now 4.26 million (up 19% compared with 2019 at 3.57 million)

Next time I will reveal the all time table of cumulative hits did Priapus keep his spot at the top?

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

 

Assorted Fetish Art by Gabo

Gabo - Barbarian Slave Sale

It's a bit niche, but I suppose Barbarians would be a particularly adventurous purchase.

 

Gabo - Heroes in Peril - Padrak

Chunky restraints pay homage to a man of great strength here.

They seem to be controlled by some sort of 'force field' (Redtooth?).

Behind him what looks like a light sabre (perhaps it's his own). 

A visual trick makes it seem like a ray directed at his back - imagine it lowered!

There's a slight tension in the pose, suggesting he is bracing himself for something.

 

Gabo - Tentacles

A cute man gets his vest and cut-offs ripped apart by tentacles, showing a shaved body.

I love the way they are exploiting the rips in his cut-offs to explore inside.

The dog tags and gloves give him some manly oomph. 

 

The pose and bed platform give the impression that he was already restrained before the tentacles came along (if that's what tentacles do). That 'sacrifice' scenario appeals to my fetish tastes and my sense of logic. Tentacles don't seem agile enough or decisive enough to capture a grown man on their own.

 

 

Gabo - Venom (alias Eddie Brock)

Venom's ability to destroy his own suits and create evil looking tendrils out of it puts a whole new slant on the science of tentacles. Gabo's imagining nicely captures Eddie (the human host)'s own confusion at his wayward identity. There's evidence that he's enjoying it's consquences nevertheless. The black colouring of the shredded suit allows some erotic glimpses of his bum cheeks and thighs. Gabo's enthusiasm for transplanting faces of real people is fun but you can see here how it constrains the art.

Gabo - Chris Redfield

I'm a fan of Chris Redfield's tight tee-shirt, not least when it's being ripped apart. 

The destruction of his underwear is also nicely choreographed here to highlight certain features.

His tendency to go into muscle poses in the middle of a fight shows supreme confidence.

Perhaps that's why most of his assailants are keeping at arms length!

(see also Tentakun) 

Gabo - Wrestling

Gabo homes in on an unsporting aspect of wrestling, sensibly concluding that a simple ball-crushing can be a lot more painful (and entertaining) than the knee balancing that usually takes the place of the old-style back-breaker these days.

 

The gulf in strength and ages between these two characters is a classic wrestling scenario, the old hand (!) instructing the young whelp in the cruel ways of the world. His rather thoughtful facial expression seems more matter of fact than malicious. Nice body hair too.

 

 

 

 

Gabo - Superman vs Bane

There's a similar scenario behind this image, a mismatch in physical size leading to a wrestling style backbreaking humiliation. This time it's the original Superhero as improbable victim rather than an naive sporting novice, but the comeuppance is equally enjoyable for different reasons. Gabo shows the clinginess of Superman's suit to good effect even if it is outweighed by Bane's monstrosity forcing it's way out of confinement. Supes dangling hand is in danger of encouraging it!

Gabo - Nathan Drake

There's a touch of the tentacles about this pose but his explorers garb (lightly shredded) and the sandy setting connect with the Middle East kidnap scenario of the previous post. The improvised leg-spreader produces an erotic pose and indicates that some unconventional interrogation is in prospect. This is one of multi-part series experimenting with various combinations of undress.

 

Gabo - Suspended

The simplest captivity of all, naked and suspended by the wrists, he is displayed and defenceless, seemingly in a deep, dark pit, a scenario reminiscent of Kalabro's fantasies.

 

Gabo - Man in Bondage

Its' not hard to see where the idea for this image came from, but the handsome, regular guy face and genuinely worried look distances it from normal, Kink porn, as does the intact but still erotic underwear. Gabo's rendering of the upper body ropework is particularly effective creating a deliciously upholstered look. I'm not a great fan of gags but this simple tape job conveys the job it's doing nicely without spoiling the view too much. The twin support pillars here offer great scope for highlighting precariousness, vulnerability and discomfort but Gabo has spared his victim the more lurid torments and teasing attachments- so far!

 

For links to Gabo see previous post

Kidnap Art by Gabo

Gabo - Arab Captive

This picture chimes with other recent images illustrating the supposed pitfalls for Westerners travelling in the Middle East as drawn by Amalaric, Bowen, Chirenon and Etienne. This captor is blessed with a very sexy torso. The nipple chain doesn't quite conform to the stereotype and the imagery doesn't really need that embellishment. However, the artist has captured a believable sense of threat and fear in the faces, a little theatrically perhaps. He leaves us to imagine what the captor is threatening to do with the rope he is brandishing (possibly it's a whip, see below). There's a near identical, naked version of this image but I prefer the tattered underwear version, evidence of what must have been an entertaining, preliminary torment, just finished. I love the neat stack of removed clothing on the unit(?) just behind the captive. He'll be reassured that just as soon as his assailant has finished with him he can dress and leave, just as tidy as when he arrived (minus undies of course).

Gabo - Indiana Jones and the Jewelled Fortress

This prequel showing the captive with underpants still intact in a classic X-frame pose is pure Amalaric! Actually the cross banding on the posts also harks back to the much older stretching of 'Jungle Jack' by Tom of Finland (and Sergey's series featuring a captured cowboy).

It's quite hard to avoid this style of restraint looking 'posed', but nevertheless the captive's musculature and underwear are nicely done. His own whip hangs on a improbably convenient hook nearby and may account for the use of the gag - or perhaps that's all part of the mindgames. 

As James Bond might have said "You don't expect me to talk, do you?"

There's a narrative to accompany this prequel drawing at Deviant Art see also link below.

~

 Gabo is an artist who, like Silverjow and Eddie Chin, specialises in fan art which re-imagines celebrities in homoerotic settings and most of his images have recognisable inspirations.  I'm not sure those identities are essential to enjoying them, so I'm not naming names.

 

More....Fetish art by Gabo at mitchmen

 Gabo Art at twitter

Gabo Art at Deviant Art

Amalaric and BrosFate battle to be top New Post of 2020 (MPP1)

 

Amalaric - The Last Sale of the Day (36th of 1001 Nights)

Last year I changed my annual review of new posts to base it on average hit rates instead of total hits. This allowed a fairer comparison of the staggered postings and the inclusion of late posts from the previous year. I have slightly refined the method again this year to strike a balance between total hits scored and rate of hits. The new method is outlined at the foot of this post for those who are interested.

 

 The 20 posts below are the most popular mitchmen posts out of all those newly published in 2020 

and late 2019. (Titles have links to the original posts, overall ranking in first column, ranking position based on total hits and rate of hits in columns 3 and 4 ).

 

TABLE 1 - Top 20

 

Rank	Title (+link)	Total Hits Rank	Hit Rate Rank	Pub Date	Note
1	The Art of Amalaric – 1 A Slave To Passion	2	2	Aug	-
2	The Art of BrosFate – 3	1	7	Feb	-
3	The Art of Amalaric – 7 Institutional Slavery	9	3	Oct	-
4	The Art of Amalaric – 2 Ancient History	7	6	Aug	-
= 5	Ehrlik's 'Test Subject'	4	16	May	-
= 5	Priapus of Milet – Shooting The Past – 2	8	12	Jun	-
= 7	The Art of Amalaric – 3 Hunks and Manipulators	10	11	Aug	-
= 7	The Art of Amalaric – 5 The Thrill of the Chase	13	8	Aug	-
9	The Art of Brosfate – 1	3	22	Feb	-
10	Crazy Cop Caps 1	15	13	Aug	-
11	Art by DooSoo	24	5	Oct	-
12	Ehrlik's 'A Hero Dragged to his Fate'	6	25	Mar	-
13	Priapus of Milet – Shooting The Past – 1	12	20	Jun	-
14	Milking Factory 4 is Most Popular New Post of 2019	5	28	Jan	-
15	The Art of Amalaric – 8 A Slaves Life	33	1	Nov	-
16	Milking Factory 7  by ObiCumKenobi (& Mitchell)	20	15	Jan	-
17	Crazy Cop Caps 2	22	17	Aug	-
18	The Bondage Art of BlackProf	14	27	May	-
19	The Art of BrosFate 2	11	33	Feb	-
20	Art of Tentakun	19	30	May	-

 

(Stats collected on 31st December 2020) 

 

The list this year is dominated by Amalaric (6 posts) and BrosFate (3 posts). It was their battle for the top spot that prompted me to re-examine my methodology (again!).

Total Hits v Hit Rate

Under the old 'Total Hits' method BrosFate-Part 3 would have romped away with the title this time. It scored 3407 hits in the year (wresting the all-time record for this particular measure from 2019's top scorer 'Milking Factories 4' with 2820). In second place, a long way behind on 2103 hits, was 'Art of Amalaric-Part 1'.  

On the 'Hit Rate' measure which I switched to last year, Amalaric - Part 8, published in late November came top, scoring hits at a rate of 7426pa. However, it wasn't even inside the top 30 on Total Hits with only 736 hits so I probably would have excluded it from the final table as an anomaly last year. Amalaric - Part 1 was second on hit rate, it scored an annualised 5950 views pa. However, On this omeasure BrosFate - Part 3 with 3838 hits pa was down in 7^th place, thanks to some late autumn articles which made substantial scores in a very short space of time. This didn't seem a very fair position to me and other worthy articles suffered a similar downgrading. 

As a result I modified the methodology again to strike a balance between 'Total hits' and 'Hit Rate'. In the final results table shown above the posts are sequenced in an order which combines both these measures. Columns 3 and 4 show the ranking position for each separate measure. The new methodology is explained in more detail at the foot of this post.

 

The Winning Articles

'Art of Amalaric-1' emerges as the overall winner by virtue of coming second on both of the new measures with BrosFate-3 as the runner-up, which is a fairer outcome, I think.

Amalaric - Part 1, which was published in August, made a Total Hits score that secured 2nd position but would have won in most years. It was second on hit rate too, but neither it nor the top article on this measure (Amalaric - Part 8) quite managed to match the previous all time 'Hit Rate' record set by Wrestling Arsenal in 2018 (an exceptional 9195). They did both comfortably beat the 2^nd highest - IFNB (3096 in 2018) and last years winner, Milking Factories 4 (2949). In fact the top 11 posts on 'Hit Rate' this year all beat IFNB's score, despite overall visitor levels to mitchmen dropping slightly (a phenomenon I will discuss next time). 

  Amalaric's Art also dominates the rest of the list and this seems an appropriate reflection of the profound effect his images and writings have had on my own thinking and creative processes this year. The opening article in the series has been most popular, partly because I guide new readers to start there. Only 2 of the 8 articles published so far are missing from the list (No 4, 'Ritual of Undressing' and No 6, 'Cruel Justice'). The most recent (No 8, 'A Slave's Life') actually topped the 'Hit Rate' table as we have seen, but it finishes in 15th position in the final table because it was published too late in the year to register a big number of 'Total Hits' and only just beat the combined 'cut', which was 33^rd place (see Methodology below). There are more Amalaric articles to come in 2021 and it won't be possible to assess them all properly until this time next year.

As consolation for BrosFate, all 3 of his articles got into the top 20 at 2, 9 and 19. He'll get more recognition for that big score in the 'All Comers' list for 2020 (MPP2) which I will publish shortly. I was surprised that BrosFate -3, a  'round up of the rest' article (3838 hits) did so much better than my own favourite, BrosFate-1 (Captured Soldier) with 1848 hits.

Priapus of Millet is a long-time favourite at this blog (and with me!) so it's no surprise to see the two 'Shooting The Past' articles well placed at 5 and 13. The imagery in this series is remarkable with subtle, erotic undertones that peak in Part 2, which explains the greater interest shown there.

There's been no shortage of other surprises this year, notably Ehrlik who isn't really a gay artist at all, but his (her?) two domination images certainly struck a chord with my readers to come in at 5 and 12 (and even higher on 'Total Hits' alone). I confess I have little interest in women but I do enjoy see them dominating 'straight' men as long as they don't dominate the imagery itself. I think it's a shame that such pictures are rejected by many due to the female presence, but most of my readers seem open to the sight (in moderation). At least, I've had no complaints about it!

Surprise No 2 is the appearance of DooSoo's 'Humiliation Floor' at No 11. It's top quality artwork with an evergreen, forced undressing theme at it's core, but I hadn't expected it to attract quite so much interest. It's 831 hits in just 10 weeks would have propelled it into the top 5 in most recent years. By contrast 'The Bondage Art of Black Prof' (another non-gay artist) aroused only modest interest on publication. The timing in early May was not so good and the dwarf-like characters it features as villains caused me a bit of politically-correct soul-searching. It got a late surge of interest in the autumn and I'm pleased to see it sneaked in at No 18. Tentakun at No. 20 makes up a varied trio of Asian artists who are new to this blog, a result of a resolution I made this time last year to focus more on 'new' Art.

There are a clutch of articles this year which I had a hand in creating myself. My own drawings rarely turn up in these lists but I try not get upset about it! The two 'Crazy Cop Captions' at 10 and 17 are slight pieces in comparison but it's nice that readers like them. These are the only articles based on photographs this year, unless you count Amalaric's manips. I also did some colouring and slight image alterations for the ObiKumKenobi, Milking Factory - 7 post, which at 16, has modestly emulated the success of it's predecessors. The popularity of that series probably accounts also for the presence of last years 'Most Popular Post' article at 14. I'd like to think it's my writing that attracts visitors but I suspect the main draw is the headline image by Sarander, which I cropped for this article to create a greater impact. Looks like it worked!

Even with the changes in methodology, no posts from 2019 made it into the top 20, victims of a late surge in visitors. A couple just missed the cut (and would have just made it into the old-style 'Total Hits' top 20). These borderline posts suffer from multi-part articles crowding them out of the top 20, so I've prepared a supplementary table of the next 10 or so articles which might have found a place if I limited multi-part series to the top scoring article. These also-rans are shown below in the sequence they would appear if they were all admitted to the table.

 

TABLE 2 Near Misses

 

Cut Factor	Title	Total Hits Rank	Hit Rate Rank	Pub Date
35	Be Careful What You Wish For - 1 (mitchmen mod)	35	4	Nov
20/20	The Art of Amalaric – coming soon	23	23	July
31	Art of Ariel XY (Bulges and Tentacles)	31	19	Aug
43	Art by Etienne – Enslavement of Sailors	43	10	Oct
36	Jotto's Mystery of the Red Barn	18	36	Jan
20/20	Containment for the Bigger Man (Chirenon)	26	29	Jun
41	The Art of Muscle Matt – 1	17	41	Dec '19
42	The Muscle Art of Stefan	16	42	Nov '19
40 & 20/20	Pirate Booty (AbsolutBleu)	21	40	Dec '19

Ariel XY, notionally in 23rd place is the only 'new boy' in this group. His 'Bulges and Tentacles' is already within the existing cut-off level of 33, it just didn't score enough to gain a place in the top 20. 

 

This annex to the main table has some old school favourites whom it's good to see still scoring, Etienne notionally in 24th place and Jotto (25). Chirenon (26) is a bit tricky on age and gender issues so I'm very selective what I use here but his witty and sexy photo manips are popular. Another more established artist, AbsolutBlue, props up the rest, he is a major omission from my Artist Reviews which I really ought to rectify. 

 

 

 AbsolutBleu is one of the late 2019 articles which fill the last 3 places in this table. Muscle Matt's exuberant muscle cartoonery (27) is already well recognised even though he's not producing anymore and he's a worthy addition to my roster of Fetish Artists. Stefan's pioneering photo manips (28) are further back in our art history, but arguably his work is an ancestor of the popular IFNB fantasy world. 

 

The disparity of ranking scores shown for the first article here (columns 3 & 4) illustrates well the conundrum of reconciling Total Hits with Hit Rate. It's combined score is the best of this group and should get it into 17th place in the main table but it's Total Hit ranking at 35 misses the qualifying cut of 33 which applies to both measures. The cut rule is designed to keep out extremes like this. The number in the left hand column shows the cut-off level at which other articles would be admitted to the top 20 if I were to condense multi-part series into one entry. So 'Be Careful What You Wish For - 1 would qualify next after ArielXY but at a cut-off level raised to 35, then Jotto's Red Barn would be added at 36. Notice that admission sequence is not the same as ranking score, so a later admission can overtake others in the table. '20/20' indicates that the article is presently excluded by a separate rule requiring that they be in the top 20 of at least one of the two rankng lists. These rules are more simply explained in the methodology below. 

 

RANKING METHODOLGY 

 

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

 

• I started with a short list of the most-visited posts from 2020 (and the second half of 2019) using an arbitrary cut-off of 600 visits. 51 articles made this list and 2 posts from 2019 made it into the top 20 - Muscle Matt 1 (Dec) and Stefan's Muscle Art (Nov). Another one, 'Pirate Booty' was at 21. (No 20 in this list had 896 hits compared with 520 for No 20 in 2019). 
• Next I calculated the 'hit rate' for all these articles (= Total hits divided by length of time since it was posted) and prepared a second ranking table based on that criterion. This method cancels out the time advantage of early articles but magnifies the popularity of recent arrivals. 
• To iron out anomalies between these two measures in a reasonably objective wa,y I introduced a further refinement. that articles could only qualify for the final top 20 if they were above the cut-off position in both lists - Total Hits and Hit Rate. A cut-off point of 33 gave me a list of 20 articles. In other words an article only qualified for the final table if they were above 33rd position in both measures. 
• They also had to have a top 20 position in at least one of the lists, meaning a mid 20's position in both lists would not be good enough to qualify. It seemed absurd to include these in a 'Top 20', but you can see two of them in the near misses, Table 2 just above. 
• Finally I combined the two rankings simply by averaging them into one number. Table 1 above is the result. 

 HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

Thank you to all my readers for your interest in my blog, 

 

The list of best performing mitchmen articles in 2020 overall (not just the new ones) can be seen in article MPP2.

Field Slave

Pote - Field Slave

 It's hard to imagine this out-of-condition man of advanced years as desirable, agricultural resource, he's the complete antithesis of the hunky, young, muscle studs put up for sale in Amalaric's enslavement scenarios, although it has to be admitted that he has weight and probably strength to match in his favour and you get a good sense from the artist that he's using it here. Not so much a prancing stallion, as a steady dray horse.

Pote's depiction of the ploughman and his primitive cultivation tool is equally unromantic but rather convincing. However you get the impression he's holding the plough back rather than helping to push or guiding it. The faintest glimmer of a smile suggests that it's not a straight farrow that is uppermost in his mind. With whips in evidence and slaves working in bare feet on stony soil you sense this is not a very enlightened workplace.

Is this the fate of a wayward 'Daddy'?

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I have featured Pote here before in 2012 in the mitchmen A-Z of Fetish Artists series under his former name of Patrao. He has refined his somewhat spidery style and muted colourings since them into an impressive story-telling, almost documentary, technique that serves the fetish subject matter well. You can find more at his bdsm male drawings blog, but be warned, much of his work and the accompanying narratives are much more edgy than this example. 

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For other examples of Field Slaves click on the 'farm worker' label below

Milking Factories 10 - Madeira DeSouza

Madeira DeSouza - Milked Buddies

 This space age factory concept features a unique milking arrangement. It's impossible to tell what extraction technology or mechanism it uses, but by the look of the 'donors' faces it syphons with a vengeance! Being restrained astride this chunky piece of kit must add to the sense that this is an extraction, rather than a coaxed release. This position also facilitates anal stimulation which is a big feature of this design. 

This design is economical in it's space requirements, truly of a factory farming standard. Madeira only shows two milking stations but it's clearly scaleable to larger numbers. The closely positioned stalls allow the men in adjacent positions to be linked with ankle restraints. The flesh on flesh contact will add an extra dimension to their stimulatory experience. It's intimate enough for them to be fully aware of their neighbours orgasmic convulsions, an incentive to keep up perhaps. It should encourage them if they know each other or are attracted to each other but could be quite disturbing for them if they are neither of these things. I wonder if lovers holding hands produce better quality or more milk than straights forced into an unwanted contact. Is the taste different? That's one for the Development Lab to investigate.

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Go to Milking Factories 11

For other milking factories, read this series from Part 1 or click the 'milking' label below

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More Art of Madeira DeSouza to come shortly