To my readers......

SITE UPDATE NOTICE

Thanks for visiting mitchmen, home of Mitchell's Gay Art

The Caps and Collars/ Flat Cap Gang story at Google Groups has been on a break since January,
I am working on it and hope to resume shortly. (see Group News for link)

Link to the Royale Studio Archive in the right sidebar


Message updated 6th Sept 2024

Saturday, 2 July 2022

Classic Homoerotic Images - 3, When Freedom Dawned

Ralph Kleiner (Muscleboy Magazine, 1966)

The kitsch artistry and baggy pouch which Ralph Kleiner was subjected to on the front of Muscleboy in 1996 seems to epitomise the desperate concealment needed for gay magazines to get onto newsagent's shelves back then. However this image does show a romantic side to the male personality, feminine if you like, which wasn't exactly a commonplace statement in the time when men were still men. 

On top of that, he's nearly naked (implying sex is in the air) and the object of his rapt attention is a freak flower, a blue (for a boy) rose. You sense he's going to kiss it - or even eat it, God forbid! The fake nature all around him and the blue sky just over the horizon seems to invoke the sense of an optimistic, fantastical journey, just like Dorothy's in The Wizard of Oz. 

In it's way it's a very clever, political statement, deserving of it's place in my series of classic, homoerotic images. (click on the label below for others)


Glenn Bishop (Vagabond Magazine, 1966)


Compare that Muscleboy image with this openly erotic display of Glenn Bishop showing pubic hair on the Front Cover, no less, of Vagabond magazine in the same year, 1966. Admittedly, this was the era when liberation from censorship began, but I didn't think it had got quite as far as this! Glenn Bishop was arguably a gay hero, the handsome embodiment of 1950's coy, physique pouch imagery, so the sight of this must have been electric back then, a shock, almost unwelcome, as though someone like Ed Sheeran had suddenly revealed all today to demonstrate that he's just a man after all.

I think freedom came more quickly in the US than the UK and it's possible that the Vagabond issue illustrated above was for postal distribution rather than book shops. In fact I've never heard of Vagabond magazine before so maybe it never made it in into the quivering hands of sex-starved, 1966 gays at all! Not in the UK anyway.


Vagabond Magazine No 7 carried ads for gay singles


Vagabond Magazine also has an interesting link to what might be the first 'openly' gay record album, 'Love is a Drag', issued by Lace records in 1962, which featured a (straight) man singing standards, but re-gendered to be about loving other men. Vagabond No 7 in 1965 carried ads for gay singles from a different label 'Camp', including 'I'd Rather Fight Than Swish', 'Rough Trade' and 'The Ballad of the Camping Woodcutter'. The whole story is told in Subversive Sounds.

The cover of No 7 (above) featured 'respectable', men's, fashion graphics, but they are arranged in such a way as to be looking at each other, the back cover man invisibly reaching out towards another's ass while an onlooker fiddles in his pockets. Such was the meagre, but subtly exciting, fare for gays back then. Little did they know that Glenn Bishop's pubes were about to be thrust in their faces!




The cover for Vagabond No8 openly ditches the ambiguity that men's magazines are about muscle development and physique (an idea that persists in the Muscleboy, Ralph Kleiner image above). Instead it depicts a fairly ordinary young man looking up hopefully in another naturalistic setting, an image which clearly is about him as a person, not his gym programme. 

 So Vagabond too has a honourable place in gay history.

My Fetish Tea Party


The Terror of the Tongs!

For other captions at mitchmen, click on the mitchmods label below

Wednesday, 29 June 2022

A further Update to David Reid post

David Reid and Wagon Wheel

I don't know quite how I forgot to include this image in my original feature on Royale Studio model, David Reid since it's easily the best picture I have of him. I suppose it's because it's not part of a storyette although the wagon wheel he's attached to is featured in his 'Unapproved' story (see orig article for link).


 

I have also updated the recent post on Royale Studio model, David Reid with this additional picture which I stumbled across recently (29th June) in an e-bay listing. I have updated the Royale Studio, Open Archive entry as well for both changes
.

Monday, 27 June 2022

Tacitus abducts a swimming team

Tacitus - Swimming Team Abducted 1

A selection of extracts from a recent series by Tacitus who last featured at mitchmen in 2015.
It features some sexy Speedos as well as comprehensive mass bondage.
It's a shame it's not colourised.

These extracts focus on what happens to Kevin and Brian.


Tacitus - Swimming Team Abducted 2

It's clear that these kidnappers have a more than passing interest in the art of ropework.
They must have spent quite a bit of time tying up these two, depending on how compliant they were.
And they are just part of their total catch.

It looks as if the men are sitting in a pool of water here, to add to their discomfort!

Tacitus - Swimming Team Abducted 3 (detail)

Tacitus' art seems to recall the innocent style of days gone but with a sexy flourish.
Like Kevin's bottom here (foreground).

However, as ever, there's a darker side here.
Brian's Shibari (right) includes a short noose-like, neck-to-knee tether. 
It forces him to sit in an unnatural bent-forward position.
Kevin's ultra-tight hog-tie stresses his back the reverse way. 
Both these guys are going to suffer if they stay like this for long.

(This is detail of a bigger image.)



Tacitus - Swimming Team Abducted 8 

A spectacular result. All that burgeoning testosterone crammed into one space.
I'm reminded here of the mass kidnap of the Raytown Softball Team by Amalaric.

The kneeling figure of forlorn Kevin on the left is excellent.


Tacitus - Swimming Team Abducted 8 (detail of Kevin)



 See the full set at Tacitus (@DeviantArt)

Friday, 24 June 2022

The Look of Sudden Alarm



It had been a lovely date, Chris was the perfect lover, strong and passionate.
 But now Bobby realised - too late - that the strange smell in his host's bedroom
did not come from his back ointment after all.



~

   This No 30 in 'The Look' series at mitchmen blog,
click on the label at the foot of this post to view the others
or use the mitchmen search function (top right in sidebar) 


Tuesday, 21 June 2022

Oztangles Retrospective 1

 Oztangles is a renderer who seems to have always been around but he's scarcely represented here at mitchmen with just a solitary (but memorable) post in the 'Milking Factory' series in 2020. This retrospective looks back over his career to try and set that omission straight.

2006

Oztangles - Get Warm

This is just about the earliest Oztangles image I have discovered. Back then he didn't sign or date his pictures so I've had to go by the date on my file copy which means it could be even earlier. 

He paints this street dweller with an unexpectedly, well turned-out appearance. 
Come and get warm indeed!

Rendering has come a long way since 2006, but Oz's technical skills were already apparent here in the grounding of his character with shadow and his clothing. 


2007

Oztangles - Alleycats

This image also has an back alley setting and a very cute protagonist. 
Attractive faces are a notable feature of Oz's work and he doesn't shrink from body hair either!
Sexual encounters like this are a major strand in his work


Oztangles - Contemplating The Dildo

It's hard to believe this image is from the same era. The clever use of light throws the two participants into sharp relief and it's a nicely balanced composition. This cutie has put himself into the hands of someone much more experienced and seems anxious about what's coming his way next. The crumpled jock beneath him is a nice detail. 

The older man looks familiar from the work of Ulf and MSSF, renderers do swap characters sometimes and Oztangles usually gives credits at his 'official' gallery at Renderotica.


Oztangles - Mr P meets his match

At that time he had a character called Mr P who had various erotic adventures both as a Top and (here) as a Bottom. He had an eccentric (or I suppose you might say, enthusiastic) taste in erotic attire, it's contrasted dramatically here with the everyday sexy cut-offs of the hunky blond 'plugger'. 
Note the recurring bottle of lube in these pictures, early product placement?

2008

Oztangles - Pleasure and Pain

This is a fairly basic S&M scene and a relatively unpolished render, lighting-wise, but Oztangles has infused it with something special and very atmospheric. The inter-generational element jumps out at you, the old hand is grizzled and bald, not unattractive. He's dressed in an ordinary jockstrap plus leather wrist bands and has only the simplest of S&M implements to hand, but in that economy of style you sense he has a wealth of experience in testing the limits of other men. He's too focussed on that purpose to bother with the frippery of leather gear and showy toys.

His trainee (I believe it is Mr P again) looks as though he might have read that seriousness too and is now wondering, half-excited, what he has gotten himself into. Fashionable is the word that describes him, the very antithesis of his unprepossessing new Master. His neatly coiffured hair and artfully styled beard and stubble mark him as a man who looks after himself, aware of his attractions and used to exploiting them. He looks professional, popular, successful, the man who has everything. Yet here he is, stripped naked, his expensive clothing symbolically replaced by a tight slave's collar. 

Having surrendered himself to this Top, he stands helplessly secured, arms spread wide in a heavy-duty wooden frame that would, and probably has, restrained much stronger men than he. There is no going back now, he faces torments, whose nature he can try to imagine but their intensity remains an unknown. Uncertainty and nervousness shows in his face as he winces from the initial squeezing of his nipples, it's the trivial, introductory handshake of pain.

This is a great picture.


Oztangles - Taking Him To The Edge 3

Here is Mr P again, easily recognised by his idiosyncratic clothing. He's working on a very nice sub of his own. If his outfit is flamboyant, his restraint apparatus is out of this world, indisputably stylish, futuristic and no doubt incredibly expensive. Very much in keeping with the persona I outlined just above.  It's a matter of taste whether you prefer the traditional styles of restraint but the tentacle-like entwinement of the arms and legs in this device are highly erotic in their own right and must impress the subs no end.


2009


Oztangles - Bench Press

A new erotic adventurer appears in Oz's art in 2009, 'Angel' who haunts gyms and locker rooms, seeking out opportunities for sex with the athletes who pass through in pursuit of physical exercise and sporting excellence. 

Angel's advances are made boldly, openly seducing men in the middle of their workout and unruffled if anyone else walks in on them. In the sequel to this image the muscle head at the door follows Angel to the locker room and plunders his ass, kneeling on the floor.


Oztangles - The Garage

This image shows the artist's widening ambitions with a complex, industrial set and an aerial viewpoint setting tricky challenges of perspective. It's a more ambitious subject too invoking a fantasy of two captives being given a workout by a mysterious but very large man who is using the computerised, electrical testing system of the garage to test two guinea pigs.

Is this a place where subs are sent for their annual safety test? Or are these two mechanics whose incompetence with this equipment has prompted an angry customer to give them a practical demonstration?


Oztangles - Downstairs, It's Playtime

 In Playtime Oz revisits that dark moment when a restrained Sub meets his Master.

This Sub is a handsome and exceptionally muscular man. These are qualities that will grant him no favours in the hours to come. He's been fully prepared in advance, stripped naked and shackled, hands above his head, to an iron post using steel fetters that are clamped so tightly on his wrists and ankles that escape is completely impossible. Already this is looking like serious business. 

He's been left to anticipate and sweat in this bare underground room, feeling a tingle of excitement and fear. Now the moment has come as the Top makes his entrance, descending the stairs and gradually revealing himself. The sub gets a glimpse of calf length motorcycle boots and rubber leotard. They suggest a man with flair, a man who does things differently (shades of Mr P). The Sub shifts uneasily in his restraints.


Oztangles - What Next

A lot of Oztangles' pictures around this time feature solo studies of the male figure in classic modelling poses, experimenting with their bodies and faces. This one has an S&M flavour and brilliantly captures the tearful eyes and gritted teeth of a cocky man who is finding his weighty trial harder to handle than he expected, but dare not admit the humiliating truth to his mentor - or himself.

The ball weight looks bizarrely like a Christmas bauble, but it's clearly much heavier, causing the clips on the sub's nipples to clamp tight. A merry quip dies on his lips as the pain mounts.

~

The mitchmen retrospective of the Art of Oztangles 





Saturday, 18 June 2022

Beautifully Bound - Double Rigid Irons



I suppose 'bound' is not quite the right word for this arrangement but this is an absolutely classic bondage image, from Mr S. It captures the despair of a captive, cast into irons that are not only inescapable but impose an uncomfortable and awkward position on the wearer.

I can trace it back to 2004 but it may be even older.



These irons are also capable of inflicting great indignity on the unfortunate captive.
With potential for worse if he's got a badass guard.



I don't know who the model was, I'd be glad of info from readers.

He was subjected to a series of bondage devices during this shoot.



I guess this was how he arrived, freshly condemned.

But at least he's still got his jeans on.



The honeymoon didn't last long.

There's a terrific sense of tight restraint in this image.

These are good for opening up the chest, they said.

Handy too for opening up his pants (etc).

~

See more Rigid Irons @ Mr S