Beefcake: Then and Now

Burt Reynolds' notorious Cosmo Magazine centerfold from April, '72

It occurred to me recently that a good deal of my social media presence is NSFW. For example, there's an author I follow on Facebook who maintains a private page wherein, twice a day, 365 days a year, she posts pictures of nearly-naked men. And some of them skip the 'nearly'.

And Sunday is Peen Day.

I'm going to let your imagination take care of that one.

My Pinterest stream is loaded with masculine beauty. I figure it's an occupational hazard of being a romance writer. Some of the pictures are just pretty to look at, but some can be quite inspiring. I wrote a whole book - and potentially a series - because I needed to tell the story of the guy with the bird tattoo.

Eric Dane - source unknown

Also, I'm pretty sure this young man with the dark hair and tatts is Joey, younger brother of Ryan from King Stud. (Okay, yeah, he's not really Joey. His name is Atle Petterson, and he's from Norway's X-Games. Jump HERE to read more about him - but make sure your googletranslate is working, because the article is in Norwegian. But the pictures are pretty.)

http://www.kjendis.no/2011/10/26/kjendis/atle_pettersen/police/david_beckham/george_clooney/18780830/

Between authors posting photos to Facebook and Pinterest, and photographers like Michael Stokes sharing their work on Facebook and Twitter, I sometimes think that buffed young men could give cat pix a run for their money for internet popularity.

But has it always been this way?

I actually did a google search, looking for some scholarly paper that might explain why it seems we're having something of a heyday for photographing men. The closest I came (and I might not have looked that hard) was the Wikipedia definition of 'beefcake', where they state that while the cheesecake pictures of women were always more popular, as far back as the 1920s some actors were designated beefcake and photographed with their shirts off.

The Bergland Brothers vintage beefcake - www.fanpop.com 

And then there were men who were photographed for the enjoyment of other men. Because I don't think teenage girls from my mother's generation hid these beauties in their high school lockers.

Forrester Millard and John Tristam photographed by the Althletic Model Guildhttp://malemodelsvintagebeefcake.blogspot.com/

So maybe there have been two changes: the number of photographs of men intended primarily to glorify their beauty, and the audience for those photographs. Because up until Playgirl Magazine in the '70s and '80s, women weren't really allowed or expected to want to see such things.

And now we have Magic Mike...

Who knew Channing Tatum could dance like that?

I totally agree, Marlon. Totally.

So I'm not sure what I proved here today, other than that men have been handsome for at least as long as people have been able to photograph them. Ah well....I hope you enjoyed the view.

Happy Weekend!
Liv