At
the same time that Minor White was exploring anxieties surrounding his
sexuality and his war experiences, many other American men were returning
home from WWII to America to find that they had to reaffirm the traditional
place of the male as the breadwinner within the family unit. Masculinity
and a muscular body image was critical in this reaffirmation. Powerful
in build and strong in image it was used to counter the threat of newly
independent females, females who had taken over the jobs of men while
they were away at war. Conversely, many gay men returned home to America
after the war knowing that they were not as alone as they had previously
thought, having socialised, associated, fought and had sex with others
of their kind. There were other gay men out there in the world and the
beginnings of contemporary gay society started to be formed. A desire
by some gay men for the masculine body image found expression in the publications
of bodybuilding books and magazines that
continued to be produced within the boundaries of social acceptability
after the Second World War. Photographers such as Russ Warner, Al
Urban,
Lon of New York (who began their careers in the late 1930's), Bob
Mizer (started Physique Pictorial in 1945), Charles Renslow
(started Kris studio in 1954), and Bruce
of Los Angeles, sought out models on both
sides of the Atlantic. Models appeared in posing pouches or the negatives
were again airbrushed to hide offending genitalia. Some
unpublished images from 1942-1950 by Bruce of Los Angeles show an older
man sucking off a stiff younger man (Image
No. 52001 - 52004) but this is the rare exception rather than
the rule. Appealing to a closeted homosexual clientele the published images
seem, on reflection, to have had a more open, homoerotic quality to them
than earlier physique photographs. This
can be observed in the two images below. The first image carries on the
tradition of the Sansone image "Master
and Slave," but further develops the sadomasochistic overtones;
such wrestling photographs became popular just because the models
were shown touching each other, which could provide sexual arousal for
gay men looking at the photographs.
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Bob
Mizer/
Athletic Model Guild.
"Irwin Kosewski
and Jerry Ross."
n.d.
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Joe Corey.
"Bill Henry and Bob Baker"
n.d.
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Some
photographs were taken out of doors instead of always in the studio,
possibly an expression of a more open attitude to ways of depicting
the nude male body. The bodies in the 'beefcake' magazines of the 1950s
tend to be bigger than that of the ephebe, even when the models were
quite young in some cases. As the name 'beefcake' implies, the muscular
mesomorphic shape was the attraction of these bodies - perfectly proportioned
Adonis's with bulging pectorals, large biceps, hard as rock abdomens
and small waists. The 1950's saw the development of a more open fixation
by gay men with the muscular mesomorph body as the ultimate image of
the male. Lithe bodies of young dancers and swimmers now gives way to
muscle - a built body, large in its construction, solid and dependable,
sculpted like a piece of rock. These bodies
are usually smooth and it is difficult to find a hirsute
body in any of the photographs from the physique magazines
of this period.
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