In depth
Shorter pages on single works, people, films and court cases, grouped by the chapter they belong to.
Greece and Rome
The Warren CupThe Roman silver cup that waited decades for a museum willing to show it
The Peithinos cupA signed Athenian drinking cup with courting couples around its wall
The Secret Cabinet of NaplesThe locked room where the erotic finds of Pompeii were kept from view
AntinousThe young Greek an emperor turned into a god
Renaissance and Baroque
Michelangelo and Tommaso de' CavalieriDrawings, letters and sonnets for a young Roman nobleman
Saint SebastianThe martyr pierced by arrows who became a gay icon, from Renaissance altarpieces to Derek Jarman
Leonardo and the anonymous letterThe 1476 denunciation that put a young Leonardo in the Florentine files
The Arcadian photographers
Wilhelm von GloedenThe baron in Taormina, his postcards and what they really show
Eugen SandowThe strongman who sold his body on cabinet cards
Different from the OthersThe 1919 film that pleaded for the men of Paragraph 175
TelenyThe 1893 erotic novel linked to Oscar Wilde's circle, the first in English about love between men
The physique era
Bob Mizer and the Athletic Model GuildThe Los Angeles studio of posing straps, catalogues and 8mm films
Physique PictorialThe pocket magazine that became the model for a whole genre
MANual Enterprises v. DayThe 1962 Supreme Court case that opened the mail to male nudes
Tom of FinlandThe lumberjack from Finland who first appeared on a physique cover in 1957
Out on the screen
Boys in the SandWakefield Poole's 1971 film and the queue on 55th Street
L.A. Plays ItselfFred Halsted's 1972 film, now in the Museum of Modern Art
Playgirl and the male centerfoldA magazine of naked men made for women, read just as eagerly by gay men
Naked on stageHair, Oh! Calcutta! and Equus: when the theatre undressed men
Pasolini's Trilogy of LifeThe Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights: male nudity in Italian art cinema
Male nudity in mainstream cinemaFrom the Hays Code to Women in Love and American Gigolo, the naked man as soft porn
Andy Warhol's films and Joe DallesandroFrom Blow Job and My Hustler to Flesh and Trash: the Factory films that put a naked hustler on screen
The studio age
Colt StudioJim French and the Colt man
Falcon StudiosFrom mail-order loops to the biggest name in gay porn
The working man trilogyJoe Gage's trucks, wrecking yards and tool shops
Leather and S&M on filmThe first gay BDSM films, from Fred Halsted to Born to Raise Hell
Al ParkerThe star who became a producer and a voice for safer sex
Underwear adsFrom the Calvin Klein billboard in Times Square to Marky Mark: soft porn as advertising
