What's All This I Hear About Manspreading?

What's All This I Hear About Manspreading?


Emily Litella of Saturday Night Live fame might have got this term wrong and called it something like “tanspread” or “manshead or even “sandwich spread;” I am waiting for this term to perhaps get into the Oxford English dictionary in a few years.

So what is it? Is it a noun, a verb? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Bigger than a bread box? It actually could be all of these.

Here's a pic which shows, not tells, what it is, and it mostly takes place on the subway or other forms of public transportation, perhaps making it a more urban image:

 
Essentially, the posture takes up too much space on a seat, and those who complain about it tend to be women. Some women tend to see it as showing a basic lack of consideration among males (I totally agree), and some even see it as an assertion of male privilege and its accompanying sexual dominance (well, that depends … )


Even the conservative National Review, despite its biases and nasty overgeneralizations about feminism, satirized (I would hope this is the case) some more extreme reactions to this posture. The article is actually more upset that “big government” would intervene even to the point of arresting someone(?!).

 

Yet, how dare a municipality put up a sign reminding people (in this case, mostly men) to just be more considerate of others on public transportation. And not just manspreading, but loud headphones and backpacks and other luggage and staring into phones and thus not watching where one is going while entering and exiting ...

The fact is, both sexes use specific body language to assert dominance; in the case of guys, such dominance usually involves taking up space, marking territory, as it were.

Manspread is one of those postures, as is the hands on hips or arms akimbo one. The latter also indicates readiness (sports players often stand this way waiting for action in a game) as well as dominance, and some studies have revealed that African-American women will also use this pose to show disagreement or even disgust.

Have I noticed this pose? Yes, of course, because who at gay men isn't looking for a seductive bulge? A gay man thus might interpret this pose differently, as a sexual come-on, however unconscious. But does a gay man interpret the accompanying power dynamic differently?


I could see this particularly pose as actually more submissive than dominant. The cock is open for play. And for those BDSM-inclined guys, open for cock and ball torture. In a pansexual BDSM scene, a dominatrix might want this pose so she could squeeze the guy's cock and balls. I even coined a term called “slavespread;” a sub bottom slave would sit this way, hands behind his back, cock and balls exposed.

I don't want to suggest that everyone should thus enjoy manspreading. There's a time and place to get horny, be it a dominant, submissive or mutual interaction. Move your legs. Let someone else sit next to you. Well, in the case of a gay man, that action might end up becoming an even more intimate proposition.

b2ap3_thumbnail_slavespread.jpg

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Forty Years Ago: Fred Halsted and Jack Wrangler Debuts

Forty Years Ago: Fred Halsted and Jack Wrangler Debuts

In the spring of 1975, states were repealing sodomy laws, though on April 12 the Arizona House passed an emergency measure to ban same-sex marriages, and the Colorado Attorney General ruled such marriages were illegal too.


Despite these setbacks the gay liberation counterculture was in full swing, despite so many setbacks, and the gay porn industry, at that time a major outlet for expressing openly (and often artistically) gay men's sexuality, was flourishing in its film to movie theater format.

 

For example, on April 30, Fred Halsted's film Sextool came out. Its definitely experimental approach - which involved surrealistic imagery, BDSM sex, and disjunctive editing - turned off rather than on many reviewers, but it did get a write up in the mainstream press. Variety actually claimed Halsted was “the Ken Russell of S & M homoerotica.” Bijou's review is here.

On May 19, Jack Stillman made his debut as Jack Wrangler when he performed a striptease on cowboy gear at the Paris Theater in Los Angeles. He was dressed like a cowboy. He took his surname from those cowboy jeans that really show off a cute ass, of course.

 

Later that year, he starred in his first gay porn film, Ranch Dudes, a 15-minute loop where he jacks off his big member in a corral. He must have really been into that cowboy look early in his career. We have remastered an edit of this loop, calling it Cowboy, in our Magnum Griffin 14 compilation.

 

Here at Bijouworld.com and Bijougayporn.com (where both of these titles can be found) we are dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of key artistic mediums that shaped and continue to shape gay sexuality.

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Come to the Cabaret

Come to the Cabaret

“Come to the cabaret ...”

I watched the movie Cabaret when I was in high school under adult supervision (I guess it was beyond my parents to figure out that Sally Bowles was not at all judgmental about her gay friends).
 

The I graduated in college to the gender bending Victor, Victoria, much of which takes place in nightclubs/gay bars which seem to be pretty much be synonymous with cabarets.

Live entertainment … torchy songs around the piano … lamps with shades on the tables … people smoking … all dressed up in evening gowns and tuxedos …. scenes that were also commonplace in mainstream Hollywood movies of the 30s and 40s, except in those movies, they were pretty much heterosexual, though the usual sultry contralto (low, almost masculine) voice of the lead female singer singing songs usually about elusive romance and hidden passions and perhaps a “sissy” waiter hinted at gender bending.
 

When I first came out in the eighties, there was a big gay bar that I guess you could also call a cabaret in Chicago, called Gentry. It was rumored to be the place to pick up a rich husband. Now, apparently, such places were not at all uncommon in Chicago, strictly gay cabarets often featuring drag performers, as far back as the 1930s.

According to Lucinda Fleeson in an article called “The Gay 30s,” there was place called Diamond Lil's, at 909 North Rush Street (get the reference to Mae West?), that was so popular people ended up being turned away. And the high society people flocked to those places; the Chicago Gray Line Sightseeing Company included gay pick up venues such as Bughouse Square in front of the Newberry Library as part of its package, appealing to the allure of what is strange, different, “queer.”


Yes, Chicago was Sin City, until mayor Edward Kelly decided to “clean up” the nightlife, and the moral panic of 1936 (everyone was a potential sex predator; remember the 1980s Satanic day care crisis? Same mentality) pretty much ended what was called “The Pansy Craze.”

Tastes have changed, and cabaret seems to have become a more specialized entertainment, not because of its audience, but because of its musical appeal. Some claim that piano bars/cabarets in general declined by the late eighties because of the popularity of electronic music, disc jockeys, bands, and even live karaoke.

In fact, I can't think of a specifically gay cabaret in Chicago since the closing of Gentry (it tried to revive itself in Boystown after leaving the Rush Street area, but it has since closed). There's a place called Davenports in the hipster area Wicker Park which is a piano bar not specifically gay (I noticed on its schedule a gay tribute for Pride Month, focusing on gay icons of the past, but no drag acts), and Mary's Attic, a gay venue in the now heavily gay area of Andersonville often puts on cabaret acts.

 

Perhaps the fascination with retro for these demographics might have something to do with the popularity of these venues … but tastes (and gay icons) have changed, or one might even claim, they've become more eclectic, especially for millenials who can stream practically anything in a millisecond.

Still, it's awesome to be able to find places in Chicago that keep cabaret, now taking on the status of a tradition, alive in the Chicago area.

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Retrostuds of the Past: Focus on Pierce Daniels

Retrostuds of the Past: Focus on Pierce Daniels

“Pierce is quite stunning and every time I look at him I do get a bit weak. Looking at his photos that night I began to want to see him naked immediately.” – randyblue.com

I must say I agree with the above quote, especially after looking at some of the photos in our files.
 

In 1985, Pierce did a spread for Honcho magazine, challenging the viewer to touch, yes, just touch his virile, richly textured cock: “I know what you want; you're not the only one who wants it. But not everyone can have it. What makes you so special? … This is what you want. It takes something special to make me give it to you. Show me your hidden talents. Not bad; go ahead and touch it. If you're real good I'll let you do more than touch it.”

Getting aroused? I hope so. Sometimes the hunger is actually the satiation. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he'll take it off, ever so slowly, but by doing to edge you to the point of ecstasy.

Pierce Daniels, aka Rusty Wolshez (Russell Wallace), was born on September 5, 1958 in Fresno, California. He was active as a performer from 1985 to 1994.

I don't have any more biographical information. Pierce's legacy, however, lives on in several movies Bijou Video carries (on DVD at bijouworld.com and streaming instantly at bijougayporn.com), including Gotta Have It, Perfect 10, Therapy, Lovers and Friends, Windows and Century Mining. He doesn't take on the starring role in these movies, but his “gay macho” look combined with his effortless sexual technique (he's so confident wielding his uncut manmeat) make him stand out.

In Gotta Have It, a silent Pierce Daniels (“rugged, bearded and pretty all at the same time”) is shown voyeuring the massive black hunk Tyrone Washington and Bobbie Davis,while jerking off his uncut dick.

In Perfect 10, Pierce Daniels gets a vigorous butt-pounding by Chaz Holderman while he's swallowing Chad's hard-on (he swallows all of it too, only matched (at least on video) by Gino Del Mar in that feat). Strong jabs encompass this hot fuck and the camera zooms in to show him pulling all the way out of Pierce's hole.

In Therapy, a guy enters an alley where two men are hanging out and sucks one of them off through his chaps. The second man (Daniels) whips out his foreskinned, cockringed meat and gets it beat off while watching the blowjob. Anal sex leads to a three-way and squeezed balls leading to orgasms.
 

In Lovers and Friends, Pierce Daniels rims and fucks Joel Curry (the lover of Ron Pearson in this movie) in a kitchen. Cole Taylor, playing a waiter, joins the twosome and throws a second fuck into the insatiable Curry. Kinkiness in the ensuing threeway includes Daniels turning Curry over, spreading vanilla topping all over his ass, and licking every bit of it off. Now, that is true food porn!

And in Century Mining, Daniels is in the opening scene. Eric Ryan lies in bed. His fellow mine worker, a ravishing Pierce Daniels, enters and scolds Ryan, "you're gonna be late!" Ryan has other things on his mind, mainly the throbbing boner beneath the sheets. He attempts to lure Daniels into bed, but is denied, as Daniels wants to keep his job and pre-shift sex will surely get them fired!

Daniels appears in the last scene of the movie, the orgy that occurs after the mine collapse. Yes, sex and death, always a combo! He spends what might be the last few hours of his life stroking his snake and twisting his low hangers around his shaft while fantasizing about some hot fuck-piggery he'd engaged in with Eric Ryan.

Tragically, the sex-death combination caught up with Pierce literally.

 

Like many of his compatriots, he died of AIDS-related complications, in his case, on July 8, 1995.

If anyone has any more information about this totally hot retrostud, please email bijouvideo@gmail.com.

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Retrostuds of the Past: Focus on Gino Colbert

Retrostuds of the Past: Focus on Gino Colbert

I first encountered Gino Colbert in his youthful glory, in a spanking fetish film Bijou Video carries called Disciplining the Undisciplined Athlete. Gino, playing a short in stature boxer with a chip on his shoulder, and Michael Ryan spank each other.

Little did I know Gino was also a phenomenal director and producer with a multitude of porn films to his credit, including straight and bisexual ones. In fact, according to an interview in a February 25, 2004 issue of Unzipped, he even cast the legendary Jack Wrangler in several straight flicks.

 

He also worked with the famous straight porn actor and director Ron Jeremy on several pictures.

 

Gino was born in 1957 in Toledo, Ohio, and like many guys and gals from the Heartland, wanted to to to Holllywood to make it big in pictures. He ended up making it big in adult films, beginning in 1980, but eight years later made an extraordinary transition to directing. He is best known for directing Men in Blue, Blue Blake's final film appearance.

I culled some interesting tidbits from two interviews Gino did for Manshots magazine in October 1989 and December 1990. I'll let him speak for himself about sexual chemistry between actors in porn movies and also about Bijou's classic “story porn:”

“You have to hire people who like to suck and fuck and enjoy it. And if they don't, you're gonna have a dead sex scene. I'm hot because I like sex. In a sex scene, I really go crazy, the moment the clothes are off. Even if the guy is mediocre, I can get something out of him while acting.”

“I choose my actors by the chemistry techniques. I have to find guys who will work with other guys. I just can't put Guy A with Guy B and expect them to have a good time. It's a very personal thing – they have to have sex together, and one guy may not be turned on to another.... You learn all that by talking to them ahead of time and asking them straight out, 'What turns you on? What kind of guys do you like?' I focus on heat. I like my sex scenes hot, so you have to have the right chemistry.”

Manshots: “Is the younger consumer aware of the stuff that was made in the past?"

Colbert: I don't think so, because if it's a new consumer, chances are he only knows video. He doesn't know film. He doesn't know about the days when we were taking time to make movies. And a typical x-rated film, whether it be gay or straight, was shot over four days and the budgets were more … we're talking about five and even six figures. I remember one gay flick that was shot over a week, and it cost six figures – Centurians of Rome. And it's still on the market and it's doing well, because a lot of people claim the consumer doesn't care about the story, as I said earlier, but those movies that have the good stories and really went to town with the quality, those are the ones that are still on the shelf and still selling.”
 

Gino no longer acts, but he still directs and currently owns his own production company, Gino Pictures.

 

We recently remastered a mostly black-cast movie called Black Jacks; Gino produced the film, and he also is a performer, doing a couple of hot scenes with the black guys in the cast.

 

Check out more of our titles that feature Gino and also stand the test of time with their combination of hot sex and engaging stories.

 

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