BijouBlog

One totally awesome perk for working at the Bijouworld office (it isn't sex) is you never what you might find in the files.

Yes, files, think beige manila folders, not computer directories. We pretty much have anything, yes anything, related to gay sex dating to the beginning of the last century. Just ask!

I was looking for a retrostud to do a blog on for this week, and I pulled a file that contained a list of former jobs of 12 gay “porno” stars, by Leigh Rutledge, author of the book The Gay Decades.

Interestingly enough, these retrostuds didn't just work as the stereotypical bartenders or escorts or strippers.

Al Parker (below) worked as a butler, a video technician, and a personal aide to Hugh Hefner at Playboy magazine.
 

Keith Anthoni (below) was a waiter, an actor in Pepsi commercials (which one?), a stage actor, and a male stripper.
 

Steve Scott worked in the publicity department at Universal Studios.

Kip Noll (below) was very blue-collar; he was a machinist, an auto mechanic, and a carpenter.
 

Roy Garrett (below) was employed as a supervisor in a New Jersey cosmetics factory, as well as doing the bartender/male stripper thing.
 

Jamie Wingo (below) worked in marketing for a gay advertising agency and also, guess what, stripped.
 

Jack Wrangler (below) was a child television star with his own NBC series, Faith of Our Children. He also did bit parts on the Mod Squad and Medical Center. If my mother only knew …
 

Scorpio (below) was a male stripper in straight bars. He tried to get into modeling but found out from an agency that his job as a stripper killed his chances.
 

Richard Locke (below) worked very diverse jobs. He was a tank commander in the army, a gas station attendant, an insurance claims adjuster, and a baths attendant.
 

Jayson MacBride (below) danced and sang as a chorus boy. He later enjoyed a successful career in corporate market research.
 

Mike Davis (below) was a set designer.
 

Christopher Rage worked as a talent manger for cabaret acts, as a male escort, and then joined an ad agency promoting X-rated films.

I just can't get the picture out of my mind of Al Parker as a butler wearing some tight-fitting livery! One can only dream …

Hope you enjoy this very photogenic blog!

Ra

Are euphemisms for sex or bathroom actions becoming dead words?

Now, when types of slang words that have been stigmatized as obscene have become pretty much prevalent in a majority of social situations, why, to use another euphemism, beat around the bush?

In fact, that sound that bleeps out the offending words seems to be occurring more and more on television (on some reality shows, that sound seems to drown out the dialogue), perhaps showing we don't bother to even code anymore language that refers to those taboo sex/bathroom actions.

Too bad, I say, from just a creative standpoint. The richness and humor of coming up with ways to convey pooping and fucking ... it was a linguistic freedom that flourished within oppressive constraints, and some of the words mockingly confronted such oppression.

Here are some awesome euphemisms from The Big Book of Talking Dirty:

catch a horse (20thC) (Aus.) to urinate

fie for shame (19thC) the vagina; from the image of the vagina as something shameful

four­legged frolic (mid 19thC) sexual intercourse

gentleman of the back door (18thC) a homosexuality

get one's hair cut (20thC) to visit a woman for sex

give the Chinaman a music lesson (20thC) to urinate

give one's gravy (19thC) to give someone an orgasm

hundred­and­seventy­fiver (1990s) a homosexual (para. 175 of the German penal code outlawed homosexuality)

massaging the one eye'd monk (1990s) masturbation

One a much more serious note, there's one taboo area I still think we still use euphemisms for, because, in a time when any sign of aging can supposedly be quick­fixed by botox and billions of dollars are spent on prolonging life (not to be confused with finding cures for diseases): death. We're more and more uncomfortable with it, even when it happens naturally.

Often the young try, like the young of generations past, to sublimate their fear with a carpe diem attitude, or they end up scapegoating older people, inflicting a social death upon them, because they see in them their own future.

We all fuck and piss and shit and die: that's the reality all human culture confronts in a myriad of ways.

How many ways can you say that?

Some person (I was going to use a naughty word, but I am trying to remain calm) on the Huffington Post claimed that homosexuals started the Nazi Party. This type of ignorance (and this claim has been going around for some time, thanks to Scott Lively and others of his ilk) really makes my blood boil. It's the type of defamation that LGBT persons are still suffering from people like Scott Lively (again, I was going to use more naughty words), Bryan Fischer, and now Sally Kern of Oklahoma, who wants to allow people who may be against what they term sinful homosexual behavior (think: a certain type of Christian of the fundamentalist persuasion) to deny LGBT persons access to public services in her state, among other infamies. Check out this site for more information on Kern's bills.

Ernest Rohm, one of the original compatriots of Hitler, was gay, but he did NOT start the party. And he and his cohorts were “purged” soon after Hitler took over because they Hitler saw them as a threat. He couldn't deal with what was developing into a possibly dangerous internal army (Rohm's Brown Shirts) rising up against him. And he before that point was pretty much willing to “look the other way” about Rohm's predilection for blond, “Aryan-looking” studs. Himmler was the one who pretty much decried Rohm's orientation and influenced Hitler to add gays to his list of Final Solution victims.

By the time the Holocaust was occurring, gays, according to the Nazi world view, had been deemed not acceptable humans. This view was based on their distorted eugenics; degenerate gay men (or lesbian women) could not produce future master race babies. Gays were sent to concentration camps and made to wear the pink triangle. Straight prisoners were encouraged to beat up on them, just as they often would have done in a non-prison setting. It's not clear how many LGBT persons were killed, but of the 5,000 to 15,000 incarcerated, as many as 60 percent may have died, according to one leading scholar.

And we also need to remember that the injustice continued for gay men especially after Hitler's defeat. Many gays who survived the horrors of Nazism still had to live lives of secrecy and continued persecution sometimes based on evidence found during the Nazi regime. Both Germanies (at that time) eventually overturned their “fornication between men” laws in 1957 (in the East) and 1969 (in the West).

We recently remembered the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and we remember all the victims of the Nazis, but was also need to still remember that the Sally Kerns of the world are still perpetrating a similar mechanism of scapegoating those whom they see as threats to the supposed “purity” of their systems. In 1938, after the Kristallnacht pogrom, the Nazis pretty much denied the Jews basic public services in Germany.

In 2015, Sally Kern and other government officials in the United States now seek to do something similar, though many of them are probably operating under the different assumption held by her co-religionists that LGBTs offend by their behavior, not their genetic makeup.

Even though we now know Kern has withdrawn her offensive bills, the fact that people support her bills (and that she was even elected) really makes me both frightened as well as angry.

I think we all have to start not just throwing around this saying by Martin Niemoller as a cliché, but using it as a constant call to action, not just vigilance:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
 

 

Martin Niemoller

Oh, one of my brain candy shows has started another season on TLC aka “Sideshow America.”

There seems to be the usual people eating strange supposedly inedible objects (many of these people suffer from a disease called pica), but one guy, who lives not far from Chicago, shared an addiction which for many in the BDSM community is not that highly unusual a fetish.

Kevin from suburban Lombard, Illinois is a straight guy (who from what I saw would be very popular in the gay bear community) who is addicted to casts. Yes, casts, what gets put on a limb if you break a bone.
 

Now, from what I saw, it's not like he is always putting on a plaster cast (remember how exciting it was when you are a kid, at least I remember, that you got to sign someone's cast or get yours signed); some that he wears seem to be made of some cloth-like material.

And it's not clear, I gather, from the show, if he is getting off sexually from putting himself into this form of restrictive bondage. Perhaps he is, but it's not something he seems to be able to integrate into his intimate relationships.

He is straight and has had girlfriends, and the one on the show who basically told him shrilly to choose between her and all the casts broke up with him soon afterward, but I wasn't getting the sense that the sex involved doing something with the casts.

He seemed to be more of an exhibitionist, perhaps, and the episode showed an obviously staged, scripted incident involving Kevin and his too-too embarrassed sidekick (who always gets roped into putting his buddy into his more elaborate casts, hello, Ethel) parading down Michigan Avenue. Kevin was in some kind of cast that basically covered his torso and pinned his arms to his sides. It's the type of cast someone would wear if he or she, for example, got hit by a truck.

Now, the usual end of this show is some meeting with a medical professional, in this case, a psychologist. The doctor proclaims, sadly, that Kevin will always be alone. His addiction (I guess fetish, but as I said above, I just can't tell how sexual it is for him), according to the doctor, isn't something he can or even will manage to overcome, much less integrate into the rest of his life.

I've seen plenty of guys get into all types of restrictive bondage (I've even seen a plaster cast scene at one event), but the elaborate bondage was part of a large dominance/submission dynamic. Plus it was clear the guys got off on the activity (not that I could see evidence if the cock was covered by plaster!). Plus they were playing with like-minded people in a sexual setting. In Kevin's case, how he approaches his addiction to casts doesn't really fit into this play party context.

Now I've seen (and known) plenty of guys with sexual fetishes become so addicted to the fetish that they lose sight of actually relating to a person. I think specifically of guys who post multiple times a week on craigslist. (I am thinking in Chicago of Mr. I want to lick the mud off the boots of a UPS driver or Mr. karate kick me in the balls.) I guess they are reaching out and don't want to jack off alone, but the person they play with is a means, not an end.

I do sincerely hope that Kevin will find a castmate (pun intended) because of the show's publicity.

Check out our website for some of classic BDSM videos, and don't forget to check out all our fetish books and magazines too.

I thought this week it might be fun to do a more interactive blog (jacking off is fun, but your best friend isn't always yourself).

We're going to put out (maybe in more ways than one) some of our favorite Bijou gay porn scenes.

Then, you can share yours, and we'll even link to some of those clips on our websites on our Twitter page.

I'm into dominance and submission big time (the big is more mental that physical, but I do appreciate size, especially muscles!).

There's a scene from Al Parker's movie Turned On! that always gets me going. Now Al, for me, and I might claim many others, is a total top man (and I just don't mean fucking): he exudes a dominant, but not so much in your face (but then, who wouldn't want his glorious cock in your face) masculinity, but one that doesn't need much overcooked “on your knees, boy” proclamations.

But what makes this scene so fascinating for me is Al submitting, and submitting, endlessly... a hunger that is never satisfied, but is satisfied in its own hunger. Kind of the effect Al creates when he wields his mighty cock...

What is Al doing? In a locker room with male body parts behind every locker door, Parker and Sky Dawson (the man of Al's dreams in this movie) service rows (a sort of chorus line) of humpy, athletic men in jockstraps. It's a fantasy, but what it makes it even more enticing for me is the jockstraps. They conceal but also show.

Now, another movie, from Roger Earl's Dungeons of Europe trilogy, Pictures from the Black Dance, contains a scene which really gets me going. What's interesting is not so much the leathersex itself, but the overall dominance/submission dynamic I find erotic:

In the last scene, Dick Johnson is leading a hooded guy in a bondage/body suit. This is Tony Starr, who had previously been a dominant in the movie! The last dance, the climactic one. The slapping sound is its rhythmic accompaniment. They are still in the dungeon, but the wall looks like fall foliage. After what looks like a whiff of poppers, Johnson powerfully creates total submission; by pulling bottom up by hook on bondage suit. He barks one command that seems to pull most of the action together: SIT!

Johnson then attaches Starr to the board, and one hears a stomping and slamming sound with his powerful boots. He then, with amazing confidence, picks up the guy and then places him on the floor.

This lying down position, especially when contrasted with a standing position, is one of stripping away of conventional social norms, which often occurs in BDSM role playing. Johnson now has his bottom in this position of total submission in order for him to wield his power, by pulling the cock and balls on triangle attached to his cock and balls; this tension shows that Johnson himself actually reciprocating once he has shown his power.

I'm particularly interested in porn directors who use sexual explicitness as a vehicle for artistic expression. I also find emotionally raw states (such as love, sadness, or fear) to be intriguing mental spaces in which to tap into eroticism, the heightened emotional state acting as a potential sexual enhancer. The two scenes I'm featuring play with these approaches.

The entirety of Tom DeSimone's The Idol is a well-crafted build from sexual isolation and frustration to sexual freedom and open expression, each successive sex scene progressing the main character, Gary, along in his sexual journey.

The final erotic encounter in The Idol is a romantic and bittersweet one. We know from the beginning that college track star Gary will die at a young age. The film is structured around his funeral, and this final flashback to a moment in his life shows him in bed with his lover (who has been longing for him from afar in the flashbacks until this point). The lighting is soft and blue, with the soundtrack pared down to simply the thunderstorm outdoors accompanied by their murmurings and moans, and the camera pans lingeringly over their entwined bodies. They take their time kissing and fucking to the sounds of rumbling thunder, rain, and wind. DeSimone's strong sense of erotic pacing is highlighted here, creating a potent crescendo of sexual tension. The scene ends as the two collapse into each other in exhaustion after climax and the soundtrack kicks in with a song echoing the claim, "I could never leave you." We know that this statement is untrue. The story has finally brought these men together and has brought Gary to terms with his own sexuality, but these journeys are about to end.

This scene is visually gorgeous, atmospheric, and emotionally effective. Even the sentimentality of some of the devices (the slow-mo at the end, the romantic dialogue) doesn't interfere, but, rather, feels perfectly earned and adds to the ambiance. This is a brilliant example of scene that is, at once, melancholic, romantic, and erotic.

Peter de Rome's The Destroying Angel is easily one of the most unusual films in the Bijou catalog. It tells a Poe-inspired story of a priest on sabbatical who engages in mushroom trips and sex, which hauntingly meld together.

The film uses sexual explicitness to evoke as much horror as eroticism, playing with themes of repression/compulsion and revulsion/attracton. The scene where Caswell (the priest) fucks a young man he meets at a party is deeply unsettling and captivating. The two men eat mushrooms and Caswell observes his doppelganger entering into the action. "How many of us do you see?" he asks his partner. "Just you and me," is the calm reply. But we see the friend jerking off two Caswells at once, as the camera pans over to his double in an eerie moment of trick photography. Caswell seemingly watches himself from both positions. Both Caswells are alternately terrified, confused, maniacal, and sexually ravenous. Horrible yowls and laughs echo on the soundtrack and Caswell comes on his double's face, but won't stop trying to have sex even after his partner is clearly spent. His appetite is insatiable. It takes a sudden cut to achieve an end to the scene, which could have continued interminably in a wild hallucinatory state of unending erotic hunger.

This scene is a nightmarish distortion of sex, frenzied and made of pure compulsion, with Caswell watching himself in horror as if in shock at what he is doing. He can't reconcile himself with his sexuality and it bursts forth from him as if another him has been created, one made of his own repressed sexual side, his shadow self a creature of erotic monstrosity that can only be fed by being given more, more, until eventual destruction must occur.

Bijou owner Steven Toushin's selections are from two additional Steve Scott films (Turned On! also being by Scott): Wanted and Inches.

In Wanted, the scene shows brutal, sadistic warden Jack Wrangler as he makes an inmate suck his cock, rifle in hand, then fucks him, while he's supposed to be guarding a chain gang. This scene is especially notable in its depiction of an erotic prison fantasy between warden and prisoner that is not as typically found between men in films.

In Inches, its the cruisey barroom scene near the end of the film. This scene is relatable to those who were present in the era or who have experienced bar backroom action, capturing a sense of realism in the small details of the scene which make it feel like an actual '70s-era bar backroom, with anonymous sex going on everywhere.