BijouBlog

Someone on the “anything gay” website Datalounge responded to a question about what gay porn star of the past influenced them the most. The name Brian Maxon (also known as Brian Maxx), came up. 

Given that I work in a veritable Pornopolis, I thought I could perhaps contribute to the discussion. Yes, we at Bijou are all things porn, but other than his cameo in Giants (and yes, it is giant) and his starring role in our title Two Handfuls, I didn't find out too much about this massive blond stud. 

I pulled the folder, and the pictures gave me a woody. What a bulge, and the his eyes entice you, but also communicate, “you can come so far, you've got to earn an approach to my godhood.” 
 

But who was he? Where was he born? Where's the backstory?

I did find out his penis size is seven inches, cut, and he weighed 220 pounds. But here's the clincher: he was 6 foot 4 tall inches. That's tall in my book. I like them big but also tall. 

I also found out that in 1985 he starred in a groundbreaking bi movie calledThe Big Switch. 

He stopped making movies in 1999. 

That's it. 

Inquiring minds want to know. 

Anyone got any more information on this awesome retrostud? 

 

Of course, the Olympics is a major turn-on for gay men, but you should also remember that the Greeks who originated the games approved of homosexuality (and they played the games naked).

And don't forget all those statues of muscular gods like Apollo and Hercules. 

Much later, after millennia of social repression, gays in the 1950s started to gingerly make their presence known through homoerotic muscle magazines like Grecian Guild Pictorial. 
 

 

"I seek a sound mind in a sound body," was the Grecian Guild Pictorial's credo or mission statement. The word "Grecian," however, could easily be read as an underground code for "gay." Grecian became a coded word for gay during the time period of this magazine (1950's-1960's): those guys who like the male body, the "body beautiful," resembling the "Grecian ideal in its muscularity, symmetry, and grace." The association with the more openly homoerotic and bisexual culture of ancient Greece (and not just the physical aspects, but the emphasis on art and health as well as physical strength) was intentional. 

In fact, several issues of Grecian Guild in late 1960 and early 1961 devoted contained articles specifically on the history and culture of the Olympics.

 Perhaps it's time for me to explore my Grecian identity. I'll start with those athletic bulges.   

Bernarr Macfadden founded Physical Culture in March of 1899.

It was the forerunner of health/muscle/fitness magazines, many of which since the 1950s eventually morphed into today's gay pornographic magazines. Macfadden's ideas about health, nutrition, and even sexuality, though themselves not that revolutionary because they were rooted in the New Thought and naturalistic/Darwinian movements of the late nineteenth century, were expressed in a way that many readers considered obscene, especially the photos of both men and women (including Macfadden himself) wearing minimal or even no clothing. 
 

The first issues of the magazine focused on bodybuilding, but he soon added articles about nutrition and natural foods and homeopathic methods of medical treatment. The magazine became a bestseller, unlike the fourteen books he had written on health before. He also published a magazine for women called Beauty and Health. 
 

In 1904, Macfadden began to organize and promote bodybuilding competitions in which men and women competed.

 

In 1905, Anthony Comstock, the self-appointed smut exterminator and originator of the later to be controversial Comstock Laws against obscenity in the media, brought legal action against Macfadden to have him arrested and a second exhibition scheduled in Madison Square Garden cancelled on the grounds that it was lewd and obscene.

 

Macfadden was given only a suspended sentence, and because of the publicity, the crowds filled the arena and people had to be turned away. People (men, presumably) who came to the show hoping to see a display of female flesh were disappointed. 

All the female participants were modestly attired in union suits. But I wonder about those male participants and the mostly male audience that paid their good money to also admire the men. Apparently overt female sexuality wasn't the only show on the menu.

What about the unspeakable taboo of homosexuality? It must have been an obscene sight for Mr. Morality himself, Comstock, to behold all those male hunks parading their masculinity before the lust-filled raw of the crowd. 
 

Many, many years ago, in a building not so far away in Chicago, I hooked up with a guy, who, in addition to many other fetishes, was aroused by enemas. My first reaction, as I was young and naïve, was Ew! (I was also thinking of that horrifying movie Sybil with Sally Field, but that's another story).

He particularly enjoyed enemas using wine.

As I progressed in my sexual journey, I realized that such kinky fetishes related to medical procedures, though bizarre on the surface, actually originate in practices which were popular as far back in time as the Middle Ages (and before). 
 

After doing some research, I discovered that physicians gave enemas using a tool called the clyster far back as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (wine enemas were popular). The tool was also used in Western and Central Africa (see the picture below). 
 

By the Middle ages, the clyster became essentially a long metallic tube with a cupped end, into which the medicinal fluid was poured into the anus. The other end, a dull point, drilled with several small holes, was inserted into the anus. Fluids were poured in and a plunger was used to inject the fluids into the colon area, using a pumping action. 

The most common fluid used was lukewarm water, though occasionally medical concoctions, such as thinned boar’s bile or vinegar, were used.  Seems rather intense and painful, but the relief for whatever complaint, which could range from constipation to poor complexion to melancholy (associated with the bowels), must have been palpable. 

 

Of course, there's a fine line between pain and pleasure, but I doubt anyone in the Middle Ages would admit to any type of erotic pleasure involving the anus, as “sodomites” were often punished by having hot irons inserted in it. Remember, that's what happened to King Edward II of England. 

Later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, as medical practices advanced, the medieval clyster was replaced by the more common bulb syringe. In France, the treatment became trendy.

King Louis XIV had over 2,000 enemas during his reign, sometimes holding court while the ceremony progressed.  Louis XIV was unquestionably heterosexual, and what we might perceive as exhibitionism was actually normal in a period where modern standards of privacy did not exist. Whatever the case, on the most basic level, the enemas must have made him feel great! He maintained his health quite well for that time period, and he outlived his son and grandson. 

It's fascinating that a practice usually viewed as a painful cure for pain and discomfort can really be a source of deep physical and sexual pleasure (pun intended). 

I always wondered what the phrase “skeletons in the closet” really meant. I found out it was coined in England in the 19th century. Since then the word “closet” has become used primarily in England to mean “water closet” that is, lavatory - a possible hiding place for a skeleton I guess, but not one with much potential! 

Now, lest you think my secret is about some shameful sexual peccadillo (which, given I work for a porn site, really wouldn't be much of secret anyway), it isn't. There is a secret, in a sense here, because how most people don't know about the drowning of 800 people on the Eastland, one of the deadliest maritime disasters in United States history. 
 

Why? The story itself can't compete with all the hype about the Titanic, as the lives of the rich and famous supposedly make better copy. The people who drowned on the Eastland could be your neighbors or employees, the people who pick up your garbage, make your light bulbs, or mop the floors at night in office buildings. And one of these people was my grandfather's sister. 

On Saturday, July 24, 1915, the employees of Hawthorne Works, Western Electric in Cicero, Illinois, and their families and friends, boarded the S.S. Eastland in downtown Chicago, for the annual company picnic.

Every year Western Electric, at that time one of the largest manufacturers of electrical engineering equipment, including telephones, hosted a massive celebration involving a boat ride to Michigan City, Indiana, and, once there, a picnic, a parade, and related festivities.

These hardworking people didn't possess the means to take vacations. For many of them, Bohemian, Polish, German, Italian, and Irish immigrants, this was the only time they ever left the neighborhoods where they lived and worked. 

According to the Jay Bonansinga in The Sinking of the Eastland, the Eastland had already experienced some problems with balance or “listing,” and the replacement of the original deck flooring with concrete added problematic extra weight. The excited picnicgoers boarded, all 2,572 of them, to the point where the boat was at full capacity.

At 7:28 a.m., the Eastland, still moored to her Chicago River dock, began to list to one side. Attempts to stabilize the boat failed. With one sickening, swift inexorable movement, the boat rolled onto one side: 

“The noise shook the riverfront: the chorus of screams ringing out along the dock, the pitiful splashing of those who had been tossed from the deck into the water, and the frantic rush of the quicker-thinking onlookers. It was though a vast bucketful of people—helpless babies included—had been emptied into the water...Even skilled swimmers had a hard time of it.” 

In 1915, the heavy layers of clothes these women wore (they were all dolled up in their Sunday finery) especially did not help matters. Many people at that time did not know how to swim. Even though this was the case in some instances, many of the victims did not actually drown, but actually suffocated, not because of the clothing, but from the weight of the bodies falling on top of each other and from debris. 

Even more disturbing, according to Bonansinga's account, chivalry died that day. Men pushed drowning women out of the way. The women, however, often sacrificed their lives so their children might live.  

Bonansinga's account tells of one woman who managed to place her baby on a crate, blew it a kiss, and succumbed to the filthy, poisonous waters of the Chicago River. 

There so many bodies that they had to lay them out in Marshall Field's. 

As I mentioned above, my grandfather's sister, one Katarzyna Grochowska, drowned that day. With the assistance of the Internet, I found her record on the passenger list. What was really interesting is that she did not even work for Western Electric. She worked for a candy factory. I would guess she was attending the big event with one of her friends.

And based on what I garnered from the limited oral history of our family and from a couple of websites, she was seventeen and extremely outgoing and popular, and had not one but two nicknames, Kat and Kitty—her death remains truly heartbreaking. 

As I noted above, despite the tremendous loss of life (neighborhoods in Cicero were devastated as whole families literally disappeared), the event still remains strangely tied to its local, working class origins. Some national publicity occurred when the employees of Harpo Studios of Oprah fame, formerly the site of the Second Regiment Armory which served as a temporary morgue for the victims, reported hearing moans, seeing women dressed in their 1915 Edwardian finery, and smelling their flowers and perfume. 
 

The Eastland was finally scrapped in 1947 after being used for some time as a training vessel for the U.S. Navy. The Hawthorne Works Western Electric plant closed in 1983.

A new wave of immigrants from Latin America now live and pursue the American dream in the bungalows of Cicero, doing much of the same types of work their predecessors did. 
 

 

For more information on this event, check out the Eastland Disaster Historical Society website.