BijouBlog

By Will Seagers

This blog, “The Reverse Story of Dorian Gray,” where the pictures remain fabulous but their subject goes through the ravages, is an addendum to the Bijou Blog, "Chasing the Boys and Chasing the Sun." I had a great time in my early years in the beginnings of my porn career. I thought that part of a sexy body and face was to be perpetually tan. Maybe so, but there is a price to be paid for that notion.

This duo with Al Parker was still in the early stages of my career. One thing that we did share was beautiful satin-like skin. I do acquiesce that he was a "bigger" man than I. But, there were never any shortcomings on film nor in private.

Going way back to pre-publication. I believe that this was shot in the basement of a photographer friend. The hairstyle definitely gives me a clue to the timeframe. Just a kid toying with the idea of modeling!

Alabaster - yes if I were to describe my skin back then - alabaster. This was early on in my work with Falcon Studios. Sultry and unblemished! (Not ready for my close up, Mr. Gray.)

My first year working in The Pines, Fire Island - 1976. To my recollection, this was originally a Polaroid that a friend took on one of the many wooden walkways in The Pines. During my breaks from The Boatel, where I worked, it was off to the beach to work on that tan that I thought was quintessentially needed for my “other job!"

Although a black & white print that was used for the cover of Michael's Thing, a mini-mag in the 1980s, this pic was shot on a deck on Fire Island following the wrapping up of Fire Island Fever and Dune Buddies for Hand in Hand Films. Living and working on Fire Island gave me prime ammo on the assault of my skin. I was actually quite dark in this photo!

Also, from the movie Dune Buddies, my co-star and I were taking a dip. Although there are a lot of other things to look at, please note the tan line... Mr. Dorian Gray is beginning to play.

Here in the beautiful open air (and SUN!) of Northern California, one of my last magazine shoots took place. Credits to Mr. Wilde, but no telltale payments to the Devil, as yet.

Giddyup, pardners! A shot from L.A. Tool & Die. Carefully morphing into a new age category, the subtle signs of years of sun are starting to make their appearance. That movie was the highlight of my porn career. I had a great time working with some very professional people.

Once again from the set of L.A.Tool & Die, with heartthrob and co-star Richard Locke, this was the infamous truck used in the love scene as well. I use the term 'love scene' because I thought that the scene transcended a regular or even hot sex scene! Once again, that pearly clear skin prevailed. If my dermatologists and surgeons could have only seen this! Ha.

This is the epitome of a Dorian Gray scenario. The very perfect left cheek featured in this photo is the one that was "the payback" of years of neglect and abuse to my skin. On July 14, 2022, the most recent of six radical Mohs procedures leaving a 4" scar now occupies that cheek. Hindsight is 2020.

Stitches out and ready to take on the fine art of aging. This final shot in the sequence is from the present, age 71. It is not meant to garner sympathy or horror. It is a simple statement of fact... the Sun is not your friend. And, your skin remembers all......Will Seagers.

Thank you to Will Seagers for use of his photos.

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted career and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model and film performer. He made iconic appearances in releases from Falcon, Hand in Hand, Joe Gage, Target (Bullet), J. Brian, Steve Scott, and more, including in lead roles in major classics like Gage's L.A. Tool & Die (1979) and Scott's Wanted (1980). He brought strong screen presence and exceptional acting to his roles and was scene partners with many fellow legends of classic porn.

 

In the olden days, and I am talking way, way back, it was a status symbol in European culture especially among women, to be “pale.”

Imagine fair skin, and not just naturally fair skin (that Swedish skin I inherited from my mother) or what some often term an “English” complexion (which means one burns easily in the sun). To show fair skin meant you were wealthy enough to not have to work outside like peasants and slaves.

And being white and, even more than white, pale thus frail, also implied that she was naturally above those darker persons whose job was to toil outside so you could stay inside.

Thus, a lady would powder her face (which action, in addition to trying to conceal blemishes with patches that could be interpreted as beauty spots, was really an attempt to cover up smallpox scars).

Now, the same physical and social dynamic might also apply to men. The urban “fops” (both straight and gay) in eighteenth century England did powder their faces. The more rugged guys (probably “rough trade” for the fops) probably showed tans, but again, a darker skin implied a lower social status.
 

By the 1930s, the standard of skin beauty had changed, especially in America which contained a state with a Mediterranean climate, California. And that state was producing movie stars who dictated to the masses new standards of beauty. If Joan Crawford praised sunbathing, the ladies of America (the few who had time to sunbathe, that is) would follow suit.
 

(It also helped that the poisonous arsenic-based makeup women used to create the illusion of paleness was a thing of the past by that time.)
 

Men started showing their torsos, especially after Clark Gable (Joan's long-time lover and compatriot) was the pioneer who dared to show off his hunky chest in It Happened One Night. By the 1950s, the tanned muscle bods of the California beaches were worthy of emulation. Beach Blanket Bingo, here we are.
 

And a skinny pale boy, the victim of sand kicking, could become a tanned bronze god by following the Charles Atlas workout routine.
 

It seemed like a nanosecond since that time to the tanning beds, salons, and steroids embodied in that woman who literally burned herself in order too attain her goal of the ultimate tan. (Is she sporting the burnt toast look?). In her case, her pursuit of an illusion produced its opposite: an admittedly grotesque “hyper real” image.
 

Porn is in many ways by its very nature hyper real. Yet even though there were periods where one look was the model of beauty, such as the gay macho Castro Street clone look (which Al Parker and Will Seagers naturally embodied), the genre was able to revel in a range of skin and body types, from Peter Hunter's pale skinny twinks to the ebony muscle of Joe Simmons and their social and sexual implications.
 

Beauty in in many cases skin deep, but I think the emphasis could be on deep, because it's hard to separate the largest and most visible organ of the body, the skin, from one's deepest social and sexual identities.

I am thrilled I got some compliments about my sunburn, but I'm not going to develop that look obsessively. I'm more than my skin. Much more.