#Express Newspaper Columns

[mxrobinhearts]

So, y'all know what's happening with Photomatt now, right?

He's being lovebombed by transphobes, overloaded with supportive messages, and sent links to anti-trans articles and podcasts and videos and newspaper columns. He's being told about the toxic TRAs and cancel culture censorship and the violent trans activists who "eat their own".

Sympathic lips are telling him all about "children being sterilised", about "unfairness in women's sports", about autogynephilia, about Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, about "gay conversion therapy".

And because he's angry, bitter, and has had his ego bruised, he is listening.

He's been in the rare position of a CEO actually subjected to a similar treatment as the people using his service, and he did not care for it. He feels uniquely hounded, he feels alone, he feels deeply wronged. He was an Ally, he did and said all the Right Things. And even still, he was Cancelled, labelled a transphobe.

I don't want to predict the future or guess to Matt Mullenweg's character. I genuinely, deeply hope I'm wrong here. However, if within the next few months, he starts expressing some "legitimate concerns" with trans rights, I will not be the least bit surprised.

[barbiesmuse]

WELCOME TO NEW YORK ₊✧⋆

;ֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָjohn price + reader

summary: in which john finds a new column in the paper quite interesting, although he isn't the target audience he keeps coming back for more.

tags: perv!john, reader is somewhat slutty (but aren't we all?), talk of sex, reader and john masturbate, perv!john has a voice kink, john is also a hoe, reader is astute, john is painted in a more submissive way in reader's mind, when the true smut comes it won't be this way obv!! this is long as hell and i hate the way i wrote the end but i needed to get this out, reader being sexy as usual!!

HEAD BARBIE'S ANNOUNCEMENTS: hi gorgeous gorgeous people!! this is so silly and unexpected of me but with sex and the city being added to netflix we're going to celebrate!! i'm actually moving to NYC because this barbie has a boyfriend!! alright, now you may read. it's very long so beware!! also yes i did steal the name of carrie's blog i am not that creative i fear!! love you always, xoxo natty.

ps. y'alls little reblogs for better version headcanons & the fic were absolutely adorable i read them over and over!! your ideas and continuations were so so smart. i loved it soso much. if u ever have any thoughts send an ask!! thank you thank you thank you!! ₊✧⋆

Wednesday, October 20th.

John Price was a man who liked routine. If anything was even remotely out of order all hell would break loose. John saw it as a silly quirk, his past partners saw it as a deal breaker. Which is how he ended up here, watching his seventh girlfriend this year pack her things. He watched as she packed her belongings in a cluttered manner. He couldn't help but cringe at the sight. Her clothes overflowing as she stuffs them in the cardboard box. As she heads for the door, she and John make eye contact. John can't help but chuckle at her glare and wave her off, he told himself again and again that he was getting too damn old for this. As the girl walks out of his condo John can't help but sigh. It wasn't like he was attached to these women, they were just simple sleeves for his cock until he found a pretty little housewife. John runs a hand over his face, his beard hairs scratching against his palm. He lets out a low grunt before heading to bed, as he trudges up the stairs he spots the woman's red lace panties. He let out a quiet chuckle before picking them up and stuffing them inside his pocket. She'd left them on purpose. After all, John was a hard man to get over. He would worship you like you were a goddess, all to sneak out the next morning. Thursday, October 21st.

As John made his way into headquarters he picked up the newspaper, exchanged pleasantries with the secretaries, and even gave the nurse a nod. He was in a good mood, and when John was in a good mood all was right in the world. The sound of his heavy boots filled the halls as he made his way to the break room for his morning coffee. He threw the newspaper on the table before grabbing a mug, as Soap walks in he can't help but roll his eyes. He did not have the time for his childish banter. Not after he spent the whole night fisting himself with those red lace panties.

“Mornin' Cap, have a good weekend?” Soap says as he comes beside his Captain. He smelled of liquor and sex, his hair was disheveled, and his pants were unzipped. John let out a scoff before pouring the rest of the coffee into his mug. “No, but I can see you've had a good morning,” John says before licking the coffee that drips from the black pot. Soap lets out an embarrassed chuckle and takes a seat next to Price as he sits at a table.

Soap opens the newspaper and is met with the same column every time, written by a young female journalist. Soap would know because his wife practically lived off of it. He lets out an annoyed groan before turning to see any big news. There was none, the only interesting thing on the paper that morning was that damn fashion and gossip column. John quirked an eyebrow up at his exasperated expression, he didn't want to know, but the awkward silence in the room was slowly eating away at him.

“Sorry Cap, s' just this damn fashion column is what takes up the paper these days. S' all my wife talks about with her friends, I mean I get it. The journalist is a fuckin' babe. S' just annoyin', continue y'r coffee.” Soap rambles, although John doesn't really listen after the mention of Soap's wife. That woman had been eyeing him since Soap had joined the Task Force. John nods before speaking firmly, “We've got a briefing in less than twenty minutes, I suggest you fix yourself up now unless you have a kink for embarrassment.” Soap nods before scurrying out of the break room.

John grabs the newspaper and his eyes widen at the black and white picture of you. He could only imagine what you looked like in person, how fucking beautiful you were. You looked as if you belonged in the Louvre. His eyes trail down to your column, he can't help but chuckle at the name.

❝𝐒𝐞𝐱 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲!❞ The guide to Vogue, sex, and cigarettes.

John was more than intrigued he was captivated by you, even from words you had caught him by the balls. As he continued reading he couldn't help but start to wonder who you were. How did you get to be this mysterious woman who he craved to know more about? John grabbed the paper and left the break room, his coffee now cold and lonely. Hell, who needed it when you had given him just enough energy by showing the tiniest bit of cleavage! John walks into the briefing room as if he's in a hurry. He looks around at the men before mumbling, “Meetings canceled.” In ten minutes you had thrown John completely off of his game. Where was the order and routine he usually lived for? Had he thrown it all out the window for a pretty little minx such as yourself? Of course, because when John saw something he liked; he needed to have it. No matter what it took. John barges into his office and locks his door, he couldn't be seen reading some girly column in the paper. His eyes trailed down to your column, and he began reading his eyes squinting at the use of your tiny font.

❝𝐒𝐞𝐱 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲!❞ The guide to Vogue, sex, and cigarettes.

Why do all men have to be so complicated? I swear we women deserve a raise for the constant bullshit we put up with. It's almost impossible to find a man who isn't trying to keep his penis hard! Although I degrade men usually, one of my closest friends just got engaged! He's one of the few who deserve a pat on the back. The engagement was out of a movie almost! Although it's nowhere near close to happening for me, I can live vicariously through my friends. As I sit here and right to you I can't help but wonder if there actually is a man out there for me? I'm not as scary as I sound, I just have a passion for women's rights! What's so scary about that? It's not as if I'm some lock-ness monster trying to lure people in, just a woman who knows her worth. On a happier note, I've found a new bar called the “Cafe Society.” They open at five o'clock every day! They have some of the best espresso martinis I've ever had, and I consider myself a connoisseur of espresso martinis! I go every Thursday, come see me! Although this month's column is short I'll be back and better than ever before you know it. Might just need a man to pick me up and show me a good time, until then you might not know where to find me most of the time; but you can always find me on the 21st. Lots of love.

On the twenty-first, your column was in the newspaper every month. Finally, something else to look forward to besides fucking brainless women. He usually didn't like women who put up a fight, but you, God, there was something about you. You were such a breath of fresh air, you had opinions. He could tell you were able to hold a conversation. You were a woman. Not a girl, a fucking woman. John looked at the date, Thursday. What a perfect little setup, almost as if you planned it just for him. At least, that's what John would like to think. The time was currently 12:35 pm, he could last until five, only for a pretty girl like you.

Thursday, October 21st. 5:00.

As John walks into Cafe Society the first thing he sees is you, setting your purse on the bar counter and making conversation with the bartenders. He figured they knew you well considering you were a regular. He walked over to the bar, exhaling slowly. He takes a seat on the stool next to you. His cologne gently clouded your nose. You look over at him, your gorgeous eyes meet his cold brown eyes and he swears he's in heaven. “Captain John Price, a pleasure to meet you,” he trails off, waiting to be told your name. After hearing your name he swears he's been struck by Cupid himself. He can hear the winged baby chanting your name in his ear. Had you cast a spell on him? As a soft smile paints your sweet face he knows he's struck gold. You turn away, not sparing him another glance for the rest of the night. John's palms are sweaty, had he not charmed you enough? You were an enigma to him, and he was determined to figure you out.

As you get up from your seat, slinging your mini purse around your shoulder John smirks. You were such a pretty sight, the way your curves filled your skirt made him spiral. You shoot him a tight-lipped smile before walking out, your heels clicking echoing in his mind. He quickly gets up, placing a hundred-dollar bill in the bar to pay for his drink before rushing to find you. There you were, looking around for a taxi, he assumed.

“Ending the night so early?” John says, a chuckle escaping his lips as he accidentally startles you. He places his large hand on your shoulder. You let out a soft giggle, looking up at him with those same fiery eyes. “Well, unfortunately, the man at the bar didn't speak to me. I assumed he was married.” You say, a grin resting on your face. You were witty, John didn't usually like that in a woman. He liked more submissive women. But you, you were different. You held your own, you would be just fine without a husband. At least that's what you kept telling yourself after the failed relationships.

“Quite far from married, darlin',” He begins, his hand trailing down to your lower back. You shiver at his touch and he hesitates. You give him a reassuring glance and begin to walk, you wait for him to follow before letting out a playful sigh. “You coming or what?” You say and smile as he quickly catches up. The two of you walk side by side, a comforting silence cast over the two of you. “So besides being a captain, what do you do in your free time?” You ask, a bashful smile painting your face as your pinkies touch briefly.

“Not much, work usually takes up a lot of my time. What about you? What do you do for a living?” He asks, you look up at him and as you pass a newspaper stand you pick up a paper and point to your face. “Journalist, Mr. Captain.” You say with a cheeky smile, almost as if you knew he knew. It hurt your ego he didn't know who you were, almost everyone did. “Ah, interesting,” He says calmly, his eyes trailing down to your breasts, fuck. They were even better in person. He couldn't help but mentally facepalm as he felt a hard-on begin to grow.

“Quite,” you say, pronouncing your “T.” sharply. The silence is now not-so-comforting. Before you can say anything John quickly speaks, a hint of panic in his voice. What had changed in the last twenty-one seconds? The size of his hard-on, that's what. “As much as I'd love to stay n' chat doll, I've got to get home. Th-the missus needs me.” He says before quickly walking to his car. The missus? Didn't he say he wasn't married?

Men, what a bunch of fucking assholes.

Thursday, October 21st. 11:00.

As you lie in bed, your computer resting to your side, glasses perched on your face. Legs spread, lip drawn between your teeth you search for everything there is to know about Captain John Price. How old is he, what he truly does for a living, and if he is married or not. Various pictures of random men come up, none of them the sexy captain you'd met only a few hours earlier. You sigh and let out a sexually frustrated moan, how could there be absolutely no pictures of him. Just as you're about to give up you spot a picture of him with a woman, they're kissing and they seem to be in a tropical setting.

Intrigue takes over and you decide to click on her page, double-checking your incognito window before scrolling. You'd hit the jackpot. Several pictures of the woman and John flood your screen, some are more sensual others are simple selfies. Yet as you scroll you check for one thing, a ring and or wedding pictures. A small smile on your face as you find none. Gosh, he looks so damn sexy. It's shameful, truly. But you can't help but dip your hand down into your panties. Your pointer and middle finger rub gentle circles on your bud.

You can't help but slip a finger inside yourself at the thought of him touching you. He was just so perfect, you could only imagine how his rough beard would feel against your pussy as he laps at it. The burning feeling would feel good, you'd come right on his tongue. He'd be so needy for you, humping against the bed to get himself off while he pleasures you. He'd whimper against your clit, a chuckle escaping his lips as you whine from him blowing cold air on your pretty pussy.

Oh, you just know he'd touch you so well.

As John sits in his bed, his gray sheets crinkled as he fucks his fist at the sight of you. He'd searched the internet for you, needing to know everything about you. You made him crazy, you carried yourself in such a polite manner, he almost felt ashamed for wishing it was your hand wrapped around his veiny cock. You'd take him so well, he was sure of it. A sinister smirk painted his face as he clicked on an interview of you, it was recent and fuck you looked perfect. He couldn't help but imagine your plump lips wrapped around his cock, his tip repeatedly hitting the back of your throat as he face-fucked you.

Not to mention how well you'd take him, you were such a good girl. Your moans would be so pretty against his pillow, he'd fuck you from behind so well you'd be shaking when he was done with you. Your sweet sounds only making him come quicker, he was sure he wouldn't be able to last long. And your voice, your sweet voice. You might've been a little firecracker but your voice was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard. If only you'd moan his name, just for him. One day, you would and he was damn sure of it.

As you come down from your high you can't help but imagine the title for next month's column, “My shameful addiction to Mr. Captain.”

[mariacallous]

BERLIN — For the first time since the Nazi era, a far-right party in Germany has won the largest piece of the electoral pie in a state election.

Mainstream politicians and Jewish leaders are expressing alarm following Sunday’s elections, in which the anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic and pro-Russia Alternative for Germany party came out on top in the state of Thuringia, with 32.8% of the vote.

The 11-year-old party also earned second place to the traditional conservative Christian Democratic Union party in the neighboring state of Saxony. Both states are in the former East Germany.

“No one can brush this off as a ‘protest’ vote anymore,” Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said in a statement late Sunday.

“Exactly 85 years after the start of World War II, Germany is in danger of becoming a different country again: more unstable, colder and poorer, less secure, less worth living in,” said Knobloch, a former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany who herself survived the Holocaust in hiding.

The election came just over a week since a Syrian refugee was arrested after a deadly stabbing spree at a festival in the city of Solingen, and only days after Germany resumed its program of deporting refugees convicted of crimes. The knife attack, in which three people were killed, reignited popular anxiety about social unrest connected with the more than 1 million refugees admitted to Germany since 2015.

AfD stresses isolationism, takes an anti-EU and pro-Russian stance, and is accused of fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment. Some of its most extreme representatives have also belittled the Holocaust, saying that Germany has paid enough penance for the sins of an older generation.

Mass protests against the party took place earlier this year following revelations that the party had held a secret meeting at a lakeside villa to discuss plans to deport foreigners, including those who had become German citizens. Prominent neo-Nazis attended the meeting, according to the news organization that broke the story, inducing painful echoes of the gathering of Nazi leaders at nearby Wannsee in 1942 to devise a plan to deport and then murder Jews.

But while support for the AfD dipped in polls at the time, it soon rebounded and then accelerated. Now, it has achieved breakthrough results in state elections and raised concerns for next year’s national elections.

The party — whose Thuringen leader, Bjoern Hoecke, has been convicted twice of using a Nazi slogan to boost his party — is unlikely to form a ruling coalition in either state, since it is shunned by other parties. Still, it will have additional seats in the state legislatures and will have the numbers, particularly in Thuringia, to interfere with some governing decisions.

A far-left party, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance or BSW, also produced notable results, coming in third in Thuringia with 15.8% of the vote. Last month, the current head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, warned that the party, which has accused Israel of genocide in its war in Gaza, was “fueling hatred of Israel in Germany.”

The new election results bode ill for Germany’s future, Schuster said on Sunday.

“Can we recover from this hit?” Schuster wrote in a column in the Bild newspaper. “Our free society must not fall, especially in the face of Islamist terror. Unvarnished truths — honesty and sincerity — are needed, not populist pseudo-answers from radical parties.”

In Thuringia, the mainstream Social Democratic Party barely squeaked in, with 6.1%. Several parties, including the Greens and Free Democratic Party, received so few votes that they will not have any seats at all.

BSW also came in third in Saxony, with 11.8% of the vote, following the AfD with 30.6% and the CDU with a narrow win at 31.9%.

Younger voters overwhelmingly favored the AfD in this week’s elections, according to an NTV-Infratest exit poll.

“The survivors are asking themselves: ‘Didn’t we do enough to teach, to tell, to show?” Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee, told the Guardian.

Some Jewish leaders say German politicians would do well to address the concerns apparently expressed by voters this weekend.

“The election results in the German federal states of Thuringia and Saxony are a clear wake-up call to the centrist parties in Germany to listen to the real concerns and fears of the people,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement. “When half the population votes for parties on the extreme fringes, their problems must be addressed openly and honestly.”

Sunday was an “insanely sad” election day, German Jewish journalist Samira Lazarovic wrote on Facebook. She said her 96-year-old father compared the outcome to the opening salvo of World War II, exactly 85 years ago.

Lazarovic said it was is urgent to reach out to younger voters. “It’s not that we know better than they; but we should shape the future together.”

Obviously, it wasn’t enough to take to the streets and protest against the far right, she added: “Populists all over the world have one thing in common. They mean exactly what they say and do everything they can to turn their words to deeds.”

[theinnerunderrain]

Butterflies never know how beautiful they are [Newspaper boy! yuji x princess! Reader]

Note: historical (?), more fluff and bittersweet, no warnings, low-key normal for once

+

Yuji stood there, utterly astonished.

You stood on the balcony, tears silently streaming down your face, was said to be a wicked witch. Yet, you appeared so melancholic and delicate, a sight of unparalleled beauty in his eyes. Your sadness seemed to have lend you an ethereal sweetness; a smile would have been redundant, for your frown alone had the power to captivate all who gazed upon you.

You wept softly, delicate tears tracing lines down your elegant face. With a gentle touch, you wiped them away, mindful not to disturb the intricate makeup your maids had meticulously crafted. Leaning against the balcony, your elbow rested gracefully on the edge, your gaze lost in the horizon, seemingly unaware of his presence concealed beneath a nearby bush. Despite the winter's chill, your cheeks glowed with a rosy hue, enhancing your beauty. To him, you seemed like a living portrait, so flawless and perfect in every detail.

As your tears continued to fall, he, driven by a mix of curiosity and compassion, rose from his hiding place among the bushes. Quietly, he reached up and grasped the edge of the balcony, peering through the ornate columns that framed you. With a voice tender and gentle, he inquired, "Pray, may I ask the cause of your tears?"

As the sound of his voice startled you, you swiftly brushed away your tears and scanned the surroundings, puzzled by the unexpected interruption. After a brief moment, your gaze settled on the silhouette of a young man below the balcony. One arm was casually draped around a column, while the other supported his frame as he leaned in to steal a glimpse of you. He appeared to be of common stock, his pink hair adorned with a newspaper cap, his face smudged with traces of ash, and his attire hastily assembled.

"Is someone bothering you..?"

Yuji repeated his question, his tone betraying both genuine concern and a touch of innocence. Your initial surprise melted into a soft giggle, charmed by his earnestness in such a fleeting encounter. You gracefully descended to your knees, your gaze meeting his with a gentle smile. With a slight shake of your head, you conveyed that there was no cause for alarm.

"It's just that... my favorite rabbit ran away," you began, your voice soft and wistful. "And I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to her."

As you spoke, your eyes briefly closed, lost in memories of your sister. She had run away with her lover, an artist, despite your parents' disapproval. You remembered the last moments you shared, her promises to stay safe and out of trouble. You couldn't find it in your heart to stop her, even though you knew the path she had chosen was fraught with challenges.

"Your rabbit...? If that's the case, we could probably go search for her," he suggested, his face brightening with newfound purpose.

You couldn't help but smile bitterly at his words, touched by his willingness to help. As you reached down to cup his cheeks with one hand, your touch was soft and delicate against his skin. He caught a whiff of an expensive rose scent, reminiscent of what noble women might wear to restaurants and gatherings.

"Ah, she's likely wandered far beyond reach by now, but I appreciate your kindness," you replied, your fingers dancing lightly against his skin. Despite the faint specks of ash that transferred to your delicate complexion, you seemed unperturbed, your eyes carrying a timeless elegance. Behind that grace, however, lingered a profound sadness, a silent echo of years gone by that had etched its mark upon your glassy gaze. Yuji found himself deeply moved by your expression, a fleeting moment where his heart danced to an unfamiliar rhythm. Leaning into the tender touch of your palm, he was momentarily lost in the elegance of the moment.

"Why are you crying?"

Your soft voice broke through his moment of melancholy. Looking up, he met your gaze with confusion, only then realizing the tears welling up in his eyes. Your expression softened with a blend of pity and concern as you delicately brushed away his tears.

"Because of your sadness," he replied with unguarded honesty, observing the fleeting surprise in your expression before you gently shook your head.

"I'm not sad, though," you countered, your tone soft yet resolute. You lean closer to him, wiping his tears away and he felt his heart race the closer you were to him. Your hair trickling at the side of his cheeks as he stare into your eyes, mesmerized by the shining stars within them and the way your lips were so soft, and pink. He doesn't think he has ever seen such pretty lips from a woman before. Before the two of you could become even more closer, a voice from behind the door leading to the inside of the manor called out.

"[First Name]..! Where are you.."

After a brief moment of contemplation, he gently released himself from your touch and gracefully descended back onto the bush. Ignoring your startled response, he swiftly turned and ran back into the woods. His heart pounded in his chest, a cold sweat forming on his forehead as he struggled to process the encounter.

As he fled, he couldn't shake the thought: "she must truly be a witch!"

Yes, that could indeed be the only plausible explanation for the tumultuous stirrings in his heart. It seemed to be the reason behind his unexpected emotions, why he felt an inexplicable sadness for you despite the absence of any personal connection. The notion that you might truly be a witch lingered in his mind, offering a peculiar explanation for his inexplicable feelingsUnnoticed by him, your gaze remained fixed on his fleeting figure, curiosity sparking within your eyes. Yet, with a graceful gesture, you chose to set aside your musings, casting one final glance before gracefully retreating into the mansion. Prepared to resume your role as the daughter of the emperor, you embraced the ordinary life befitting the eldest daughter and crowned princess of the empire, taking a deep breath as you greeted your father.

[deadpanwalking]

Where a balanced view was entirely lacking was in his view of Ger- many and its people. He believed that there was something deeply rotten in the state of Germany and that “while every German is not a storm trooper, your ‘democratic German’ has taken orders from his masters for so long now that when he gets the chance, he can’t say no to a Nazi.” This view, expressed in an April 1945 column, was the very antithesis of Welles’s usual libertarian persona. Yet it was reinforced on a number of occasions, as Welles argued repeatedly for “a hard peace for Germany [based] on this very proposition: That there are no tyrants without the sufferance of the enslaved. . . . If we exempt a people from the guilt of their leaders, we libel progress itself.” [...] These views hardly modified with time, or peace. When Welles was interviewed for a French newspaper in 1949, during a stint with his own little theatrical review, he baldly stated, “I don’t find many anti-Nazis in Germany today.” When he took that review to Germany in 1950, he included in An Evening with Orson Welles his own version of the Faust legend called Time Runs. In this version, which Welles described as a “collaboration of many authors, among them Milton, Dante, and Marlowe,” he “refused to countenance the idea that a diabolical genius could lead a man or a country astray.” Rather, as Peter Conrad recently highlighted, he preferred “to disabuse the Germans of their infatuation with a Faust who was sublimely errant.”

Clinton Heylin, from Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios

[soular-sisters]

The Origins Of Horoscopes 🔮

as an astrologer who has been mesmerized by the cosmos for 10 years, i have come to have an honest disagreeance for horoscopes. although those whimsical columns are what naturally gravitated me to the world of astrology, it is a shame that horoscopes are what seems to come to the average person's mind when they think of the zodiac. it is our personal belief that the fantastical nature of horoscopes overshadow the beauty of astrology. but this made us wonder.... where did horoscopes come from? continue on to learn about, the origins of horoscopes.

Ancient Times

🔮 The Silk Roads: The earliest evidence of horoscopes date back to the 3rd millennium BCE in Mesopotamia.

🔮 Astrology was adopted on the trading routes of The Silk Roads during the Tang Dynasty (705-907 CE).

🔮 Along these trading routes, traders would sell horoscopes as a service to different regions such as Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau, & China.

🔮 China became very fond of horoscopes during this time & adopted them into the framework of Chinese astrology today.

🔮 Chinese horoscopes at this time were derived from the Hellenistic Period of Ancient Greece.

🔮 During this time, it became Chinese tradition that newborn Chinese babies would be given a horoscope upon birth & then throughout pivotal moments in their lives.

🔮 One of the most important astrologers of this time, Abu Ma'shar (8/10/787- 3/9/886), wrote a book called “Book Of Thousands”.

🔮 “Book Of Thousands” (written in 850)

🔮 The book did not survive to today. Remaining fragments show us that the book was a chronology of world history (from Christian, Persian, & Islamic sources) that intended to connect past, present, & future events to the stars. 🔮 The remaining fragments of the book were collected by David Pingree in 1968 & can be found on select scholarly sources online today.

🔮 Astrology became very popular in Medieval Central Asia.

🔮 It was during this time that two types of astrology formed; mathematically-based astrology (what we astrologers go by) & the magical form of astrology (AKA: horoscopes).

The 20th & 21st Century

🔮 Prominent British astrologer, R.H. Naylor (6/9/1889- 1952), was hired by the Sunday Express (a London-based newspaper) to write a horoscope article.

🔮 Naylor was an assistant to the leading British astrologer of the time called Cheiro. 🔮 Cheiro was sought out by many celebrities of the time for his brilliant astrology services to read their natal charts. He was known to have read the palms of such significant figures such as Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, & Winston Churchill.

🔮 The article was about the birth of Princess Margaret, born August 21, 1930. (a leo beauty)

🔮 The newspaper decided to run a few more articles. In one of the next articles, Naylor predicted that “a British aircraft will be in danger” between October 8th and 15th. On October 5th, British airship R101 crashed outside Paris with 48 of the 54 on board the plane passing away.

🔮 The population became amazed with the incredible prediction Naylor made. The editor then offered Naylor a weekly column & “What The Stars Foretell”, the first ever horoscope column in human history, was born.

🔮 "What The Stars Foretell”

🔮 The column started as advice for people whose birthday fell on each specific week the newspaper article was published. 🔮 By 1937, the article became more grandiose & spoke of “star signs” to relate to a wider audience. 🔮 This was the creation of the term “star signs”.

🔮 From there on, the world caught on to the eye-catching spells of horoscopes & publications from all over the world began to replicate what Naylor created. This is why historically, horoscopes are written by writers assigned to the task of creating a spellbinding horoscope piece & not astrologers.

Well folks, there you have it. Although the roots of horoscopes share soil with the beautiful creation of astrology, they became more of an object of purchase than the art that astrology truly is. I do believe if horoscopes were intended on sharing truth & not appealing to the masses as a means to sell a product, they would hold value to humanity. But in all honesty, if horoscopes remain to just be a tool to spellbind their readers & curate them into consumers, then they hold no good intention to the art of astrology we are so passionate about.

Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate our lil astrology community so much & hope you learned something from this lil trip down astrology lane. 😊

Research Disclaimer: All research was conducted by Andrehya in May 2024. This is all information found by her own research. Sources are listed below for your own curiosity.

Sources:

The Silk Roads Info

Ancient Horoscope Scholars

Modern Horoscope Info

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[consanguinitatum]

DT and His Appendicitis Scar: So When Did That Happen, Anyway?

I think I've mentioned in previous posts that I come across quite a few personal tidbits about a young DT while doing research for my sloooowly developing podcast. I think - well, I certainly hope! - I've also mentioned those sorts of tidbits are not going to be in the podcast? Well, if I haven't mentioned it before, I'm mentioning it now.

I see no reason to include these sorts of things because the podcast won't be about David's personal life (either then or now) but about his professional life. But while I tend to consider most of the theatre work he did between the time he entered the RSAMD Junior School at age 11 (and then got his Equity card and went on to drama school) and prior to his move to London in 1994 part of his professional life, technically they're really not -- because up until he took his first job in the 7:84 in 1991 for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, he hadn't been earning a wage. And he's said in interviews Arturo was his first professional gig.

But I'm choosing to split hairs here. For the purposes of my podcast, I plan to treat his drama school years as if they were part of his professional career. I do this because I want to give them the same consideration and respect as the rest of his career, and feature them as the seminal experiences they were. They helped build the foundation of his professional life. Besides, he himself has said that attending drama school was essential for him to become the actor he wanted to be.

Because I consider them professional experiences (and because I'm acutely aware of his desire for privacy) the podcast will stay as much in the professional arena as I can possibly make it. He's talked quite a bit about this period of his life before, and I don't feel uncomfortable highlighting anything he's mentioned which happens to coincide with information I've discovered. Anything of a more personal nature which gets included in the podcast will have been measured against all of these factors before it gets added in. So all of that said, we come to an interesting bit of information about something David has definitely talked about and shared about it before - but which has no place in my podcast. So let's talk about it!

The lovely mizgnomer did a great little post a few years back which featured a photo set of David chatting about the near-death experience with appendicitis he had when he was a child (see below):

David's mentioned his appendix scar a few other times as well, and each time he speaks about it, the range of his age at the time of the attack varies by a few years - usually from age 8 to about 10. That's not surprising at all, of course, because for most of us, trying to narrow down some of the events in our childhood to specific time ranges can get a bit fuzzy. But I'm pretty sure I know when it happened.

Back in 1980, a society/organizational newspaper column entitled "Church News" appeared regularly in the Paisley Daily Express. This column often featured prominent figures in churches all over the community and were often framed as "One Week in the Working Life Of" these certain figures to debunk the myth that ministers only work on Sundays. One of these columns, published on 1 May 1980, featured a certain Rev. Sandy McDonald, the minister of St. Marks Oldhall.

That week, Sandy was busy recording a series of short services at his church which would later go out on STV. These were likely part of one of two religious television broadcasts he was a part of at the time: Late Call or That's The Spirit (both programs David has mentioned over the years).

The article goes on to document Sandy's busy week, speaking about his duties chairing festivals of praise and being principal speaker at church rallies and charity events. In between these duties, the article mentions, Sandy has to attend to all his pastoral duties, including meetings with his own church groups, and - and here is the important part - "visits to hospital patients (including his own son)."

The time at which this article was written implies one of Sandy's children was in the hospital in late April to early May of 1980. It's probably a safe bet to assume it was David: while it could have been either his elder brother or his elder sister, this does happen to fall pretty splendidly into the age range of "9 or 10" for his appendicitis scare which David has given in the past. David would have just turned 9 years old in mid-April of that year.

So there you have it. David was 9 years old when he suffered the bout of appendicitis - which burst, and brought him near death.

Thank goodness he made it!

[sockminz]

TFW! — 03. friendship circle

the smell of alcohol and smoke filled y/n’s lungs as she walked into the party, seokmin and dino in tow. hoshi had run ahead of them, and was now raiding the snack table with great fervor. the english major could make out minnie with her gear on a raised platform, some upbeat rendition of a troye sivan song she couldn’t remember the title of was playing.

“i’ll be right back! gotta find vernon real quick.” chan said, throwing a half hearted wave behind his shoulder already walking away from his two friends. y/n rolled her eyes, knowing the boy was going off in search of some weed. seokmin turned to her, biting his lip with shifty eyes.

“miyeon told me to look for her when we got here—” he leaned in y/n’s direction. “this could be your chance dude!” waving a lanky arm in the general direction of the dance floor, seokmin grabbed y/n’s arm before dragging her along.

“wait, what? you talked to her?” the girl said, worry evident in her voice. she wasn’t prepared mentally for this!

“uh, yeah? well, she texted me first. said she had something to talk about.” the taller boy mentioned, eyes scanning the room for any sign of the queen bee. he looked to his friend for a moment before asking, “are you scared?”

the girl scoffed, yanking her arm away. “no! how could you ask that? i’m fine! totally fine!” she laughed awkwardly, eyes rapidly exploring the room for miyeon. maybe if she spotted her, she could get away just in time.

“you came here so you could talk to her. now is your time to shine, my friend!” a wild grin took over the boy’s face as he finally spotted miyeon, who was now making her way over to the duo. y/n could feel her mouth drying up as the blonde came closer, wanting nothing more than to disappear.

“hey guys! how’s it going?” miyeon dipped in, joining their conversation. y/n felt lightheaded, catching a whiff of the girl’s perfume.

seokmin nudged his friend before clearing his throat and greeting the newest addition to their circle. “sup myeon! we’re good, just got here.” he smiled, clasping a hand on y/n’s shoulder. the writer nodded, attempting to give a small smile.

“hi miyeon.” she croaked out, a dorky expression on her face. miyeon waved, nodding curtly.

“hey y/n. long time no see! i read your latest piece in the column, pretty good stuff!”

y/n was elated at the girl’s comment, a red shade creeping onto her cheeks. she was grateful that the bass was thumping, hoping that it could cover up the sound of her heartbeat. “thanks! uh— it was nothing really…” she trailed off, not knowing what to say.

“it was great, dude! don’t sell yourself short!” seokmin bellowed, squeezing her shoulder. “the pride of uos right here!” he bragged, making y/n blush profusely. miyeon smiled wider, raising her cup. “oh, for sureee!” the girl dragged, leaning into y/n’s space with a mischievous grin. “my prof won’t stop using your older writing as examples in our lectures— it’s insightful actually. didn’t know you could use the word, ‘feeling’ in six separate sentences.”miyeon giggled, taking a sip of her drink.

y/n’s jaw dropped. “oh! my older stuff? uh…” the girl trailed off, staring into space.

seokmin cleared his throat, patting y/n on the shoulder once more before turning to address miyeon. “so, you had something to talk to me about?” he spoke, giving the blonde one of his signature smiles.

miyeon’s eyebrows raised before putting her drink down. “oh right! sorry about that!” she laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. y/n nearly fainted.

“i caught up with jihyo the other day and she showed me some of your work you did for the newspaper— your photos were great!” she complimented the boy, “so i was actually wondering if you wanted to help out with the yearbook committee? it wouldn’t be alot of work, just a few portraits and some event days…” she pitched to the photographer in question, making him scratch the back of his neck shyly.

“oh, i didn’t think many people paid attention to that stuff.” he said, “it was just for some extra credit.” the blonde put a finger to her chin, tapping it slightly. y/n watched in awe as miyeon’s brows furrowed, a playful glint appearing in her eyes. the writer began to daydream about the girl in front of her, a dorky smile taking over her face.

“dude?” seokmin interrupted, waving a hand in front of her face. the girl jumped, snapping out of her thoughts. miyeon stifled a small laugh, covering her lips with her palm in an attempt to silence her chuckle. “huh?”

“miyeon just asked—”

“you guys should join the yearbook committee! we’re looking for some writers and phtographers.”

y/n’s heart was about to beat out of her chest.

“join the committee?” she said in disbelief. a chance to see miyeon on a regular basis?

“uh huh,” miyeon nodded, absentmindedly twirling a strand of hair. “i think you guys would be really good at it.”

seokmin hummed to himself, seemingly deep in thought. y/n however was ecstatic about the opportunity and was bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“i—” seokmin started to speak before being interrupted by a loud voice.

“hey gang, what’s up with all this business talk? we could tell the vibes were off all the way from over there!” an obviously tipsy hoshi sputtered out, wrapping an arm around seokmin’s shoulders. y/n could see two girls trailing behind him, recognising one as yunjin, jiwon’s friend and the other as eunchae, a cute underclassman she had become friends with recently.

“hosh! uh— we were just talking about the committee that miyeon’s in charge of.”

the intoxicated boy nodded along cutely, snapping his fingers. “oh shittt, that’s so convenient! yunjin and i were just talking about extracurr— extracurrent…? uh,” he scratched his head, “oh, extracurriculars! yeah…” hoshi snorted, earning an eye roll from yunjin.

“yunjin! and my eunchae!” miyeon grinned, patting the youngest on the head softly. “are you interested?”

“totally, sunbaenim. oh well, not us! our friend—” yunjin said before stepping back, searching for someone in the crowd. “—who is suddenly missing…?” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. eunchae giggled at their predicament.

“hi sunbae!” eunchae waved to y/n, jumping up and down. y/n smiled, waving back happily. “hey manchae!” the writer moved over to the youngest, giving her a side hug. hoshi leaned his head on seokmin’s shoulder, the taller boy deadpanning.

“does your friend do photography?” seokmin sighed, turning to yunjin and eunchae. the american girl tilted her head slightly as if in thought. “yeah, i think she does. nothing like your stuff though, sunbae.”

“are you not joining, seokmin?” miyeon suddenly questioned. “i don’t think so, myeon. kinda busy with council stuff and all these business lectures.” the boy shrugged, making hoshi’s head bounce slightly. yunjin nodded along, as if in agreement. “word. professor kim isn’t making it easy for us, can’t even imagine what it’s like for the seniors.”

“hmm, that’s a shame.” miyeon said, shaking her head. “what about you, y/n?”

“oh— i mean, i’m down!” y/n exclaimed, “i need some credits anyway.”

definitely not because i want to see your face everyday—

“that’s great!” the blonde reached over, clasping her hands with y/n. hoshi and seokmin held in a laugh as the writer’s face started turning beet red. “i’ll write your name down, let me just grab my phone—”

“jennifer huh and hong eunchae!” a shrill voice rang out from behind them, causing yunjin to wince. “oh shit.” she cursed, making eunchae gasp. y/n turned her head to see where the noise was coming from, making out a small figure making it’s way over to the girls in question.

“dude, we were looking for you everywhere.” the business major rolled her eyes. y/n watched as a girl clad in a blue velvet dress joined the circle.

woah.

y/n couldn’t help staring, admiring the way velvet girl’s makeup accentuated her eyes as well as her lips. not everyone could pull off a bob, but this girl managed to do it effortlessly. in every universe, this woman was conventionally attractive. hot even. she must’ve noticed the unwarranted attention because as soon as their eyes met, she yelped and hid behind yunjin.

“uh, unnie?” eunchae giggled, “remember how you wanted some more extracurricular credits?”

the american tried not to laugh at her friend’s predicament. so much for seducing y/n.

“introduce yourself, don’t be weird.” she whispered to the girl, pulling her by the arm and putting her between herself and eunchae. bob girl looked around with wide eyes, looking like a deer in headlights.

“uh, hi.” she waved awkwardly, all the confidence she was exuding before had completely crumbled. “i’m kim chaewon.” y/n and the boys waved back, making chaewon blush.

“oh snap, i know you!” another voice chimed in, “you’re kazuha’s friend!” dino joined the circle, resting his hands on hoshi and y/n’s shoulders all the while looking high out of his mind.

“jesus, dude. it’s been 10 minutes since we got here.” y/n shoved his hand off her, grimacing.

“oh? you’re all kazuha’s friends! she told me about you.” chan laughed amusedly, “crazy… where’s kazuha then?”

“uh, i think she had dance practice.”

“dance practice?” chan said, looking deep in thought. “dance practice…” he trailed off, looking into the void. y/n looked to her friend, unimpressed. seokmin shook his head before turning to the rest of the group.

“i actually need to go find jihyo to sort out something for the council, so you guys have fun!” he hummed before leaning down to miyeon. “good luck with the signups?”

the blonde girl nodded before waving to him. she pouted her lips, turning to chaewon. “yearbook committee? y/n here just joined.”

chaewon looked at the writer, who was occupied in pulling hoshi and dino away from the nearby snack table. she giggled to herself. “uh, sure! i’ll join you guys.”

yunjin clapped her friend on the back, leaning down to her ear. “don’t mess this up dude.” she said as the other three rejoined the circle, chan and hoshi both holding a plate full of food each. in between them, y/n stood with her arms folded and a grimace on her face.

“this has definitely been more eventful than i thought…” miyeon laughed dryly, “but thanks to you two for signing up! we’re meeting tomorrow in the old archival building at 10—” the crowd surrounding the group suddenly swarmed to one side of the room, a huge circle forming with jiwon in the middle, attempting to do a keg stand.

“—actually make that 2pm.” miyeon sighed, “i’ll see you guys there, okay?” she nodded to the group before moving over to the keg stand circle. y/n waved, watching as the girl walked away. the rest of the circle looked at eachother awkwardly. hoshi spoke up,

“dude, your name is jennifer?”

masterlist | next

y’all i dropped out. idk how college works

TAGLIST (open)

@sewiouslyz @neuftaeng @meifeikss @mightymyo @kimsgayness @winieter

[alacrity42]

Iruma Misfit Headcanons

Basically just stuff I like to put into my fics or think could/should be happening

Iruma: The class is divided into two groups: the 'no snack' group and the 'feed Iruma' group. Iruma campaigns every day in the group chat to lift the ban on snacks.

Alice: Softened up around everyone since entering second year, and no longer glares at them like he wants to punch them. Took up knitting in an effort to seem more approachable after Iruma lectured him on the subject.

Clara: Drags one of the Misfits to join her playtime sessions once a week. They have all learned what Azz and Iruma go through. Only Elizabetta came out unscathed.

Sabnock: Took up classic literature in his research on the demon kings. His vocabulary has a 13% chance to switch to Old Demonese if he's excited.

Lied: Started a group DeviTube channel. The primary uploader, he makes video game playthroughs and occasionally asks his friends to make videos of their own.

Jazz: Despite Allocer's intellect, he's the one who tracks everyones debts. Often turned to in order to settle conflicts, he revels in the fact that he's now the big brother of the class.

Allocer: Dating an older woman he met online. Keeping it incredibly secret, he worries that the Misfits will scare her off with their chaos and insistence on meeting her.

Elizabetta: Dating both Purson and Lied. Struggled to cope with being polygamous and accepting herself, but is now better off for it. Routinely interviewed by the school newspaper and runs a gossip column.

Crocell: Has taken up gardening to express herself in a way that isn't performing. Gets annoyed when the photos of her plants get more traction than some of her casual posts.

Kamui: Locked in gentleman class hell with Mr. Hatt and Kalego. They fixed him up and now he's stopped harassing women. A phenomenal start.

Purson: The second most frequent uploader on the shared channel, he has gained popularity as the Pixie online. Uses his money to purchase good music equipment, and to Kallego's annoyance, tests it every morning before class.

Gaap: Makes everyone breakfast. Has started taking requests because Agares assured him that people would get sick of constant onigiris. Kalego has praised his work.

Agares: Falls asleep on Gaap's lap routinely because he trusts Gaap to take care of him. It has worked like 60% of the time, but he does it anyways.

[goldberrg]

point of no return

summery : Billy has zero patience, and he's holding on with the last of his strength, repeating like a mantra his father's fucking instructions that you can't beat girls, but Y\N Klein has been walking on a fine line for days. She's an arrogant little bitch, a spoiled daddy's daughter who has never heard the word “no” in her life. She has infinitely long legs, a mouth created for blowjobs, and luxurious tits that she flaunts at every opportunity. And this is where the list of its obvious advantages ends.

TW's — pwp ( 18+ ), dirty talk, underage, rough sex, mention of smoking, sex in public.

Billy is annoyed by how languidly you float into the classroom, how you wrinkle your nose with displeasure, taking your place at the desk right in front of him, how you distastefully curl your plump, evenly made-up lips. He is infuriated by the smell of your sweet perfume, provincial slut outfit and the eyes of an innocent doe.

And it seems that you like to piss him off lately, because Billy does not find any other objective reasons that she has become too much in his space. You and your entourage are sitting at a nearby table at lunch, loudly discussing Tommy Hagen's latest party, sitting in the stands at basketball practice, although you had not previously been attracted to this sport, and the cutouts of your blouses are becoming more and more explicit every day. And Billy, by and large, does not care what you are up to, but his cup of patience is already overflowing.

The last straw is the fucked-up that you arranged in the parking lot at the school, blocking the exit of his car with your fucking car. And the only reason Billy hasn't nailed you yet is an exceptional unwillingness to deal with the consequences.

— Where the fuck is Klein? — Billy bumps into her cheerleader friend in the hallway, apparently delayed at a cheerleading practice.

The girl shies away from him as if from a madman, stammers, trying to explain something, watching with horror as Billy's nostrils swell with rage and his eyes fill with blood.

— I'm fucking asking you again, where the fuck is Klein?

— In the office of the school newspaper. — she answers in a half — whisper, taking small steps backwards so as not to anger Billy even more. — Preparing a fashion column for Friday's issue.

— Goood. — Billy pulls, turning in the right direction. He has no idea what he will do with your bitchy attitude when he finds you, but he keeps repeating to himself that he cant beat girls, especially if they are mayor's daughters.

— What the fuck, Klein?! — Billy opens the door from his feet, perhaps surprised that the newspaper nerds have already run away by this hour and have no one to impress.

— Ugh, Hargrove, rude. — you respond, looking up at him with a mocking look.

— You fucking did it on purpose!

— What did i do? — your expression is so innocent that Billy chokes on his indignation.

— Car, Klein.

— Oh, that. — you bend around him in an arc, which is difficult to do in such a tight space, and rings the keys, locking the office door from the inside. — Will you punish me?

— You're fucked up. — Billy chuckles.

— It turns you on, doesn't it? — you respond, coming close to him. Your hair smells of the same sweet perfume, your crown is right under his nose, your look from the bottom up is cunning and tempting.

— If you wanted me to fuck you, you could have just asked. — your lips are crushed by his kiss, and you immediately greedily open your mouth, letting in his tongue, leans towards his hands, wrapping your strong neck.

— That wouldn't be interesting. — you reply as his lips move down your neck, pulling the smooth, delicate skin into your mouth, leaving behind blooming hickeys.

— A little spoiled slut. — Billy picks you up under the butt, sitting you on the desk, right on the papers and materials of tomorrow's newspaper.

You spread your knees, and he immediately finds himself between them, you pull his shirt off his shoulders, putting your mouth to his muscular tanned chest. — Don't you fuck everything that moves in this school?

Billy, with a growl, runs his palms under your skirt, stroking your thighs through thin panties, bites your breasts through your dress and underwear, pulling the lace fabric with his teeth.

— How chatty. — he teases you with light touches of his fingers, licks widely from the cleavage between your breasts to your collarbone, sucking the skin. — Aren't you already leaking, even though I haven't even taken off your tiny panties?

— And what other invitation are you waiting for? — you move your hips under his palm to snuggle, to get used to hard calloused fingers. You bend in your back, throwing your arms over Billy's shoulders, and exaggeratedly groan in his ear. — Come on, Hargrove, stick your dick in me.

Billy growls with indignation, he is not led to the provocations of spoiled girls, doing only what he sees fit. But Klein, pressed against the table, is too sweet, a tasty morsel to back down now. And Billy really wants to plant you right now, so that you howl with pleasure, fuck your arrogance and arrogance out of you. You must break your voice, you must remember this dirty sex as the best in your miserable life.

Your palms slide down his shoulders, fall on his stomach, tickling with teasing touches, stop at the belt buckle, unbuttoning it with a loud clang. He turns you obedient and pliable on yout stomach, so as to flatten your on the creaking wood, presses his palm on the small of your back, and you bend harder, sticking out your small strong ass.

Billy bites your neck, pushing your legs apart with his knee, rubs his hard-standing dick against your butt through the fabric of underwear and tight jeans and with a grin notes the thin high half-clip that escaped from your lips.

— Beg me, Y\N. — he breathes into your ear and pulls away, looking at the view.

Klein, with smudged lipstick and a swollen mouth, scratching the surface of the table with acrylic nails, in a crumpled dress with your ass pulled up like a hot bitch in sticky lace panties, whines with displeasure, looking at him over your shoulder.

— Please, Billy. — you lick your lips, pull the bottom one into your mouth, biting nervously. — Please.

— Not enough. — he unbuttons a button, pulls the zipper on his jeans, lowering them from his hips, and exhales with relief. — I don't believe it.

— Asshole, — you get angry and immediately ask, without giving him a snide answer. — Put it inside me.

— That's better.

— Fuck me so that I can't walk tomorrow.

— Even so? — Billy licks his lips and winks at you, rustles the foil, opening the package with a condom. — What else?

— So that I can lose my voice. — you feel how he pushes aside a strip of underwear with his fingers and puts a hot head, and feeds on the dick, taking it completely. — So that the bruises go away for a few more days.

— I'm surprised, Y\N. — Billy comes out of your almost to the end, puts his hand under your stomach, rides up your chest, crushing, pushes inside with a flourish. — And you pretended to be such a good girl.

Klein is silent, allowing him to grab you by the throat and squeeze you until you wheezes, rests your palms on the table so as not to wiggle your stomach on it in time with each deep thrust. Obedient, slippery, narrow. Billy did not expect that you were so tight that you would wrap around him like a glove, he was sure that the entire basketball team, led by the captain, had visited the mayor's daughter.

Your throat contracts under the palm of your hand, you sway to the beat, adjusting to the ragged rhythm of his movements, hisses when the fingers of the other hand squeeze your thigh too hard. Lustful, insatiable, predatory. Billy releases your throat from the grip, pulls your hair up to intercept it more conveniently under your stomach and slide two fingers to the clitoris.

You moan out loud, rolling, sonorous, as if you had forgotten where they are, as if you want to gather half of the school under the door of the office. Billy clamps your mouth with wet fingers, driving indelicately into a soft, tender body, close to orgasm, feels your shudder all over, biting the tips of his fingers and immediately licking your tongue.

— You look attractive today. — Billy chuckles, pulling out of you. Throws the used condom on the table next to it, pulls on underwear with jeans and zips up. He looks for his shirt.

— Thank you. — you breath hoarsely, getting up on trembling legs, straightens your dress and hair, reaches for your purse for a mirror. — I can't say the same about you, Hargrove.

You seem to like pissing him off lately, but Billy is patient and knows how to wait.

— You have five minutes to fix your makeup and drive away your fucking girly car while I smoke.

— Or what? Will you crash my car and yours at the same time? — you arch a perfectly plucked eyebrow ironically.

— Oh, Klein, I'll think of something more interesting.

— I can't wait, Hargrove.

[butterflyhiptattoo]

Emerging From the Magazines: Bob Mizer's Athletic Models Guild

When twenty-four-year-old Bob Mizer began marketing photographs of men in posing straps in 1946, he was already on a crusade.

He was tired of police harassment in Pershing Square – a well-known meeting spot for gay men in downtown Los Angeles where he socialized with friends nearly every day during high school. They gossiped about their fellow Pershing Square regulars – the effeminate belles, the butch trade, and some in between. But in 1940 he wrote in his diary of a crackdown: "vice clean up is tightening Lillie is really serious about cleaning up the city," using a slang term common in gay circles for the police.

He also made weekly visits to the nearby Los Angeles Central Library and was tired of reading psychology books on the danger posed by "sexual variants" such as himself and his friends. "Anything you could read anywhere showed how pernicious a thing this was... [how] you would deteriorate into a mass of trembling flesh if you did these things," he later complained.

He was also tired of arguing with his Mormon mother, who vociferously objected to his transgender friend Rodney-later known as Daisy -who was bullied at school for wearing pink girls' slacks and having plucked eyebrows. Delia Mizer called Rodney a "pansy" and labeled his sexual proclivities "against all the laws of nature." Her son responded angrily, using a very different vocabulary, one that drew on notions of legal equality and civil rights: "Most people are just obeying their impulses," he retorted. "Should they be denied the right to fulfill their instincts?"

As a young man, Mizer had already identified the many ways society looked down on "temperamental people" like him and his circle of Pershing Square friends. More important, he was also clearly determined to do something about it to confront the legal, medical, and religious prejudices that so viscerally affected his life.

One Sunday night in March 1940 he was on the telephone listening to Rodney describe his sexual exploits from the night before. Someone else on his party line was also listening in a common occurrence at a time when only the rich had private telephone lines. Using vulgar lan-guage, the eavesdropper expressed his contempt for such people. Mizer had had enough. He channeled his anger into his diary that night: "My aim in life will be to create tolerance among mankind and especially to vindicate the decent, spiritual Urning," using a nineteenth-century term for men attracted to other men. He was beginning to articulate the sense of defiance that had been building up inside him. Soon his rudimentary efforts to create tolerance made it into print. "This week I made my column risqué," he noted of his writing in the Polytechnic High School newspaper. "All of my gay friends are included." Even as an eighteen-year-old high school student, Mizer demonstrated a willingness to defy convention and assert his desires. He had also developed the ability to publicly affirm his gay friends if in a coded way that perhaps only they would understand.

Mizer's ambition was to be an author. He was not just a columnist but an editor of his high school's award-winning newspaper – considered one of the top ten in the country by the Columbia University School of Journalism. He had begun creative writing in grammar school and published several short stories. He was also a voracious reader, checking out popular psychology and sexology books like Out-witting Our Nerves and Sexual Power on his weekly runs to the Los Angeles Public Library. He so identified with Boris Barisol's biography of writer Oscar Wilde, subtitled The Man, the Artist, the Martyr, that he labeled his own 1940 diary "Bob Mizer: The Man, the Thinker, the ?" One of his teachers suggested that his skills at writing, shorthand, and typing would easily land him a steady job as a court reporter. But Mizer wanted to write his own book. He would call it "How You Can Help the Homosexualists" and would target younger gay men whose worldview had not yet formed.

Although he never published such a book, writing would occupy much of his life, as he penned hundreds of feisty editorials denouncing censorship, puritanism, and prejudice for his magazine Physique Pictorial, which he published for over twenty years. Not unlike the book he hoped to write, Physique Pictorial offered help and comfort to tens of thousands of gay men in Cold War America. As the editor of the first large-circulation American magazine targeting gay men, Mizer found a way to help the community he had found at Pershing Square. In the pages of his path-breaking magazine, Mizer honed the skills he first tried out in his high school newspaper-thumbing his nose at the authorities while speaking up for his friends.

In postwar America, a commercial network of gay physique photographers and magazine publishers emerged from the contests and magazines surrounding the physical culture movement. Bob Mizer was neither the first nor the only gay man to capitalize on his community's interest in physique photography. But he became the center of a network that served to connect, inspire, and politicize that subculture. He drew on an older tradition of gay photographers marketing their products through an underground market or in the back pages of mainstream fitness magazines. But with the founding of Physique Pictorial in 1951, he opened this tradition to public scrutiny and a new level of visual and discursive engagement. He was joined by Irv Johnson, the owner of a gym in Chicago, who began publishing Tomorrow's Man in 1952, and by Randolph Benson and John Bullock, a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, who began publishing Grecian Guild Pictorial in 1955. Together they created a new genre of small magazines that would help serve and unite gay men throughout the country. 

The social world Mizer constructed with his gay high school friends at Pershing Square was central to his budding role as a pioneering gay entrepreneur. "The number of faggots cruising around here is legion," remembered the writer Hart Crane. But the number of available sexual partners was only part of the appeal. "Here are little fairies who can quote Rimbaud before they are eighteen," he observed, suggesting how the space also offered an education in gay cultural codes. It was through connections made there that Mizer not only discovered a sense of community and a sense of oppression but also learned about a central feature of gay male culture: photography of the nude male.

While still in high school, Mizer went to a party at his friend Sydney Phillip's place, where three gay friends posed in the nude for "artistic studies" that the host photographed. "It was terribly cute to see them rush to hide in the bathroom whenever a knock was heard at the door," Mizer noted of the models' skittishness. Featured in one of the first entries in his 1940 diary, the night clearly made an impression. A few months later Mizer himself posed for another gay photographer and became "enthused about barbell exercising."3

Weightlifting led Mizer to another formative influence: Strength & Health, the preeminent physical culture magazine published by Bob Hoffman in York, Pennsylvania. Mizer began reading the magazine in high school when he started lifting weights – he purchased his barbells through its back pages. He enjoyed the bodybuilding photos and articles but was particularly intrigued by the monthly "S & H Leaguers' Page," a pen-pal service for those who wanted to exchange letters and photographs. Members often described their hobbies and interests, which included not only bodybuilding and physique photographs but often music, ballet, and theater. In April 1945 Mizer placed the following notice, hoping to connect with other leaguers; he included his home address, which would become the legendary home of his physique studio: "Bob Mizer, 1834 West 11th St., Los Angeles, Cal. is interested in photography and creative writing, and promises an immediate answer and exchange of photos to all who write. He uses a York barbell and other training appliances and hopes that we will allot more space to the league notes, as he enjoys reading this department and writing to other leaguers. "

The response was overwhelming – Mizer received over three hundred letters from fellow S & H Leaguers, some of whom remained life-long friends. Other leaguers reported similar responses from their no- tices. One received such a flood of mail-but to the wrong address – that the Post Office requested he issue a correction immediately. Mizer later praised this service for allowing "lonely bodybuilders and others" not only to correspond but also to form "long-lasting and fruitful" friendships. His positive experience with the S & H Leaguers' Page offered a pivotal lesson, demonstrating to Mizer the desire of men who enjoyed physique photography to connect with each other.

After high school graduation he worked as an office clerk and typist for the Texas & Fort Worth Railroad, but in his spare time he also began to help out at various Los Angeles photography studios, learning how to pose models, position lighting, and develop film. In the summer of 1945, during the final days of World War II, Mizer was full of excitement as he made plans over the establishment of what he was already calling "my business." He was honing his craft by apprenticing at Fred- erick Kovert's Hollywood studio. "I am helping him in my spare time in order to decide whether or not to come into the studio to work." Kovert was a former silent movie actor who had become one of the more daring and well-known photographers of nude men. Mizer was one of numerous young men working for Kovert, doing much of the photography that bore his name. Mizer often brought models there, used his darkroom, and even posed himself. He could do none of this at home, since his mother, who ran a rooming house, did not approve of his interest in photographing nearly naked men. Still, he found Kovert to be controlling and difficult to work with.

Soon he bought his own camera and started to frequent Muscle Beach and bodybuilding competitions to find models. Muscle Beach in Santa Monica-not far from the home he shared with his mother near downtown Los Angeles was the center of the postwar interest in bodybuilding and beefcake. It was the perfect place to meet bodybuilders who were anxious to be photographed. "I modeled for Bob Mizer in 1947, '48," Ben Sorensen remembered. "Bob came down to Muscle Beach and just talked to people, you know? He invites us up. Of course everybody's interested, when they're bodybuilding, in getting some free pictures." It was Bob McCune, another bodybuilding champion Mizer photographed, who convinced Mizer to submit his photos to Strength & Health. Editor John Grimek, himself a well-known bodybuilding champion, encouraged Mizer to submit more work. "Yours are as good as others," Grimek told the budding photographer when they met at one of the bodybuilding competitions in Los Angeles. 

Mizer called his business the Athletic Model Guild (AMG) and offered his first advertisements in Strength & Health in 1946, where they competed for attention with similar advertisements from other gay photographers, such as Alfonso Hanagan, known as "Lon of New York." Hanagan had first become interested in physique photography when he became enthralled with images of bodybuilder Tony Sansone, who marketed his own photographs. After moving to New York in 1936 to pursue a career in music, he met Sansone and began to socialize with and photograph him and his friends. By the 1940s his physique photographs were being featured on the cover of Strength & Health and bodybuilders began seeking him out, hoping to appear on magazine cover. As payment, the magazine gave him free ad space in the back of the magazine. It was this mutually profitable world of photographers, bodybuilders, and magazine publishers that Mizer would enter, then help to transform.

When Mizer began marketing physique photography to a gay audience, he joined a field with deep roots in gay culture. The taking, sharing, and selling of such images had been central to gay culture for well over a half century by the time Mizer discovered it. Wilhelm von Gloeden began selling photographs of nude young men he posed in classical staging in Taormina, Sicily, in the 1890s. He developed a large following in cosmopolitan circles, especially among cultivated gay men. Some of his more restrained images appeared in European journals that were popular within the Aesthetic movement, while his nudes circulated through an underground market. Oscar Wilde and other gay notables made pilgrimages to his studio.

In addition to such high art, images of nearly nude men circulated in the context of the physical culture movement, starting with images of Eugene Sandow in the 1890s. By the 1920s nude photos were widely marketed in the back of both art and physical culture magazines. Physical culturist John Hernic offered nude photos in the back of Art Magazine in the 1920s and Strength & Health in the 1930s. "These photos will be a source of inspiration to you in your training for a well developed body," Hernic's ad promised, providing a small image of a muscled and oiled young man with a prominent posing strap a pouch hanging off a string that covered only the genitals, the most revealing item of clothing a model could wear.

Collector Robert Mainardi identifies Hernic as a "mail-order pioneer," but his Apollo Art Studios was soon joined by others. To earn a living during the Depression, brothers Fred and William Ritter photographed themselves and their fellow physical culturists who trained at a New York City YMCA. They developed their own photos and sold high-quality images for $1 apiece. Film historian Thomas Waugh labels them "the first gay generation of physique photographers. "10

Nude figure studies were only one of the many items available for sale in the back pages of these magazines. There were advertisements for barbells, food supplements, clothing, figure studies, and more. Indeed, most magazines were simply vehicles to sell products. Bob Hoffman founded the York Barbell Company a year before he founded his magazine Strength & Health and admitted the periodical was really a means to sell equipment. Both Hoffman and his main competitor Joe Weider distributed their fitness magazines at a loss, seeing them as a way to sell more barbells. Some of the first famous bodybuilders were similarly engaged in marketing products. Eugene Sandow – considered the world's most perfect man – performed on the vaudeville circuit, published books on physical culture techniques, and marketed postcards of his own image. As much a brand name as a bodybuilder, Sandow opened a chain of vegetarian restaurants, sanatoriums, and hotels that by the 1920s made him a millionaire. Bodybuilding promoter Bernarr Macfadden also constructed a commercial empire around the sport that included health retreats, restaurants, beauty contests, book sales, lectures, and mail-order fitness courses. Right from the start, bodybuilding was a lucrative business, the centerpiece of a network of consumer items.

A legend has developed that Mizer's first business plan was to serve as a referral service between models and the studios that required their services. According to this legend, the talent agency model failed, but Mizer díscovered, as if by accident, that the photographs were more lucrative than the modeling connections. This unsubstantiated story implies that his idea of marketing photos to gay men was sui generis. It cuts Mizer off from the long tradition of gay men taking, exchanging, and purchasing such photographs, beginning in the late nineteenth century. One of the sources of the legend was Wayne Stanley, a Mizer protégé who inherited Mizer's business and who self-servingly asserted that AMG was "the first photographic studio of the young male physique, ignoring Von Gloeden, Hernic, the Ritter Brothers, Lon of New York, Kovert, and many others. Mizer's diaries suggest that photography was key from the beginning and that he considered himself to be part of a field of physique photographers from at least 1946. While a pioneer in many ways, Mizer did not create the genre. 

Although the selling of physique-type photographs was not new, in the post-World War II era such imagery was becoming a much more visible component of American culture. Men had only recently started appearing shirtless in public. While European men had begun going topless on beaches soon after World War I, one-piece men's bathing suits emerged in the United States only in the 1930s. Some called them "Depression suits," suggesting that the shirt disappeared owing to lack of funds. As more and more proud male bathers defied convention by exposing their chests, the media began to talk of a "no shirt movement." Some beach communities such as Atlantic City, New Jersey, pushed back and banned topless male bathing. Responding to the changing beach regulations, clothing manufacturers offered detachable tops for their swimsuits. Representing the shifting cultural sands, their advertisements often featured one shirtless male and another with trunks and a tank top. According to David Chapman, by 1937 the controversy was settled, as most of the nation's beaches allowed men to appear shirtless.

World War II brought images of shirtless sailors and soldiers into American homes and theaters. In covering the war, New York magazines and Hollywood films soon reflected the trend toward displays of the male chest. A cover of Look magazine in 1942 featured a shirtless image of Muscle Beach denizen John Kornoff, the U.S. Army's first physical trainer. Cannon Towel advertisements in Life featured soldiers bathing in the South Pacific wearing nothing but one of its products. Within a year of the war's end, as Mizer started marketing his photo albums, Sidney Skolsky, sitting across town in Swab's drugstore writing his nationally syndicated gossip column, coined "beefcake" to refer to Hollywood's liberal use of Guy Madison's physique. Madison had been discovered by gay Hollywood agent Henry Willson, who also named and popularized gay actors Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson. Skolsky dubbed the bevy of male actors posing in bathing suits a "beefcake brigade," and this new term for displays of young, pulchritudinous male flesh took hold. Willson was a frequent client of physique photographer Lon of New York but was now bringing that same look to Hollywood. So the popularization of "beefcake" imagery and terminology, from their very origins, had a gay inflection.

But if male torsos could increasingly be seen on American beaches and in popular periodicals after World War II, they were still considered taboo in town. Men would continue to be subject to arrest for appearing shirtless on many city streets and in parks into the early 1960s. They were particularly vulnerable to such arrest if they did so in a known gay cruising area, reflecting the tensions in American culture over male nudity and its homoerotic implications. A seventeen year-old Harvey Milk remembered being charged with indecent exposure in the summer of 1947 for baring his chest in a secluded gay cruising area of Central Park, even as men with families did exactly the same on the more public grassy lawns. Being grouped among "the men without their shirts" was one of Milk's first visceral experiences of antigay oppression. 

As interest in the male physique increased during the postwar period, Mizer's Physique Pictorial would catch the beginnings of a cultural wave. Yet he would also feel the wrath of law enforcement that tried to shut his business down, even before it was formally on its feet. He and his magazine would be caught up in legal disputes over the sexual meaning of such displays of male flesh. For the next two decades, Mizer would place himself at the center of this battle.

POSTAL INSPECTOR VISIT

On July 23, 1945, Mizer had his first of many encounters with federal law enforcement authorities. After leaving work as usual at the Texas & Fort Worth Railroad and bicycling by the library on Pershing Square to exchange some books, Mizer arrived home to find postal inspectors waiting for him. They searched his room, found "dirty pictures," and took him to their offices for questioning. Mizer somehow escaped arrest, but a few months later Kovert's studio was also raided, resulting in headlines in the Los Angeles Examiner. Intimately involved in the resulting legal drama, Mizer attended court with Kovert, who pleaded guilty to possession of obscene materials, and drafted a letter for Kovert's customers seeking their support. Not even the intimidating tactics of the Post Office and the court system seem to have deterred the twenty-three-year-old Mizer. "Spent evening on [Athletic Model] Guild calls and letters," he wrote in his diary, just two days after being what he described as "probed" by postal inspectors. Rather than serve as a deterrent, Mizer's encounter with federal postal authorities seemed to increase his resolve and suggests how his struggle with the forces of censorship formed a central component of his business. Mizer would face arrest again in 1947 and 1954 in connection with his business, each encounter with the authorities sharpening his sense of outrage.

Mizer began his business in 1946 by producing and distributing mimeographed "albums" to sell his beefcake photographs, copying the standard operating procedure followed by Kovert of Hollywood, Lon of New York, and many other such photographers.17 He would send customers who responded to his advertisements in Strength & Health a one-page sample of photo albums, from which they could select the models and images they wanted to purchase. However, Mizer's early albums went beyond providing the necessary marketing information. Mizer peppered his albums with news and commentary on the physique world-biographies of models, bodybuilding contest results, and warnings about Post Office crackdowns. As with his earlier writings in high school and his later editorials in Physique Pictorial, Mizer constructed a narrative that drew customers and models into the same enlightened circle of upstanding physique enthusiasts and supporters of free speech, while casting public censors and moralists into the darkness.

Starting with Forrester Millard in 1946 -- the first featured model in his premier "Album A" – Mizer constructed a fantasy narrative about his models that encouraged a sense of identification between them and his target audience of middle-class gay men. At the same time, he cleaned up the description of his interactions to avoid any hint of illegality. Although Mizer would print on almost every mailing and magazine he produced that he neither took nor sold nude photographs, he took nudes of Millard and of most every subsequent model. A native of New Mexico, Millard was only sixteen at the time Mizer photographed him, though Mizer fudged his date of birth to make him seventeen.

Publicly, Mizer lauded Millard as the ideal model who had control of every muscle due to hours posing before a circle of mirrors. Privately, Mizer complained that Millard was narcissistic to the point of being "completely entranced with his own physical beauty." Vanity had led Millard to quit school and be supported by his mother and a girlfriend. "In the album bulletins I try to be truthful – but naturally I must show jurisprudence in what truth I tell," Mizer wrote a correspondent at the time. "I would doom a model's popularity if I announced he was married with two kids.... Most of my models over 23 are married or are permanently shacking up with their common-law wives."

So the biography Mizer constructed for Millard centered on discipline, Horatio Alger upward mobility, and a hint of homosexual camaraderie. "Laughed at because he was skinny, Forrester rapidly developed a magnificently defined body which became the envy of his former tormentors," Mizer wrote. Mizer replaced mention of his real-life girlfriend with "training companion" John Miller, who had won top honors at a recent AAU contest. They posed for Mizer's first duos, a homoerotic format that set Mizer and other gay physique photographers apart from their mainstream colleagues. Dark-featured Millard and blonde Miller looked like the perfect gay couple. They hoped to open a gym together, Mizer told his clients suggestively. The image of Millard and Miller on a settee with overlapping arms, hands touching, appeared in Strength & Health and became a signature AMG photo. Millard was later called "almost the touchtone for AMG's fame".

To counter the perception of both gay men and bodybuilders as degenerates, Mizer's biographical notes gave his models middle-class respectability, highlighting not only their physical attributes but also their alleged intellectual and professional ambitions. Not only was model Johnny Murphy tops in the "muscle game," but his business courses at Woodbury College were preparing him to become a business executive. "In anything he does, he will not content himself with being just average, he must be the best," Mizer gushed.

From the feedback he received to his many customer questionnaires, Mizer had a keen sense of what his audience liked and the "psychological effect" of his photos. As he told a colleague, "A picture is rarely unpopular if the model looks directly into the lens (and hence seems to be looking at the person observing the picture) as naturally they feel identification with him." Not only in his lighting and posing but also in his editorial content, Mizer made sure that his largely middle-class audience could identify with the models he was offering them, assuring them that they were "from upper-level homes." While seeking to bond models and customers in a circle of mutual camaraderie and respectability – what he called "the few... who demand freedom of expression" – Mizer also used his albums to make a detailed and careful analysis of censorship efforts by people he derided as "philistines," "moralists," and "unaesthetic law enforcement officers. " Mizer had gotten nowhere in his attempts to reason with censorship authorities. He and his fellow Los Angeles area physique photographers petitioned the Post Office to allow the use of the mail for nude photography. Postal authorities responded that they were forced to forbid such mail by local civic organizations and church groups that feared such products would fall into the hands of children. Mizer offered a clever countersuggestion: photographers could send nude photographs care of the local postmaster in every city, where they could then be claimed by the recipient with proper proof of age. His proposal went unheeded.

Mizer had been in business less than a year when he was first arrested, but it was not for sending nudes through the mail. Mindful of postal inspectors, he had sold nudes only to walk-in customers at his studio near downtown Los Angeles-what amounted to just 10 percent of his business. But when one of those customers, thirty six-year-old Mexican-born Texan Pasquel Barron, became embroiled in a Post Office obscenity investigation, he admitted to obtaining nudes from Mizer, and the Post Office quickly forwarded the information to the local district attorney. Mizer was arrested in 1947 for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, James Maynor, one of his first models, a seventeen-year-old. The district attorney uncovered a network of teenage bodybuilders centered on Muscle Beach, many of whom had been brought to Mizer's studio by William Petty, a physical education instructor employed by the city of Santa Monica to organize athletic activities and performances. Petty and another photographer were also arrested.

Unable to afford an attorney, Mizer was convinced by a public defender to plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge he admitted to photographing Maynor in the nude. But in his plea to avoid prison and receive probation, Mizer insisted that he operated a legitimate business. He stipulated that he had consulted with attorneys and obtained signed release statements from his models or their parents. To distinguish his from previous such enterprises that operated underground, Mizer granted the court access to his meticulous records concerning both customers and models. He freely admitted to being a homosexual and to "attend[ing] several meetings of other types of such individuals in Lafayette Park" a possible reference to gay social or fraternal organizations. Friends and neighbors testified to his good conduct and character – they described him as a photographer and artist who never smoked, drank, or got entangled in the law. The district attorney countered that Mizer's business was "pandering only to the tastes of lustful homosexuals." Several of his models, including John Miller, featured in AMG's early advertisements, confessed to engaging in oral sex with Mizer.

In denying his request, the probation officer emphasized that Mizer showed no remorse for his activities and was an admitted homosexual. He labeled his business of photographing teenage boys in the nude "a vicious and deliberate crime." Mizer was sentenced to six months at a work farm in Saugus, California. As with his interrogation by postal inspectors in 1945, the time he spent in Saugus seemed to steel his will. He felt abused by a legal system that was persecuting him for his lack of shame in being gay and operating a business that catered to his fellow homosexuals. He would later caution his readers to remain silent if arrested and never admit to any guilt, lest they find themselves "rail-roaded to prison" like he felt he was. As he wrote to his mother from Saugus, "I feel more strength now than ever before, but this strength, this driving energy, shall be carefully bridled and directed with wisdom.... ambition is everything." Mizer's tone and focus on the forces of censorship turned darker after his 1947 arrest. By 1950 he reported on a "witch hunt" at Muscle Beach, where one Sunday all the photographers were arrested and further photography forbidden. "Los Angeles and California is in a stage of sex hysteria," he warned, with the state legislature passing sex laws "which only stop short of outlawing the double bed." He chastised "those too stupid and prurient-minded" to understand and appreciate the need for nude art. "These same philistines are mischievously at work to undermine other basic rights of the individual," he wrote. He recommended that readers join the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or the American Sunbathing and Health Association, a nudist organization. "The only successful way to fight these frustrated reactionaries is through national organization." Fighting the forces of censorship through collective action was clearly on Mizer's mind.

Mizer closely followed and reported on the legal struggles of other physique photographers, even though raising such issues threaten to scare away more timid customers. Whenever possible, he noted what he saw as rays of hope, such as a "progressive Federal Judge" in Chicago who ruled in 1947 that photographs of nude males by Al Urban were not obscene. He noted that most magazines and photographers "in the field" had almost always beaten their prosecutions, but "only at damaging expense." These small victories failed to establish a clear national legal precedent, nor did they silence the local churches, parent teacher organizations, and other "moralist groups" behind censorship efforts. Mizer quickly identified the pattern of obscenity prosecution that would continue for the next twenty years: censors won at the local or lower-level courts but then lost on appeal. Physique photographers would have to work together to establish a large war chest to fight the censors and establish a national precedent.

PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL

So when Mizer began publishing Physique Pictorial in 1951, he envisioned it as a collective effort – a catalog of merchandise from a variety of gay photographers and other vendors facing exclusion from mainstream fitness magazines. The first few issues were "advertising booklets," offered to subscribers for free – a "gift" underwritten by participating businesses. Like the mainstream fitness magazines, Mizer figured that photograph sales would more than pay for the magazine, as barbell sales financed mainstream fitness magazines. He wanted to bring gay physique photographers into closer alliance and thereby more effectively fight the forces of censorship. First called Physique Photo News, it would take advertisements from the back of Strength & Health and give them a new, safer, and more prominent home of their own.

Under pressure from postal authorities, mainstream fitness magazines were beginning to refuse ads for undraped nudes. Warning that "queers" had "obtained a particularly vicious hold on our bodybuilding game," Iron Man instituted a policy refusing ads with models wearing anything less than swim trunks and threatened even stricter rules in the future. Strength & Health had faced censorship efforts over a cover image that had been taken in the nude and later retouched with a posing strap. The managing editor of Strength & Health warned Mizer that his advertisement photos were becoming "less athletic and more risqué" and threatened to bar him from the magazine. While Mizer pledged to cooperate, he saw the writing on the wall. "We are anxious to get our own magazine strong enough that in a few years time we can thumb our noses at the physique magazines," he wrote to a trusted adviser.

The first issue represented the combined effort of six physique photography studios, but most of the others soon opted out. "Bruce [Bellas] was so frightened that he decided not to be represented in the next issue," Mizer recalled. To avoid postal inspectors, Bellas preferred to travel from city to city selling his images in person to select clients. Russ Warner also demurred, having already been summoned to Washington for an arduous hearing before postal inspectors over his nude photos with inked-in pouches. "The only people who would want photos of men were gay people," the postal inspectors confided to him, and their threat to "get every one of them" left him skittish. Even Mizer feared repercussions since "it will look dangerously like an organization which might effectively resist the postal distaste for physique work." Postal authorities may not have viewed it as a threat, but such organizational power was clearly at the forefront of Mizer's thinking.

Mizer's efforts at consolidation drew inspiration from the most prominent scholar and writer on the subject of sex in America. Like other early activists for gay rights, Mizer had read Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and considered it pivotal for his understanding of homosexuality as a naturally and frequently occurring variation of human activity. "Dr. Kinsey's first book was the most important one in my whole life," Mizer wrote to a colleague, "and for it I owe him a debt I could probably never repay. "

As an avid collector of materials to document American sexual culture, Kinsey became a regular Mizer customer, and the two quickly established an active correspondence that lasted nearly until Kinsey's death in 1956. On his many visits to Los Angeles, Kinsey met with Mizer and conducted sexual histories of his fellow physique photographers and models. Mizer even forwarded his frequent customer questionnaires to Kinsey for tabulation, thereby offering him indirect access to his customer base. In return, Kinsey offered strategic advice about how best to combat postal authorities.

Because of his own struggles with postal and customs authorities over shipments of erotic materials to his institute at Indiana University, Kinsey had developed relationships with prestigious law firms specializing in the First Amendment. It was he who suggested that physique publishers could win at the appellate level if they could find a way to sustain and finance their legal cases. "I have suggested before that all of you photographers should band together and employ the very best attorney that you can in the L.A. area to advise you and to handle individual cases," Kinsey wrote to Mizer in 1951, just as Mizer was establishing Physique Pictorial. Kinsey suggested that photographers of female nudes had tried to do this but never succeeded at forming a united group. While Mizer never formally organized his fellow physique photographers, he and his magazine served as a de facto central bureau of information, connecting customers, photographers, and publishers.

Tapping into an underserved gay market, Mizer's business flourished. As Mizer later remembered, "there was not such a thing at the time as a magazine that showed a variety of young, youthful models – not supermen – which is what most people wanted." Through his customer questionnaires, Mizer knew what his clients wanted: less information on weightlifting and exercise and more models. One twenty- two-year-old customer from Winchester, Massachusetts, remarked how Mizer's models were becoming "more youthful, slimmer and more suggestively posed" and encouraged him to be upfront about it – not to "hide all this under the general category of art photography," a common claim of photographers offering undraped nudes. As he wrote to Mizer, "It appears to me that by the constant polls you all seem to be taking so that you may satisfy your customers, you are catering more and more to the homosexual trade." Models, too, knew what Mizer was up to. "I think Bob was, um, interested more in the gay magazines than the bodybuilding ones," remembered model Ben Sorensen. "I'm straight, but that didn't bother me at all. Everybody at the gym knew what they were doing with the photos."

Within a year of establishing AMG, Mizer reported a gross monthly income of $700-annualized, this amounted to nearly three times the average family income of 1947. Mizer had hired his brother as a full-time employee and had nearly $2,000 in savings. His mailing list already contained customers from "practically every country in the world," according to the district attorney who prosecuted his case. "It grew like Topsy – a little bit each time," Mizer remembered.33 He soon began offering a "Nickle Plan," similar to a monthly book club, where customers would regularly receive photographs from each new AMG album. Wishing to respond to the particular desires of his customers, he allowed them to specify what types of models and photographs they preferred not to receive: "models over or under ages, races, slender or very heavy weights, poses with girls, models in clothing or part clothing such as Levis, models in trunks, portraits." Mizer was already engaging in specialization, acknowledging the particular sexual desires, fetishes, and prejudices of his customers.

Although Physique Pictorial could increasingly be found on select newsstands, Mizer's initial sense of it as a catalog of merchandise for subscribers endured. He recalled that although magazine wholesaler Lou Elson began to distribute it in New York after a year or two on the market, newsstand sales did not substantially increase total circulation. "Its circulation was horrible. It was very hard to get. Most newsstands didn't carry it," remembered Chuck Renslow, then a fellow physique photographer in Chicago. Mizer himself called his newsstand circulation "quiet select." Continually struggling to find a newsstand distribution network, he mostly sold Physique Pictorial by subscription. But he was proud of his independence – unwilling to bow and scrape to distributors or advertisers. In addition to working with a few wholesalers, Mizer sent copies himself to select newsstands. "Tell your dealer about this and give him our address," he suggested to readers, trying to get them actively involved in increasing circulation. When Physique Pictorial did manage to appear on newsstands, it sold out almost immediately.

In 1963 AMG tried to diversify and modernize by offering a large format, color magazine called Young Adonis to supplement the black-and-white Physique Pictorial. It was a sell-out wherever it was sold, but again Mizer had trouble getting it on newsstands. The distributor wrote Mizer a two-page letter describing the magazine's "sins." Although Mizer promised future issues would feature new offerings, including a fashion section handled by model Mark Nixon, it was the only issue Mizer offered.

FROM GUILD TO NETWORK

Mizer's choice of the term "guild" to refer to his business started a trend among physique photography studios. Don Whitman founded the Western Photography Guild in Colorado in 1947 and soon had advertisements next to AMG's in the back of Strength & Health. In Metairie, Louisiana, a group of physique photographers and artists launched the Southern Guild. And in Portsmouth, Virginia, George U. Lyon and Charles E. Smith started Underwood Photographic Guild. The word "guild" could refer to any association of people with a common goal but historically referred to a group of craftsmen or merchants who exerted some control over their trade. As an avid reader, Mizer was probably well aware that medieval guilds were famous for regulating entry into a profession and often exerted considerable power in city government. His choice of words suggests his aspirations to unite, protect, and empower those involved in the physique field. It was the same term Harry Hay would use as he began organizing the Mattachine Society as a gay political group across town a few years later.

In keeping with the spirit of a guild, Mizer cooperated with and promoted the work of other photographers. He would share or sell mailing lists to competitors and alert readers when new physique magazines were launched or studios opened. "Physique Pictorial is not a closed enterprise and any legitimate studio can be represented in it," he promised. By 1954 he regularly included a directory of photographers, artists, and models selling merchandise, a custom followed by many later physique magazines. He was happy to note when individual models offered their own photos directly to readers. When he had a disagreement with a physique artist, he let readers know that the artist's work could now be found in a competing magazine. 

As the number of physique studios catering to gay men proliferated, Mizer's magazine functioned like a Better Business Bureau. Mizer barred advertisements from studios who were known to be unreliable, gave bad service, or sold illegal material (although he included photos with "inked" pouches, indicating the original photograph was in the nude.) He threatened to publicly denounce photographers who were territorial and unwelcoming to new talent in their area, and he was quick to publicly reprimand photographers who did not reciprocate his courtesies. Mizer also warned readers of offers from the "get-rich- quick boys" promising special pictures available only to a few "intimate friends." Given the Post Office's vigilance, he knew that studios selling nudes would not last long. "Every mailing list is peppered with postal inspectors and their collaborators," he cautioned. After sending in an exorbitant fee, the customer might receive nothing. He encouraged readers to confess their stories of being victimized by such schemes.40 Envisioning a constantly widening network of producers and consumers, Mizer sought to place himself at its fulcrum. Soon he was offering a host of consumer items – artwork, slides, viewers, and "garments for athletes" including jeans, T-shirts, bathing suits, and the ubiquitous posing straps. Physique Pictorial functioned as a nexus for finding, producing, selling, and admiring male photos. Other studios described AMG as a one-stop shopping experience: "one of the largest photo guilds in the country and supplies about everything a photo collector or bodybuilder wants: movies, garments, thousands of all sizes of photos, color slides, and many other works of art." 

The network grew increasingly international as Mizer featured photographs by Arax of Paris and models wearing trunks from Vince of London. He soon had agents in Belgium, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Japan. By 1962 Mizer sponsored European tours for physique enthusiasts, "to photograph local athletes, and to visit famous clubs of special interest."

Mizer encouraged not only other physique photographers but a new and growing group of physique artists in his magazine. AMG became a generative center that showcased the work of talented young painters and sketch artists who then developed their own followings that often eclipsed Mizer's own popularity. In 1957 he introduced an unknown artist who "depicts the healthy robust youth of the forests of Finland," who would later reach international renown as "Tom of Finland." But it was an artist from Virginia, George Quaintance, who created what Mizer called a "vogue" that was widely imitated.

Quaintance had begun taking photographs and drawing sketches of male nudes under the tutelage of Lon of New York. He had worked drawing bodybuilding champions for the cover of Joe Weider's Your Physique, but it was when he started painting for Bob Mizer's new magazine that his career took off. Set either at a dude ranch in Arizona, where he lived, or at a bath in ancient Greece, Quaintance's paintings created the kind of playful environment of easy male camaraderie that Mizer sought to foster through his magazine. And like Mizer, Quaintance considered his homoerotic artwork to be "a crusade for the rights of the feelings" of his customers. "I too feel that I crusade in my attempt to supply, or satisfy, a deep emotional hunger in the inner lives of my customers," he explained to a homophile leader. Soon his mailing list of ten thousand active buyers around the world surpassed that of Mizer. He offered not only physique paintings but prints, photographs, and sculptures, expanding his business to a four-man operation. "It grew too fast.... I'm trying to adjust myself to all the confusion," he wrote at the time. Those who met him as he toured the country selling his artwork describe a flamboyant artist who loved wearing western gear, turquoise jewelry, and showing off his young Mexican American lover and frequent model, Eduardo.

What distinguished Quaintance's artwork was not just the invitation to view nearly naked men but the excitement of seeing them looking at each other, as Michael Bronski has argued. One of Quaintance's first cover images for Physique Pictorial demonstrates how groundbreaking those gazes were. "Morning in the Desert" featured four ranch hands around an outdoor bath dressing and preparing for work. One naked bather is standing, his genitals covered only by soapsuds. Another naked man lies below him in a tub of water, looking directly up at the other's body. But for the cover of the magazine, to pass postal censors, Quaintance shifted the man's head to the left, so his gaze no longer fell longingly on his fellow naked male bather. Like his better-known successor, Tom of Finland, Quaintance constructed a "network of looks" that included and invited those of the viewer, furthering the sense of homoerotic identification.

Mizer's growing network of photographers, artists, and other physique-related businesses used a language of friendship and camaraderie that further encouraged a sense of community. Seattle physique artist William MacLean set up a studio and invited new and emerging physique artists to market their work through him. This offer featured a photograph of the very handsome artist hanging images in his exhibit space, noting suggestively that he was "a very eligible bachelor" and therefore "his studio is a gathering place for the young social set and many a party is hosted there." London model Clive Jones sold his images directly and promised to handle orders personally. "Clive would like to hear from his many friends in America" and promised to send a catalog of images of himself and his "buddies" in London.

Mizer offered slides of physique models intended to be projected on a wall or screen for group viewing. One of MacLean's more reproduced drawings showed a group of men admiring AMG slides and imitating the poses of the models. When Mizer began making physique film shorts, he called for readers to submit script ideas, giving members yet another way to participate. He offered suggestions on where to buy a good, inexpensive projector and soon began renting the films at a quarter of the price of purchasing one. In words and images, he encouraged readers to share the experience of watching physique films. "Imagine what a hit these films would be at your next party or gathering of friends who are physical culture enthusiasts!" Indeed, much of the allure of participating in this network, whether as a producer or as a consumer, was the sense of community it offered.

Mizer's own rhetoric helped to solidify that sense of community. Boasting that his magazine lacked "mass appeal," he explicitly signaled his targeting of a minority population, what he called "the limited aesthetic group" who appreciated the male body. Mizer was borrowing a gay discourse developed in the late nineteenth century, a period he knew well from his reading of Boris Brasol's biography of Oscar Wilde. As art historian Christopher Reed argues, "The Wilde trials seemed to reveal homosexuality as the secret behind the enigmatic passions of the Aesthetes, tainting the entire movement, all of its products, and even the idea of aesthetic sensitivity." 

Indeed, the modern identities of "the homosexual" and "the artist" – both considered manifestations of innate predispositions – developed nearly simultaneously in the nineteenth century, as both creating art and committing sodomy moved from activities to ways of being. "Artistic" quickly became euphemistic slang for "queer." Painter Paul Cadmus remembered how the association had transferred to the American scene by the 1930s. "The word homosexual was never used," he remembered. "They just said, 'He's an artist." American psychiatrists, too, described men suspected of homosexuality as "aesthetic in temperament." Thus when Mizer adopted this language, praising Quaintance for his "neo-aestheticism" and imagining his audience as "the limited aesthetic group," he was signaling to and helping to construct a distinct gay identity among his readers.

"THE TV SHOW THAT MADE AMERICA GASP!"

Physique Pictorial's increasing circulation came with its own risks. Its presence on Los Angeles newsstands soon caught the attention of Paul Coates, a conservative columnist for the afternoon tabloid the Los Ange- les Mirror, known for exposing what he considered to be the seamier side of life in Southern California – prostitutes, repo men, drug addicts, and shoplifters. In 1954 Coates used his local television program Confidential File on KTTV to alert his audience to the "unpleasant fact" of homosexuality in Los Angeles. It was the first prime-time television program to broach the topic and helped propel Coates's show into national syndication. Coates featured footage of a Mattachine Society meeting with well-dressed men and women drinking coffee and eating cookies. He also gave his audience a glimpse inside a gay bar. But he ended the show by holding up a copy of Physique Pictorial as a shocking example on city newsstands of the publications catering to homosexuals. According to one tabloid, it was "the TV show that made America gasp!" Working closely with the local Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Coates couched his programming as a crusade to warn families of the dangers homosexuals posed to children. He followed up with three newspaper columns devoted exclusively to the presence of gay maga-zines on the city's newsstands. Although concerned about the homophile magazine ONE, which billed itself as "The Homosexual Magazine," he noted that its editors at least made an effort to avoid the lurid. Physique Pictorial, however, was "thinly veiled pornography" that appealed to sex criminals and sadists. Coates claimed that this "Esquire for men who wish they weren't" featured images of men in chains being beaten and stabbed – a sensational reading of Mizer's photographs with swords and chains as props. He highlighted the case of one of Mizer's teenage models from Muscle Beach-an active church member engaged to be married, he noted-who complained of unwanted homosexual solicitations after his photo appeared in Physique Pictorial. There were dozens of such dangerous photographers, Coates warned. "It's big business in our town."

Leveraging his connections to the powerful Chandler media family, Coates orchestrated an all-out assault on Mizer's business. After Coates's columns appeared, a phalanx of local government officials descended on Mizer's business. Police began to intimidate newsstands where his magazine appeared. City regulators inspected his home, and health officials tested his pet monkeys for diseases. The former model featured in Coates's column sued Mizer for invasion of privacy.

Most ominously, the story brought a plainclothes Los Angeles Police Department vice officer to his door asking to buy nudes. Mizer demurred, offering him only his usual catalogs of men in posing straps. Undeterred, Detective Philip Barnes asked who of the many other photographers featured in his magazine might offer nudes. Mizer again demurred, but Barnes had already visited the studio of Lyle Frisby, a young, up-and-coming Mizer protégé whose images Mizer often included in his magazine. More accommodating, Frisby sold him "inked" nude photos, where the posing straps could be easily rubbed off.

Coates proudly covered the sting operation in a subsequent column. To again sensationalize the threat posed to children, he noted ominously that Frisby's Los Angeles studio was located just 250 yards from an elementary school. Both Frisby and Mizer were promptly arrested for possessing and distributing lewd photographs – a violation of the Los Angeles municipal code allowing Coates's newspaper series to end on a note of civic triumph.

Frisby was easily convicted and spent time in prison. The prosecution of Mizer, however, was more complicated, since the focus of the charge was "aiding and abetting" the sale of lewd pictures. Detective Barnes testified that Mizer told him he could obtain nudes from any of his advertisers, but he failed to note this in his initial report. Mizer denied the claim, testifying that he told detective Barnes that nudes were illegal and unavailable in Los Angeles and that he personally advised all photographers not to deal in nudes. Either way, there was little evidence to link Mizer directly with Frisby's nude photos. Seeing the weakness of the "aiding and abetting" argument, the prosecutor argued that Mizer's own photos were obscene because they displayed both "scenes of brutality and torture" and "the uncovered rump." Mizer's lawyer, Herbert Selwyn from the ACLU, argued that Mizer's posing-strap images were no more lewd than those in classical statuary or in movies such as Garden of Eden, a film set in a nudist colony then screening in area theaters. He called it "the first uncovered rump case" in memory.

But as in almost all trials of physique photographers, the real issue was less the explicitness of the photos than the sexual orientation of their audience. Displaying his real concern, the judge told Selwyn, "These are nothing but pin-up pictures for homosexuals." To feed the judge's suspicions, the prosecutor displayed a copy of Confidential mag- azine at trial with the blaring headline "America on Guard! Homosexuals, Inc." Trying to further associate Mizer with the homosexual cause, he concluded his cross-examination by asking, "Do you also publish the magazine known as ONE?" The judge sustained Selwyn's objection but enjoyed a "hearty chuckle." He found Mizer guilty and sentenced him to ninety days in prison.

Mizer appealed his conviction, telling Kinsey he was willing to put a substantial dent in his bank account and solicit help from nudist and other groups. He convinced a British magazine to publicize the case. "It is odd that when I am one of the few physique photographers who does not deal in nudes that I should be picked out as the one who must fight for their legality," he complained to Kinsey, who thought he was singled out because of the size of his business. Mizer was the aggressive entrepreneur who took the physique business from the back pages of fitness magazines to the cover of his own magazine, openly challenging postal inspectors. Predictably, Mizer's conviction was overturned on appeal. "You have done very well to stand up for your legal rights," Kinsey congratulated him. But Mizer, concerned about the effect such news might have on the field of physique photography, did not gloat. "I am keeping news of our victory quiet because I think some of the photographers in our field need a bit of a deterrent to keep them in line."

Mizer and Barnes squared off again a year later, this time in a televised congressional hearing. Mizer and Frisby became fodder for Senator Estes Kefauver's traveling hearings on the alleged problem of juvenile delinquency in America, part of his bid to enhance his presidential aspirations. Kefauver got Benjamin Karpman, the chief psychotherapist at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., to testify that exposure to pornography at an early age could turn someone gay. Barnes described how he had confiscated pornographic materials from major national distributors Edward Mishkin and Irving Klaw. Some of the material was on display in posters lining the walls of the hearing room.

"Have you had any occasion to investigate cases wherein the use of male models might be used?" Kefauver asked, a delicate way to invoke homosexual erotica. Barnes outlined the case of Frisby and Mizer, pointing out that Mizer happened to be in the audience. Exaggerating the success of his efforts, he claimed he had confiscated $10,000 worth of materials from Frisby, that both men had been convicted of obscenity, and that Mizer's sentence had been overturned only because of a technicality. He highlighted the danger they posed to the public by noting the proximity of the school and the youth of the models.

Kefauver commended Barnes's efforts and noted what a difficult job he had, given how the courts and the legislatures continually failed to provide the tools he needed. Barnes impressed on the committee the need for a national agency to coordinate the efforts of local law enforcement to stamp out pornography. At the conclusion of the hearing, Senator Kefauver offered anyone who had been named the opportunity to correct inaccuracies. Detective Barnes looked squarely at Mizer, egging him on. Mizer contemplated speaking up but, aware of the presence of journalists and television cameras, decided instead to offer a written statement, his preferred form of communication.

In the pages of Physique Pictorial, Mizer denounced the hearings as "the grossest obscenity of public trust" he had ever witnessed. He accused Barnes of perjuring himself in his claims about Mizer's case. Within a year, however, Mizer enjoyed some schadenfreude when he revealed that Barnes was sent to prison for molesting his stepdaughter. He was also delighted to tell readers that Kefauver's chief counsel, James Bobo, was forced to resign after admitting to hosting private screenings of stag films for a Memphis fraternity. It all reinforced Mizer's conviction that the legal system was corrupt and that those who were most obsessed with fighting prurience were hypocrites.

Like many self-appointed guardians of American morality, Coates viewed both the Mattachine Society and the Athletic Model Guild as threats. But the reactions of the two organizations differed markedly. In 1953 Coates gave the Mattachine Society its first negative press coverage by suggesting that it had ties to communism. Coates's accusation caused a crisis in the organization, which led to the resignation of the original founders, many of whom had been members of the Communist Party USA. The organization was restructured and membership fell off. Historian John D'Emilio called it a "retreat to respectability," a turn away from political activism toward internal self-help tactics.

Coates's assault on Mizer was even more aggressive – involving the Los Angeles Police Department, a powerful U.S. senator, and backstage efforts to influence his obscenity trial – yet Mizer changed his operating procedures only slightly. He decided to tone down the "brutality" aspect of his images, eliminating props such as whips or chains. But on the issue of the "uncovered rump," Mizer stood his ground. "Bob has defied them," Kinsey noted of Mizer's refusal to succumb to a Post Office ultimatum barring nudes seen from behind. He also continued his feisty editorials, despite Kinsey's suggestion that he tone them down. "Certain principles I will not back down on," Mizer defiantly told Kinsey. 

Each of Mizer's encounters with law enforcement politicized him, and he, in turn, sought to politicize his readers. To supplement his personal experience, he read widely in popular and scholarly texts on censorship and sought to convey that knowledge to his readers. He noted that those who were opposed to physique magazines were organized into groups such as the National Organization for Decent Literature and had the ear of local and national politicians. He pointed out how local newspapers pressured newsstands and magazine distributors to discontinue all physique magazines. He urged readers to organize. When one reader suggested ignoring the censors, Mizer compared him to the Jews in Germany who "ignored the menace of Hitler."

Putting the issue in the context of human rights, Mizer called for a collective and activist opposition. "The censor is a bully and will back down if we all stand up to him." It was a theme he returned to frequently, asserting that putting one's head in the sand would not make the problem go away. He repeatedly implored customers to join the ACLU. "It's Your America," he reminded readers, and politicians and police were "your servants." He implored readers to write their representatives and local newspapers to defend freedom of expression. Otherwise, he warned, a state-controlled media will emerge that would be the envy of Hitler. According to his alarmist rhetoric, the ACLU was the only thing standing between the status quo and totalitarianism.

Mizer's editorials on censorship even seeped into model descriptions. He described Sonny Star, a lean model lounging by the pool, as being from Fargo, North Dakota, where a federal censorship trial was taking place. He railed against police corruption and governmental injustice so often that readers tired of his many editorials – one counted eight in a thirty-two-page issue and complained of all this "doomsday talk." Many just wanted information on where to purchase forbidden materials.

IRON MAN BETRAYAL

As Physique Pictorial and other physique magazines that emphasized the "aesthetic approach" flourished, they increasingly came into conflict with what Mizer called " 'hard-core' muscle magazines" or "old-school muscle books" that had fallen on hard times. He knew that their harsh critique of new magazines like his had alienated "the great bulk" of their readership. But he still encouraged readers to support these magazines and their veteran writers. "We cannot afford to lose them from the field," he generously noted.60 Mizer had gotten his start through the support of these editors and was not prone to burn bridges.

Mizer had an especially close relationship with Iron Man, founded by weightlifter Peary Rader in Nebraska in 1933. Mizer had contributed enough photographs to be listed as one of Iron Man's "staff photographers" in 1949. Some of Mizer's first catalog advertisements appeared in its back pages, and Rader had even printed the first issue of Physique Pictorial. But under pressure from the Post Office, Rader refused to print subsequent issues. Fearing the loss of his second-class mailing privileges, he then stopped running physique photography advertisements. And in 1956 he published a scathing editorial denouncing the "homosexual element" that had infiltrated bodybuilding and ruined its reputation. He called for a comprehensive "crusade" to clean up the sport, including a ban on nude or G-string photographs, fewer body-building contests, and more manly poses. He attributed the immorality that had seeped into bodybuilding to increasing "commercialism," emphasizing that his concerns were not only moral but also financial. Mizer felt sorry for Iron Man. "I doubt if many copies would be sold to those solely interested in the weightlifting results."

This attack from his former supporter and printer caused Mizer to pen his first editorial on "Homosexuality and Bodybuilding." Claiming to have less familiarity with the subject than the editors of Iron Man and others who seemed so preoccupied with it, Mizer first resorted to a version of the schoolyard taunt, "It takes one to know one." He did so by quoting one of the most famous closeted homosexuals in 1950s America. A London reporter had recently asked Liberace in the midst of a legal struggle with a tabloid that had outed him "Is your sex life normal?" Fully composed, Liberace hastily replied, "Yes, is yours?"

In many ways, Liberace and Mizer were in parallel situations. Both offered the public fairly open representations of gay life, but without the label. But because of their popularity, they had caught the attention of the media and were being tarred with the sin of homosexuality. But Mizer went beyond Liberace's taunt to frame the question in terms of civil rights. "We wonder if really good people show prejudice against any minority group," he wrote, comparing such prejudice to that against a particular religion, race, or political party. This effectively made Peary Rader the one guilty of immorality and repositioned the debate on homosexuality within the realm of minority rights. Most important, he referred readers to the homophile groups Mattachine Society and ONE for more factual information.

Mizer's mailbox must have been full after this unusually frank editorial. He noted that readers clamored for him to reprint letters, demonstrating their desire to connect to each other, to see who else was out there reading Physique Pictorial. Mizer printed only four responses. One called Mizer "naïve" for not realizing that all bodybuilders are in some way homosexual, since they are so obsessed with the male body. Another expressed the opposite view, that such "he-men" could not possibly be sissies. But the most unusual letter came from the mother of four male bodybuilders-three of them married with children, the youngest openly gay. She described his difficult coming-out process, psychiatric consultations, and much anguish. But she then painted the picture of a happy, healthy gay domesticity. "John lives with another young man who shares his interests, both are highly successful in films, are 'accepted' everywhere." She thanked Mizer for his sympathetic attitude.

Mizer could not print any letters from openly gay readers for fear of confirming the concerns of censors. But he gave readers clues that he received many such letters. He noted that many had written in anonymously to "unburden [their] frustrations" and "project [their] own motives to us." Although such personal, confessional letters could not be shared, Mizer assured readers that he would send them to a "psychological research group for study," a probable reference to the Kinsey Institute. While Mizer had to be cautious about the content of his magazine to appease censors, his readers were often more explicit. Mizer considered many of the letters he received to be so salacious or incriminating that he did not want to keep them in his home in the event of a "purge" by authorities.

Art historians have documented the lasting impact that Bob Mizer's physique photography had on Western visual culture, influencing the work of such artists as Francis Bacon, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol. British painter David Hockney famously said, "I came to Los Angeles for two reasons: The first was a photo by Julius Shulman of Case Study House #21, and the other was AMG's Physique Pictorial." Dozens of high-end coffee table books attest to the lasting appeal of the artistic vision of Bob Mizer and his fellow gay physique photographers. But Mizer's business model was as generative as his photography. His business acted as a key catalyst for a gay consumer culture network, encouraging and popularizing many other gay mail-order businesses.

Although often portrayed as something of a bumbling loner, Mizer was at the center of an increasingly sophisticated gay network and came to be a leader of an effort to unite and defend the rights of gay men. It was a dream shared with early gay activist Manuel boy Frank, who, through his involvement in an early underground gay pen-pal club, had seen the potential power in gay men's interest in physique photography. Mizer, too, had an early sense of the depth of a gay market, through his work with Kovert's studio and his classified advertising in Strength & Health. He also had a great sense of the dangers involved. Each time Mizer had come under attack, he had come back more determined and open about his intentions. Neither the Post Office, nor the local vice police, nor vigilante journalists, nor mainstream muscle magazines deterred him. Over the course of his career he tried various tactics: reasoning with authorities, cautioning his fellow photographers, fanning the flames of outrage, and encouraging collective action. He had been on a crusade since high school to stand up and make the world a better place for his fellow homosexualists, and Physique Pictorial was his vehicle.

Mizer saw Alfred Kinsey as a hero and collaborator in this crusade because he saw Kinsey's scientific work as a vehicle for increasing tolerance. "One of the greatest values of your present work will be to allow at least the ones who read it to realize they are not uniquely perverse because of either their overt or desired behavior," he wrote to Kinsey. "Many a man will be able to hold his head a little higher and square back his shoulders and know he is not disgustingly 'abnormal' merely because he is gifted with more healthy, vital sex powers than his sanctimonious moral condemner." But what Mizer wrote so admiringly of Kinsey also applied to his own life's work. Mizer took inspiration from his academic friend and advisor, offering the same message of healthy normality in a more visually accessible format, reaching a much wider audience. He provided images to substantiate Kinsey's scientific treatise.

Like his mentor, Mizer was something of a workaholic, shooting still or moving film nearly every day of his life. But his ambitions were not monetary. Although by the end of his life he had expanded his home-studio property in Los Angeles to include several adjoining homes and a pool, it was never lavish. It became a sort of dormitory or homeless shelter for wayward models. Friends remember him in later years wearing glasses held together with tape and string. After his death in 1992, friends found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in film cans-proceeds never invested, or given much thought. Mizer's ambitions had not changed from the time he was in high school. He took pride in knowing his readers considered the arrival of his magazine like "a visit from an old friend." And since that old friend "always brings new friends with him," he hoped it offered his readers the sense that they were part of a large, welcoming community similar to the one he had discovered in Pershing Square. As he told his readers, he hoped all who read his magazine carefully – who "take the trouble to study" it – would take away a message of "hope and inspiration."

Hope was the message that Noel Gillespie found in Physique Pictorial when he discovered it as a teenager. He remembered it as "a gay-oriented oasis" in a Cold War desert of prudery and macho conformity. He considered Mizer less a salesman than "an old friend and confidante" because of all his "chatty remarks" among the model images. Gillespie praised Mizer's editorials on the "anti-nudity, anti-gay, anti-free speech attitudes" of the period. He recalls how he eagerly antici- pated each new issue for both Mizer's "latest fresh-faced discoveries and his candid and for the period, courageous commentaries." Beyond this special bond with Mizer, he also felt linked to his fellow subscribers through their occasional letters to the editor, which he thought made Physique Pictorial "more a friendly resource than a mere sales catalogue."

Hope was exactly the message that a young David Hurles understood when he encountered Physique Pictorial on newsstands in Cincinnati in 1957. "I came face to face with the awesome and wonderful knowledge of a place somewhere different from any place I yet knew," Hurles later wrote. He remembered following Mizer's exploits closely, noticing when he put in a swimming pool in 1956. "His pictures, magazines and films turned us on. But more than that, they gave us hope," Hurles eulogized at the time of Mizer's death in 1992. Hurles later became a Mizer protégé and went on to produce his own magazine. "Bob revealed the evidence which made us certain that what we desired and needed did, in fact, exist."

-- from David K. Johnson's Buying Gay.

[psalm22-6]

The difficulty of disliking Les Misérables when the year is 1862 and all your friends are fans

In this post, I want to explore a particular dimension to the politics involved in reviewing Les Misérables in 1862, through the writings of Horace de Lagardie. “Horace de Lagardie,” according to the 1884 book Les Pseudonymes du jour, was the pen name of one Madame de Peyronnet. Although there is some confusion over her identity (see here), I am fairly certain that the woman in question is Georgina Frances de Peyronnet (née Whitfield), a British journalist who lived and worked in France. Her father owned a slave plantation in the West Indies and she married a French count of little importance (it is believed that she was the author of the translations published under his name). She wrote a column called the Revue du Mois in Charpentier’s Revue nationale et étrangère. She also published a collection of those articles under the title Causeries parisiennes (Parisienne chit-chat). Lagardie disliked Les Misérables for a number of stylistic and ideological reasons that I won’t get into here (believe me, it would be a long list) but her articles also offer commentary on the constraints she felt on her ability to voice that dislike. In her first article about Fantine, she writes:

The arrival of the two volumes forming the first part of Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Misérables, has proved a useful diversion. All other subjects of conversation pale before this work, around which a unanimous chorus of praise is raised. Today he who would permit himself to utter the most minor discordant note would be very poorly received and the voice of criticism, even in the most respectful form, is rarely heard. To tell the truth, the passionate admiration that is being produced is a bit astounding to the observer who only sees this book as a literary work. It is difficult to understand how people who didn’t admire Notre Dame de Paris or le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné are so enthusiastic about a work that is similar to them in so many ways, both in its beauty and its faults. This cannot be explained either by admiration for its author or by sympathy for his social theories and it is evident that one must take into account the pedestal of exile from which Victor Hugo has not yet descended.

There’s so much to talk about in just that paragraph! First, there’s her assertation that there was a “unanimous chorus of praise” surrounding Les Mis. Despite the fact that there were negative reviews within three days of the publication of Les Misérables, Hugo’s (successful) advertising strategy (which consisted of asking friendly papers to publish praise alongside excerpts of the book) led to the accusation/impression that there was only praise for the book and that those papers were promoting Les Misérables not in support of the book (as a literary or philosophical work) but in opposition to Napoleon III. (This claim had some merit but the full extent to which it is true is not the subject of this post.)  The reference to Hugo’s exile was another common talking point in the same vein. The reason one might praise Les Mis to express one's dislike of Napoleon III is simply because it was not permitted to criticize Napoleon III in a newspaper. To evade censorship, praising Hugo would signal one’s political sympathies. Lagardie notes how adept journalists had become in this form of evasion:

It is certain that the art of saying without speaking and the use of innuendo have made great progress in France, and it is no longer with clarity that the French mind shines today.

Besides those who wrote disingenuous positive reviews of Les Misérables, there was a sizeable contingent of people who opted to say nothing at all rather than criticize Hugo. But only a few journalists who (ostensibly) shared (some) of Hugo's political views, Lagardie among them, opted to criticize his newest work. Lagardie observed that:

As soon as the work was published, and following the publishers' preliminary advertisements, we saw first articles by friends who praised universally and en bloc; then came the real critics, then finally the detractors, personal enemies or intolerant adversaries.

But Lagardie positions herself as none of the above, stating: “I think the time has come to state my opinion [on the first volume]. I think it's essentially the opinion of many people who are not as well placed as I am to express it frankly.” Although I agree with basically nothing she has to say about the contents of the book, it is interesting to note that she was one of the few women positioned to have her opinion published. Maybe her relative anonymity is what gave her the freedom to express her dissent? (Side note: it’s possible that Hugo read Lagardie’s review of Fantine. Lacroix definitely did and mentions it to Hugo among a list of negative reviews. “So much the better!” he wrote. “A controversy around Les Misérables is excellent. It's the consecration of success and proof of the work's strength.”) In Lagardie’s review of Cosette and Marius (released simultaneously a month after Fantine), she wonders whether she should continue to publish her negative review since there are so many positive reviews from the journalists in her sphere:

I am beset by doubt over my own competence. Can I be correct, opposed as I am to so many people, especially journalists, and to the author himself; and will I be permitted to judge by the ordinary rules of good taste and good sense a work which, according to general consensus, should be placed above common law? Evidently, I have a different tuning fork than the other critics–at least different than the one they use to tune their writing.

Lagardie asserts that there is a gap between what critics are writing and what they are saying privately (which we know to be true to an extent).

When the public isn't there and the doors are closed, more than a few change their tune, and are more in unison than you might think with "the one who writes these lines," to borrow a favorite expression of the author of Les Misérables.

I've noticed this somewhat contradictory claim in quite a few reviews: that Hugo was buoyed by misguided supporters who made dissenters afraid to voice their opinions, but also that Hugo actually had no supporters at all. Lagardie notes Hugo’s strategy of courting positive reviews. He wrote letters of thanks to the authors of almost all the positive reviews (and this wasn’t new. There were already jokes about how he did this before the publication of Les Misérables). Specifically, she criticizes how in these letters of thanks Hugo encourages the recipients to support political reform.  She cites this letter from Hugo to the publisher of Le Théâtre, Anatole Cerfberr:

With auxiliaries such as yourself, the work I have undertaken will succeed: the recasting of the old world in the mold of the new; the purification of the reality in the crucible of the ideal.

(Note: I assume that Cerfberr, one of Hugo's most enthusiastic supporters, published this letter in Le Théâtre but there is no online archive of that paper, much to my disappointment so I can’t verify this. However, Hugo did use the phrase “with auxiliaries such as yourself” and expressed similar sentiments in several of these letters of thanks.) Lagardie wonders how Les Misérables could achieve the goal outlined in that letter:

As a plan, that’s not so bad; but as a call to action? Here is what I found by randomly opening the latest volumes: “This book is a drama whose main character is the Infinite. Man is the second.” How is it that I didn’t understand all that? Must I accept the explanation I received the other day from a devotee? “You don't understand it,” he told me, ��because you don’t like it.”

In the case of Lagardie, based on her reviews, I think she probably did understand the book, it was just more radical than she would agree with. To this point, we can look at her commentary on the banquet held in Bruxelles in September 1862 to celebrate the success of Les Misérables. About 80 journalists (not all of them French) traveled to Belgium for the occasion.

Without a doubt many people will agree with me that the success of Les Misérable is no reason for Europe to rejoice; but we understand that, in spite of Les Misérables, they wanted to pay homage to a writer who has engaged two generations of enthusiastic readers, and we are saddened by the thought that they had to cross the border in order to do so. [emphasis original] 

Ouch. At the banquet, Hugo gave a speech in which he claimed that it was the role of the free press to bring down the old society and remake it. Lagardie argues that there are things worth preserving in society, essentially showing that despite their shared dislike of Napoleon III, she had more conservative aims. But in summary, I think this series of reviews is interesting for the insight it gives us into the different political strategies that informed people's decision to review or not review Les Misérables. In another post, I will explore the review by Edmond Schérer, who had a similar approach to Lagardie. Thanks for reading!

Sources: Revue nationale et étrangère Causeries parisiennes Lacroix to Hugo, 4 May 1862 My research into the ID for H. de Lagardie

[barbiesmuse]

a silly sneak peak for my new series called "Welcome to New York." featuring pervyhoe!john and journalist!reader!! i hope you enjoy, love you always, natty.

October 20th.

John Price was a man who liked routine. If anything was even remotely out of order all hell would break loose. John saw it as a silly quirk, his past partners saw it as a deal breaker. Which is how he ended up here, watching his seventh girlfriend this year pack her things. He watched as she packed her belongings in a cluttered manner. He couldn't help but cringe at the sight. Her clothes overflowing as she stuffs them in the cardboard box. As she heads for the door, she and John make eye contact. John can't help but chuckle at her glare and wave her off, he told himself again and again that he was getting too damn old for this. As the girl walks out of his condo John can't help but sigh. It wasn't like he was attached to these women, they were just simple sleeves for his cock until he found a pretty little housewife. John runs a hand over his face, his beard hairs scratching against his palm. He lets out a low grunt before heading to bed, as he trudges up the stairs he spots the woman's red lace panties. He let out a quiet chuckle before picking them up and stuffing them inside his pocket. She'd left them on purpose. After all, John was a hard man to get over. He would worship you like you were a goddess, all to sneak out the next morning. October 21st.

As John made his way into headquarters he picked up the newspaper, exchanged pleasantries with the secretaries, and even gave the nurse a nod. He was in a good mood, and when John was in a good mood all was right in the world. The sound of his heavy boots filled with halls as he made his way to the break room for his morning coffee. He threw the newspaper on the table before grabbing a mug, as Soap walks in he can't help but roll his eyes. He did not have the time for his childish banter. Not after he spent the whole night fisting himself with those red lace panties.

“Mornin' Cap, have a good weekend?” Soap says as he comes beside his Captain. He smelled of liquor and sex, his hair was disheveled, and his pants were unzipped. John let out a scoff before pouring the rest of the coffee into his mug. “No, but I can see you've had a good morning,” John says before licking the coffee that drips from the black pot. Soap lets out an embarrassed chuckle and takes a seat next to Price as he sits at a table.

Soap opens the newspaper and is met with the same column every time, written by a young female journalist. Soap would know because his wife practically lived off of it. He lets out an annoyed groan before turning to see any big news. There was none, the only interesting thing on the paper that morning was that damn fashion and gossip column. John quirked an eyebrow up at his exasperated expression, he didn't want to know, but the awkward silence in the room was slowly eating away at him.

“Sorry Cap, s' just this damn fashion column is what takes up the paper these days. S' all my wife talks about with her friends, I mean I get it. The journalist is a fuckin' babe. S' just annoyin', continue y'r coffee.” Soap rambles, although John doesn't really listen after the mention of Soap's wife. That woman had been eyeing him since Soap had joined the Task Force. John nods before speaking firmly, “We've got a briefing in less than twenty minutes, I suggest you fix yourself up now unless you have a kink for embarrassment.” Soap nods before scurrying out of the break room.

John grabs the newspaper and his eyes widen at the black and white picture of you. He could only imagine what you looked like in person, how fucking beautiful you were. You looked as if you belonged in the Louvre. His eyes trail down to your column, he can't help but chuckle at the name.

❝𝐒𝐞𝐱 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲!❞ The guide to Vogue, sex, and cigarettes.

John was more than intrigued he was captivated by you, even from words you had caught him by the balls. As he continued reading he couldn't help but start to wonder who you were. How did you get to be this mysterious woman who he craved to know more about? John grabbed the paper and left the break room, his coffee now cold and lonely. Hell, who needed it when you had given him just enough energy by showing the tiniest bit of cleavage! John walks into the briefing room as if he's in a hurry. He looks around at the men before mumbling, “Meetings canceled.” In ten minutes you had thrown John completely off of his game. Where was the order and routine he usually lived for? Had he thrown it all out the window for a pretty little minx such as yourself? Of course, because when John saw something he liked; he needed to have it. No matter what it took. John barges into his office and locks his door, he couldn't be seen reading some girly column in the paper. His eyes trailed down to your column, and he began reading his eyes squinting at the use of your tiny font.

[helenvader]

My old post is nowhere to be found, so here's a new one, since I got to the place during my re-read.

---

I love how Havelock makes Moist stew by deliberately NOT mentioning the cartoon (that Drumknott mentions previously so as to prepare the ground), and also, in a trademark move, starts the discussion by something absurd so as to make him even more confused.

Lord Vetinari seemed oblivious of Moist’s presence, and Moist wondered what effect a polite cough might have. At which point, the newspaper rustled. ‘It says here in the Letters column,’ said the voice of the Patrician, ‘that the phrase “stick it up your jumper” is based on an ancient Ephebian saying that is at least two thousand years old, thus clearly predating jumpers but not, presumably, the act of sticking.’ He lowered the paper and looked at Moist over the top of it. ‘I don’t know if you have been following this interesting little etymological debate?’ ‘No, sir,’ said Moist. ‘If you remember, I spent the past six weeks in a condemned cell.’ His lordship put down the paper, steepled his fingers, and looked at Moist over the top of them. ‘Ah, yes. So you did, Mr Lipwig. Well, well, well.’

---

Lord Vetinari returned to his desk and picked up the paper. It’s right there on the front page, Moist thought, he can’t have not seen it … ‘Er … about the other thing …’ he ventured, staring at the cartoon.

‘What other thing would that be?’ said Lord Vetinari. There was a moment’s silence. ‘Er … nothing, really,’ said Moist. ‘I’ll be off, then.’ ‘Indeed you will, Postmaster. The mail must get through, must it not?’ Vetinari listened to distant doors shut, and then went and stood at the window until he saw a golden figure hurry across the courtyard.

---

It also made me laugh that Drumknott expresses his approval. :-)))

Drumknott came and tidied up the ‘Out’ tray. ‘Well done, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you, Drumknott.’

[no-side-us]

The Invisible Man, Ch. 18 - The Invisible Man Sleeps

He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. “Ah!” he said, and caught up the St. James’ Gazette, lying folded up as it arrived. “Now we shall get at the truth,” said Dr. Kemp. He rent the paper open; a couple of columns confronted him. “An Entire Village in Sussex goes Mad” was the heading.

The St. James' Gazette was a conservative newspaper in the 1890s, which, among other things, supported the British occupation of Egypt and opposed Irish sovereignty. I'm not sure how Wells personally viewed the Gazette, but by referencing it here and having Kemp regard its reporting as the "truth," we're probably supposed to have some assumptions of where Kemp's values are likely aligned.

The little snippet we do get of the paper itself doesn't express those values however, cause we only get their view of the Invisible Man debacle, which it regards as a fabrication that is nonetheless "too good not to print,"

Ran through the streets striking right and left. Jaffers insensible. Mr. Huxter in great pain—still unable to describe what he saw. Painful humiliation—vicar. Woman ill with terror! Windows smashed. This extraordinary story probably a fabrication. Too good not to print.

There's something to be said about how the St. James Gazette mirrors Kemp's initial reaction to the idea of an Invisible Man, dismissing it as nothing more than an exaggerated story, only to be proven very wrong in Kemp's case. And despite the paper being only a brief part of the chapter, it does provide a lot of context that was fun to figure out.

Bonus fun fact, the St. James Gazette was bought in 1903 by C. Arthur Pearson, who founded Pearson's Weekly where The Invisible Man was first published and serialized.

Moving on, Kemp's reaction to the paper is pretty interesting:

He caught up the paper again, and re-read the whole business. “But when does the Tramp come in? Why the deuce was he chasing a tramp?” He sat down abruptly on the surgical bench. “He’s not only invisible,” he said, “but he’s mad! Homicidal!”

I never thought about it this much before, but it seems that in the previous chapter when Griffin mentioned his confederate "who tried to steal my money," Kemp didn't put it together that it was Marvel, nor does he know that Marvel was the tramp Griffin was chasing. From his point of view, that tramp was just some random guy Griffin was going after, which would explain why Kemp thinks Griffin has become a homicidal maniac.

Then there's this paragraph when Kemp reads the next morning's paper which would confirm it:

This gave Kemp the essence of the happenings at the “Jolly Cricketers,” and the name of Marvel. “He has made me keep with him twenty-four hours,” Marvel testified. Certain minor facts were added to the Iping story, notably the cutting of the village telegraph-wire. But there was nothing to throw light on the connexion between the Invisible Man and the Tramp; for Mr. Marvel had supplied no information about the three books, or the money with which he was lined. The incredulous tone had vanished and a shoal of reporters and inquirers were already at work elaborating the matter.

Because Marvel never tells about the books or the money, his account of his time with Griffin is framed as an innocent man being forced to help a criminal against his will. All of this would therefore support Kemp's assumptions. The Jolly Cricketer's incident would also become framed less as Griffin getting revenge, but as the "rage growing to mania" Kemp thinks it is.

The end of the chapter, with Griffin waking up in a fit of anger, throwing and breaking things, probably doesn't help dissuade that view.

[misguidedandperplexed]

You know you're in too deep when you could relate any- and everything to your otp.

I... may be in too deep.

That being said...

One of the local newspapers my family subscribed to when I was a kid had a Readers Write column that was known for having ridiculous letters. Rumor had it that when the newspaper was in its infancy, the column wasn't getting many letters, so the editor asked their relatives to write and submit letters to stir up some mild controversy and get the column going.

In too deeping: Stucky fic idea? Bucky's relative is the editor and they ask Bucky to write letters. He writes a couple letters each week that "Steve from Bay Ridge" keeps (hotly) responding to, drawing out the controversies.

Bucky can't help getting reeled in; it gets to the point that any time he's not actively thinking about anything else, he's thinking about the next letter he's going to write and how "Steve from Bay Ridge" is going to respond. He's not falling in love with the guy, obviously, that makes no sense at all, (no, he is not in denial, why do you ask?), but he'd really like to meet him and be friends with him.

And then he does actually meet him. He's out somewhere and hears a guy talking, recognizes a couple of phrases "Steve from Bay Ridge" uses in his letters. He's sure it's a coincidence — it's not like he's the only person reading those letters, anyone else could have read them and started using those phrases — but then the guy gives his name as/someone refers to him as Steve.

He goes up to the guy, asks if he's "Steve from Bay Ridge". Steve's less than thrilled to find out the letters were fake, storms away from Bucky. He stops responding but then there's one he just can't let stand, so he responds, and Bucky thinks that might mean he has a chance.

That could be the end of it, or it could be pre-slash with Bucky apologizing and asking him out in the letters column (I hate open-ended fics, but sometimes they're warranted). Or, it could end with them having hate sex and then Steve admitting he doesn't actually hate Bucky.

Bonus: ~ The actual real newspaper that I mentioned in the beginning had a non-English word in its name that meant loyal/trustworthy/reliable, which I think is too ironic to not include in the fic. Steve definitely rants about this. ~ Some of Bucky's letters are a bit more controversial than they should be, with him expressing opinions or alluding to bigotry that he doesn't actually believe. Steve Actual-SJW Rogers thinks those are Bucky's real opinions and punches him.

@stucky-fic-idea-bank @stucky-fic-prompt