Gay Thursday and After Dark Magazine


When is a gay magazine a gay magazine? From wikipedia:

Although not described as a "gay magazine", After Dark regularly covered topics of interest to the gay community. Cal Culver, better known as the gay porn star Casey Donovan, appeared on the cover of the December 1972 issue.[16] The February 1975 issue included a photographic portfolio of the gay porn star Peter Berlin.[17]

The May 1979 issue included a feature article on the G.G. Barnum Room, a New York City alternative nightclub catering to a gay and transvestite clientele. The feature article included information about the evolution / genesis of the club and the makeup of its then-current customers. The feature also contained a tandem piece on rollerskating disco, "Boogie on Wheels".[18]

The magazine publishers acknowledged the magazine's appeal to the gay community, noting that the magazine "had gotten a following in the homosexual community seven or eight years before any of the current homosexual magazines came on the market."[19]

Erotic content
The magazine, intentionally or not, provided a level of homoeroticism by regularly using images of nude or partially nude men for its cover and article illustrations. Although some illustrations of partially-clad or nude women were included at times, males comprised the majority of the subjects. Some of the illustrations related directly to the subject of the article, but others seemed to be used just for their nudity or partial nudity.

A feature article in the February 1977 issue, "Musclebound for Glory", contained photos of bodybuilders, thus relating the illustrations directly to the topic of the article. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the cover model for that issue and several photographs of him were used as illustrations in the article. In two photographs, he appears in the nude; one photograph shows part of his penis. The feature is an in-depth look at bodybuilding as "one of the most fascinating (and least explored) subcultures in America.".[20] Illustrated with pictures of barely-clothed bodybuilders, the article, intentionally or not, evokes homoeroticism.

One photograph in that issue that seems to use gratuitous nudity is one of actor Paul Charles, performing the role of "Mark" on Broadway in the musical A Chorus Line. The illustration is one of several for an article about current events on Broadway, and consists of a narrative text as well as photographs of performers with brief summaries of their productions in the captions of the photos.[21] Charles is photographed nude with a fur coat strategically draped over one shoulder that just covers his groin.



Pretend it's August 1982. How else you would know that the guy in those underwear ads happened to be Jack Scalia

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