[lbo-talk] a paean to male beauty

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Nov 23 06:43:09 PST 2005


<http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/11/every_era_has_i.html>

NOVEMBER 22, 2005 That Boy They Couldn't Forget

Every era has its beauty- the sex symbol who takes lust and awe and squeezes just a little bit tighter than anyone else would have dared. Because beauty is so ephemeral, many of our most-admired sex symbols have only become "legends" through savvy marketing, rather than through their native merits.

Take Bettie Page, for example- she was always extraordinary, but it was only after decades of cult worship, that she ascended to the Pantheon.

Male beauties have the hardest time making a mark in American pop culture, because their value is measured largely through teenage girls. James Dean may be the only American masculine beauty icon who "crossed over"- as much a legend to gay audiences as he is to straight ones, desirable to every genderation.

I'd like to nominate a new godhead. You may not know Peter Berlin's name, but you know his face and body as surely as you have walked down the street and a hot summer's day and had your head turned by a young man who looked like he was made for sexual worship.

[...]



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