Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 11

 Ivy League Posture Photos

Yale started taking nude photos of incoming freshmen in 1919 as part of a program to detect and correct posture problems.  The Yale photos have erroneously been associated with William Sheldon, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Nazi-like eugenic theories who used Harvard nude posture photos to illustrate his theory of somatypes.  But, as far as I can tell, the Yale photos are not connected to Sheldon's work.

Here are four more posture photos taken at Yale that I had the opportunity to acquire.  For privacy reasons, I redact the names of men who might still be alive.  One of these men has passed away, so his name is not redacted.

This is Yale freshman Peter C. Hobart on Oct. 6, 1953.

An article in the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation described how in spring, 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to produce "PhotoMetric" posture photos like this showing front, rear, side and top views.

This is Yale freshman W.H. on Oct. 6, 1953.

Note the strange pins stuck to each student's back and chest.  The pins were stuck on at specific points for later posture analysis.  Supposedly, by examining the angles formed by connecting the points where the pins touched the body, certain posture problems could be detected.

This is Yale freshman R.H. on Oct. 7, 1953.

This is Yale freshman J.H. on Oct. 12, 1953.

Were these photos an invasion of privacy for the students?  By today's standards, yes.  By the standards of the day, not so much.  In that era, guys were routinely naked around each other in locker rooms and in swimming pools when women weren't present.  Being asked to strip and even being photographed naked as part of a posture examination would not seem too outrageous, since the staff conducting this was all-male (and remember that Yale was an all-male school).

The Naked Farmer - Part 8

 The Naked Farmer - Sponsors

We continue our series of photos posted by the Naked Farmer, Ben Brooksby, a young Australian farmer who takes and posts photos of naked Australian farmers on social media sites.  The naked photos are to get people's attention, and his message is to encourage people with mental health issues like suicidal thoughts to talk about it with someone and not to hide it away.  Ben himself had suffered from panic attacks in school.

Today we look at some photos that Ben has posted of organizations that have sponsored The Naked Farmer's trips around Australia to spread the word about mental health (and to take naked photos).

Clipex is an Australian company that makes fencing and stockyard equipment.  Above is part of a cattle crush, which is not what it sounds like.  It's an enclosure to herd the cattle through and hold them while safely weighing them, testing for TB, vaccinating them, etc.

Crop Opti is an Australian company that offers services like soil testing and weed, disease and insect testing and control, a well as selling farm merchandise and fertilizer.

Grow a Duck is a duck farm in western Victoria.  From this photo, it looks like all those ducks also produce a lot of "organic fertiliser."

Warrawindi Farms is a farm in South Australia that primarily raises cattle and sheep.

All the previous sponsors are agricultural organizations.  The last sponsor, Camera House, is a chain of camera stores all across Australia.  What could be more appropriate for the Naked Farmer, who showcases (naked) photography?

In turn, Ben has become a sponsor of Australian mental health organizations.  Funds that he raised from the sale of his book (above) and calendars were donated to the Royal Flying Doctors Mental Health Service.  The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides emergency and primary health care services to remote rural areas in Australia.

And kudos to Ben's sponsors for the naked photos and for sponsoring The Naked Farmer.

More Naked Farmer photos to come.

Boys and Their Balls - Part 30

 Dutch Soccer Club Interview

V. V. Woudenberg is the local football (soccer) club in the town of Woudenberg in the Netherlands.  In this video, reporter Filemon Wesselink interviews the players after a game for BNN, a Dutch broadcasting association supported by Netherlands Public Broadcasting.

As Filemon interviews the players in the locker room, they're getting undressed to head for the showers.  Undeterred, Filemon gets naked himself and follows them right into the shower room.  None of the players seem embarrassed about being interviewed naked.  Nobody tries to cover up.  They're naked in the locker room and in the shower; so what?  What could be more normal and natural?

The video is in Dutch, but you don't need to speak Dutch to enjoy it.  View the video full-screen for the best view.  The camera lens keeps fogging up in the shower, but the cameraman keeps wiping it clear for our viewing enjoyment.

Weighing In - Part 33

Kevin Dunsmoor

This is an update of a post from last April in which I showed this guy weighing in without a towel, but I had no information about him at all, other than the announcer calling out "Tom Strong" at the end, but that's the name of the next fighter, so that didn't help.

Recently, I found a slightly longer video clip of this weigh in (above) with some more info.  His name is Kevin Dunsmoor, and he is announced before he walks over and strips for the weigh-in.  The event was an MMA fight against Mamoru Yamaguchi on May 6, 2011.

I also found an interview with Dunsmoor that happened shortly before this fight.  The interviewer asked, "Tell us something about you that most people don't know."

Dunsmoor answered, "My wiener is stronger than underwear."

Beach Bums - Part 29

 Obelisk Beach, Sydney, Australia

Obelisk Beach is one of four official clothing-optional beaches in the Sydney area, located in the Sydney suburb of Mosman.

It overlooks Sydney Harbor near the harbor entrance.  The beach is within Sydney Harbour National Park.

The beach is quite small, but nice.

Although the beach is open to everyone, it's a favorite spot for Sydney gay men.

The sandy beach is nice for sunbathing (or sunbaking, as the Aussies say).

On each side of the beach are some rocks, which are also nice for sunbaking ...

Or whatever.

Another reason the beach is popular with gay men ...

is that the wooded area above the beach is a favorite spot for cruising.

A post on a Twitter page for the beach showed this platform-like structure in the woods ...

and also showed a video of what the locals use it for, from which I made this gif. This is not from a porn site; it's from this Twitter page about the beach: https://twitter.com/obeliskbeachsyd/

Photographers - Part 32

Matthew Leifheit

Matthew Leifheit, above, born in 1988, is a photographer, magazine editor and professor based in Brooklyn, NY.  He is Editor-In-Chief of MATTE magazine, the journal of emerging photography that he founded in 2010, and he is on the faculty of the Pratt Institute and Yale University.

After getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, he got a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale in 2017. While at Yale, he took photos for the student newspaper Yale Daily News, which was unusual for a grad student to do. But many of his photos didn't make it into the paper, so he created his own rogue newspaper for his photos. Above is one of his photos showing a student in the showers at the Yale gym.

Leifheit has had several solo exhibitions.  Above is a photo from a 2017 exhibition called Your Giorgio.

A 2018 exhibition was called Fire Island Night.  Fire Island, off the coast of Long Island, has long been a gathering place for New York gay men.  Leifheit is gay and is evidently well acquainted with Fire Island.  Some of the photos in this exhibition were taken in a gay hotel on Fire Island called The Belvedere Guesthouse for Men (above).

Another photo in The Belvedere.  It's a mansion built in 1957 in the style of a Venetian palace.  Leifheit's photos show it filled with naked men, so at first the photos look staged.

But the photo above (not by Leifheit) is from The Belvedere's website promoting the attractions of the place, so although Leifheit's photos of the place may be staged, nudity is apparently not unusual there.

The Fire Island Night exhibition also had photos of Fire Island denizens outdoors.

Another shot of Fire Island outdoor activity.

In 2022, Leifheit published a book To Die Alive containing more photos of Fire Island.  Here are some guys on the roof of The Belvedere.

And here's another outdoor shot, called They Live By Night.

We end with the latest shot by Leifheit that I could find, called Whitman's Sampler.  Matthew Leifheit is only 34 years old, so I'm sure he will be producing many more male nude photos.

Calendars - Part 31

All American Male Calendar 2018

The All American Male calendar was produced by an outfit called Trucker Cowboy Black and photographed by Desert Heat Images.  The calendar was produced and sold to benefit the Trevor Project, which is a suicide prevention organization for LGBT youth.

The photographer posted "nice" and "naughty" versions of the calendar models.  I don't know whether the calendar had two versions, nice and naughty, or whether the back cover, above, showed the nice images but inside were the naughty images.

In any case, you can compare these naughty images with the nice ones on the back cover.  This is Mr. January, who calls himself BallzRFull.  Unlike most naked calendars, which coyly hide frontal nudity behind various objects, the "naughty" images don't hide anything.

This is Mr. May, who goes by the name Cowboy Red.

This is Mr. June, Boots.  Another difference in this calendar (besides the full-frontal images) is that most of the models are mature men.

This is Mr. July, Trucker Joe.

This is Mr. August, Duke Ariat, who looks to be the youngest of the models.

This is Mr. September, J.D.

This is Mr. October, Big Sexy.

This is Mr. November, Major.

We end with a photo that did not appear in the calendar, but the photographer posted it on Twitter with the caption: "2018 calendar shoot.  TCB and Trucker Joe.  A producer's job can be a tough one."

Performers - Part 32

 Ewan McGregor

Most Americans probably know actor Ewan McGregor for his role as young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel movies (episodes I-III).  But McGregor has had a long film career, including "more full-frontal nudity scenes than any other A-list actor working today," according to Esquire magazine.  Above, a scene from the 2003 movie Young Adam.

McGregor was born in 1971.  One of his first roles, the 1993 British TV mini-series Scarlet and Black, established his nude acting credentials.  Above, in a superb scene of extended nudity, he escapes from a jealous husband.

1996 was a banner year for McGregor's nude acting.  In The Pillow Book, above, he exhibits a book written on his naked body to a Japanese publisher.

Also in 1996, he starred in Trainspotting, above, a critically acclaimed film about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh.

The 1998 film Velvet Goldmine is about a fictional Iggy Pop-like rock star.  Above, as the rock star, McGregor gets naked onstage and shows everything.

In 1999, McGregor played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode I, but he also made the movie Rogue Trader.  Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.  Wait a minute, are you mooning me?

Nora is a 2000 movie about Nora Barnacle and her husband James Joyce, played by McGregor.  Above, the two are going at it.

Above is the scene from the 2003 film Young Adam from which the photo at the beginning of this post was taken.  No artful concealment of frontal nudity here!

In the 2008 movie Incendiary, McGregor plays a man having an affair with a married woman.  While they fuck on the couch, above, they see on TV a terrorist suicide bombing at a football match that her husband and son are attending, and the plot goes on from there.

The Ghost Writer, 2010, is a neo-noir political thriller, but McGregor manages to show his ass getting into bed, above.

In Perfect Sense, 2011, we get another glimpse of McGregor's ass getting out of bed after sex, as well as a frontal glimpse.

T2 Trainspotting, 2017, is a sequel to the Trainspotting movie that helped make McGregor a star.  Above, a rear view of McGregor's character in bed with his girlfriend.  There are also scenes of him and a friend running around naked outdoors.

In this scene from Zoe, 2018, McGregor goes skinny dipping.

We end with McGregor getting out of bed in Doctor Sleep, 2019.  McGregor continues making movies, and at 51 his body is still in good shape, so I expect this isn't his last naked movie scene.

Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 26

 Cernunnos

Cernunnos was an ancient Celtic nature god from the northern part of Gaul (ancient France).  This is the oldest known depiction of him, on the Gundestrup Cauldron, dated between 150 BC and 1 BC.  His principal attributes are: he has antlers, he holds a torc (a neck ring) in one hand, and he holds a snake in the other.

On the Gundestrup Cauldron, Cernunnos is clothed, but almost all modern depictions show him naked, like the one above, perhaps because that brings him closer to nature.

This statue of Cernunnos is in the Museum of Witchcraft in Bostcastle, Devon, England.  Cernunnos has been adopted into the Wiccan religion as the Horned God, but it should be noted that he has antlers like a deer, not horns like a cow, and he should not be confused with the Devil, who is often represented with horns.  Cernunnos is a benevolent nature god.

Almost all modern representations of Cernunnos show him holding the traditional torc and snake, and many, like the one above, go a step further to show him with an erection, perhaps as a symbol of fertility.

This statue by Philip Hitchcock shows Cernunnos with antlers, with a snake, and with an erection, but the arm holding the torc is missing.

This 2021 bronze statue by Christophe Charbonnel is naked and has antlers, but the torc and snake (and the erection) are missing.

But all the pieces are there in this drawing by Antonius Subia.

This photo, labeled "The Horned Lord," tries to show the antlers in a different way.

Other photographers have created more compelling images, like this photograph of model Jurgen Hartl by photographer Andreas Bitesnich.

Our last photo was labeled "Buck."  I suspect the photographer and model were just playing around with the antlers, not knowing they were recreating a Celtic god.