Christmas

Christmas

 Last year I contributed a Christmas post to my friend Jerry's blog Vintage Muscle Men about the Twelve Days of Christmas, using the vintage photos that Jerry loves.  I slightly altered some of the wording – for example, who wants four calling birds when you could have four (naked) college nerds?  Here's my latest version using some not-so-vintage photos.  Enjoy.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Twelve drummers drumming

Eleven pipers piping

(Parade in New York City, 2015, answering the question: what does a Scotsman wear under his kilt?)

Ten lords a-leaping

Nine laddies dancing

Eight men "got milk"ing

Seven swimmers swimming

Six guys a-laying

Five golden rings

Four college nerds

(Yale students at the Yale-Harvard game in 2016)

Three French men

(French rugby players, from the making of the Dieux du Stade calendar, 2007)

Two Turkish hugs

(Turkish oil wrestlers)

And a partner in a pear tree.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Calendars - Part 14

Warwick Rowers

Every year since 2009, the rowing team of the University of Warwick, England has put out a nude calendar to challenge homophobia and to promote inclusivity in sport, regardless of sex, sexuality, race, or gender identity.

Noble goals aside, the calendar has become enormously popular because of the cute and hot guys on the rowing team that pose for it.  Above, left to right, are Lucas, Tristan, Alex, Will, Tom, and Cian in the 2016 calendar.

This is from the 2012 calendar.  As usual, we get to see some rear views, but frontal views are artfully concealed.

Here's a shot from the 2021 calendar.

Recently, they changed the name of the calendar from Warwick Rowers to Worldwide Roar.  Here's the cover of the 2022 calendar.  The change was to include other sports in the drive for inclusivity in sport.  That's admirable, but the calendar now includes other guys who aren't University of Warwick students, or students at all.  In my opinion, that's a mistake.  I want to see those cute college guys!

Over the years, in addition to the calendar photos, there have been "behind the scenes" photos from the calendar shoots, and these photos don't hide anything.  Above, a group of rowers seem to have dropped their shorts, to the feigned shock of the guy in front.

Here the photographer is instructing the team

A rower, not artfully concealed for once.

Team members preparing for a calendar shot in which they're all piggyback.

Finally, on this Christmas Eve, here are two of the Warwick rowers trimming a Christmas tree.  What a pretty sight!

Boys and Their Balls - Part 12

Volleyball

Volleyball isn't a "major league" sport.  It's usually played by friends, just for fun.

I previously posted the photo above of the members of Taylor Camp in Hawaii – hippies and other counter-culture types – playing volleyball.  Clothing was optional in Taylor Camp.

Here's a picture of a volleyball game on Baker Beach, San Francisco's nude beach.

And here's another beach volleyball game.  I don't know the location.  These games were all just for fun.

I have to comment on beach volleyball becoming an Olympic sport, which I think was the most ill-advised Olympic development since the introduction of synchronized swimming.  I don't mean to denigrate the Olympic volleyball players – I'm sure they're all superb athletes and extremely dedicated – but it's obvious that beach volleyball was added to the Olympics for one reason: to draw male viewers who want to see females jumping around in bikinis.  Normally, women's sports account for less than 4% of all media coverage, with one glaring exception: beach volleyball, where the women's games are infinitely more popular than the men's games.  The women wear bikinis.  The men don't even play shirtless; they wear tank tops.  Clearly, hetero males are making up the rules here.

Now, if the Olympic players all played naked, like the ancient Greek Olympians and the guys above, I'd be all for it as an Olympic sport.

Outside of nude beaches, we mainly find naked volleyball games at nudist resorts.

Another nudist volleyball photo, from a Danish nudist magazine.

Looking for a video of naked volleyball, I found a 20-minute unidentified video, from which I've extracted a minute and a half clip (above).  Was it taken at a nudist resort?  The fact that the camera zooms in on butts and dicks suggested that it's from a gay porn film, and the last 10 seconds of this clip made that pretty clear.  It turns out to be from a much longer William Higgins film Wank in the Woods - Naked Volleyball, shot in Czechoslovakia.  They may not be Olympic-class volleyball players, but who cares?  Just like Olympic women's beach volleyball, we're not really watching to see their athletic skills.

Weighing In - Part 15

Managua, Nicaragua

I don't know the name of this boxer, but he was captured on video at a weigh-in in Managua, Nicaragua on July 29, 2017.  He's not the fighter weighing in.  He's another fighter waiting his turn to weigh in.  He stripped off his shorts while he was waiting, and we can see him in the background on the right side of the video.

Finally, when it's his turn to weigh in, he covers up with his hand, which is pretty pointless, because everyone has already seen everything.

Thanks to Bill Brown for sending me the video.

UPDATE - Bill says the boxer's name is Dixon Flores.

Beach Bums - Part 11

Hippie Hollow

Hippie Hollow Park, originally called McGregor County Park, is on the shore of Lake Travis in Austin, Texas.  It's the only officially clothing-optional public park in the state of Texas.

The park had been used for skinny-dipping for years, but after Woodstock, it was a popular spot for counter-culture types, and it became known as Hippie Hollow.  It turns out that it's not illegal to be publicly naked in Texas as long as you don't offend or alarm other people.  It was common knowledge that people skinny-dipped at Hippie Hollow, so nobody there should have been alarmed or offended.  Just to make it official, the county put up the sign above.  Anyone venturing beyond the sign could not claim to be offended or alarmed by seeing nudity, which makes the nudity perfectly legal.

And beyond the sign, everyone is naked.  Here are a couple of guys walking down to the lake.

Another guy on his way down to the lake.

Although the park is sometimes described as a beach, and I included it in my "Beach Bums" series, there is no sandy beach.  Instead, the lakefront consists of limestone rock.

This is typical of the rock ledges along the shore.

Still, people can sunbathe by stretching out on the rock

Or they can just enjoy the scenery.

In addition to naked swimming, naked boating is a popular activity.

Another boater.

Another boater.

A whole bunch of boaters.  I guess Texans like their boats.

And did I mention the scenic views?

Poem of the Day - Part 18

Poem of the Day

My Shadow

by Robert Louis Stevenson (excerpt)

             

                I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me

                And what can be the use of him is more than I can see

                ...

                The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow

                Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow

Of course, I would never post a suggestive photo of something that, like the poem says, "goes in and out" and "likes to grow."  Would I?

(photo: Man & Shadow, by Arthur Tress, 1994)

Performers - Part 14

Les Mamelles de Tirésias

Another naked opera moment occurred in the 2010 production of Francis Poulenc's farcical 1945 opera Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tirésias) at the Liceu Opera in Barcelona.

The plot, based on a 1917 surrealist play by Guillaume Apollinaire, goes as follows: Thérèse tires of her life as a submissive woman and becomes the male Tirésias when her breasts turn into balloons and float away. Her husband is not pleased by this, still less so when she ties him up and dresses him as a woman.  Having become a General, Tirésias starts a successful campaign against childbirth and is hailed by the populace. Fearful that France will be left sterile if women give up sex, the husband vows to find a way to bear children without women.

In Act 2, the husband's project has been a spectacular success, and he has given birth to 40,049 children in a single day. A journalist asks how he can afford to feed the brood, but the husband explains that the children have all been very successful in careers in the arts, and have made him a rich man with their earnings.  The couple reconciles, and the whole cast gathers at the footlights to urge the audience:

        Ecoutez, ô Français, les leçons de la guerre

        Et faites des enfants, vous qui n'en faisiez guère

        Cher public: faites des enfants!

        (Heed, o Frenchmen, the lessons of the war
        And make babies, you who hardly ever make them!
        Dear public: Make babies!)

OK, I told you it was surrealistic.  Note that the original play premiered during World War I, when France had been depopulated by the war.

At the start of the Barcelona production, Thérèse, played by Maria Bayo, is onstage, and her husband, played by Gabriel Bermudez, is in the shower (above):

Here's a screen capture from that scene.