From: Furr@cup.portal.com (George Dalton Madison)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Ugly
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 16:17:09 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <BxxAxu.3D0@queernet.org> <69872@cup.portal.com>
  <1992Nov21.160459.10467@spdcc.com>

Bob Donahue writes:
>Furr@cup.portal.com (George Dalton Madison) writes:
>>This simply isn't true.  _HONCHO_ has done a couple of "bear"
>>oriented issues [Oct. 1990 and Jul. 1992], and even in Twinkie
>
> I can't speak for the 7/92 issue but the 10/90 issue
>was more "faux-bear" than bear... The models had all the parts
>but just didn't "have it"...

We've discussed the fact previously that you and I define the
term "bear" differently.

>who was about the best bear since the "Fur Trapper" spread in 1984
>(GDM - don't forget they had this guy AGAIN in 1985 in a really
>awful spread that had his CLOTHES on most of the time to hide
>his fur....).

True, but the letters complaining about *THAT* got us two more
full-page shots of him wearin' next to nuthin' in later issues,
both of which were clearer and better-lit than anything they'd
run previously....(!)

>        I subscribe to _Daddy_ and buy Bulk Male regularly.
>I usedf to get Bear but they got away from what I would call the
>"Classic" bear and more into the biker-bear look pretty much

Umm... *NOT*.  Try looking through a copy of "In The Wind" if
you want to know what bikers look like.

>If you were to count the # of bear models in all of the
>mags out, I think you'd find there are more models than ever.  

Well, yes -- if you include all the "specialty" magazines we've
been talking about. But *NONE* of them -- even _BEAR_ -- has the
kind of newsstand distribution that the Honcho/Mandate/&c.
skinrags get.  If you're privileged to live in a major metro
area, you can find the "specialty" publications -- otherwise,
you don't see them.

>Now, in the gay mainstream things are a different
>story (i.e. non-porn images).  I think there is where we
>need to claim space and demand more visibility. 

And this leads right back into the gayporn part. I work for a gay
newsmagazine, don't forget.  Many gay publications simply don't
have the resources to find models and get them photographed to
use for covers or whatever.  Where do they turn?  The companies
that already have lots of photographs of men, namely the porno
companies -- and in the case of the video houses (Catalina,
Vivid, &c.) the "product" is virtually *EXCLUSIVELY* the young,
bodyshaved type -- the lone major exception I can think of is 
Colt -- and they are *VERY* expensive. [Even at that, Colt's
been doing more shaven people recently... ;-(]

It's kind of a Catch-22 situation.... All the imagery is of this
one particular type, so the companies that dominate the market
are "justified" in sticking to just that look. 

It would take, I imagine, a two-pronged effort: getting the
publications to ask for more diversity in the male imagery
they feature, *AND* working on the *other* sources of such
images to consider the needs of such publications, so that there
is an alternative to the avalanche of bodyshaved Catalina
Surf Nazis.

I've tried this at _Frontiers_, where I work; our editor in
charge of such things would love to be more diverse, but it
is a *bitch* to find the source material. When I tried to get
some sources I knew of to submit material, most of it was 
too risque to go on our publication's cover.

>When I start seeing GBLO*-bears on the cover of the Advocate in any
>regular frequency or in other mainstream GBLO*-things I'll be more
>happy...

Ditto!

 
() Precisely what common sense is for, to be jarred into
() uncommon sense.
()      -- Eric Temple Bell
-----
[> George D. Madison | NBCS: B8f+t+w-e+s+k+a!cv | Just say NO to razors! <]
[> It's a BEAR thing -- you wouldn't understand. <|> furr@cup.portal.com <]