Vintage Male Physique Photography
Some History - the Posing Strap Era
The male form has always been an item in the visual arts.America has a puritanical tradition. Until the latter part of the 1960's, it was illegal to show pubic hair in a photograph, much less genitals.
Frontal nudity as considerered obscene or pornographic. For many the words "obscene" and "pornography" brought along with it powerful emotional content and stopped thinking. The postal authorities kept themselves busy looking for obscene traffic and brought legal action resulting in prison sentences to makers of what they considered to be obscene or pornographic. There were instances of the property of photographers being confiscated and reports indicate that even when the courts exhonerated the photographers, the police did not return the photographers' property.
To hide the genitals, the models often wore posing straps, now known as "g-strings". Even when models were photographed frontally nude, the "offending" parts were retouched out. According to some writings, some photographers put easily removabe dyes over the photos of the genitals that the customers could remove.
During the posing strap era, photographers tried to have their images look very artistic. To avoid trouble from the authorities, all physique photography had to appear to appeal to the noblest of intentions. It was not a good idea to have it appear that any photos of a very handsome, beautifully muscular, nearly nude young male could have any sexual aspects to them. It was supposed to be unthinkable that such photos could be looked at while one was getting erotic pleasure!
Eventually, the courts decided that no parts of the human body were obscene and it was proper to show nudity that did not appeal to "purient" interests.
Models Popular in the 1950s
Richard Alan Glenn Bishop
Bob Estalita Steve Wengryn
Bishop and Wengryn probably appeared more covers than any other models.
More will come as time permits me to expand this page.
The physique magazines were sold at all newsstands and contained pictures, articles on health and exercise, and ads for reasonably priced physique photos.
Many of the physique magazines, such as Adonis and Body Beautiful were pocket sized, 4 X 5 1/2 inches. The quality was uneven. Although Adonis and Body Beautiful were well designed, often there were printing defects and one can see that the paper was crookedly trimmed. The latter two magazines were put out by Weider Publishing, the same folks who bring you body building magazines in the supermarket.
As a note, the body building magazines in the "posing strap era" showed more nudity than they do today. In my opinion the reason for that is that the body building magazines want to look very "straight".
LINKS
Visit http://www.photosique.com/home/home.html for information and vintage photos for sale.(The author of this page has no connection to the above page.)
Questions or comments? Please e-mail me.
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