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    • It is widely believed that a very male-looking wrestler or boxer or body-builder represents the acme of maleness.

      more like the acne of maleness. boom gottem.

      this post made by HIGH T perennial puberty gang.

      anyway, i used to work out with this guy and he told me this story from when he was in the air force that still makes me laugh. so in the military you get tested to qualify for advancement on physical fitness and of course there’s a gym generally wherever for support personnel etc to work out, plus PT i guess. anyway, he’s a gym bro type guy, so that’s all the motivation he needs to make this his hobby when he’s on some base where he can’t really leave anyway without a big hassel. anyway, he was telling me about “work out mags” and how they were always just around. people buy them and read them for workout ideas or meal ideas and then leave them in the gym instead of tossing them. of course, this is what he believes is happening 100% because he’s like a naive 19 year old kid. he’s relating the story to me like 6 years later. anyway, one day he finds this magazine (“i don’t remember the name, i thought they were all the same more or less”) at the base gym and takes it home to look through it, but starts to furrow his brow (i wish i could imitate the face he made, just total confusion) and is like, “damn, this workout mag sucks. there’s no workout or meal ideas in it, it’s all just photos of jacked guys.” then he turns the page and it’s some steely-eyed himbo in his underwear with his thumb pulling down the band, and he’s like, “wait a minute… what kind of workout magazine is this?” and that was how he learned about beefcake magazines.

      after he related that story, we just referred to working out as “beefcake” or “beefcaking”. which, after a while, you forget you’re doing. and then somebody is like, “wait, what did you say you guys doing tomorrow morning before class and why does it involve a ‘quick shower’ after?”

    • glans [it/its]@hexbear.net
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      4 days ago

      lol that’s so funny when I opened the IA link my first thought was “the 2024 edition of this book should be subtitled plus ca change”. It’s always the overriding impression reading about gay male subcultures, at least those which are in the past 100-200 years in the west. I would be interested in a broader comparison to know if it is literally human nature or what.

      • glans [it/its]@hexbear.net
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        4 days ago

        although to be fair, the plus ca change-nes expands beyond the gay situation, example on page II

        HOW THIS REPORT CAME ABOUT

        When my wife and I arrived in England in September 1957, we made an informal inquiry to find out what were considered to be the most intractable social problems in this country. We asked about 250 persons of some standing and came to the conclusion that there were six which could be thought of as giving considerable concern. One of these was homosexuality, and this report is the first result of our work in this particular field. Some indication here of the lines along which we have worked in tackling the other five main problems may help the reader to understand our approach to homosexuality.

        Here are the other 5 main problems of England. Check the book to learn what they mean and why they are concerns. Note that #5 is longer than all the others put together.

        1. The New Housing Areas
        2. The Old Housing Areas
        3. Adolescents in Secondary Schools
        4. The Prisons
        5. Mental Health