International Male

It's a good day when the mailman brings checks AND porn!

Today I received the anxiously awaited Summer issue of the International Male catalogue's spin-off magazine Undergear. (excuse me while I dissappear for 20 minutes...) This is one issue of the year that is all underwear and bathing suits, the equivalent of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue for straighties.

I first discovered International Male around 1978. Where? Where else, laying on some queen's coffee table. For 25 years they've sold the clothes that everone loves to hate. It wasn't like they were hip once and then went downhill. Their clothes have always been a joke. Show an IM catalogue to any gay man and the inevitable reaction is, "Who BUYS this stuff?"

I admit, though, that when the big IM half-off warehouse sales blow into town twice a year, I always try to make it. They're always a crap shoot, though. Many, many times I've come home with crap that I've afterward said, "What was I thinking?"

My friend and I once dared each other to buy the dreaded "puffy pirate shirt" that showed up years later on an episode of Seinfeld.

I've been receiving the catalogue in the mail for many many years, and I don't even know how I got on the mailing list. And after all the moves I've made, they always seem to track me down, even though I've never purchased anything through the catalogue. I keep every issue, because to me, it's some of my favorite porn. My big turn-ons are faces, chests and abs so I don't even notice if they have clothes or not.

The guy on the right is one of my favorites right now because he's taken so many growth hormones that his head is now too small for his body.

If you've got an inferiority complex after seeing these perfect specimens, IM does offer hope to us mere mortals with "trouble spots".

I'm sure it's not the first, nor the last time IM has hired porn stars to model, but this past year they've used Brett Mycles a lot. (If you've been living under a rock, Brett Mycles was a Jet Set superstar a year or two ago.) Check him out in Jackhammer or College Jocks 2.

And don't even get me started on the never-ending debate about chest hair on International Male models. Sometimes they do allow a little fur (only if it's close-cropped) but this issue looks like they've gone back to shaving. And only a few shots even show wisps of 2-day beard that's totally trendy now. What are your thoughts?