Mascular

 

MASCULAR

Well, now that I have your attention, I'd like to talk to you about Mascular. Mascular is a free (!!) online magazine (I'd love for it to be print, I'd buy it!) about the arts that caters to well, men who like men. I know. Groundbreaking. 

Kidding. It's a magazine that gives you (homoerotic) art and the men who create it. I know, there's one and a hundred blogs online that give you scantily clad to naked men every three clicks. But there's something about a magazine that gives you quality photos and artwork that is curated with a point of view that really made me perk up. In many ways. 

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The editors give you kink, erotica, and -some would say- porn in equal measures; which is something I really like. I like smut with a purpose. And the purpose of the magazine seems to be to promote artistic expression in men who otherwise would not be expressing themselves through this media. And we are the ones who benefit. Most of the photo essays are actually very interesting and hot at the same time exploring several themes and presenting a point of view. What's not to love? I also like that the men that appear on its pages are not always the buffed, puffed, primped and sanitized men we usually find in Men's Health or most of the gay rags. These men are a little bit rougher around the edges. A little more weathered. And a lot more desirable, IMHO.

Because I really think that men who have some imperfections are much sexier than men who are 'perfect'. Oh, I know, I know. We all like beauty and youth and a taut body free of imperfections and blemishes and impervious to the pass of time. We see that in one and a thousand blogs and magazines, and it sells. It always will. We all know that sex sells. But I feel that that's not... life? Those men that we see on the pages of gay magazines or online with their Vitruvian lines intact, all aligned and perfect, have had their beauty retouched within an inch of their lives. But those are not the men we usually fuck. Or to put it better, the men I would like to fuck.

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I wanna see hands: who amongst us usually fucks twentysomething guys with 3% body fat with a commitment to going six days a week to gym and on an high-protein diet? Oh, I thought so. Unless you literally are one of those men, your pickings are of a more, let's say, pedestrian nature. Even the most 'meh' of us would REALLY like to fuck, let's say,  a Pietro Bosseli or a Gonçalo Teixeira. But how many of us ACTUALLY get to fuck these men or any of his clones on the daily? Yeah. I thought so.

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I think Mascular elevates the garden variety man to a sex symbol status that's both deserved and belated. Because there's nothing more erotic (at least for me) than the cotidian. Fantasy men are good and all that but at what cost? We ogle them and then what? It's like watching studio porn: yeah, it's hot, but we know it's not really true, it comes a moment when it's just not THAT hot anymore. Or attainable. Those beautiful men have been retouched into next century, they have probably lifted weights right before the photoshoot and they have starved themselves at least two days before that pic was taken. Dehydration photographs well. What, you thought abs showed up just like that? 

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I think these men seem like the kind of men who would show me a very good time. Because experience has showed me that pleasure usually comes from the most unexpected places. It's not always been the buff, primped guys who know how to fuck me good. And I have had them all: the beautiful, sporty twentysomethings, the fit and the hard to the touch football players, for example. But I have also had the soft-around-the-edges over-forty accountant and the fifty-something father of three who last lifted a football in 1999. And it's really those last men who had made me scream their names. It's been those men who are not perfect, who are not buff, who could be behind you holding a line at the supermarket, who had made me go all face down ass up, no questions asked. Yeah, it's been that good. The others? They've been fun, don't get your panties in a bunch. But they don't put their back into it when trying to make me come, for example. They don't explore my body inch by inch the way I like it. They are not committed to making our lovemaking memorable. They are more concerned about THEMSELVES. And that's really not much fun. Is it?

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That is why this magazine made me go: BINGO! I was going to have some cool photos and artwork to gawk at. There would be handsome naked men and at the same time I could think: 'I'd climb him like a tree'. I could look at these men and know that there could be a very high probability that I could actually do that. And that turns ME on. And we all know that what turns us on cannot be denied. Some men like the impossibly perfect, the beautiful but out-of reach. That's their thing. But I know that sexy comes in many shades and shapes and weights. And I'm cool with that. To each their own, right? Our fantasies are ours to have and I have discovered that when it comes to MY fantasies, the closer they are to being 'doable', the better. I don't want the unattainable, the unreachable, the improbable. I want what I could, given the moment, have.

The editors at the magazine put it much better than I could ever do: 

"A leather jacket, a cigar, a slick piece of rubber, or some old dirty socks - these are tangible and available. Perhaps the fantasy is situational or based on risk and danger. Being naked in public, being helpless and vulnerable... many of these aren’t that remote and are sought out for that sense of excitement. Alternatively, they are the settings and backdrops for our fantasies. In the end, the objective is to create the mood and feelings that enhance and intensify our sexual lives." 

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And who does not want to enhance their sex lives, huh?

XOXO