The Season: Rich straight guys have problems, too. Even in Hong Kong. With some dicks, bulges, yachts, and the dad from "Lost in Space"

I've been fooled by two tv series and a movie today.

Voice mails for Isabelle: A guy sits by Golden Gate Bridge, complaining to his dead sister he can't find his people in San Francisco. Where are all the drag queens. It took me 20 minutes to figure out that it's actually a girl, not a gay guy.  She was wearing a hoodie and pants to trick you into watching.  

Booth Bangla: A guy plans his sister's wedding.  He doesn't express any heterosexual interest -- until halfway through the movie, when he meets the Girl of His Dreams.

Oasis: A family checks into an exclusive resort.  Two boys immediately meet the Girls of Their Dreams, and an established couple smooch.  I was holding out for the teenage daughter to be a lesbian because she keeps cruising girls.  Nope,  she meets the Boy of Her Dreams at Minute 12.  

Heck with it.  I'm watching The Season on Hulu, about "the glittering world of super-yachts, sun, and scandal" in Hong Kong.  At least there will be some nice exterior shots.

Episode 1 Prologue.  A woman tells us: "Hong Kong is a city of bloodlines.  It will destroy you."   An elegantly dressed middle-aged woman floats in the water outside a burning yacht.  She sinks.

Scene 1: Six weeks earlier.  A young woman jogs through Hong Kong.  Nice exterior shots.  Someone named Carrie calls, and tells her that her job today is impress the Hexts.  Impress them, and you've got it made in Hong Kong.

A taxi takes her through the forest to her destination, a mansion or institution.   Carrie ends her cardio work out to greet her.  Back story: Her name is Cola (I love your parents' products, girl!), she has graduated with a degree in economics and maths, and her classmate Carrie, a wealth mover, has invited her to come out to Hong Kong as an intern.  "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get a full-time job offer," Cola says.  Lie?  Steal?  Blow up yachts? 

The summer is Boating Season, where Hong Kong A-Listers decide who they will admit to their social network.  You have one chance to make a good impression; a single misstep, and you're out. 

Scene 2:  A lady, maybe Carrie, tells the staff that everything must be spotless, and asks Jon if he is ready for the maiden voyage.  "Bring on the Bacchanalia," he says in a bored/aesthete tone. He'll be telling the guests to "Diversity at your own risk."  He must be gay.

His teenage daughter sneers: "Great small talk, dad."  Nope. 

On the way upstairs to change, Jon asks a Male Staffer, "Is everything ready?"  Maybe they are having an affair. Wife, now calling him Christopher, says "I really need this to work."

Why the changed name?  It turns out that Bored Aesthete is Christopher (Toby Stephens, the Dad on Lost in Space).  Jon (Lee-Jai Yoon, top photo) is the Male Staffer.  Wife asked him a question while she was walking away from him, toward Christopher, who answered for him.

Scene 3: Cola and Carrie enter the yacht.  They're joined by a guy named Andrew Fung (Chris Pang of Crazy Rich Asians), who was in St. Tropez, but it's too hot in Europe. "Global warming is so inconvenient."

When Carrie introduces Cola, Andrew teases "A younger, hotter version of you?" Heterosexual identity established in his second sentence.  His "lovely wife" Niki arrives and is introduced.  Her family owns the Harbor Club, and are the bitter rivals of the Hexts, whom they are there to impress.  

Next Jay and Sara Byford, from Melbourne, arrive and kiss up to Andrew and his Lovely Wife, but he doesn't like them.  

He does like Hong Kong's most eligible bachelor, David Ho (Justin Chien, left). Maybe he's.....

Confused by the plethora of names?  Don't worry; all you really need to know is that everyone is very rich, very bored, and heterosexual.  

Back story: the family from Scene 2 are Christopher and Fiona Hext.  This is their yacht.  Wait -- everyone is here to impress them.  Why are they concerned about the day going well?  Spoiler alert: they're having financial problems.

Sceme 4: Cola is introduced to the Hext Family.  "How nice to see some new faces!" Fiona Hext exclaims.

Cola is turned on by a semi-shirtlessC hunk with his lady, but Carrie warns her: "God, no, that's Matthias! Just a personal trainer, not rich.  Ignore." Heterosexual identity established at Minute 11.

Left: Lincoln Younes plays Matthias the Personal Trainer, Gigolo, Drug Dealer, and Actor.

Dirt on the Hexts: "Christopher's family practically invented colonialism, and Fiona's Old Hong Kong money fueled it."  

Scene 5: Eligible Bachelor is helping the Captain pilot the ship.  Christopher Hext takes over and asks how things are going since the divorce.  It must be rough.  After all, he and Lian were together for 13 years. Don't get your hopes up -- Lian can be used for any gender, but 2/3rds of the time, it's a girl.  And gay marriage is not permitted in Hong Kong, so he would have to establish residence somewhere else if Lian was a guy.

"You're right, I'm miserable.  How are you doing?"

"Miserable, too."  

More after the break

Finn Bennett: Unexpected beefcake in "Backrooms" leads down a rabbit hole of gay teases. With some nude Finns and Whishaw butt

Last weekend we saw Backrooms (2026), which  is not about the backrooms of gay bars where you get down with dudes. Based on a creepypasta, it stars Chiwetel Ejofor as Clark, a struggling furniture store owner and failed architect, who stumbles onto an Upside Down: endless yellow-walled office rooms, most empty, some with piles of melting chairs, bloody clothes, a Christmas tree, a mannikin equipped with a recording in Urdu...and misshapen, half-melted humanoids.

Clark recruits his employee Kat and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett), who filmed one of his commercials, to explore with him.  When he knocks on their door, Bobby answers shirtless.

As we have seen with the shirtless parking valets on Suburgatory, unexpected beefcake still has power. .  This screenshot doesn't capture the sudden joy of recognition.  I went home and looked up Finn Bennett.

Preliminary research yielded this photo on his Instagram, with the comment "I'm just a boy who likes to have fun."  I can see that.  

And a Google AI statement that he played a character "implied to be homosexual" in Domina.  

That's enough to start a profile.

I was expecting a recent university graduate with some theatrical experience and a few minor on-screen roles, but it turns out that Finn won the Trophée Chopard at Cannes in 2025, and was named a Star of Tomorrow by Screen International.  

He has his own wikipedia page, and so do his parents:

Ronan Bennett, famous novelist and screenwriter.

Georgina Henry, famous journalist, who died in 2014

Finn was born in December 1999 in Hackney, a rough but rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of East London.  He took acting classes at Stagecoach Performing Arts in Islington, and appeared in a 2013 episode of Top Boy, his dad's show about drugs and gangs in East London.  I know the area very well.

After taking his A-levels in maths, Finn applied to Queen's University, Belfast.  In Britain you have to apply to a field of study, so he found anthropology near the top of the list and figured "that's good enough.  I'll study that."  But then he decided to forego uni altogether in pursuit of an acting career, and worked in pubs and as a landscaper while awaiting his big break.  I'll check the highlights for gay characters:

Four episodes of Liar (2017-20), about a teacher who accuses the guy she went on a date with (Ioan Gruffud) of rape.  He plays Ewen, one of her students.

Left: is that his ear or his dick?

Four episodes of National Treasure: Kiri (2018): A black girl is murdered just as she is about to be adopted by a white family.  He plays Simon, the family's teenage son, a suspect (spoiler alert: he didn't do it).

Hope Gap (2019): A husband and wife announce to their adult son (Josh O'Connell) that they're divorcing.  According to the AI, Mom encounters a young man who has just lost his boyfriend, but I don't know if he is Finn's character.

Finn's big break came with the ancient Roman drama Domina (2021): Livia Drusilla struggles to acquire power, eventually becoming the wife of Gaius (Augustus Caesar).   Marcellus (Finn) is forced to marry Gauis' daughter Julia.  Sorry, AI, he's not just "implied," he has an explicitly sexual realtionship with his slave Aprio (Pedro Leandro).  

The show was criticized for making the only gay character creepy, violent, and "deeply unpleasant." 

More after the break

"Disclosure Day": Incessant heterosexism as the aliens announce their existence, 26 years too late. With Tommy dick and Boss Hogg butt

 

Today we saw Disclosure Day (2026) at the theater.  I'm not happy.  The plot is all mushed up, but I'll try to disentangle it.

The Kidnapping: We begin at a wrestling match, which gives us some beefcake.  But things go downhill fast.  Danny (Josh O'Connell) is there to hand over a backpack to the Bad Guys who have kidnapped his coworker or girlfriend or sister (we aren't sure which). Why is it always a kidnapped girl?  Why can't it ever be a guy?

 But he points an alien magic wand at them, and they're so flustered that they let him and the Girl drive away.  The two hide out at the convent where she used to be a nun.

Big reveal: they only just started dating.  Danny is upset that she didn't inform him of her religious past, and the Girl is upset because he has a briefcase with something that Bad Guys kidnapped her to get.

The Cardinal: Weather girl Margaret and her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) are having problems.  She keeps being dissatisfied by the town they're living in, and insisting that they move, but Jackson likes it in Kansas City.  Also, her father died when she was 17, there's a pesky missing time incident from when she was 10, and animals and birds keep staring at her.

Today she was stared at by a cardinal, and suddenly could speak Russian.  She's late for work, so she zooms through downtown Kansas City, and when a cop stops her, gets out of a ticket by telling him about his marital problems, and advising him on how to reconcile with his wife.

At the studio, Margaret is going on the air in a few minutes, but she has time to translate the Korean of a guy who is being interviewed but did not bring along an interpreter, and stare at three people and give them advice about their marital partners (all heterosexual, over and over and over).  When she starts her broadcast, she begins speaking in a click language, then collapses.

The Big Reveal:  Danny is actually working for a guy named Hugo, who sends Operative Santiago (Tommy Martinez, nude after the break) to drive them to a safe house.  There he tells his Girlfriend that he has tapes documenting 70 years of the Evil Corporation harassing aliens: confiscating their crashed spaceships, stealing their technology, dissecting their corpses, imprisoning and torturing survivors.  An advanced alien civilization let this happen without retaliation?  Why aren't our cities smoking ruins?

The Evil Corporation wants to keep all of this hidden, because if the public finds out, they will panic.  Girlfriend thinks that if the public finds out, they will stop believing in God and start worshipping the aliens.  (She even telephones the convent to ask, but the Mother Superior says that her belief in God wouldn't be affected by aliens.)

Going North:  At the hospital, everything checks out.   The doctor asks about the missing time and her father's death, and suggests that Margaret began speaking in Russian, Korean, and the click language because she's under stress.  Really?   I'm under stress -- could I learn Mandarin?  

Margaret intuits that the Evil Corporation has sent goons to kill her, so she asks Boyfriend Jackson (left) to help her to the bathroom.  For some reason the bathroom opens out onto a hallway, and they can escape.  Margaret insists that they drive north to find "Danny."  She doesn't know who he is, but she wants to find him.  Boyfriend Jackson humors her for awhile, but finally he's had enough, and calls the hospital to fetch her  She scrams.

The Crucifix:   While Danny is out looking for cell phone bars to call Boss Hugo, the Head Corporate Guy -- I'll call him Boss Hogg because he looks and acts like a corrupt Southern sheriff in a 1970s trucker movie --  uses an alien magic wand to appear before the Girlfriend and force her to tell them where the safe house is.  "Oh, and if we don't get there in time, would you mind killing Danny yourself?"  She can avoid his mind control temporarily by jamming a crucifix into her hand, but it doesn't work for long.  

Left: Danny dick, in case you haven't seen it lately.

Meanwhile, Weather Girl Margaret calls Danny to warn him that Corporate Goons are coming to kill him.  He sees their 28 cars from a distance, but instead of running away, he steals one of the cars, grabs his Girlfriend, and zooms away with them in hot pursuit.  

That night, as they are sleeping in a hotel in Indiana (at least seven hours from Kansas City by car, and they dumped their car over a cliff), Boss Hogg uses the alien technology to have Girlfriend reveal their location again!  Does Danny get smart and leave her there?  No, he shoves her out the bathroom window and allows himself to be captured. 

More after the break

Björn Mosten: His "Love and Anarchy" nude hugeness made him a star, but he's also played a gay boarding school bully and Oddgeir's buddy.

 

In the Swedish comedy Kärlek och anarki (Love and Anarchy, 2020-22), middle aged publishing house consultant Sofia (Ida Engvoll) and young IT guy Max (Björn Mosten) fight a flirtatious "dare war,"  trying to one-up each other with increasingly drastic dares:

Dress like pop singer Cyndi Lauper.

Walk backwards for a day.

Get too drunk

Mimic people

Walk into a restaurant and pretend that you work there.

Dribble

Do everything as fast as you can

And:  Get naked in front of your family.

Whew, our boy is huge.

Frontside and back.

This was the 23-year old actor's only nude scene in the series (he takes off his shirt a few times), but it was enough to seal his popularity among gay men in Sweden and abroad.

His cuteness and his acting ability too, of course.

The cover story of Kupe tells us that he is "An Overnight Star."  

Björn wasn't planning to become a star.  He was a small town boy, from Dvärsätt in central Sweden (the nearest big city is Trondheim, Norway, three hours away).  In the summer of 2019, he was just finishing up his degree in engineering at Uppsala University, and enrolled in the master's program in Computer and Information Engineering.  Lisa Langseth was casting an IT guy for her new comedy drama.  He had done some modeling, so why not audition?

After Love and Anarchy, Bjorn starred in the theatrical play Jakten (2022), at the Stockholms Stadsteaterat.  

It means "The Hunt," as in "Witch Hunt": a grade school teacher (Henrik Norlén) s falsely accused of sexually assaulting a child in his class.  Bjorn plays Marcus, his teenage son.

Next came the tv series Ondskan ("Evil," 2023): Erik (Isac Calmroth) is expelled from public school due to being a violent thug, enrolls in an exclusive private school, becomes a bullying victim, and commences an affair with the lunch lady. 

More after the break

Will Trent, Episode 4:10: Who is murdering naked fratboys? Detectives think it's about a girl, but...With fratboy cocks and Jeff East

 

I don't watch a lot of detective shows -- who cares about "the body in the library" when you can change the channel and see ghosts, zombies, time travel, and parallel worlds? But Episode 4.10 of Will Trent, on Hulu, pinged my gaydar: "A fraternity star and his friend are murdered."  Friend is often code for boyfriend.

Title: "You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets."

Scene 1: Girl legs walking across the campus of Georgia Atlantic University at night, discussing their boy problems.  Heterosexual identity established instantly.  They stop at a fountain to puke, and see a naked boy floating in the water, his mouth taped up and marked with the word "loyalty." 

Cut to a Pregnant Detective and her husband at a class for expectant parents, in an ongoing plotline.  They keep accidentally "killing" their baby.  I'm fast forwarding.

Scene 2: Will (Ramon Rodriguez, top photo) interviews the ridiculously-dressed Chancellor about the victim, Paxton Cole.  Shouldn't it be the Dean of Students, or the President?  "He was a campus leader, honor role, president of the Delta Chi Kappa Fraternity."  

Left: The actor playing Paxton does not appear in the cast list.

Will thinks that it was a premeditated murder, but the Chancellor scoffs: "The boy was just  mugged, or he interrupted a drug deal."  

"Then why was he stripped, and tape gagged with the word 'Loyaltyl"?

He harrumphs, then leaves to go to Boozy Booster Brunch,  the biggest fundraising activity of Homecoming Week, except for the Wine and Winners Dinner Party. Will is suspicious.  Dude should be more concerned about the murder of the college goldenboy.  Or any student, for that matter.

Scene 3: Will's team crosses the campus, complaining about the laziness of Generation Z and how college is a worthless rip-off.  As someone who has been teaching at a college for over 20 years, I am disturbed by that sentiment.  They find the frat pledges cleaning the porch with toothbrushes, a red flag about hazing abuse. They are not allowed to speak, another red flag.

Frat member Sean/Legacy  (Jacob Buster, left) invites them in. Will looks disgusted at the frat guys drinking beer. Griffin/Badger sees them and tries to run out, but they ambush him.  "It's not my fault!" he exclaims.

Scene 4: At the police station, Griffin/Badger (Tyler Patrick Smith) explains that he didn't hurt Paxton, but he was afraid that his illegal id business would be implicated.  Last night at the party, he gave Paxton/Doorbell and Greg/Sharkey fake ids so they could pick up some kegs of beer.  They never returned.

He's not implicated in the murder, but he's arrested for selling fake ids.  These people are disgustingly judgmental.  

They interrogate everybody else in the house, but no one had a beef with Paxton/Doorbell or Greg/Sharkey, and no one knows where they went to get the beer.

"Did you ever see them argue, fight over a girl?"  How do you know they were straight, heteronormative a-hole?

"No, they were best friends."  Tell me more.

Scene 5: Being dismissisve and insulting isn't getting them any intel, so the Pregnant Detective tries the sympathy approach.  Sean/Legacy opens up, complaining that his dad wants him engaged by next year and married with a kid soon after graduation.   I got that pressure all the time growing up: "What girl do you like?  What girl do you like?  What girl? What girl?"  Resistance to the heterosexist trajectoryy is a queer code.

Left: Fake ID Griffin/Badger's penis.

This strategy works: Sean/Legacy reveals that several months ago, Paxton shared a private sex video to group chat.  It got leaked, and the whole campus saw it.  Dang, it was with a girl.  Hereosexual identiy established at Minute 12..

Scene 6: Pregnant Detective visits The Girl, Sorority President Britt. She can't talk about the sex tape, because she signed an NDA and got a Porsche.  But she won't say who asked her to sign it.

Other sorority girls come forward to reveal that the fratboys are all scumbags, but they can't report on any of their misdeeds because Sean/Legacy's dad is the Chancellor.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Scene 7: Back at headquarters, after some stuff about the ongoing plotline, they find out where Paxton/Doorbell and Greg/Sharkey bought the beer: at the Beer Depot (makes sense).  They drop by, and find his pickup truck, with the beer kegs still there.  The killer must have abducted them here.

Will finds two sets of clothes in the trash -- the killer stripped them here! And no one noticed?  And in the ice machine, Greg/Sharkey's naked body, with a tape gag reading "Fortitude." 

They figure out that the words on the tape gags are the mottos of the frat: Loyalty, Fortitude, Integrity, Diligence.  Two murders left?

Scene 8: Ongoing plot stuff, then the bodies in the morgue. Paxton/Doorbell was drowned, and Greg/Sharkey died of hypothermia (so he was dumped in the ice machine while alive). They both had Goldenkranz (gold-infused liquour) in their stomachs, and high levels of Xanax (an anti-anxiety medication that causes drowsiness).  The killer spiked their drinks so they would be more compliant.  Which means that he (or she) was at the party last night.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit

The shirtless parking valets: A shock of joy on "Suburgatory" on the night before Thanksgiving. With Mohr and Parker butts and a lot of bare chests

When I was growing up, you almost never saw a bare chest on tv.  On the rare occasions when it happened -- Denny Miller surfs to Gilligan's Island, Ponch and Jon hit the beach on CHIPS, Kevin poses for an art class on Mr. Belvedere -- you felt an intense, palpable joy.  Not desire so much as understanding.  This is it, what we were made for. Beauty.  Truth.  The Eternal Masculine. 

With the advent of cable and then streaming tv, nearly every actor took off his shirt frequently, and some even put their butts and cocks on display.  And of course we can go online and see 100 naked men before breakfast. When you see it all the time, that shock of joy vanishes.  

But it returned on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011, the night before Thanksgiving, when Suburgatory aired Episode 1.8, "Thanksgiving."

Suburgatory (2011-14) starred Jeremy Sisto (left, showing his sausage) as George Altman, an architect who moves his teenage daughter Tessa (Jane Levy) from Manhattan to Chatswin, Connecticut.  She is not pleased, but she tries to find some semblance of cool amid the Mean Girls, Dumb Jocks, and Ladies Who Lunch.

It was not our favorite show -- mostly women in the cast, a lot of heterosexism, and some low-key gay stereotyping -- but it aired between The Middle and Modern Family, so we had no choice.

Left: George's butt.

In Episode 1.8, it's Thanksgiving in Chatswin, and Tessa is upset because Dad George has rejected their traditional Manhattan activities for dinner with the ultra-rich Dallas Royce.  In the B Plot, Tessa's friend Lisa is upset because her middle-class Mom, Sheila Shay, insists that she wear a "Puritan dress" to their Thanksgiving Dinner.

 When Tessa and Dad George arrive at the Royce mansion, they see shirtless valets parking the guests' cars.  

Whoa, that shock of joy came rushing back!  

Maybe because it was so unexpected.  Who hires shirtless valets?  Especially at Thanksgiving, when it's in the 30s and 40s out?  And there are twelve people at that party. Why do they need four valets?  

Director Alex Hardcastle was not even trying to be realistic. He presented us with a vision of masculine beauty to counterbalance the feminine vibe of the rest of the episode (spoiler alert: Tessa's friend Lisa spends about ten minutes of air time naked, in protest of that Puritan dress). 

The first Indian Valet vanishes immediately, but when George's friend Noah hands his car keys to the second, we get a bare chest and shoulders close-up.  He looks like a college athlete.

He disappears, but as Noah walks toward the door, we see the two Pilgrim valets, one extremely muscular, the other a rather thin twink.  No closeups, but they are visible for several seconds, organizing the various parking slips.

Later we get quick glimpses of the two Indian Valets at the Royce table,  so they must be Royce relatives co-opted for the job.  The Pilgrim Valets are visible at the middle class Shay table, so presumably they were hired. 

But who are the actors?  In 2011 I let the scene slip into memory, but last night I saw it again during a rewatch. With15 years of experience on this website, Nysocboy's Beefcake and Bonding, and Tales of West Hollywood,  I was equipped to research their other acting roles,  look for nude photos, and check their social media to see if they are gay. 

More after the break.

"The Naked Brothers Band," the most heterosexist teencom on Nickelodeon. Plus the grown-up brothers' cocks, butts, and gay-vague characters.

Around 2008, I researched queer codes on children's tv for what turned out to be three scholarly articles.  I gave high scores to Drake and Josh,  Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide,  The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Wizards of Waverly Place, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.  Phil of the Future, Ed Edd and Eddy, and Zoey 101 got low scores, and the lowest: The Naked Brothers Band.

It was a mockumentary about the misadventures of a fictional band led by preteen brothers, Alex and Nat Wolff.  They never explained the embarrassingly salacious name, but I assume that it meant that you would be seeing their real life, uncurated and unmediated. 

Of course, it was curated and mediated.  Alex and Nat did have a band, and some of their real-life bandmates (like Dan Levi, left) were in the cast, but most of the characters and situations were purely fictional.  They were not at all famous.  Yet.   

In 2004, actress Polly Draper had the idea of making a mockumentary about her sons' band, sort a preteen Spinal Tap or A Hard Day's Night.  She got her wealthy (or wealthier) brother to finance The Naked Brothers Band, filmed it in mid-town Manhattan, and entered it the 2005 Hamptons International Film Festival.  Nickelodeon bought it, and suggested a teencom spin-off, competition to the upstart Myley Cyrus in Hannah Montana. 

 Nat Wolff was only twelve years old, and Alex was nine,  a little young to handle a teencom by themselves, so Polly added adults to the cast to pull some of the weight.  Mostly her relatives: husband Michael Wolff as the boys' widowed dad; niece Jesse as their babysitter; brother Tim as the school principal. Plus a steady stream of celebrity friends, including Ryan Seacrest, Tony Hawk, and Whoopi Goldberg, popped by to play themselves.

The result was three seasons of intense nepotism and aggressive "girls! girls! girls!' hetero-horniness (2007-09).

I only watched one episode for my research project (there were over 30 programs in my dataset), so to be fair, I just watched another:  "Three is Enough" (February 8, 2008)

In the teaser, Alex wants to practice putting his arm around his "true love" in the movies.  Nat is skeptical -- he has a new "true love" every week.  But he agrees to play the girl.  Then Alex plays the girl so Nat can practice.  The gender-play is a queer code, but it's drowned out by the endless discussion of how many girls they like.

Next: they have writen a new song, "Three is Enough."  Babysitter Jesse agrees: three is the perfect amount of everything, from donuts to boys. For instance, she can't choose between the three "adorable Timmerman Brothers" (played by Polly's excessively rich nephews).  She implies that she is dating all of them, and perhaps not one at a time. Maybe they are involved in a queer four-way romance.

Then the Handsome Foreigner next door (Michael W. Barry)  asks her to the big horror movie.  The Timmermans get jealous and decide to spy on them.

At the studio, famous cartoonist Jules Feiffer, playing himself, is drawing cartoons to project over the band's new song.  Alex asks to be portrayed as cooler and more teenager-ish, and for the girl he is in love with to look more like his real-life true love.  

The main plot: their manager, 12-year old Cooper (Cooper Pillot) accidentally asks a girl for a date.  The band suggests various ways to get out of it, but he doesn't want to get out of it. He just wants Nat to come along for moral support.  But Nat needs a date, and he can't ask his on-off girlfriend Rosalie while they're "on a break."  Can he?  This section can't be easily queered; it's boys and girls all the way down.

Verdict: A few gender-bending moments , but no gay subtexts.

I couldn't even find any gay actors in the cast, except for Andre Keenan-Bolger, who played the snippy director Christophe in four episodes.

After the break: Have the Naked Brothers continued their heteronormative erasure as adults?  Have they gotten naked?

The ten best and ten worst Gemstones episodes, from the incredible "Wicked Lips" to the nonsensical, queerbaitiing "Burn For Burn, Stripe for Stripe"

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Beef, Season 2: Reggie Mantle and his lady fight Poe Dameron and his wife. With Reggie's dick, Poe's butt, and heteronormative erasure

 Beef Season 1 (2023), on Netflix, featured a road rage incident that spins out of control plus the cute Steven Yeun in a gay subtext romance with Young Manzino.  Hopefully  Season 2 (2026) has more beefcake and buddy-bonding, or maybe even a canonical gay guy. 

Scene 1: A Male Caterer hands a tray of drinks to a Female Caterer, and kisses her.  Ugh!  That's inappropriate in the workplace. Strike 1. 

She serves a bottle of beer to an older man, who hugs a woman and kisses the top of her head.  Strike 2. 

 They walk toward the outdoor gathering, where an Old Guy thanks his Beautiful, Talented Wife for organizing everything.  They smooch -- for a long, long, long time.  Everyone applauds.  Strike 3.

How annoyingly heteronormative!  I'm only going to continue because of the Male Caterer -- not litsed on the IMDB, but Wikipedia calls him Austin, played by Charles Melton, Reggie on Riverdale. (cock left, but I think it's a prosthetic). 

After the presentation, the Old Guy and his Beautiful, Talented Wife walk through the crowd, being congratulated by everyone.  

A guy in a limousine, who may be William Fitchner (butt left), invites Old Guy to Vegas with The Boys.  A boys only weekend? Tell me more.

Then the two get into their car,  growl at each other, and drive away. 

Beautiful, Talented Wife is upset because the Old Guy, Josh, accepted a date with Troy on her birthday.  He promises to cancel, but the forgetting is the main problem.  

Scene 2: The Male Caterer demonstrates his bicep to the Female Caterer before they're called away to clean up. The new owner of the country club is coming tomorrow, all the way from Korea, so everything has to be spotless. I think they're employes of the country club, but I'm still going to call them the Caterer and her Boyfriend.

They ignore their chores to sit in the tennis court and smooch for a long, long, long time.  Suddenly they're interrupted by yelling.  They look up to see Old Guy Josh and his Beautiful, Talented Wife, now at home, with some new topics of argument: why does he never install the herb garden she wants, and why isn't he as unhappy as she is?  Wait -- is Old Guy/Beautiful Wife's apartment directly above the tennis courts?  But they were driving away!  

In other news, Old Guy Josh promised to build them a bed-and-breakfast, but after six years it's only halfway done.  So he goes outside to scatter the mulch right now!  She follows to continue the argument.  He squandered her inheritance, she's a drunk, they haven't had sex in a year, and so on...

Scene 3: Discussing how much they love each other, the Caterer Couple drive to Old Guy/Beautiful Wife's house.  But if they live far away from the country club, how was the Caterer Couple interrupted by their argument? 

They almost run into an additional Old Guy as he pulls out of his driveway.  

Is there going to be a second road rage incident? 

Nope, it was just a tease.  The Caterer Couple arrive at the house, discuss how much they love each other again, kiss extensively (fast forward time...)

Inside, Old Guy Josh (Oscar Isaac, Poe on Star Wars) asks his Beautiful Wife if she would prefer him to go back to the way he was before they married. "Sexual deviant or celibate?  Not much of a choice." So, what was his deviance?  Was he gay?  They discuss how much they hate each other.

It seems that Caterer and Boyfriend have come to return Old Guy's wallet, which he lost on the tennis court.  How did a wallet interrupt them?

They hear screaming and approach the house, camera on.  Old Guy Josh and his Beautiful Wife are now throwing things  and wrecking each others' prized possessions.  He is about to attack her with a golf club, when they see the Caterer Couple watching -- and filming -- them.  Old Guy: "Sh*t!"

Scene 4: On the way home, the Caterer Couple discuss how much they love each other, and then what they should do about the domestic abuse incident. Caterer: " I love you so much...they come to the country club every day.! We shouldn't get involved."  

Boyfriend: "I love you so much...whatever you want is fine with me, as I have no agency of my own.   Want to kiss for five minutes at this stop sign?" 

At home, Old Guy Josh and Wife discuss what they should do about the situation.

Old Guy: "I hate you so much...We don't need to do anything. It was just an employee dropping off my lost wallet."

Wife: "I hate you so much.  I think you should threaten to fire them if they talk. Want to fight some more?  There's some stuff in the other room that we haven't thrown at each other yet."

Phone call!  It's the new owner of the country club, speaking through a translator, asking if everything is ready for her arival tomorrow.

More after the break

Leon Mallett:Checking the East Anglia Boy's impressive j/o photos first, researching his potential gayness and celebrity status later

 

I don't usually start researching based on some  adult videos, but this guy has it all: cute face, nice physique, huge cock, in a series of very clear photos posted on several nude celebrity sites.  I'm just worried that he's not an actor, so I won't be able to profile him.

So I'll check the IMDB last.  First up: his social media, to see if he's gay. 

Tagline: Singer/Songwriter.  He could be an actor, too.  I'm continuing the research.

An East Anglia boy, from Norwich, about 2 1/2 hours east of London.  

Lots of beefcake shots and guy-hugging photos, no girl-hugging -- a good sign.

Wait -- in one photo, he's grabbing the "big couple of palavas" on Katie Price.  An interest in palavas is generally a sign of  male heterosexual identity.

But Katie Price is an actress, model, and public figure who performs at a lot of Pride events, and came out as a lesbian in 2025.  Maybe he's just being playful.

But Leon's sweater says "Alright, my darlin'?"  That's something you would say to a girl.

Ok, I'm ready to check the shirt-lifter's IMDB profile.

Leon Mallett, aka Leon James, was born in 1995 in East Anglia.  In 2014, he auditioned for The X Factor, the British talent showcase, as a member of the boy band Fifth Street, but didn't make it.

He and his brother Alex auditioned as a duo in 2017.  Alex was cut during Boot Camp (the first challenge), but Leon made it through the Six Chair Challenge, Judges' Houses, Week 1, and Week 2, whereupon he was eliminated. 

He returned as a special guest on The X-Factor: Celebrity (2019).

And he appeared as himself in the documentary When Celebrity Goes Horribly Wrong 2 (2020), about celebrity fails: Calum Best accused of sexual assault; Nick Ferrari making racist comments; Chloe Goodman in  a feud with her sister.

No information on what Leon's scandal was. 

I'll get to the j/o photos in a moment.  Next, checking his songs for gay hints.

In "East Anglia Boy" (2014), Leon praises his home province: the sights, the food, the shopping.  He meets a girl who likes his accent, but not his clothes. Sounds heterosexist. But it's a  parody "American Boy" by Estelle, where she meets a boy, so he would have to meet a girl.

"One Girl in a Million" (2014) sounds extremely heterosexist, but it was actually written by Leon's father.  Leon found it in the attic after his death, and recorded it as a tribute.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.