"Son of a Thousand Men": Magic realism from Brazil with fragmented time and space, but there are gay guys and d*cks

Son of a Thousand Men (2025) popped up on the nude celebrity website with this well-hung trifecta, playing Nude Man 1, Nude Man 3, and Antonino. 

But what is it about?  

Different reviews give us completely different plots:

1. "A lonely fisherman longing for a son is drawn into an ethereal light," and the boy appears.

2. "A gay guy enters a marriage of convenience with a foundling woman" 

3. "An older couple hires an actor to impersonate their gay son."

4. "A elderly man tells his grandson to stay away from gay men and lesbians" (VOD)

Maybe they're all correct.  I suspect that we are looking at magic realism, like 100 Years of Solitude, The House of the Spirits, and Cortazar's Hopscotch, where people merge into other people, time and space are fragmented, and the subconscious manifests in everyday objects.   

Let's try the trailer:

Scene 1:  Sometime in the 19th century, an elderly fisherman (Rodrigo Santoro) is living by himself. That's the beginning of a lot of fairy tales.

He has been driven insane by the isolation, so he makes a creepy boy doll that he pretend is  real.   So is the doll going to come to life, like Pinocchio?  

Scene 2: He puts an ad in the village grapevine, "Elderly man seeks a son."  A teenage boy looks at it, but a preteen boy shows up. I think the teen boy turned into the preteen boy, and both are going to become the Fisherman.

Scene 3: The Boy wants the Fisherman to get a girlfriend, so he won't be lonely.  This might be a problem, since they live in the wilderness, a long, arduous journey from the nearest town. Who does he sell the fish to?   

Fortunately, at that moment the Woman of his Dreams appears, wearing a flowing white robe, sitting alone on the rocks. She must be a supernatural being, maybe an eidetic invocation of the Eternal Feminine.

The Boy doesn't think that the Woman of His Dreams is an appropriate partner for the day-to-day life of a fisherman, maye he can't see her at all, so he continues: "There are plenty of girls in the village."  This to a shot of someone who is definitely not a girl. I think he's Antonino from the n*de photos (Johnny Massaro), so maybe he was hanging out on the gay beach. 

Scene 4: Mom tells Antonino that she needs a grandchild, so get busy.

Scene 5: Antonino's wedding, to a woman trapped in a fishing net. Is this standard for Brazilian weddings, or does it signify that she's a sea creature?   This must be Plot #2: he's a gay guy forced to marry "a foundling woman." 

Scene 6: They settle in for their wedding night in separate beds.

Scene 7: In the morning, she leaves, wanders on to the beach, and says "Love ruins everything," just before the Fisherman sees her and is overcome by Girl of His Dreams fervor.  So she's the Net Lady. I thought there were no other houses -- or hotels -- around for hundreds of miles. Maybe she walked through time and space.

Scene 8: Net Lady and Fisherman bond over screaming therapy, laugh, and swim in an ocean full of people, "all children of different mothers and fathers."  Obviously.

Meanwhile Antonino (I think) has a rather painful masturbation.

Scene 9: The Boy curls into a fetal position as hair drops on him.  So he's been to the barber?

People gaze at the ocean.

Net Lady dies as the Fisherman holds her hand.

There's a giant glowing seashell.

Fisherman: "We're never really alone."

The end.

Still confused?  Me, too.  But I found a complete, detailed plot synopsis, untangled the magic realism fragmentation, and put the events in chronological order.

Unfragmented story after the break.  

Iain Armitage: Young Sheldon grows up, hugs guys, celebrates Pride. With nude Galecki, Fisher, and Simon Rex

 

I didn't like The Big Bang Theory (2007-19), featuring Johnny Galecki as the (relatively) stable center of a group of wacky nerd scientists who can't get any  "big bangs."  The hetero-horniness was incessant, and there were so many homophobic statements -- mostly asserting that all gay men wear dresses and prance --  that I was more amazed than offended  Wasn't Jim Parsons, who played the neurotic physics savant Sheldon Cooper, gay?  Why didn't he protest?  (Apparently he was closeted until around the fifth season.) 

But I liked Young Sheldon (2017-24), about Sheldon Cooper's childhood, growing up in East Texas in the 1990s with a conservative Baptist Mom, a macho football-coach Dad, a macho muscle-building brother, and...you get the idea.

I grew up in the Nazarene Church, which taught that Baptists were much too liberal.  I could relate. 

Plus there were lots of cute guys.  Sheldon's older brother Georgie (Montana Jordan) had musclebuilding plotlines before they switched to a "getting a girl pregnant" story arc.

Dad, Lance Barber, was a chub with a bulge.

Next door neighbor Billy (Wyatt McClure) was too young to be hot, of course, but he had that puppy-dog cuteness that makes you say "Aww, how adorable!"  I figured that he would eventually come out, but instead the writers decided to give him a crush on Sheldon's sister

And how about Rex Linn as Tom Peters, the longsuffering principal at Sheldon's high school. Wait, this is Simon Rex.

There were no gay characters -- with or without Jim Parsons as executive producer, this was still a "family friendly" (non gay) show.  But also no casual homophobia.  Just a few references suggesting homophobia, as when someone asks if Sheldon is...you know, and Dad angrily yells "NO!"

And in Season 5, Sheldon tells his roommate Evan (Motoki Maxten) that he doesn't want to date girls because they are a distraction. 

"So you're into guys?" Evan asks nonchalantly.

"No, they're a distraction, too."

Actually, he turns out to be asexual hetero-romantic, although this is never specified on The Big Bang Theory.

But I'm pretty sure that Iain Armitage (Young Sheldon) is gay.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.1 Continued: Keefe's kiss, Kelvin's boner, and a thug with broken thumbs. With Jonah Hauer-King and some boners

Previous: Episode 2.1: Junior likes dicks, Kelvin likes pecs, and f*k yeah, we got both!

In the last scene, Keefe is excluded from Sunday dinner with the family.  Now we see what he missed:

Judy and BJ accused of betraying the family because they got married at Disney World (by Prince Eric, the "hottest guy in the Disney catalog").

There's also a jab at Kelvin's muscle obsession. But it’s not just homoerotic desire.  Heterosexual desire is also incompatible with the family: when Jesse disses Judy for not being a mother, she argues that she's trying to keep her body "foine" to incite BJ's desire.  Nope, they need to have a family. 

Left and below: Jonah Hauer-King, who played Prince Eric in the Litle Mermaid movie.

More Disruptions: We cut to Eli playing croquet, gazing at women's butts, and flirting with a lady.  Suddenly Junior, his friend from his wrestling days, appears amid sinister music!   Eli ignores him and drives away.  A homoerotic disruption of Eli's heterosexual dalliance, parallel to the God Squad disrupting the nuclear family procession earlier. 

Next, the Jesse-Amber plot, a new Christian-themed resort, Zion's Landing, proposed by their megachurch pastor chums, Lyle and Lindy Lissons.  Jesse doesn't have any money of his own, so he'll have to convince Eli to invest.  He's got a job at the church; he should get a salary.  Daddy Eli is super over-controlling, like his daddy was, and like Kelvin will be with his homoerotic Band of Brothers.

My Mans:  The family flies to Florida to inspect the site of the Lyssons' proposed resort.   When they return, Keefe and the God Squad meet them at their private airfield.  The family is shocked: didn't they know about the God Squad? 

"Uh-oh, my mans!" Kelvin exclaims, rushing forward to tell Keefe "You are looking great!"  In Southern Coastal grammar, "mans" is singular, "mens" plural.  He means Keefe.

Keefe tries to move in for a kiss, but Kelvin blocks him with an awkward hug.  He tries again, and Kelvin blocks him again. Finally he makes a blatant "enough!" gesture and backs off.  Judy finds this little dance hilarious.   It reflects the couple's conflict this season: Keefe wants to join the family as Kelvin's partner, the equivalent of BJ, sitting at the dinner table being criticized, while Kelvin isn't sure that same-sex romance is even possible.  His muscle cult is about desire: no love allowed. 

We cut to Eli in his office, watching a tv news show: Thaniel Block being interviewed about the "salacious scandal" story that took down Pastor Butterfield.  How famous was this guy?  I thought he was just the anonymous pastor of a satellite church.  They preach "sex only between married heterosexual partners, or you're going to hell," but privately they do everything under the sun.  Who will he target next?   Maybe Kelvin-- "Secretly gay youth minister holds wild orgies with his stable of muscle boys."  Ulp.   

Damn, we got old: Later, Eli is standing at the docks, worrying, when Junior approaches him and grabs him from behind, another homoerotic intrusion into his heteronormative life.  Junior complains that Eli forgot that he existed. 

Then: "We got old.  I look like a piece of shit, but damn!  You look sturdy!  Still got that mass going on!"  He grabs Eli's butt to check. Sort of presumptuous, dude, thinking that your ex will still be into you after fifty years. 

Eli thinks that Junior plans to blackmail him over revealing their days as loan enforcers (and lovers?), but he claims that he's just there for nostalgia, looking up an old friend.  "Why you all nervous, Eli?  Why are you bein' all weird?"  In this series, "weird" usually refers to sexual frustration.

Junior tries to hug him again, but Eli pushes him away.  On a scale of 1 to 100, how certain are you that these guys spent the psychedelic 1970s enjoying free love?  

As Eli walks away, Junior guilts him into a dinner invitation.

Sticky Stephens:  Nuclear families are  eating at Sticky Stephens, a parody of the Sticky Fingers Restaurant in Charleston that closed down in 2020.  Both sound dirty. The 1972 Rolling Stones album of that name  depicted a pair of jeans with an enormous bulge, leaving no question about why the fingers are sticky.

Junior points out a kissing couple: "Damn, look at that piece of tail he's with!" Ok, so he's bi.  Everybody watches as the man, Randall (Rene Rivera), lifts his girl onto the counter so they can have sex right in the restaurant!  Why doesn't someone on staff intervene? Eli yells at him to "tone down romance," and Randall yells "Suck my dick, Grandpa." But the couple leaves.

Over dinner, Junior reveals that he's now a wrestling promoter: "I got a stable full of fellas I keep working."  Tell me more, tell me more.  What do they do besides wrestling? Stripping?  Sex work?

"I wonder what my Daddy would think about you and me being reunited," Junior says.  Eli answers: "He put us together, so he would think he did a pretty good job."  Except they were separated for a lifetime.  That's not a great job of matchmaking.

Junior says that his Daddy just disappeared one day, setting up a major mystery of the Season: Did Eli murder Glendon Marsh?

Proper erections after the break.  Warning: explicit

How fans deny queerness in "The Righteous Gemstones" and other tv series. With examples and dicks.

 

New book on fan reaction to queer codes in tv series, especially how and why some fans on social media refuse to admit that a character is gay.

Gideon Gemstone's room is plastered with pictures of musclemen.

He's obviously straight.  He wants to look like them, not at them.

On The Middle, Sue's friend Brad begins "I'm...."  and is cut off when she says "I know" and hugs him.  

Obviously he was going to confess his love for her.

On What We Do in the Shadows, Guillermo tells the vampires, "I was about thirteen when I realized that I was..." and is cut off.

Obviously he was going to say "shy around girls."

On The Hollow, Adam has a Pride flag in his room.

So what?  Lots of guys like rainbows.

He tells his friends, "I'm gay."

Obviously he didn't mean it like that.

Gideon and Scotty have a romantic candlelight dinner while the background song tells us: "The way you look when you get down, you knock me out."  

Straight guys can go out to dinner.  There's such a thing as friendship, you know.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Nude photos of Joaquin Phoenix: Skip the downer movies and check out his junk. With bonus Marky Mark and Kieran Culkin

 

Everyone in Wilton Manors saw Igby Goes Down in 2002: the trailer and the title made it sound like a gay coming-out story with a lot of "going down," har har.  Actually there's no gay content at all.  Igby is a sarcastic 17 year old with an institutionalized stepfather and a dying mother (first rule of fiction: somebody always must be dying or dead).  He hooks up with his biological father's "heroin-addicted trophy mistress" and her "terminally bored" friend before euthanizing his mom and getting the heck out of Dodge.

Imagine sitting in the theater expecting a lot of gay sex, and seeing...this.  We were so disgusted that we vowed to never see anything else that the actor appeared in.  20 years later, I didn't even remember his name.

Until I saw this nude photo from Edgerton (2025).  During the COVID pandemic, small-town sheriff Joe Cross disapproves of the mayor's mask edict, so he runs against him, then kills him and his Black-Lives-Matter son, and is eventually killed himself.  

I recognized him as the star of Igby, Joaquin Phoenix, still churning out downer movies.  

Joaquin Phoenix is straight, with several girlfriends and a kid.  And apparently homophobic; he was scheduled to play a gay guy who flees to Mexico with his boyfriend, but "got cold feet" and backed out five days before filming was to begin.

But he has a big cock, so instead of a profile, I'll check to see where he's shown it off 

Beau is Afraid (2023): One of those surreal indie films with a nonsensical plot.  A lot of people die, including Beau's mother, his father, a girl he is having sex with, and eventually Beau himself. We get a blurry dotado as he is being traumatized by something or other.  

Napoleon (2023): The butt of the Emperor of France, who made vassal states of practically every country in Europe. And since this was the Age of Colonialism, practically every country in the world.  When he wasn't having "energetic sex" with his wife and mistresses.

A butt crack (not shown) in The Master (2012): World War II vet has problems, joins a cult, drops out, has sex with women. 

A backside in The Yards (2000): A union organizer goes to work for the Mob, kills some people, buddies with Mark Wahlberg, has sex with girls.  Of course his girlfriend dies.  

Bonus: Mark Wahlberg's backside.

Igby-style chest in Return to Paradise (1998): A tourist in Malaysia is arrested for hashish possession and sentenced to death, unless his friends turn themselves in. Vince Vaughn agrees, but Joaquin is executed anyway.

There are lots of movies where people don't die, buddy. 

Wait -- what happened to Igby?  From 2000 to 2003, Joaquin starred in The Yards, Gladiator, Signs, It's All About Love, Quills, and Brother Bear, but no Igby Goes Down.

Turns out that Igby was played by Kieran Culkin.  A natural mistake -- the guys looked alike in their youth, and they both prefer roles in downer movies, with lots of sex with girls and people dying, often at the same time. 

And both have big cocks.

But Kieran's career is a little more gay-positive.  He played the sassy roommate in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and a human in love with Skyler Gisondo as a bat-alien on Solar Opposites.

See also:Solar Opposites Episode 4.9: Skyler Gisondo plays a muscular bat-alien with a human boyfriend, plus Thomas Middleditch penis

Richie Rich joins a gym. With bonus Rory and Kieran cocks, and Kelvin Gemstone Comics

Peter Billingsley: The lingerie lamp kid, a Beverly Hills brat, Whips, ropes, and perhaps Peter's peter

Theo Taplitz: Jewish homophobe, gay kid, wyrm, artist, filmmaker, with some cocks and butts, and a lot of "after the death of"

  

Having had a Jewish partner for ten years, I get sort of nostalgic for Jewish culture, so  when a cute guy appeared on the icon of Bad Shabbos (2024), I clicked without doing any research.   I found three siblings and their partners preparing for Shabbos dinner with their upscale New York parents.

1. David (John Bass, seen here nude in Baywatch) and his shiksha-but-converting girlfriend Beth.  Her parents from Wisconsin are coming, too, and he is worried that they will "freak out."  It's dinner with prayers, what's the big deal?

The security guard downstairs tells the girlfriend to be sure to sit next to Ritchie, because "He's the shit."  So I kept waiting for Ritchie to arrive.  But no such person appears in the cast list. 

2. Abby and her boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman), who hate each other.  He actually hates and insults everything.

3. The third sibling, Adam (Theo Taplitz), is still a teenager, in his room, working out to strobe lights and techno music.  David cautions that his future in-laws are from Wisconsin, not used to families arguing, like New York Jewish families do, so play it cool.

"But what about Benjamin?  The way he insults me!  Do I have to be polite to that slimy cocks*ck?"

"Yes, even to that...um...cocks*ck."

"Ok, I'll try.  But if that cheating cocks*ck starts something, I can't promise that I won't defend myself!"

Ok, three homophobic slurs in ten seconds.  I'm out.  But I wanted to know about Theo Taplitz, who so easily agreed to batter around homophobic slurs and insult LGBT viewers.

An article in Adroit gives his biography: Born in Laurel Canyon in 2003, attended the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, became a Scholastic Art and Writing National Gold Medalist twice, graduated in 2021.  

Enrolled at Columbia University as a John Jay Scholar, probably graduated in 2025.  His work "explores the middle ground between objective and subjective experience and the ruptures that occur in that unstable territory."  Um...does this explain why you're ok with homophobic slurs?

He's got 15 writing/directing credits on the IMDB, beginning when he was 13.  Quite a prodigy, but.....

True Places Never Are (2015): A boy trapped in sadness...next!

Requiem for Mr. Cromwell (2016). A boy trapped in sadness...again?

Dybbuk (2017): his little brother plays the dybbuk

Goodbye, Sam (2018): Sam is a dead parrot.

This House Has Eyes (2019): The eyes are watching a father and son at the end of the world.

Grey Heart (2019): After the death of...  When I was studying Creative Writing, they told me that the first rule of short fiction is: someone has to die or be dead.

Gable (2023): A young man uses the voice of Clark Gable to communicate with his catatonic grandfather.  Darn, I thought it would be about the House of the Seven Gables.

I'm getting depressed.  Let's get Theo's butt in here.  And there's nothing particularly homophobic about the content so far.

Theo has 17 acting credits on the IMDB, but they are mostly the shorts he wrote and directed.  Only a few other projects:

Little Men (2016): After the death of -- well, who cares, all fiction must have someone dead -- Jake (Theo) and his parents become the owners of an apartment building. He becomes friends with Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose mother has a dress shop downstairs.  They help each other out; Tony even defends Jake when bulllies "insult his sexuality."  Of course, being called "gay" is a horrible insult, because gay people are so horrible, right?  But Jake's dad decides to triple the rent; Tony's mom can't pay, and is evicted.  And of course the boys can no longer be friends.

More after the break

Ilia Bolshaya: Collegiate swimmer with a 3.97 GPA and a huge sausage. With nude swimmers and why gay men don't major in science

 

The nude celebrity subreddit posted a photo of Ilia, who is walking into the room with his cock swinging.  I figured he was an actor, but research reveals that he was a college swimmer.  Quite a prestigious one, with a lot of awards.

But the subreddit took him down right away, so they don't consider him celebrity enough.

I'm torn.  Are a lot of swimming awards enough?

I was convinced by learning that fraternity initiations at his college often involve stripping the guy, so there are a number of nude photos around (left and below). 

 But I'll compromise by changing Ilia's last name (Bolshaya means "huge" in Russian, as in большая сосиска, "big sausage").  

I'll also omit the names of his colleges, so he can't be tracked down easily (searching for "Ilia" and "swimmer" doesn't do it).

Ilia is originally from Moscow.  As a teenager, he competed in swimming events across Europe, including this one in Regensburg, where I spent a quarter abroad during my sophomore year. 

He graduated from a gymnasium (high school) in 2016, and enrolled in college in the U.S., where he majored in biology.

He was on the swim team, of course.  His favorite dish was sushi, and his favorite non-swimming activity was reading.

He joined a fraternity where they typically strip candidates.

In 2020, Ilia received his B.S. in Biology, with a 3.97 GPA, and went to graduate school in Biomedical Engineering.  As of the summer of 2025, he is a Ph.D. candidate, researching the intersection of pharmacogenomics, artificial intelligence, and mathematical modeling.  He also has an internship in quantitative pharmacology, and five publications.

Ready for the nude photo?  After the break.  Caution: Explicit.

'Chad Powers": A-hole footballer disguised as a college student, with a gay roommate and lots of bare chests. And other bare stuff.

I have no interest in -- or knowledge of -- football, but when the new Hulu series Chad Powers is advertised by two hunks gazing at each other, ready to fight or kiss, what choice do I have?  

Wait -- the two hunks are both Glen Powell, who you recall from Scream Queens and Top Gun: Maverick.  He's playing Russ Holliday, a famous college football player who was cancelled after an altercation with a kid in a wheelchair (and various other a-hole acts).  He schemes to get back into the game by creating a new identity, Chad Powers, and playing for the  struggling Catfish football team at South Georgia College (like, he's catfishing them, har har).  Presumably he'll take classes, too.   

Left: Glenn's butt.

In Episode 1.1, he steals a lot of supplies from his Oscar-winning makeup artist Dad to create the character, goes to the campus, and has a meet-cute with team mascot Danny (Frankie Rodriguez), a fashion-and-pop culture junkie who offers to help him with the deception.  "Your new identity needs to be a modest, likeable guy.  Just play the opposite of yourself."  Danny is also a makeup artist. Dude is obviously gay.  

I'm reviewing Episode 1.2, where Russ tries to maintain his new identity at a party at the coach's lake house -- shirtless hunks are promised.

Scene 1:  Russ and Danny are behind the building, near the dumpsters.  Russ roils at his prosthetic cheeks, but Danny insists: "You have to become Chad Powers. But don't talk much."  Dylan (Jordan Mendoza) arrives with his new identification materials and transcripts, "but I couldn't find him a home address."  No problem, he can stay with Danny.  Tell me more. 

Gross -- there's a bug burrowing into his prosthetic cheek!

Frankie Rodriguez is gay in real life, and has played gay characters in High School Musical: the Series, Modern Family, and Will and Grace.  I'm sure that Danny is gay, too, but they may not give us more than a few hints.

Scene 2:  Football practice.  Subplot involves the fussy Coach (Steve Zahn) and his assistant, secretly his daughter (doubtless also Russ's Love Interest). 

Coach summons Russ/Chad to note a problem with his transcripts: he was homeschooled in West Virginia, in a wilderness surrounded by wolves (nope, no wolves east of Minnesota).  So how did he manage to play high school football?

"Oh, I played...um...with the wolves."

Um...ok.  The Coach needs a winning season, or he'll be fired, so he's willing to suspend his disbelief.

Next Gerry (Colton Ryan), from the scout team and backup, introduces himself.  So far, we have five named male characters.  I'm getting a testosterone high. Who cares what a "scout team" and "backup" are?

80% of the photos Colton Ryan's Instagram show him hugging, kissing, and frolicking with a lady, and the other 20% show her alone, dressed as a man, showing her legs, smooching at the camera.  I'm guessing that he's straight. 

Wait, here's one where he's by himself.

Back to Chad Powers: Gerry teaches Russ/Chad his secret handshake, "a p*ssy symbol, because I get a lot of it."  I know -- I've seen the first 300 pictures on your Instagram. 

Gerry may want to be friends, but the other players ridicule Russ/Chad, especially Bully Nishan (Xavier Mills).

They start the practice.  Russ/Chad screws up and is demoted to backup: "Hey, Flowers for Algernon, this is where you grab this clipboard." Literary reference, har har.

Football research: There are two quarterbacks on each team. The Starting Quarterback is chosen for his ability to draw photo-ops, fawning articles, and hefty donations from boosters.  The Backup does the grunt work while the other players call him names.  But if the Starting Quarterback is injured or traded to another team, won't the Backup take over, and the players who thought he was worthless will have to do what he says? 

On the sidelines, Russ/Chad asks his Love Interest why Coach demoted him to Backup.  "The Starting QB hasn't been decided yet," she assures him.  "Coach wants you and Gerry to compete for the role."  

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Manny and Gavin D. : Gay-coded Wisconsin brothers, a wrestler and a bodybuilder, aren't into girls, until.... With some d*ck pics

 

Several years ago, I became a friend of Gavin D. on Facebook and some other social media sites.  He was a college wrestler from Wisconsin, about 200 miles away from my college town.

He never mentioned girls, but he mentioned other boys quite often.  I figured that he was gay, but not quite ready to come out yet.

His younger brother Manny was quiet, artistic -- also gay-coded.  

Apparently Manny was feeling left out, with two wrestler brothers and a sister who was a gymnast. At age 14 he joined the wrestling team, then began bodybuilding combined with intermittent fasting.  Strength training is fine for teenagers, but they are generally discouraged from bodybuilding until their bone structure is fully developed, and their body fat should not drop below 6-10%.  

 Manny shredded down to 3%, then down to an unhealthy and unattractive 1%.  Soon he was competing in venues like the Brew City Classic in Waukesha, and was the the subject of adulating video and articles "Insane 16 year old bodybuilder!"; "The Wonderkid Bodybuilder"! 

More after the break