Proud: A young male model in Poland is gay, sleazy, frequently naked, and not at all proud.

The first episode of the TV series Proud has dropped on HBO MAX: "After a tragedy, a carefree young man must grow up or lose what he has left."  Nothing in the premise or episode synopsis suggests that he is a gay carefree young man, but dropping a show called Proud during Pride Month is a dirty trick if it's gay-free.  So we'll give it a try.   

Scene 1: Shaky hand-held camera follows the back of a Carefree Young Man's head as he walks past blurry people in a room.  They seem to be models waiting for an audition. The casting agent wants them all in underwear.   The Young Man sneaks into the bathroom, takes cocaine, does some push-ups, and heads for his audition.  

Wait -- they said underwear.  He strips, completely nude, explaining "I don't do underwear."

One of the casting agents says it's fine, "The kid's a free spirit."  You just like his cock, buddy.   He starts choking, so the young man gives him Heimlich. 

Scene 2: A blurry club, very dark, very red, very crowded.  Looks like mostly men.  The Young Man does cocaine, is absorbed by gyrating body parts, then follows a group of guys through the kitchen and into the dark room.  Ok, he's gay. And this must be Europe, where every bar has a dark room.  They don't usually put them next to the kitchen,though. 

The dark room is even darker and blurrier than the main club, but I think I see some kissing and rimming. 

Whoops, a girl bursts in and opens the curtains: "Party's over!  Get out!"  

Ulp, this isn't a dark room.  The Young Man invited four guys to an orgy at his sister's apartment!  Does the apartment open directly onto the kitchn of a gay club, or do we have to deal with inept editing as well as inept cinematography?

"I thought you weren't coming back until Monday," the Young Man says in a blurry, drug-addled voice.

"It is Monday, you idiot!"

"Dang, I have a very important meeting today!"

Scene 3:  After kicking the guys out, the Young Man -- Filip -- goes to the kitchen and asks Sis why she's so upset.  "We had an agreement -- no partying in the house! Plus you haven't taken out the trash or done the laundry.  Those are your two jobs!"

"I know.  I've been busy."

She wants him out.  She can't take his lack of responsibility, not doing any chores, always being drunk and high, strange men coming in and out all the time, with her child in the house. The child looks like she's about a year old. 

"But I'm broke."

"Then sell your motorcycle!" 

They argue for awhile.  Sister yells: "You think life is all fun and games, but today is the day you grow up.  Move out by this evening!"  This isn't carefree, it's pathological!

Scene 3: The naked Filip is getting dressed. We may get a brief cock shot, but it's too blurry to see anything.  A guy bangs on the door, asking for his money.  A lady walking down the hall says that she's walking Filip's dog, and he owes 50 zloty ($13) for dog food.  

The guy takes the dog.  Filip yells down after him, but he says "I want my money today!"

Filip pours some vodka into a coke bottle and jumps into a taxi to head to his very important meeting.  But he turns around to sell his motorcycle.

Scene 4: Two guys pick up the motorcycle, insisting that they'll only pay half of what it's worth. Hey, he has four of them!  And he's broke?  Maybe it's the cocaine.  The guy from his very important meeting calls, angry: "Where the hell are you?"

Left: The IMDB lists only Ignacy Liss, who plays Filip, but I found Mateusz Wieclawik in the closing credits.  I don't know who he plays; no one in the show has hair like that.

Filip takes a taxi downtown.  His agent meets him: "You're 45 minutes late!  Everyone is freaking out!  I'm tired of making excuses for you!"  Sort of a jerk, aren't you, Filip Baby?

Uh-oh, the guy he owes money to is there.  Filip pays with the motorcycle money, gets his dog back, and asks if he has any more cocaine.

On to the meeting!  They rush him into makeup, complaining that he reeks of alcohol and "things go better when the models actually show up." 

The makeup lady just got engaged, and her teenage daughter shows up and announces "I'm meeting someone."  This upsets her.  Must be a subplot brewing.

Scene 5: It's one of those daytime talk shows, show, just finishing a segment with an expert on marital conflicts.  Next up: the hosts will show you how to be chic on the beach. They approach the four models.

"Filip  is presenting a beautiful red brief cut."   

Uh-oh, Filip is high: he begins giggling, then throws up, then collapses -- on live tv!  They quickly cut to commercial. 

More after the break.  Spoiler alert: He lives.

Like Cattle Towards Gloom: The mystery of the glowing cattle solved, sort of. With Nicolas Hau tree-trunking, a naked man in my bed, and unrelenting gloom

I started watching Half-Man (2026), starring Jamie Bell as a sort-of gay guy who has a sort-of homoerotic relationship with his sadistic "half brother" (Richard Gadd of Baby Reindeer),  but I had forgotten the intensity of Mr. Gadd's internalized homophobia  -- until the depiction of same-sex desire as unrelentingly dark and destructive began.  So I dropped it. What's so horrible about liking cocks?  

Next, in search of light entertainment, I checked the nude celebrity subreddit: a morose white-haired young man sitting on his bed with his cock tree-trunking.  In another shot, he's manipulating.  

I was fascinated.  What was the context?  How could anyone be morose while doing that?

 The caption said that he was Nicolas Hau, from the French movie  Like Cattle Towards Glow (2015).   You can't move toward "glow."  It would have to be a glowing object. 

A mystery to solve!  Was it a bad translation, or an old folk saying changed to gibberish with the passage of time?

According to his IMDB biography, written by himself,  Nicolas Hau "has collaborated with international directors and continues to develop a diverse body of work across film and artistic projects, with a strong interest in character-driven and visually distinctive storytelling."

This extremely pretentious bio is matched by two acting credits on the IMDB: the glowing cattle movie and The Aspern Papers (2018), based on the novel by Henry James: An American novelist wants to get the letters that  Romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern sent to his mistress, but she has them sequestered in her decaying Venetian mansion. 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers (left) stars. Nicolas plays the bisexual poet Lord Byron.

It grossed $9,700 in the U.S, and got reviews like "Awful!" "Pretentious drivel!" "Boring!"

Well, it's Henry James.  What do you expect?

Nicolas' resume also lists three theatrical credits:

Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Benjamin in The Graduate, the part originally played by Dustin Hoffman.

And Einar Wegener in Danish Girl.  In 1920s Copenhagen, Einar develops a female persona named Lili, and with the support of his wife, gradually acknowledges a female gender identity.  Lili was a pioneer in transgender history as the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery.  In the 2015 movie, she was played by Eddie Redmayne.

Nowadays Nicolas is mostly a model.  His credits on Models.com include Vogue, the covers of Stylist and Beauty magazines, walking for Ferderico Curradi and Peuteray, "Bizarre Love Triangle" (behind a paywall), and whatever this is.

The samples he uploads to his Instagram mostly show him looking bored and pretentious while hugging a semi-nude lady.  This is one of the few where he's alone, putting on a Gaucho outfit for a shoot.

The glowing cattle and the tree-trunking photo that sent me down this internet rabbit hole after the break

"A hot groin and a tricep": Nude photos of Peter Hinwood, the original Rocky Horror. With Ian McShane, Morgan Jackson, and Chord Overstreet.

 

A deltoid and a bicep
A hot groin and a tricep 
Makes me --- shake.
Makes me want to take Charles Atlas by the...hand

Every gay man of a certain age had a coming out or "I'm not alone in the world" moment while watching  The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), a science fiction-horror pastiche with the "sweet transvestite" alien mad scientist Dr. Frank-n-Furter  unwrapping his creation, muscleman Rocky (technically named Rocky Horror).

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure

Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh

Erotic nightmares beyond any measure

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever

Gay men of a certain age have seen Peter Hinwood and his "hot groin" many, many times, in the midnight shows, on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and streaming on Netflix every Halloween.  But you may not know that there are nude photos of the muscle god out there.

Born in Bromley, about 10 miles south of London, in 1946, Peter Hinwood began his career as a photographer's assistant, but soon began modeling for English Boy Ltd.  By 1970 he was at the top of the industry, driving fancy cars, going on expensive vacations to Tangier, and hanging out with celebrities like director Derek Jarman and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones.

Not just fashion -- he also appeared in the physique magazines of the closeted gay subculture of the era.  He made the cover of Man's World in March 1967.

Peter began his acting career as a muscleman, naturally, playing the God Hermes in an Italian adaption of The Odyssey (1968)

Next he played Guy in Tam Lin, an adaption of the old Scottish folksong (1970).  Also appearing were British stalwarts Ian McShane (Charlie in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium) and Joanna Lumley (Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous), and the director was Tab Hunter's boyfriend Roddy McDowall.

In the original Rocky Horror Show performed in London (1973) and Los Angeles (1974), Rocky was played by svelte, feminine, androgynous men, but for the 1975 movie director Jim Sharman wanted a muscle god, massive and inarticulate, speaking only in grunts (his singing voice provided by Trevor White).  Peter was cast after showing his...um...porfolio.

Patsy: He wanted to show me his portfolio.

Edina: How was it?

Patsy: Fantastic!

The result: 50 years of ab-so-lute pleasure.  And more to come.

I am just seven hours old

Truly beautiful to behold

But somebody should be told

My libido hasn't been controlled

Now the only thing I've come to trust

Is an orgasmic rush of lust

Rose tints my world

Keeps me safe from my trouble and pain

After Rocky Horror, Peter had a small part in Sebastiane (1976), Derek Jarman's gay adaption of the St. Sebastian mythos, with Leonardo Treviglio as the Christian seduced by and then martyred by the Emperor Diocletian.

Then he left acting, and, valuing his privacy, refused to participate in Rocky Horror events.  Also, he admittedly can't act, and "cringes" whenever he sees himself on film. He became an antiques dealer, along with his "partner in life and business" Christopher Gibbs.  They divided their time between London and Tangier.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Isaac Ordonez models at Paris Fashion Week, with some boyfriends, Lucas from "Stranger Things," some random twinks, and Taylor's dick

 

Isaac Ordonez is best known as the sweet, queer-coded Pugsley Addams on Wednesday,, and he's been in a few other tv shows and shorts, but he seems to be more interested in modeling.  In March 2026, he hit Paris Fashion Week.

He doesn't model like this -- yet

He modeled the androgynous "Washed Out Match," by LaCoste designer Pelagia Kolotourosos.  She was inspired by a tennis game René Lacoste tried to play in 1923: it was washed out due to bad weather, but fans showed up anyway.

Dressed like this?

Galore comments:  "Isaac loves taking risks -- experimenting with textures, fabrics, and silhouettes."  

And gender stereotypes

Here Isaac schmoozes with fellow LaCoste model Taylor Zakhar Perez, who played Alex in Red White and Royal Blue: The bad-boy son of the U.S. President, who falls in love with the stick-in-the-mud Prince Henry of Britain. 

Taylor's modeling is more masculine-coded, but he uses the same face-up pose.  Isaac has a bigger Adam's apple.

I don't think that Isaac is particularly drawn to gay actors, like Alfie Williams: he also posts photos with straight actors Aubrey Plaza (Rio on Agatha All Along) and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas on Stranger Things).

Wait -- Aubrey Plaza is bi, and Lucas -- straight, but can you figure out why he might be of interest to a gay teen anyway?

More after the break

Connor Newall: The Hottest Property in Fashion buddies with Alfie Williams, models in homoerotic ads, plays gay guys, shows his....

 

Alfie Williams just posted a photo of his 28 Years Later Family, at a table read.  He's sitting between Chi-Lewis Parry, the zombie Samson (not shown)  and Connor Newall, who played Jimmy Shite, the first cultist to come to the rescue as Spike is facing a zombie hoard (and in Bone Temple, forced to fight him to the death).  Alfie always gravitates toward LGBTQ actors, so it's worth checking him out.

In 2015, Connor Newall was a 16-year old high school student, growing up in the rough neighborhood of Govan, Glasgow, with a dad who worked on the docks and an older brother in the army. He figured that he would join the army, too, until a casting agent visited his school, looking for some scally lads to play in a PSA about knife violence in Scotland: No Knives, Better Lives.

She cast Connor, and then sent his photo to Michael O'Brien at Model Team Glasgow, who called instantly and exclaimed "Get him to my office right now!"

Connor signed on, and had a photo shoot for GQ within a week.  Then "the phone started ringing, and to be honest it never stopped."  He had to get excused absences from his teachers so he could fly off for magazine shoots in London, Paris, and Barcelona.  Every photographer in the business asked for him. He was called "the hottest property in fashion" and "Scotland's Model Teenager." 

What was the attraction?  Connor was shorter than the usual male model, and not muscular, but his striking, angular face could be angelic one moment, demonic the next, move from brooding to whimsical with a glance.

And he was really good at homoerotic ads.

Connor's modeling rarely involves hugging ladies, but the homoerotic is everywhere. Here a four page spread for GQ China depicts him and Bradley Phillips as half-naked lovers.

I don't know what he's trying to sell here, playing with a water hose and his cock.  The underwear? 

Connor's older brother supported his modeling, and quit his army job to join him on the runway.  His father wasn't so sure.  Modeling careers don't last long.  In a few years, his looks will be gone, the media will go on to the next big thing, and then where will he be?  He should train for a back-up career.

Connor chose acting.  To date he has seven credits listed on his CV:

The short Bunny (2018): A teenager (Connor) wears bunny ears to deal with the trauma of his deceased mother.

The music video Gratitude (2018), by Benjamin Francis Leftwitch, a British Indie folk singer: a very upset Connor parks his car in the dark, punches it a few times, rips off his shirt, smokes a cigarette, gets naked, and trudges into the ocean.  

Now I know what I'm praying for
Not to waste anytime like I wasted before
Now I know what I'm staying for
No more

It's nice that nothing in the lyrics or the video shows him upset over a girl. 

 More Connor butts and a dick after the break

Marcel Ruiz: "One Day at a Time" boy grows up, plays gay guys, wears dresses, kisses girls. You figure him out. With Lucas butt and Jackson junk

When I was in high school, Tuesday night meant Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and One Day at a Time (1975-84).   a "hip sitcom" with divorced mom Anne Romano (Bonnie Franklin) moving from small-town Logansport to Indianapolis to raise her kids: rebellious Julie, popular Barbara, and eventually the exceptionally femme Alex (Glenn Scarpelli).  Building handyman Schneider popped in all the time.

The theme song brings me back to those nights, sitting in the living room with my parents and brother and sister, doing my homework on a clipboard. No matter what problems I was facing outside, with screaming preachers and sadistic teachers and the constant refrain of "what girl do you like?", I was safe here.

This is it (this is it); this is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball.
This is it (this is it): straight ahead, and rest assured, you can't be sure at all.
So while you're here, enjoy the view, keep on doin' what you do.
Hang on tight, we'll muddle through -- one day at a time.

In 2017, a re-imagining appeared on Netflix, only to be cancelled, moved to Pop and TVLand, and cancelled again in 2020.  It was a re-imagining because it had nothing to do with the original series except for the title, the theme song, and characters named Alex and Schneider.  Here they are a Hispanic family living in Echo Park, Los Angeles: army nurse Lupe; social activist Elena; and popular Alex (Marcel Ruiz).  Grandma Rita Moreno pops in frequently.

I watched an episode out of curiosity, but didn't like it.  Mostly ladies; no cute guys (Todd Grinnell as Schneider was not my type). And why did they keep the name Alex but remove his gay coding?  

Besides, watching on my laptop in my home office in 2017 was just not the same as watching in the living room surrounded by my family in 1977.

Then I saw Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz (who played Elena and Alex) in a video for the It Gets Better project.  Isabella talks about how Elena struggles with coming out as a queer Latinx woman, and starts dating the nonbinary Syd.  "Normalizing lesbian and nonbinary identities on tv plays an important role in creating acceptance in real life."  Marcel adds that if your family doesn't accept you, there are others who do. You can find a chosen family.  "It gets better. Just keep going through life everyday."  Not "one day at a time"?

Isabella plays a queer character, but why is Marcel there?  Alex is straight.  You're looking quite femme in that outfit, buddy. Are you gay in real life, like the original? 

Time for a profile.

Marcel was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2003.  His mother, Mariem Pérez Riera, is an Emmy-winning director known for her biography of Rita Morena (not coincidentally, grandma on One Day at a Time). His father, Carlitos Ruíz Ruíz, is a "photographer, storyteller, and filmmaker" known for Maldeamores (2007), about a love triangle.

For someone born into a family of film makers, Marcel doesn't have a lot of acting gigs listed on the IMDB.  His career starts with an episode of Snowfall (2017), a tv series about the cocaine panic in Los Angeles in the early 1980.  Damson Idris (left) stars as a drug dealer.  Marcel plays a young Sandanista operative spying on the CIA in Nicaragua. He gets killed.  

His first starring role was in Breakthrough (2019): When a boy with the crazily Anglo name John Smith (Marcel) drowns in a lake, his Mom prays that he will be brought back "from the brink of death."  Did he die or almost die?  

Josh Lucas (left) plays the boy's Dad, and Topher Grace of That 70s Show plays the megachurch pastor.  

Marcel apparently belongs to a megachurch in real life, too.

Sounds Christian, which means homophobic, but Topher Grace went on to star in Home Economics (2021-23), and Marcel, to One Day at a Time (2017-20).  Both of their characters have gay sisters.  Go figure.

 Marcel has only two post-Days roles:

A Bad Bunny music video, Baile inolvidable (Unforgettable dance, 2025).  A lot of male-female couples dance while their friends cheer them on.  

And the short Telaraña (2025) : The teenage Naomi faces the "disturbing truth" about her family, involving a giant spider (araña).  Marcel plays her brother Lolo.

Plus two upcoming projects.

Summer of Three (filming completed in 2026): After his father's death, Javi (Marcel) returns to Puerto Rico, where he becomes involved in a love triangle with Luife (Paolo Schone) and his girlfriend Kiki.  I can't tell from the plot description and photos if the two men are competing for the lady, or if it's a three-way romance. 

More after the break

Blair's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 2: Fitness model, stripper, deputy. Only his abs and dick stay the same

This is a collection of hot/hung and humorous photos of Blair Jackson, the actor/model who became Kelvin's nemesis in Righteous Gemstones Episode 1.4, "Wicked Lips." 

1. Teenage abs.

2. Grown-up abs.

3. Austin from "Wicked Lips" goes cruising. 

4. Going blond.

5. Blair's Starry Night.

6. You weren't looking at his face, anyhow.

More Blair after the break. Warning: explicit.

Daniel DeSanto: The gay kid in the Midnight Society, a Mean Girl, a Sicilian assassin, a short guy with a big dick. Who cares if he's straight?

 

Submitted for your approval: Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark (1992-1996), an anthology of ghost and horror stories told by -- and evaluated by -- a group of teenagers called the Midnight Society.  

It aired at 5:30 pm on weeknights and 9:30 pm on Saturday night, so I didn't watch often, but I recall a few episodes. 

"The Tale of the Water Demon": Tony Sampson steals a gold watch, which draws the wrath of the water demon and threatens his gay-subtext buddy, Charlie Hofheimer

"The Tale of the Zombie Dice":  Jay Baruchel (top photo) fights a video arcade owner who is shrinking teens and selling them as pets.

"The Tale of the Phantom Cab": While lost in the woods, Jacob Tremblay (no relation to Jason Tremblay) and his brother stumble upon a monstrous being who keeps teenagers captive unless they can solve a riddle.

And I recall three of the teen actors who appeared in the frame sections, squabbling, flirting, forming alliances:

Bookish intellectual Gary (Ross Hull, left), the leader.

Frank (Jason Alisharan) the leather-jacket bad boy

Prank-loving, irreverent Tucker (Daniel DeSanto, right), Frank's younger brother, who joins the Midnight Society in Season 3, and stays through the series finale.  He becomes the leader of the Midnight Society in the revival series (1999-2000).

You're probably expecting a profile of Ross Hull, who is gay in real life, and rather built; but Gary turned me off by crushing on Sam (a girl) and eventually dating her.  

Frank competed for Sam's affections, too. 

But Tucker never expressed any heterosexual interest; indeed, he seemed to have a "he's arrogant!" love-hate attraction to Frank. 

He pushes to get his friend Stig (Codie Wilbie) to be admitted to the group in Season 6.  In the revival series, he and his friend Quinn (Kareem Blackwell) found the new Midnight Society together.    

Plus his stories are about friendships that are threatened, or grow stronger, through paranormal peril.  A lot of gay coding for Nickelodeon in the 1990s.

I didn't follow any of Daniel's post-Dark works. Somehow I had the impression that he played Elaine's boyfriend Jake on Seinfeld (a recovering alcohol, he goes off the wagon due to Jerry's negligence, and seeks revenge,)  But the episode aired in 1991, when Daniel was 11 years old.  Jake was actually played by David Naughton. 

When I was reviewing an episode of 100 Things to Do Before High School for my profile of Max Ehrich, I thought I saw him playing Mr. Roberts, the guidance counselor, but that's Jack De Sena

Our Daniel, a Toronto native, was a busy child and teen actor, specializing in horror for obvious reasons:

Gabe, who visits Egypt with his uncle and uncovers a mummy's curse in two episodes of Goosebumps (1995).

Theo in two episodes of The New Ghostwriter Mysteries (1997): he helps the gang and the ghost foil a corrupt cop, and later, thieves who target seemingly worthless items.

Zeke, a teenage theater employee who helps Taylor Handley foil The Phantom of the Megaplex (2000).  

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Isaac Ordonez: A sweet, sensitive, queer-coded Pugsley Addams. WIth Chris Pine, Skyler, and some nude Hispanic dudes

 

The Pugsleys, the younger brother of the Addams Family mythos, usually get poor plotlines and poorer treatment.  They are bullied, tortured, ignored, used as playthings.  In Season 1 of Wednesday, Isaac Ordonez's Pugsley was not much different.

But during the hiatus between Season 1 and Season 2, Isaac grew up, becoming taller, huskier, bringing a dark nervous energy to the newly teenage Pugsley.  He has stepped out of the shadow of his sister to become his own person, with independent interests and goals -- a sweet, sensitive, traumatized soul trying to find emotional connection.  Friends.  A boyfriend.

Born in 2009, Isaac began acting in 2016 as the preternaturally smart Charles Wallace in A Wrinkle in Time, the adaption of the Madeleine L'Engel fantasy.

Chris Pine played his "captured-by-the-darkness" father.

Left: since Isaac is 16 as of this writing, I'm not looking for any nude photos, but he works mostly in media aimed at the Hispanic community, so here's a  guy from Puebla, Mexico

Next came some shorts: 

Dia de los Carpas (Day of the Tents): A group of boys help an undocumented girl get to the beach, where she has a magical secret. 

Psycho Sally:  No synopsis online, but there's no one named Sally in the character list.

Dispara y Mata (Shoot and Kill): A father tries to get his son (Isaac) to eat by telling him a story of survival in the Colombian jungle. 

More after the break. Caution: Explicit