"True Blood": Vampires come out of the closet amid a Southern Gothic soap opera, with some vamp dicks

We have completely run out of tv shows to watch, except for The Simpsons and Doctor Who, which go on forever, so last night we latched onto True Blood, which ran from 2008 to 2014 on HBO.

This is the stereotypic South of Eudora Welty and Mama's Family, where people named Hoyt Fortenberry shop at the Piggly-Wiggly and drink sweet tea on the veranda, where everyone is related to everybody else's great-grand daddy once removed, and where the War means the Civil War...um, I mean the War of Yankee Aggression.   

It starts in media res, two years after vampires have "come out of the coffin," har har -- yep, the connection with LGBT people is just that heavy-handed -- due to the invention of artificial blood, brand name True Blood, which some humans have developed a taste for.  Snooty fratboy Brett (Josh Kelly, left), looking for a store that sells it, learns too late that every long-haired, multi-ringed Goth isn't a vampire; and sometimes chubby rednecks are.

We switch to the problems of Tara, who gets fired from or quits every job because she doesn't abide idiots and her best friend Sookie, who can read minds.  Sookie and soon Tara work at Merlotte's Bar, where the owner, Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell, top photo and left), is in love with her.  He won't come out with it, but of course Sookie can read his mind.

The only gay character so far is the bar's swishy cook, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), a stereotyped flamboyant, promiscuous queen who  claims he's done most of the men in town, and likes to flirt with racist, homophobic rednecks to get them all scared. He doesn't get a boyfriend until late in the series.

That same evening, the bar's other waitress, Maudette, hooks up with Sookie's brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten).  She's a fangbanger, a human who likes sex with vampires, because they get rough.  She offers to show him the video, which turns him on so much that he wants to do rough sex, including strangling her...a little too enthusiastically.  And she's taping the encounter!

Kwanten butt after the break

Kelton''s nude photos, with new cock shots, Jak, Gavin, and a bonus fratboy

 

Kelton Dumont, best known as Pontius on The Righteous Gemstones, has not been forthcoming with a lot of physique photos.  This shoulder and arm is about all you're going to see.  But nudity is another matter: he gave us a butt and partial dick shot on the show, and a search of hookup sites reveals some other possibilities.

1. Charleston, February 2024.  I think Kelton was at Bennington College during that month.  

We know that Kelton went back to brunette, and they were filming Righteous Gemstones Season 4 in June 2024, so how does this one look:

2. Hair is too long, but same size cock as the other one.  A possibility.

On to the canonical nudity:

 

1. In Righteous Gemstones Season 3, Pontius has become a surly, profanity-spewing, tattooed thug, rejected by every college he applied to, constantly making out with his girlfriend Makayla. Jesse makes him promise to not have sex in the house.

More Kelton after the break

Devon Werkheiser: Ned's Declassified gay panic, gay friends, bare butts, and a nude Nolan Gould

20 years ago, when LGBTQ people could never be mentioned on kids' tv, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide (2004-2007) was a gay-subtext classic.

Ned (Devon Werkheiser) offers tips for surviving middle school, always saying "When you like someone" rather than "When a boy likes a girl."

An episode about puberty discusses hair in weird places and sudden fits of rage, but not "discovering the opposite sex."

The bully Loomer (Kyle Swann), who has a gay-subtext friendship with his crony, struggles to "come out" about his interest in fashion design -- as close to "gay" as they could get.

Buddy Jennifer is afraid to ask the school hunk (Alex Black) for a date, so Ned volunteers to do it.  The hunk believes that Ned wants the date, and replies “Sure, but just as friends. I like you, Ned, but not in that way," boldly implying that gay dating is commonplace at Polk Middle School.

Ned tries to cheer up the depressed Marc Downer by getting him a date with a cheerful boy.  When that doesn't work, he tries a depressed girl.

A Buzzfeed article on "21 Actors Who Came Out after Playing LGBTQ Characters" states that Ned was gay, but Nickelodeon was not permitting gay characters at the time, and I seem to recall Ned getting a girlfriend.  It also states that Devon is gay in real life, but he's married to a woman, so probably not.

Let's see if Devon has done anything gay-inclusive since.  

After the School Survival Guide, Devon capitalized on his teencom fame with Shredderman Rules, Christmas in Paradise, and Love at First Hiccup, where his characters win the Girls of their Dreams.

Seven episodes of Greek, a drama about a college fraternity.  He played Peter Parkes, aka "Spidey," a new pledge in Season 4. 

In the 2010s, he moved into thrillers with Beneath the Darkness, about a group of teens trying to find their friend's murderer, and The Wicked, about a group of teens fighting a witch.

California Scheming sounds like a comedy, but it's actually a thriller: "A teen seductress pulls three other privileged Malibu kids into her devious scheme, and unforeseen consequences force the group to face their own fears and mortality." Sounds awful, but at least it gives us an underwear bulge.  

The guy running away with him is Spencer Daniels.

According to the reviews, Sundown (2016) starts out a teen sex comedy and turns dark.  Plus it's "strictly offensive...trans- and homophobic and downright degrading," according to the L.A. Times.  

Devon and his buds show their butts during a "gay panic" scene.

More after the break