Nick Arapoglou: A Hasidic boy, a straight drag queen, a gay Muppet, the Sex Toy Teen's Dad. With his backside and a n*de Chris Evans

In Righteous Gemstones Episode 3.4, the Sex Toy Guy (Nick Vardakas) attends Keefe's Ice Cream and Wieners Party with his Dad (Nick Arapoglou).  Biker Clarence happens to be there, and  tells them that Keefe bought out his adult store's entire inventory of "butt-buzzers."  Afraid of being outed, Keefe says "that's just something we used to do with the kids." Great idea, buddy.  Now they don't think you're gay, they think you're into kids.

Later, the parents meet with Kelvin to complain that Keefe is "weird" and not qualified to be a youth leader. Dad continues: "With all the rumors swirling around you, can't you see how strange this all looks?"

"There's rumors about me?" Kelvin asks, shocked.  

Jack: And then Kelvin said...he said...

Karen: That no one knows he's gay!

The real-life Nick Arapoglou (a gay ally) was born in Huntington, New York, but moved to Atlanta as a child.  He was a Drama Club Kid in high school, appearing in an al-fresco production of Midsummer Night's Dream (in a real forest).  

He received a B.A. in drama from Indiana University in 2007, then returned to Atlanta, where he became a mainstay of the theater scene.

Nick's theatrical performances include:

A closeted gay guy in Speech & Debate (2009)

A straight guy in the queer-themed Spring Awakening (2011). 

My Name is Asher Lev (2012), based on the classic coming-of-age novel by Chaim Potok, about a Hasidic Jewish boy torn between his religion and his art.

The Gifts of the Magi (2012), based on the O. Henry story, where Nick met his future wife Caroline.

Bobby Strong in Urinetown: The Musical (2013).

Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (2015)

The Toxic Avenger (2016), based on the 1984 movie about a slime-covered superhero.

A straight Elvis impersonator turned drag performer in The Legend of Georgia McBride (2017).

Straight Muppet Princeton and gay Muppet Rod in Avenue Q (2023), which won him the Suzi Bass Award for best actor in a musical.

Plus he has 33 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with Frat Guy in the short Married Sex (2009) and Fashion School Kid (probably queer coded) in a 2011 episode of Single Ladies.  

More after the break

"Peacemaker," Episode 2.1: A new hunk with a bulge, a nude Frank Grillo, a bisexual orgy, and nine DC Comics fanpages

The HBO MAX Instagram posted some photos of an extremely handsome and muscular guy with an impressive bulge: waving as he arrives, dressed in the uniform of a fast-food worker, being criticized by John Cena, and spurting water in his underwear.   Since he's being advertised, he must be a new character in second season of The Peacemaker, a dark comedy about a squad of misfit superheroes in the DC Comics Universe.  To find out, I'll review Episode 2.1: "The Ties that Grind."  

Scene 1: Early in the morning, Peacemaker's semi-sentient pet eagle needs to do his business.  It's too cold to let him outside, so Peacemaker takes him to his interdimensional vortex (nice bulge, buddy.  Is having a nice bulge a requirement for being cast on this show?).  Wandering around, he finds his Dad's old office...and his Dad, who says "What's wrong?  You look like you've seen a ghost." This horrifies him.

DC Universe: Dad, the racist supervillain White Dragon, has appeared in "Suicide Squad."  Years ago, he murdered Peacemaker's brother Keith.  After years of abuse and murder attempts, Peacemaker had to kill him, and now feels guilty. 

Scene 2: Peacemaker is living in his late Dad's horrible house in a run-down suburban neighborhood.  He is picked up by his friend Leota Adebayo.  

DC Universe: A member of the Peacemaker's team in Season 1, Leota is the estranged daughter of Amanda Walker, an ARGUS agent who founded the Suicide Squad (inept superheroes, including Peacemaker, assigned to missions that were sure to result in their deaths).

Leota shows Peacemaker the business cards for her new private security agency, and complains about her girlfriend.  Lesbian representation!

Peacemaker complains about being bullied by other metahumans (beings with super powers): "Why you wearing a disco ball on your head?  Did you take a vow to be a douchebag?"  

"I don't want to be a joke anymore," he tells her.  "I want to be a real hero."  You're in a dark comedy, so....

Scene 3: They arrive at a deserted toy store in a mini-mall, which turns out to be the secret headquarters of the Justice Gang.  Peacemaker is applying to join.  Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, and their financial backer Maxwell Lord interview him.

 DC Universe: members of this team previously appeared in "Superman" (2025), "Green Lantern" (2011), and the tv series "Smallville" and "Supergirl."

Left: Maxwell Lord is played by Sean Gunn, who is gay but married to a woman.

First question: "What skills could you bring to the Gang...besides blowing dudes?"  Is that a homophobic slur, or is Peacemaker bi, or both?

Next question: "Metahumans try to avoid violence.  Why have you murdered so many people?"

"Well, some of them deserved it."

Peacemaker talks about childhood traumas and the culture of violence instilled by his supervillain father, but they're discussing whether their butts are big enough and ignoring him.  When they get back to the interview, they call him a sociopath, too violent to work for the Justice Squad.  He angrily storms out.

Back in the car, he tells Leota: "Apparently one of my skills is sucking dick...that's not a put-down, it's a fucking compliment."  Either gay sex is reprehensible or it's not, dude.  You can't have it both ways.  

Scene 4: Peacemaker's Girlfriend is applying for a job at the NSA (National Security Agency).  But the psychiatrist evaluating her complains that she is suffering from a virulent form of toxic masculinity.  She calls him a "cunt" and threatens to beat him up, but that only makes him more certain that she is too violent to work for the NSA.  She storms out, screams, and attacks her car.

DC Universe: Emilia Harcourt, a member of Peacemaker's team in Season 1, has appeared in "Suicide Squad," "Black Adam," and "Shazam."  She worked with Amanda Walker (see Leota, above), but became the Suicide Squad's ally, and was blackballed.  The episode recap shows Peacemaker holding her hand as she is dying, but apparently it was just a tease. 

She drives home to her shabby apartment.  Peacemaker meets her.  Close up of the pile of past-due notices on her kitchen table, as she complains that because she has been blackballed by ARGUS, she can't find a job with the CIA, the FBI, the DIA, the DHS, the NSA, or Athlete's Foot.

Next they discuss what happened "on the party boat": she was drunk, it was a mistake, she doesn't want to be his girlfriend. (I just assumed that they were dating.  Looks like it was just a hookup).  

And when are we going to get to the hot guy introduced on the HBO MAX Instagram?

Scene 5: Rejected by the Justice Gang and dumped by his sort-of-girlfriend on the same day, Peacemaker gets high and invites some people over for naked dancing and sex.  It's 90% naked ladies, but there are a few naked guys here and there.  Almost all of the sex is male-female, but there's a closeup of two women kissing, and two guys starting to kiss in the background. 

Peacemaker keeps his clothes on and rejects the come-ons of a man and a woman. So why did he invite them over?

More after the break

Cory Chapman: Lots of man friends, some gay roles, a queer buddy, nude costars. So where's the beef?

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"English Teacher": Gay teacher, his ex-boyfriend, and his homophobic buddy face woke culture and get naked

I spent the worst year of my life teaching English at Homophobe State University in Hell, aka a far northern suburb of Houston, Texas. The minute I submitted the last of the final grades, I got in my car and drove nonstop until that blessed "You are now leaving Hell" sign was receding into the distance.

So the new Hulu series, English Teacher, about an English teacher in small town Hell...I mean Texas...piqued my interest.  I could relive how hideously horrible it was, from the safe distance of my living room a thousand miles away.

Score -- none of the promotional materials let on, but this English teacher, Evan, played by Brian Jordan Alvarez,  is gay.  Let the rampant homophobia begin.

Left: the worst place in the world

And Brian Jordan Alvarez's cock, to take your mind off the horror.

Wait -- in English Teacher, everyone knows that Evan is gay.  Not a problem.  The problem is, he's kind of a jerk.

The much more woke students want to cancel him, for instance, because he said that he couldn't understand why lesbians aren't attracted to men.  Lots of people aren't attracted to men, idjit!

In the first episode, a parent wants him fired, claiming that he turned her kid gay by kissing his then-boyfriend and current hookup, played by Jordan Firstman, in front of the class. 

Left: Jordan's dick.

More after the break

The Norwegian Fire Viking: Keefe's Fire Dance double is muscular and hung, but the braggadochio and spelling errors....

In Righteous Gemstones Episode 3.3, Keefe entertains the family at Cousins' Night with a highly erotic fire dance.  A professional fire dancer taught Tony Cavalero how to use the rope darts, and stepped in when it came time to set them on fire.

The fire dancer is not listed in the IMDB cast list, so his identity remained a mystery to fans until recently, when Tony Cavalero "liked" his Instagram post about the experience.  He is Phillip Funderud, aka the Norwegian Fire Viking.  According to his professional description, he is  "a muscley circus artist/fire performer specializing in spinning and fire breathing."

It's muscular, dude.

His stunting profile says that after the Gemstones, he was hired to do fire dancing regularly on HBO shows, but nothing is listed on the IMDB.

Phillip is also a model, fitness trainer, general stunt performer, and bodybuilder (he competed for the first time at the NPR Atlantic Coast Championships in 2024, and won the True Novice award). 

There aren't many biographical details available, no home town or high school.  He speaks "a little Norwegian," so we can conclude that his parents moved to the U.S. before he was born or when he was a baby.

 Now Phillip lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.  He is heterosexual, with a wife and daughter posted in the third photo on his Instagram.  

Some of his social media posts are heterosexist.  He jokes "How we think we look shirtless (muscular), and "How women actually see us" (fat). 

But he asks, "Which do people prefer, nice shoulders or nice arms?"  Only women answer (arms), but he could be acknowledging the existence of gay men.  

And he had no problem performing as Keefe.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit

Mo Bakker: Santa Claus's grandson and his boyfriend cruise in Kenya, cuddle in Greece. With bonus Belgian cocks

English-speaking audiences are most familiar with Flemish actor Mo Bakker for the three Claus Family movies: 

Die Familie Claus 1 (2020): Christmas-hating teenager Jules discovers that his grandfather is Santa Claus, about to retire and expecting him to take over the family job

Die Familie Claus 2 (2021): Jules goes on a trial run to grant a little girl's holiday wish.  Plus the kids try to fix up Mom with her best friend, not realizing that he is gay and has a husband.

Die Familie Claus 3 (2022): Jules and his sister Noor work together to fix the mess Grandpa made of the gift-delivery. Plus Mom's new boyfriend Jeff (Kurt Rogiers) drops towel.

Throughout, Jules is heavily queer-coded, with an interest in musclemen and no romantic interest in girls: he keeps partnering with girls, but they are always relatives or just friends.  Although there are no undeniable queer codes, no boyfriends, or "I'm gay" statements, the series, and especially the first, appears every year on lists of "The Best LGBTQ Holiday Movies."

But what about actor Mo Bakker.  Surely he wasn't cast because he was gay.  At age 14, he may not even have known.  So let's check to see if he is out now.

Mo was born in 2006, son of Belgian actor Kuno Bakker, who played a gay guy in Feast (2022).  

 

Older brother Kes, also an actor, has 12 credits listed on the IMDB, including the teen drama High Tide, available to stream on Netflix.  He plays a gay character, falls in love with a dude, and drops towel.

Mo's acting career begins with August (2014), a short about a boy with a girlfriend.   He has several other projects listed, with plot synopses and trailers only in Flemish, including:

Niet Schieten (Don't Shoot, 2018): A boy is dying, and his grandfather feels guilty.

The tv series Please Love Me (Zie miej graag, 2017-20): A divorced woman is "trying to put her life back together."  Mo and his brother Kes play her sons.

Sisyphus at Work (2021): A film director is dying.

Finn's Heel (Finn's hiel, 2022): Two boys (Mo, Brecht Dael) bond over boxing lessons, and hug.  This one sounds gay.

The teen tv series wtFOCK (2023), about students in a prestigious high school in Antwerp.  There are gay guys in the cast (who make out naked in the pool), but Mo plays a heterosexual athlete who gets his girlfriend pregnant.

Not a lot of gay content here.  Let's check Mo's Instagram to see if he is gay in real life.

I'm always jealous of Europeans, who can jet to my top 10 favorite countries (outside the U.S.) in a couple of hours.  Here Mo and his boyfriend are cuddling on a raft in Nicosia, Cyprus: five hours from Brussels, 14 hours from Minnesota.

More after the break

Skyler's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 2: Grimacing at girls, grinning at 69, wearing two caps, showing his...

 

This is a collection of cute/cool or hot/humorous photos of  Skyler Gisondo, star of The Santa Clarita Diet and The Righteous Gemstones, and Jimmy Olson in the upcoming Superman: Legacy.  As far as I know, he's over 18 in all of them.  He has only one verifiable nude photo online (in Part 4 or 5, I don't recall which), but some of his friends have more, and there are some interesting chatroom and hookup app possibilities.

1. "No, you can't see my dick, but have I shown you my abs lately?"

2. "Sorry, I never heard the term 'skinny dipping.'  Did you notice my abs?"

 3. Skyler's reaction when a girl tried to hug him, and he smelled her perfume and felt her...yuck! 

4. "Skyler's abs are nothing -- check out mine!" 

5. Skyler shows us his favorite year in classic rock.  I swear I am unfamiliar with any other meaning of the term "69"

6. "I'm glad I signed up for this physics class.  No yucky girls...what do you mean, turn around?"

More glorious Gisondo after the break. Warning: explicit