Starfucker Friday: Jock Jams, Part 1

I just finished reading Patricia Vettel-Becker’s Shooting From The Hip: Photography, Masculinity, and Postwar America. I won’t say I hated it, but I will say that in my groggy cold state last week I thought it was very boring, that she didn’t actually make many good points, and that kind of the most interesting idea she came up with was two sentences before the book was over.However, she did talk about sports photography, and mentioned Sports Illustrated. It was founded (which I didn’t know) at about the same time as Playboy, and was originally targeted towards the same audience (fifties bachelor types with lots of extra cash to spend on ski trips and stereo equipment.) This was, mind you, right when TV got going, and I think it’s totally crazy to imagine professional sports existing before TV. Which I guess is why in the fifties people were still interested in leisure sports like hunting and skiing just as much as they cared about football or hockey. But anyway, the author was getting at a good point in the book–sports made it okay to look at and appreciate men’s bodies without fear of anybody being called gay, and the start of SI (and Playboy, for that matter) coincided with a time when men were very, very insecure about their identities, sexual and otherwise. So in that case, it should follow that Sports Illustrated would just be one sexy meat factory, right?

Well, not exactly. Nevertheless, I just spent last night and most of this morning looking at over 2800 Sports Illustrated covers, in order to pick out the ones with the hottest and manliest covers. Here’s ten from the fifties that I bet you can’t wait to jack off to, presented chronologically:

An amazing vest, come-hither eyes, All-American good looks (with cute little ears), musclemen in tight pants, and a big phallus on wheels with a tacky orange background! Okay, so maybe Mr Burton’s not sexy (also, I think hunting is evil) but seriously, that vest is awesome. Mr Conerly the quarterback is kind of my favorite of this bunch. I’d be sure he was a lusty sex god if it weren’t for the fact that there’s like zero other pictures of him on the internet. But seriously, those eyes are smoldering through my soul and straight toward my prostate.

Two boxers, one of whom seems to have inspired the album art from that one Tori Amos CD where she’s suckling a pig. Two race car drivers, including Phil Hill, who’s totally cute in a David Hemmings sort of way. And two squash players that I know you want double-teaming you. Seriously. But watch out for the one on the left–he looks a little overly kinky. Plus, Phil Hill and rednecky barefoot Roy Harris are way hot.

As a bonus, here’s eight other covers from the fifties that aren’t manly at all, but I think are worth mentioning.

It’s nice to know that it used to be okay to put a decoy, a bulldog, or a couple of really frightening horse-women on the cover of a magazine and not have to worry about sales. Of course, it was probably easier when they put a pretty lady wrapped up in snorkeling equipment or a ski bunny in a totally foxy red getup.