Surely part of this is technology driven? Forget porn, hot guys (and not just the gay ones) are only too happy to show off online. So there’s little market for “come for the hot guys, (maybe) stay for the articles.” A gay magazine, like art in general, now has to serve some higher purpose: to uplift those who have not yet been uplifted.
Well for both historical OUT and things like Gayletter today I think fashion ads/features bring in money and are a bit different from beefcake. But yeah I've heard from a number of people that they get their hot guys from Instagram and gay discourse from Twitter, uncoupling the combination that a certain kind of magazine relied on. Still, I don't think people are tired of look at attractive people in any format!
I don't know that people don't get tired of looking at attractive people, at least online. I'm sure that part of younger people's avoidance of sex is related to the oversaturation of sexually explicit content. A lot of critics just read that as (porn = bad), but like y'all mention, it's not even pornographic sites people are getting their "fix" through; it's Twitter, Instagram, etc. For gay men, in particular, this seems almost a requirement to exist in these spaces - one must bare all and equally appreciate all that's bared (sp?). When one just scrolls through so many images/videos on his phone, there begins to be an un-real-ness to it all. If you add in all the filters and crap, too, that effect is probably amplified. Contrast that act with holding a magazine in your hands. Even that small amount of physicality, I think, somehow makes the image more real and tangible. The eye doesn't glaze over in quite the same way. You can also focus on one or a handful of images, not be exhausted by the sheer amount of naked selfies and deciding what to focus on (pornographic appreciation anxiety?). The "selfie" aspect of this is perhaps another conversation (you're not looking through a photographer's curated image, but the model's, often impulsive, idea of what's hot)
My sense of the world, gay or otherwise, is maybe a bit off because I'm not on instagram, so I have no idea what pressures to post what exist! But yeah there's something fun about the way the older gay literary magazines like the James White Review, Christopher Street, or gay/lesbian Out/Look would have vaguely 'artistic' hot pics sprinkled in among the essays, stories, poetry etc... and more contemporary things like Gayletter and Hello Mr. do too (although arguably the quality of writing is worse)--there is something distinct about having a hot body in a 'physical' format among other, intellectual numbers, sort of performing 'The Symposium'! On the other hand, there's nothing sadder than hot social media guys expressing their thoughts or trying to be funny...
You’re right, it’s not that there is no demand to look at attractive people. I’m just speculating about the self-perception of those involved in gay/queer media. In the heyday of Tom of Finland et al, gay hedonism itself had a certain countercultural cachet; although open sexuality is still celebrated in theory, I sense there exists now also a fair amount of ressentiment towards those who are perceived to have been naturally endowed to enjoy the juiciest fruits of hard-won sexual liberation and who can be pretty mean about it too (ahem). If one is going to be ungenerous, the phenomenon doesn’t seem too dissimilar from that of the Stacy-hating incel, except that queer spitefulness has a better political cover story.
I'm thinking it's time someone started a magazine called Unpolitically Hot.
Surely part of this is technology driven? Forget porn, hot guys (and not just the gay ones) are only too happy to show off online. So there’s little market for “come for the hot guys, (maybe) stay for the articles.” A gay magazine, like art in general, now has to serve some higher purpose: to uplift those who have not yet been uplifted.
Well for both historical OUT and things like Gayletter today I think fashion ads/features bring in money and are a bit different from beefcake. But yeah I've heard from a number of people that they get their hot guys from Instagram and gay discourse from Twitter, uncoupling the combination that a certain kind of magazine relied on. Still, I don't think people are tired of look at attractive people in any format!
I don't know that people don't get tired of looking at attractive people, at least online. I'm sure that part of younger people's avoidance of sex is related to the oversaturation of sexually explicit content. A lot of critics just read that as (porn = bad), but like y'all mention, it's not even pornographic sites people are getting their "fix" through; it's Twitter, Instagram, etc. For gay men, in particular, this seems almost a requirement to exist in these spaces - one must bare all and equally appreciate all that's bared (sp?). When one just scrolls through so many images/videos on his phone, there begins to be an un-real-ness to it all. If you add in all the filters and crap, too, that effect is probably amplified. Contrast that act with holding a magazine in your hands. Even that small amount of physicality, I think, somehow makes the image more real and tangible. The eye doesn't glaze over in quite the same way. You can also focus on one or a handful of images, not be exhausted by the sheer amount of naked selfies and deciding what to focus on (pornographic appreciation anxiety?). The "selfie" aspect of this is perhaps another conversation (you're not looking through a photographer's curated image, but the model's, often impulsive, idea of what's hot)
My sense of the world, gay or otherwise, is maybe a bit off because I'm not on instagram, so I have no idea what pressures to post what exist! But yeah there's something fun about the way the older gay literary magazines like the James White Review, Christopher Street, or gay/lesbian Out/Look would have vaguely 'artistic' hot pics sprinkled in among the essays, stories, poetry etc... and more contemporary things like Gayletter and Hello Mr. do too (although arguably the quality of writing is worse)--there is something distinct about having a hot body in a 'physical' format among other, intellectual numbers, sort of performing 'The Symposium'! On the other hand, there's nothing sadder than hot social media guys expressing their thoughts or trying to be funny...
You’re right, it’s not that there is no demand to look at attractive people. I’m just speculating about the self-perception of those involved in gay/queer media. In the heyday of Tom of Finland et al, gay hedonism itself had a certain countercultural cachet; although open sexuality is still celebrated in theory, I sense there exists now also a fair amount of ressentiment towards those who are perceived to have been naturally endowed to enjoy the juiciest fruits of hard-won sexual liberation and who can be pretty mean about it too (ahem). If one is going to be ungenerous, the phenomenon doesn’t seem too dissimilar from that of the Stacy-hating incel, except that queer spitefulness has a better political cover story.