BONUS NUMBER 113: TAILS YOU WIN...

(Did You Sleep With the Models?)

This layout, from the January 1984 Mandate, is credited to Starr Photo of Venice, California. As far as I can ascertain, this was a one-off shoot from that photographer in our magazines. The wild landscape is unusual for erotic photography, and I wonder why the model was lying in front of that unattractive fence. Was he in danger of rolling off the cliff and into the water?

Like the setting, the model is also unconventional. Not a typical pretty boy, though he’s attractive in a lean and hungry sort of way. Seductively male though neither muscular nor macho, but certainly not shy about showing off his main attraction. The captivating aspect of the layout is a fantasy element: it’s as if the photographer happened on the young man sunbathing nude in a remote spot and began taking pictures. One can imagine him, noticing a stranger, excited and turned-on by the camera. So aroused, in fact, that he becomes an impromptu model.

How does the story end? Did model and photographer exchange words, and more? Or did the entire erotic episode play out in pantomime? Did the young man know he was headed for the pages of a gay magazine, or did he finish off his arousal, fall asleep all alone in the sun, and go home to the wife and kids?

---