BONUS NUMBER 96: GENTLEMEN IN THE PARLOR, BRUISERS IN THE BEDROOM

(Did You Sleep With the Models?)

What an entertaining little potato chip of an article, I thought when I rediscovered this Mandate feature from 1984. It also raised several questions, among them these: Do gays in other sections of the country believe that their men are the sexiest, the handsomest, the best catch? I grew up in the South, but I spent many years in New York, then I moved to Texas. I’m convinced there are as many dreamboats in one place as in another, if you know where to look.

Another question: Have southern men changed along with the changing South? You tell me; in recent years, I’ve spent more time in southern airports than in southern towns and cities, so I’m out of the loop. On second thought, there was that night in New Orleans…but I mustn’t compete with our writer, Jason Fury, who will try to convince you that it’s all true what they say about those men below the Mason-Dixon line.

How southern, really, are Hollywood actors portraying men from the South? Clockwise from top: Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire; Ken Norton, Mandingo; Burt Reynolds, Deliverance

Clockwise from top: Rick Rossovich, The Lords of Discipline; Ken Norton, Mandingo; Robert Forster, Reflections in a Golden Eye; Keith Carradine, Nashville; Paul Newman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

---