Physique magazines or beefcake magazines were magazines devoted to physique photography — that is, photographs of muscular "beefcake" men – typically young and attractive – in athletic poses, usually in revealing, minimal clothing. During their heyday in North America in the 1950s to 1960s, they were presented as magazines dedicated to fitness, health, and bodybuilding, with the models often shown demonstrating exercises or the results of their regimens, or as artistic reference material. However, their unstated primary purpose was erotic imagery, primarily created by and for gay men at a time when homosexuality was the subject of cultural taboos and government censorship.
Physique magazines were sold by newspaper stands, bookstores, and pharmacies. They were available in cities and even towns across the United States and by subscription, and popular titles such as Physique Pictorial served as an early nationwide cultural nexus for bisexual and gay men. Scholar Thomas Waugh described physique magazines as the "richest documentation of gay culture of the period".[1]
The genre was popular from approximately the early 1950s until the mid 1960s. With the legalization and increased availability of gay pornographic magazines and videos in the late 1960s and 1970s, most physique magazines either evolved to include more explicit material or went out of business.
- ^ Waugh 1996, pp. 217–219.