Photo Historical Photos

SEX was a men's magazine with nude poses and articles with titles like "Can men and women be friends?" and "The Reason Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". It ran for at least 8 issues (perhaps more) from September of 1926 into late 1928 and was published by the Dawn Publishing Company who also published successful flagship magazine Dawn as well Edwin Bower Hesser's Arts Monthly Pictorial and a handful of other short lived art photo magazines. Not surprisingly the overwhelming majority of the images represented women in poses more artificial than artistic but the November 1926 issue has also features two athletic men, Orville Stamm and Anthony Sansone.

Orville Stamm (June 29, 1893 – May 8, 1963) was a strongman who was known as "The Boy Hercules". He was a physical instructor for the U.S. Navy during World War 1 and later held patents on various gymnastic equipment, headlights and animal exercise equipment. Together with his wife, he was invited to the White House by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidency for tea. Orville Stamm - Wikipedia

Tony Sansone (September 19, 1905 – January 13, 1987) was an Italian-American bodybuilder and model. At 16, he came across magazine pictures of physique star Tommy Farber in Physical Culture magazine and became interested in physical development. In October 1923, Sansone, 18, won a physique contest sponsored by Atlas. He did not pursue competitive bodybuilding as a career, however and never earned any titles. He posed for paintings, photographs, and sculpture and was featured on many magazine covers, both American and European.




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Der Eigene, Jahrgang IX: Ein Blatt für männliche Kultur by Adolf Brand (1921).

Der Eigene was the first gay journal in the world, published from 1896 to 1932 by Adolf Brand in Berlin. The very first issue (1896) was an anarchist journal with no gay content in this volume; however, it slowly migrated to more gay-related topics. In 1898 vol 2 of the journal has published the very first gay text, and the "New Series" (1898) opened with the very first issue completely dedicated to homosexuality. In 1903, Brand was incarcerated for two months due to the sexual content published in Der Eigene.

The photos here are from a much later volume of Der Eigene (1921)


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