Blueboy (magazine)
 Blueboy cover (January 1978) | |
| Editor | Donald Embinder |
|---|---|
| Categories | Gay |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First issue | June 1974 |
| Final issue | December 2007 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| ISSN | 0279-3733 |
Blueboy, originally written Blue Boy, was a gay pornographic magazine with pictures of men in various states of undress from 1974 to 2007.
It was published by Donald N. Embinder, a former advertising representative for After Dark, an arts magazine with a substantial gay readership.[1] Embinder first used the nom de plume Don Westbrook, but soon assumed his real name on the masthead.
The magazine shares its name with a famous portrait by 18th-century master Thomas Gainsborough, and its inaugural cover was a parody of that painting.
Noted artists Mel Odom and George Stavrinos have contributed to the publication.
Blueboy began as a glossy gay male magazine that covered the Washington D.C. area, and by volume 2 in 1975 had moved to Miami, Florida. In Miami a more of a glossy soft-core gay magazine developed that targeted the national scene. The magazine quickly became hugely successful, going from 26,000 subscriptions in 1975 to 160,000 subscriptions in 1976. In 1983 Don moved to California and restarted Blueboy there.
Originally Blueboy featured more "softcore" images (e.g., male models were usually shown without erections), fiction, news features, essays and social commentary, and articles on music and entertainment. The publication was largely regarded in the 1980s and in the early 1990s as a gay version of Playboy or Penthouse. Typical articles concerned social climbing, the latest fashions, picking up strangers, television and film reviews, and the secrets of love. It also touched on more pressing issues such as politics and gay rights. For example in the 1970s and 1980s the magazine did stories on Anita Bryant, Harvey Milk, Ed Koch, AIDS and The Reagan Administration.
Beginning in the 1990s, however, with competition from such gay and political publications as Out, MetroSource and Genre, the magazine focused much more on hardcore gay images, and jettisoned most of its non-porn content.
Blueboy's final issue was December 2007.[2]
In popular culture
Singer Cyndi Lauper mentions the publication in the first lines of her song "She Bop":
- Well, I see him every night in tight blue jeans
- In the pages of a Blueboy magazine
References
- ↑ Rutledge, Leigh W. The Gay Decades: From Stonewall To The Present. Plume. p. 81. ISBN 0-452-26810-9.
- ↑ "Blueboy magazine". OutHistory.org. Retrieved 2012-01-26.