Bob mizer gay

This gave his subjects, straight men, a stage to show off, and in return a free photo-session. 

Young Mizer would pay his subjects $5--$10 a visit, and word of mouth got around. Even in the face of intimidation, they took action and banded together. Taking little part in Television or reading.

They could see that there were thousands of other men buying these magazines and writing in.”

Mizer’s photographic style included men posing in “duos,” a format that enabled homoerotic fantasy and distinguished the brand from mainstream fitness publications. The decision was a landmark gay rights ruling, and one that would protect the physique industry from censorship overreach and fuel queer activism for years to come.

“The magazines showed that there was this thirst for connection,” says Johnson.

Bob, self conscious at heart, prided himself on his ability to be butch.

As the laws of nudity changed, so did his subjects. Appearances were everything and strangers taking the invitation to be photographed by an effeminate man was simply not going to happen. Armed with a camera and a reasonable-enough commute to Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., he began photographing models and creating photo books, which he then advertised mail orders for in the back pages of Strength & Health and other publications.

As the future of queer acceptance hangs in the balance, drawing upon our own history and the strength of generations past will inspire energy and action when we need it most. People wanted to connect. As a result, issues entered public domain as soon as they were published, which helped bolster distribution of Physique Pictorial in the decades that followed.

“There was a sense of community,” says Johnson.

[The magazine] is saying, ‘We need to fight back as a community, we’re a community under siege, and we’re being attacked by the government.’”

The physique photographers from this period weren’t exactly angels, though. Today Bob Mizer is considered to be one of the first, if not the original-- to push boundaries depicting male homoerotic photo content during the mid 20th century.