Homoerotic Archaeology: Unzipped (September 2006), Part One

Friday, September 19, 2025

Unzipped (September 2006), Part One

In a 2019 article, psychotherapist Ken Howard touches on a paradox within the gay community: gay men can lust after a handsome man while also envying or hating him for his beauty. Indeed, a 2005 study by Bram Buunk and Pieternel Dijkstra and a 2022 experiment by Jaroslava Varella Valentova and her colleagues found gay men express higher amounts of jealously toward other gay men who they perceive as more beautiful and a potential rival, causing them to be both attracted to them and jealous of them. It is a notion Gus Mattox touches on in his article “The Beauty Curse” found within this September 2006 issue of Unzipped (which has been broken into two parts). As Mattox explains, gay men tend to hate the adult performers they also find attractive, “consigning the especially attractive men to horrible fates: a fatal disease here, a terrible disfiguring accident there. You know what I mean – the kind of things that guys imagine when they’re confronted with demoralizing beauty.” Along with Mattox’s article, the first half of this issue contains a ranking of the sexiest characters in science fiction and interviews with artist Michael Hinkle and model Jake Andrews.

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What is Homoerotic Archaeology?

In 2016, I discovered several discarded boxes at an estate sale. Under their flimsy flaps were hundreds of well-worn issues of homoerotic magazines from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I purchased them out of mild intrigue and, as I perused their pages, I was startled to realize that something commonly disregarded as pornographic smut earnestly chronicled the evolution of gay culture: the social and sexual liberation of the 1970s, the crushing devastation from AIDS during the 1980s, and the gradual strengthening of the community in the 1990s. As a gay man, I was touched by the subtle narrative these publications told. As a historian, I was motivated to digitally preserve their content. And, as an educator, I was driven to create a platform to share that information freely with others interested in the progression of gay society. Homoerotic Archaeology is that venue. Here you will find the advertisements, articles, short stories, and (of course) pictures found in these magazines lovingly preserved and presented for future generations of gay men to enjoy and study.

Why Preserve Homoerotica?

As early as the 1970s, scholars such as June Rook have stressed the need to preserve homosexual history in an effort to combat repression and establish a cultural background for future generations. Much of the preservation process admirably focuses on the substantial works of homosexual artists and thinkers; however, it sadly ignores other elements quintessential to the community’s history, particularly homoerotica. Although frequently labeled obscene filth, homoerotica has, just like the significant creations of artists and thinkers, been a prevalent part of the group’s culture and has played an integral role in shaping identities and perceptions (consider how influential Tom of Finland’s hypermasculinity has been in molding the body ideals of modern gay men). Due to this factor, the conservation of homoerotica is just as essential as the preservation of major artistic and theoretical homosexual works.