Unzipped (September 2006), Part Two

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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.

Advocate Men (September 1989), Part Two

In a letter submitted to the advice columnist in this September 1989 issue of Advocate Men (which has been broken into two parts), the writer highlights the lack of information about intravenous drug use and AIDS. In the eight-year span since the first documented case and the writing of his letter, there were numerous campaigns – one involving actress Zelda Rubinstein – aimed at stopping the virus’ spread by educating men about condom use; however, few addressed the role of drugs. As the writer explains, recreational drugs were (and continue to be) common among gay men and many had not been informed about the role of dirty needles in the spread of HIV. In fact, the writer is not wrong. In the medical literature published in 1990, less than a dozen mention the part intravenous drug use plays in spreading the virus, with one discussing the impacts on homosexual African Americans and Latino Americans. This second half (see the first half here) contains reader-submitted stories about same-sex relationships in the military, the short story “The Heartbreak Pass Gang” (about a band of randy cowboys), and photospreads of models Tim Lowe, Maleko, and Andre Marquez.

Advocate Men (September 1989), Part One

In a letter submitted to the advice columnist in this September 1989 issue of Advocate Men (which has been broken into two parts), the writer highlights the lack of information about intravenous drug use and AIDS. In the eight-year span since the first documented case and the writing of his letter, there were numerous campaigns – one involving actress Zelda Rubinstein – aimed at stopping the virus’ spread by educating men about condom use; however, few addressed the role of drugs. As the writer explains, recreational drugs were (and continue to be) common among gay men and many had not been informed about the role of dirty needles in the spread of HIV. In fact, the writer is not wrong. In the medical literature published in 1990, less than a dozen mention the part intravenous drug use plays in spreading the virus, with one discussing the impacts on homosexual African Americans and Latino Americans. In addition to this letter, the first half of this issue contains the short stories “Tunneling” (where the narrator cruises the tunnels under his university) and “With a Mind of Its Own” (where the narrator still pines for the man he loved in college) and photospreads of models Nick Harmon and Axel Rod.