Honcho Honcho Man

Up until my twenties, when I finally had my own Internet account in the mid nineties, I would have considered my self a bit of virgin when it came to gay culture. I live in a small town in a rural area and with the exception of Playgirl, (which back then was still pretending to be a 'women's magazine')I really had no clue or experience with gay themed images, art, books or movies. My computer, followed by e-bay, Amazon and the world, opened my eyes, and my wallet, to a world beyond the small town I lived in. It is hard for some to understand that until the net, there were many of us who really had no idea how large the community really was.


I am still learning about many of the things I missed. This past June, I was looking for some old ads for my post Under Where The research for that piece resulted in me saving many images and discovering many magazines I had never heard of before. I profiled the first, Butt Magazine, last month.


Some of the ads I saved from that first post had 'Honcho Magazine' typed in small letters at the bottom of the page so I had to find out more! Like Butt, I had never seen, nor heard of Honcho until researching the piece. Honcho served up it's first issue on April 1978 and it's last just about thirty years later on November 2009.


The appearance of many of the models and layouts in Honcho are interesting to me. Many remind me of members of the Village People as many of the posts are almost butch themed by connecting gay men with traditional masculine stereotypes like cops and cowboys. It appears to be a deliberate attempt to push the envelope and push the boundaries, especially during the late 70's and 80's.


It is amazing how far we have grown as I am sure there were many people who would have been appalled 30 years ago at gay men as police officers or fire fighters. The style and look of the magazine seems beautifully dated and although not everything I saw during my research was my taste, but I loved how the magazine seemed to have a 'fuck you' attitude, something I am sure was needed to make it into the magazine stores at the time. Playgirl's covers were usually tame and more of a tease tease, but Honcho's sexual nature was in your face, loud and powerful. Something I am sure was very much needed at the time.


It is interesting to me, and maybe also a little sad, that in Honcho, looking natural is much more closely connected to sexual desire than it is today. Today, models and images seem more generic and targeted to a specific audience. Being organically sexual is now not enough, and more often than not, airbrushed and photo shopped to a point of impotence.


Some Honcho Ads