I'll never forget when I first discovered Bravo Magazine. It was the late 80's and I was about 12 or 13. We were sharing a large cottage on a lake with another family for a weekend. On one of the days we were there it was raining, hard. Everyone decided to go into town to kill time until the rain let up. I decided I didn't want to pile into the crowded car and convinced my parents to let me stay back alone. When everyone left, I started poking around the rented cabin for something interesting to do.
In one corner of the living room there was an old chest with glass doors. The shelves inside were piled with old board games, playing cards and a ton of old novels and magazines previous guests had left behind. In the pile of magazine there were a few issues of a magazine called Bravo that I had never seen before. At first I was excited, the tag of the magazine was the magazine for film and television and it looked along the lines of Tiger Beat. The magazine was in German, but that was ok, I was mostly interested in the pictures.
As I flipped through the magazine, I quickly saw that Tiger Beat it was not. In addition to articles on Rob Lowe and Michael J. Fox, the magazine had a bit more of a sexual vibe, with ads an images far too racy for an American teen magazine. The pièce de résistanc however was a section at the end of the magazine called Body check which featured a small clothed image of a teen aged guy, as well as large full frontal image. I hid every issue of that magazine in my suitcase and enjoyed them long after my vacation.
I later found an international magazine dealership in my city and continued to buy Bravo for many years. I haven't purchased an issue in years, but the last time I visited that store, Bravo was still on the stands. I later found out the magazine was quite controversial outside of Germany given that age of consent in German is much younger than in America. All of the models I included in this piece are between 18 and 20, the oldest model they seemed to feature in the section.
The body check section, also known as 'That's Me' was basically a 'get to know me' page for teens to introduce themselves to readers and the nude shots were promoting positive body image for both young men and women. There were a variety of body sizes, and a wide variety of penis sizes. Of course when I was a teen, it was all about the body, but as I got older I appreciated the magazine's, casual and positive depiction of the male form. There was no shame or embarrassment, just a sort of 'nice to meet you, and this is who I am' message that although erotic, which unlike most depictions of the nude male body in American media, was neither overly sexualized, or sensationalized.
Most of these images came from an old blog I used to love to frequent called Over Our Heads. I added a few more shots on THE OVER-FLOW HERE, or you can check out the archived Bravo posts from Over our Heads HERE:
