Every gay boy in the 1980s had...

A wish to have EVERY issue of Playgirl hidden in their closet.

Socks like this to pair with their high top sneakers...............

A fervent longing to be any hunky soap star's love slave.

Christopher Atkins didn't do a thing for me. This guy did.

Generra jacket.

A pink pastel sweater tied around their pastel blue midriff top - covered by a jean jacket that sparkled.

The AIDS!

These clothes bought by Cheryl Tiegs' Sears.

braces that really hurt.

Every gay boy in the 1980s was solid... solid as a rock.

{OP} Or...a desire to be IN Christopher Atkins ASS in a Blue Lagoon with Christopher Atkins?

An embarrassing crush on ...

A desire to be left un-harassed in the school library?

{R1} An ability to have the pages of their Playgirls magically unglued after shooting jizz all over said pages?

Shoulder pads.

A secret desire to have Pat Benatar’s cute pixie cut?

Girbaud jeans. ♥️

To be reincarnated as one of the Dukes of Hazzard’s car seats?

Huge puffy jeans covering up their boner from the school jock.

Lee Press On Nails

An encyclopedic knowledge of male nudity in mainstream movies

A French Horn Rotary Dial Phone on the desk in his boudoir. During intense, last minute, study sessions for final exams, he'd remove the pencil out of his feathered mullet hairdo and use it to dial Pizza Hut.

No wonder Mom & Pop weren't at all surprised when he finally came out in the Mid 90s........

A paper route

Video Store membership

An Easy Bake Oven!

Lite-Bright!

Playgirl was a boon to every gay boy out there. Only a couple of black men. But, finally!

A gym membership. Even if we didn't go that much.

A mustache. I couldn't grow a proper one.

A boyfriend. The horror stories one could tell.

It was your sister's, but you played with it, too.

Naked GI Joe.

Mix tapes recorded from the radio - with white poverty noises in the background

A longing for Andy (Gary Sandy) on WKRP to take off those tight jeans and fuck them with his horse cock. That bulge!

me, or my equivalent, as their best friend

1980-1982 - Wild sex

1983-1989 - Fear

My Rainbow Brite dolls

OP Corduroy Short Shorts in a variety of colors, including pastels!

An STD.

The secret desire to be able to take off a clip on earring when answering the phone.

A white corss necklace on a leather string, a black shirt or turtle neck,baggy jeans.

Paisley

The desire to be Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan.

Whether it's fighting with a "saloon singer" or kicking my ex-husband out of his mansion to take his "junk and blonde tramp" out of my house.

I even asked my brother's friends to choke me while I struggled for life.

a. a strong fear of dying; or b. a death wish.

A can of mousse.

Oh man, R31, Gary and those tight jeans, the tan leather blazer and the feathered hair...

In addition to what R16 said, all of Pat Benatar's albums.

secretly purchased tickets on the other side of the city to see MAKING LOVE.

A crush on Jason Bateman or Michael J Fox

Their favorite outfit from Chess King?

Money from babysitting and known about town as the boy babysitter.

A secret stash of Jim Palmer underwear ads ripped out of magazines.

R4 Holy Shit - fuck’n boner inducing

A fake i.d. to get into gay discos.

An asymmetrical haircut at one point or another.

...fantasies about a number of men I saw on TV on a weekly basis. I'd lay on my stomach while watching, thrusting my cock against the carpeting until I came in my jeans.

...an issue or two of Playgirl they stole from a drug store magazine rack. I managed to acquire three.

a desire to grow a thick bush like some of their p.e. classmates.

A touch of the anorexia or the bulimia.

A boner from staring at the Andy Gibb posters at Spencer Gifts every weekend at the mall.

A tall slender can of Mousse.

a wish to unzip Gary Sandy's jeans, and explore further.

A pencil, exclusively devoted to dialing the rotary phone

Aqua Net and Sun In.

And acid washed jeans.

And a pack of fag hags in high school who looked like Beth Ditto.

Tears in their eyes when they heard of Jon-Erik Hexum's passing. Like Mexicans for Selena level tears.

A "Frankie Says RELAX" t-shirt.

An issue of either IT (InTouch For Men), Spokes, or Honcho in their porn collection.

An issue of After Dark somewhere in their living room.

Rugby shirts by (pick one): Coca-cola by Murjani Generra Collection Benetton Gant Polo

A Jem & The Holograms vs. Barbie & The Rockers singing contest.

[quote] The secret desire to be able to take off a clip-on earring when answering the phone.

R37, You have stolen my heart.

[quote]a wish to unzip Gary Sandy's jeans, and explore further.

A [bold]wish[/bold] , R58? For me it was an all-encompassing, never-ending, burning desire.

a private mourning over the loss of Jon-Erik Hexum

Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Conan series was one of my biggest crushes, Also Pete Sampras

An International Male catalog and at least three items from it in the closet they never wear as they don't make them look like the models.

R70, boy wasn't I disappointed when THAT realization sunk in!

I got that hairdryer with the comb in it and that didn't make my hair look like the model's on the box either.

a crush on the Soloflex guy.

Skin tight parachute pants paired with a members only jacket . A Rocky Horror poster . A pair of heart shaped sunglasses ,preferably red. A glitter bow tie that matched your glitter socks .Dippity Doo in every color .

Every gay boy in the 1980s had... a lack of TRAs trying to convince him and his parents that he was really a girl and needed his dick cut off.

Damn, he's packing. Did Playgirl ever approach him?

Their first edition copy of Edie.

...a chance to see me when I was the Hasty Pudding Club's 1988 Woman of the Year.

They'd been asking for twenty years and I thought "Who the hell wants to ride through Harvard Square on a cold day in an old convertible surrounded by drag queens" but Gary said it would be a good idea.

I'm glad he did: I would have been dead if they asked me next year.

A desire to wear a wedding dress and roll around the floor singing like a virgin!

A vast collection of military web belts in an array of colors that must include fuschia and a specific blue/lavender color that I cannot name (periwinkle blue?)

Khaki trousers, cut off below the knee.

A vast collection of polo shirts in an array of colors, worn with the collar up. Bonus points for wearing more than one at the same time.

Penny loafers with NYC subway tokens instead of pennies.

Jimmy Sommerville ( Bronski Beat, Communards, etc.), Marc Almond, and Get Wet CDs.

...to be home from school by 3:00pm sharp to watch 'Santa Barbara.'

A box of condoms.

[quote]The secret desire to be able to take off a clip on earring when answering the phone.

Indeed.

R80, speak for your self bitch, most of us needed our daily fix of sweet Laura and her soulmate and rapist Luke on General Hospital, not to mention seeing future stars like Demi Moore, Rick Springfield, John Stamos and the greatest guest star ever to appear on day time soap operas, the Queen herself Elizabeth Taylor.

I had a desire to be the 6th Go-Go.

A solid color Speedo.

Board Shorts, what the fuck are those, pants?

Corduroy OP ( Ocean Pacific, not belonging to our thread creator) short shorts and synthetically silky color block or striped Dolfin running shorts.

You just beat me to it R86. Corduroy Shorts by OP (Ocean Pacific).

Oooh, R86, I had Ocean Pacific drawstring pants in around 1988 or so. Loved those pants. They were white, and I thought I was particularly stylish when I paired them with my grey and acid wash-blue denim jacket and high tops.

Even back then we knew the corduroy ones were extra special for some reason. We felt like stylish rebels!

An LED watch. Not LCD, those were for geek, they didn't light up. Gay boys liked the red lights.

Well we certainly weren’t the ones spelling out BOOBS on our calculators.

difficulty shoplifting the playgirl at the bookstore without getting caught.

....AIDS

...a white puka shell necklace that practically glowed under blacklight, especially against a dark tan.

And I just got me a button fly levis 501... The first one since the 80s... I do but some things never get old...

A Swatch Limelight

R83 Bitch we had Todd McKee, A Martinez, and my MAN Lane Davies so you can fuck right off to Port Charles and stay in that dump.

I'm surprised Atkins didn't have a perpetually sore ass from all the virtual fucking he got back then.

A raging boner for Tony Danza (latter part of Taxi and Who's the Boss)!

Black eyeliner and a single earring !

R99 = Danny Pintauro

A stylish carrying case for their audio cassettes.

Multiple pairs, sometimes worn at the same time, of oversized slouching socks.

a fantasy about the hot guy in school who looked like a porn god in his jockstrap.

penny loafers and topsiders.

a stern talking to by the nurse or doctor in the college infirmary the first time he gets the clap.

a wet dream about Scott Madsen

feelings of fear, disappointment, and relief hearing about AIDS right before he would have otherwise become a Twink tramp

a raging boner the first time he wore designer briefs

a bucket list of foreigners he dreamed to fuck

Vidal Sassoon shampoo in the brown bottle.

(And r109, glad I wasn't the only one! Loved my first pair of Calvin's)

.....had the notion that pubes could be seen above the waistband in this shot. Maybe it was the design of the underwear? Maybe pubes were really there and Palmer didn't care. Either way, I still got off while looking at it.

the desire to be in a major league baseball locker room.

and Steve Garvey

Helen Keller, R113, that's not the 80s.

Collectibles.

Everything in the International Male catalogue.

A Date with Angela Channing.Falcon Crest, Friday nights On CBS

The Clapper.

Pics of Zach Galligan on his bedroom door. "Isn't that cute"

To also go into the basement inside the entertainment center to get ahold of his mom's ratty old Playgirl from 1984. "Where is that scamp?"

121 responses and no mention of Tom Selleck?

If you can find a picture of an 80s baseball locker room, R115, please add to this. Ultimately I wanted to be in a professional locker room in the 80s. If it was possible, i’d remember a mental image and describe it to you. Believe me, I would have held on to that memory.

Drakkar Noir cologne

[quote] members only jacket

No self-respecting gay boy EVER owned a cheap-ass Members Only jacket.

Big, fat, long meaty cocks. The 80s was the last era for really big dicks on men.

Now, dicks on younger men are significantly smaller. And that is sad.

R125, in my small Racistville part of the country, I was MOCKED, yes, MOCKED I say for wearing my Members Only jacket because they were made for poor black fans of Michael Jackson.

Actually, kids, they were and until recently still were common as dirt on 20 year olds in the ‘80’s and still on those same 20 year-olds except that they were in their 40’s and it was the aughts. We always put it down to Southern California weather where you don’t often need a jacket so seldom buy new ones.

The fact that they looked like shit never seemed to enter into the equation.

I actually want to apologize for my remark on Members Only jackets. I realize that people here come from all sorts of backgrounds and feel bad that I may have offended someone.

R125

...major anxiety about their sexuality while growing up in the early days of the AIDS crisis.

I still own a Generra parachute jacket and I get compliments about it all the time.

I rocked me some velour shirts in the early 80's. And I had a bright green Polo jean jacket about that time, too.

ungroomed pubic hair, and he wanted a lot of it.

a magnifying glass to look at Jim Palmer and the line of pubes just above his waistband. I cut this one out and saved it in my super-secret box. Of course, I brought it out several times a week.

Envy for why girls got to do all the cool stuff - like decorate their binders with neon markers and stickers and dot their ‘i’s with circles and hearts.

R135 Ahemmm, that’s Trapper Keeper, not binder!

various illnesses to stay home from school and watch the male strippers and hunks on daytime talk shows....

R137 But only on days when they had Gym class.

We had binders, and a long hole punch that could punch three holes at one time. Everything went into our binders.

Tokens for the arcade *and* tokens for the adult book store in my pocket - I would often grab the wrong ones when trying to play video games, since they looked so much alike.

When I was at the local bookstore in the mall (how 80s!), I once found a copy of Playgirl laying on top of a shelf of books, where someone had abandoned it.

An unhealthy obsession with Suzanne Sugarbakker, her pet pig named Noel, and a lot of sexy dreams about yelling to black men as they fucked you from behind “Black man, black man, where did you cum from?”

Somebody’s ‘80s time machine is set to the 2000s by mistake.

Puka shell necklaces and layered polos were an Aughts thing. And they weren’t called “polos,” the were called Izods.

Have the Doc recalibrate that Flex Capacitor, McFly!

R143, wrong. There may have been a revival in the 2000s; however, I was in my 40s in the 2000s and way past such things. They were very much 1980s originally.

According to that flashback episode of WILL & GRACE—neon palm tree tchotchkes, lip-shaped corded phones, cheetah-print pillows, and lava lamps,

a love for the intro to Reading Rainbow

{R98} I’m going to combine 2 common themes here...A desire to be the photographer for Christopher Atkin’s Playgirl layout.

Yeah Christopher Atkins sure. But my tastes span the range - if you ever saw the group Full Force there was one went by the name Paul Anthony. Dear non-existet deity the body on that man was gorgeous. Not so cute but you can overlook that sometimes.

You're right, Lucifer, he is one homely mofo

Christopher Atkins’ was the first ass I fell in love with. Sigh. Ah memories!

R150 As such, is it the ass that all future asses were measured against? And if so, which asses surpassed it in the years ahead, and did any other ass supplant it as the ass to measure all other asses by?

funny how christopher atkins was supposed to be hotter than hot in "a night in heaven" .. love his torrid sex scene with lesley ann warren his teacher! pretty much soft porn! but funny in that years later watching this? her husband in the movie was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay handsomer, sexier and built than atkins was!..

loved that sex scene between atkins and warren, although i've always wondered watching their reactions of orgasmic pleasure as they both orgasm were we the audience suppose to think that 1) atkins was so gifted erection wise and such a great young stud to make her react this way OR 2) was it that she was so damn lonely and horny any guy with a dick would have made her react that way?

Sorry, but Max Gail's ass was the ass to judge all others by.

{R151} To answer your first question, for me it is. I still Jack off to that ass 40 years after the fact. Nostalgia wanks I call them. His Playgirl layout didn’t create my ass fetish, but it sure crystallized it.

Oh sure, others asses have come along since-in all shapes, sizes and colours, and I remain an ass connoisseur to this day-but you always remember your first lol! I had other crushes before CA-Robert Urich, the Dukes of Hazzard and Richard Gere are some I remember-but I didn’t cram scrapbooks filled with their image.

{R152} I’m going to respectfully DISAGREE with you on this. I can’t even remember that bland dudes name. Although I will say, ANIH is probably my least favourite Atkins. They fucked up on his haircut and he lost some of the baby fat that made him so appealing in Blue Lagoon and even The Pirate Movie. He looks almost gaunt in some scenes. And the space suit stripper outfit was a major miscalculation. His acting remained terrible. It’s still Chris though. The aforementioned love scene and the forced strip humiliation scene at the end have provided J/O fodder for many here on DL.

I treasure some of the stills used to promote the movie however. He looks adorable in the shirtless/ ripped t-shirt ones with kissy lips painted all over his body. Yum!

{R151} I don’t know, who has your favourite ass? You start.

R151 Matt’s ass is where it’s at like Atkins’.

R154.. it's R152... sorry but i will respectfully disagree back at you! lol!...

the actor who played lonely horny lesley anne warren's character faye, character's husband named Whitney, was played by actor Robert Logan who was so so much hotter than atkins! first off, he was a actually MAN and beefy built, in real life the actor, Logan, height wise was/is 6'3.. he's a man, atkins was a boy...

at the time of this movie 1983.. Robert Logan, chiseled face, gorgeous blue eyes, hairy chested was 42 and atkins was only 22... a man vs a boy...i'll take this handsome mature taller better built masculine MAN over some lithe pretty atkins anyday!

in regards to the scorching hotel bed sex scene, like i stated before i wonder if the audience was suppose to think that atkin's character's erection and studly sex expertise was so incredible for her, faye, to react so so orgasmically OR was it more that her character was so lonely and horny any guy screwing her would evoke this response from her!?..

A perm, at one time or another.

The wish to be nailed by Steve Guttenberg.

... or by Rick Rossovich.

Or Bruce Jenner in his short shorts and crop top from CSTM, every Gay 80s boy’s favorite movie, if only for the full frontal nudity in the YMCA musical number.

{R156} Matt who?

{R157} Okay well everybody has their own personal preferences. I’m not saying Robert Logan wasn’t attractive. It’s about more than mere good looks for me. I guess I just like the sluttier types as exemplified by Christopher Atkins lol! I don’t know the first thing about Robert Logan, but he doesn’t seem like the type to like being ogled by the gays.

You’ve got to take off your clothes and shake your ass to be in my spank bank. Regardless if he’s your type or not, you can’t deny that Atkins was objectified and sexualized in a way that is/was fairly rare in mainstream culture for a guy. That’s why he was a gay icon back then, and remains one today. Even something as mainstream as People Magazine acknowledged it. He knew that gay men-and teenyboppers of course-were his primary audience and I found that very exciting. It was like tacit permission to be gay or at least to find the male body erotic. He still talks about this in interviews to this day.

I know Christopher Atkins couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. Besides a kind of boyish, all-American charm, he wasn’t particularly charismatic either. His career as a popular celebrity was very short, unlike the rather inexplicable longevity of his Blue Lagoon co-star Brooke Shields. All true, but he still is remembered fondly by some of us. And hell, this is Datalounge! If an entire 200+ thread can be sustained about Max Gail, then I can wax-poetic about Christopher Atkins goddamnit! 😋

The HELL Can’t Stop the Music was “every ‘80s gay boy’s favorite movie!”

Setting aside the fact that gays can like non-mansex-related movies like Star Wars, A Nightmare on Elm Street or Aliens, movies like Top Gun, The Road Warrior, Conan the Destroyer, Last American Virgin, Hunk, Night in Heaven, Rocky IV and dozens of slashers had gayer appeal than CSTM!

Not to mention the kween-making fantasies of Labyrynth, Legend, the Dark Crystal, etc.

Nobody saw Can’t Stop the Music when it came out.

It became a camp classic for a select view through decades of home video.

I thought Lord Humungus from The Road Warrior was kind of hot in a fetish type of way.

I beg your pardon, [R165], I saw Can't Stop the Music several times -- at age 9 -- when it was released.

AIDS

Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat on a mixed tape.

Buns of Steel...not! But you had the tape.

[quote] kween-making fantasies of Labyrynth, Legend, the Dark Crystal, etc.

Gay boys enjoyed these?

Forgive my ignorance, but I always believed that Jareth et al. were primarily attractive fantasy objects to straight women. The popular and most widely-accepted reading of LABRYINTH in particular is that it concerns female sexual awakening.

Or were you all just lusting after Skeksis?

I don’t know about Bowie in Labyrinth, but this gay boy sure lusted after his bare ass in the China Girl video!

....a sudden interest in hanging out with Gramma in the summer and watching her stories with her.

They seemed so boring just a few years ago but suddenly, they are all featuring hot, hairy young guys in Speedos.

R84 I can't even count how many times I've said the same thing! I literally dreamed about it.

Here ya go, Op!

A hardon for Marky Mark.

At the Hallmark store, a habit of accidentally looking at the gag male stripper cards intended for frau birthdays.

[R175] After all these years, thanks for the wanks Mr. Atkins!

A haircut modelled on Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead or Maurice.

[R177] Shouldn’t the word “accidentally” be in quotation marks?:)

The flashes of male nudity in Playboy’s December annual Sex In Cinema section etched on his brain. We could buy Playboy without the embarrassment of the Playgirl conundrum. Ah the forced closet life!

Every gay boy in the 1980s knew where the copy or copies of Hustler could be found in the hiding place of his father/brother/uncle/in-law/relevant male relative or friend.

Hustler, because in all of the pictorials of gash, there was always one pictorial where a guy with a long fat cock was shown fucking a woman. I would look at that dick for hours.

I always found Hustler stomach-turning. But to each their own I guess.

A fear of getting a boner in the showers after gym class.

R183 It was never my favorite either, but when you're just starting to be curious about guys and it's the 80s in some dull rust belt town, you takes whatcha gets. We didn't have the Internet or anything to find more aesthetically appropriate figures of lust.

[R185] Fair enough. No judgement meant. That’s basically what threads like this are about

A fear of getting caught checking out the ass-that was crammed into skin-tight designer jeans- of the cutest boy in high-school.

The AIDS.

Depression.

A desire to collect anything and everything on Brooke Shields. I was obsessed with her.

[quote]Nobody saw Can’t Stop the Music when it came out.

I did. Opening day, at the Circle West End on 23rd St. in Washington, DC. I'd had a crush on Bruce Jenner since getting Scavullo on MEN in 1977 or thereabouts.

ah...perms and Gary Sandy....

I wanted Gary Sandy to be my boyfriend.

[R192] Ha ha!

Coming to HBO. Perms and Gary Sandy:The Eighties Story.

[194] genius!

Lots of turquoise and a deep tan.

Norman Mailer’s Marilyn memorized cover to cover

[R196] Yes, Miami Vice was responsible for a lot of fashion damage!

Remember folks, you need not put your own brackets on a number to quote it.

Just type R, then the number you wish to quote, no spaces, and it does the work for you!

[quote] a desire to be in a blue lagoon with Christopher Atkins.

I must've been one of the few who never found Christopher Atkins attractive.

R199 Ha ha I can’t believe I hadn’t figured that out by now!

R200 We all have our own thing. I never got Tom Selleck. Or Scott Baio. But I love me some Chris Atkins!

At least 1 female friend who wanted to be more than just a friend.

[quote] Scott Baio.

Yuck (even back then)

[quote]Every gay boy in the 1980s was sold... sold for a rock.

Ha, R10, that's how first read your post.

R203 Oh God! The unreciprocated female “relationship”. So awkward!

R204 Yup. I literally found him plain and gawky. With a tiny head. He’s only gotten more repugnant since then of course.

my gift

R208 Fucking dark man!

Jeff Stryker, Bill Henson, Ryan Idol or Kurt Marshall VHS tapes hidden under your bed.

R210 For those “special” times when you were alone in the house and the family Beta machine was all yours for the taking!

r211, r210 would be fucked if he had a beta machine with vhs tapes

R212 Ha ha right?!

A Soloflex in the living room where he'd fuck the UPS guy, and one hot afternoon, the cable guy. (Or was that just me?)

R199...thanks!

A mutilated Rubik’s Cube stuffed in a drawer somewhere.

A Madonna cassette.

A pair of your gym teacher's underwear and/or his jockstrap, to sniff.

R218 If you’d seen my gym teacher, trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to sniff his underwear!

R219 it's usually one extreme or the other. They're either smoking hot or so hideous you wish you could wear sunglasses around them.

I had both over my HS years.

a crush on Jan-Michael Vincent

A desire to put on Madonna's cone bra and ponytail and dance around to Vogue.

One of those cropped blazers

r222 A desire to put on Madonna's cone bra and ponytail and dance around to Vogue.

And, your drag name is ...

I had a set of plastic ponies with manes and tails that you could comb, braid, and style as you wish. I wanna believe I the only one?

Wasn’t the only one*

The Charlene Tilton poster

R227 Why would every gay boy have a Charlene Tilton poster? Disguise?

Ceaseless joy brought about when the male stripper phenomenon started happening. Sudden obsessive interest in Phil Donahue’s show. Very overused copies of A Night In Heaven and For Ladies Only hidden away somewhere. A very stained copy of Gregory Harrison’s After Dark issue. Same with Christopher Atkins magazines and posters promoting ANIH. Chippendales playing cards and calendars in very secret places. Steve Bond very quickly becoming your favourite Soap Star.

Maxwell Caulfield in their spank bank.

Just because gay boys were The ONLY ONES who saw CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC doesn’t mean “every gay boy in the ‘80s” did, let alone consider it their “favorite” movie.

Give me a fucking break!

But kudos to R167 for admitting he saw that shit in the theater. Even for an anonymous forum, owning up to that takes BALLS.

R218 I was in college and my college had a cavernous armory type gym from 1900 with acres of lockers that were wire cages, not solid steel. I rowed crew and ran track and I knew all the teams' locker areas and I would go offhours and get good sniffs into lockers belonging to boys I desired. I managed to claw 2 jocks out for my home sniffing pleasure. This was my freshman year. My sophomore year I just caved and started fucking guys.

I had the floppy wedge haircut when it wasn't buzzed.

Oh, the floppy wedge cut. *le sigh*

[quote] Why would every gay boy have a Charlene Tilton poster?

Because they never made one of Linda Grey.

Crusty underwear.

R234 belongs on the old W&W wall

R234 True enough! My identification with Sue Ellen Ewing was total. Hating JR was such deliciously masochistic pleasure. And she got to fuck Chris Atkins, so there was that too.

a well-worn copy of Joan Collins' "how-to" manual

Hidden International Male catalogs !!

At least one case of crabs, the 1980s gateway STD