Freedom For the Man

June 4, 2021 10:00 AM

How One Mail Order Catalog Changed Men's Fashion--and Queer Desire--Forever
posted by box (29 comments total)

Good God, how could you not want to sleep with those men?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:03 AM on June 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

Well, as a straight woman, I look at those pictures and see only "gay dudes trying to attract other gay dudes," which is...desire-derailing. Not that gay men can't be hot, just that that very specific coding says "look elsewhere" to me (and certain gay male aesthetics just aren't to my personal taste anyway). I wonder how many of the women who bought these clothes "for their husbands" picked up on the subtext.
posted by praemunire at 10:17 AM on June 4, 2021 [16 favorites]

This is an interesting article. In elementary school my friends found a stack of porn magazines under someone's porch. Mostly it was Playboys and Hustlers, but there was at least one copy of this catalog as well.

“There was a constant battle, back and forth, of what we were projecting,” Dalton Wolfe says. “But at the same time, how do you have three guys in their underwear, or two guys, like, wrestling, and not look a little gay?”

Even to clueless elementary school kids, this aspect was obvious. I'm sure we all sniggered about it in the casually prejudiced style of the era, but in hindsight I'll bet at least one boy in the group had their eyes opened by those photos.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:21 AM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

My family was on this catalog list somehow..hell, we were every catalog list in the 80-90's somehow. (My mom was in publishing so...)
I definitely remember how this always seemed edgy or subversive to my young teen mind. Especially as hip hop culture rose with a number particular fashion trends and the LGBTQ community was reacting (screaming) to the Regan era. This was also the dawn of the Victoria's Secret catalog dominating the crumpled edges of bathrooms everywhere.
posted by djseafood at 11:44 AM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I went to a women's college in the turn of the millennium, and one of my dearest friends, C, would get this mag; it was her mailcall equivalent of a package from home. In her heart of hearts she wished she was Bowie, and buy pirate shirts from here, because she was like 6'3" and broad shouldered and regal. Gods, I hope it inspired her and didn't give her dysphoria.
posted by cobaltnine at 11:53 AM on June 4, 2021 [10 favorites]

My dad received this catalog in the 80s several times, much to his confusion. But my sister and I poured over the photos, deciding which outfits we liked or thought were scandalous (the underwear that had an elephant's face printed on the front, with the trunk ready to be filled was delightfully shocking). Our JC Penney catalog certainly didn't have clothes like these, and we never saw hot pink satin jumpsuits for sale on the racks at Mervyn's. IM was like a whole new world to the two of us.
posted by but no cigar at 12:09 PM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Kind of sly the way they included a photo of Shemar Moore but didn't mention him by name.

Also, I didn't realize until I read the article that Seinfeld's pirate shirt episode was in reference to the IM catalog. I thought the show was making fun of Prince or some other rock band singer.
posted by fuse theorem at 12:55 PM on June 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

Also, I didn't realize until I read the article that Seinfeld's pirate shirt episode was in reference to the IM catalog. I thought the show was making fun of Prince or some other rock band singer.

You're right also. There are two comments on the Smithsonian collection page that features the puffy shirt--one says that the shirt was a direct copy of the shirt Prince wore in Purple Rain, and the other says that the commenter bought his puffy shirt directly from IM and thought it was exclusively theirs.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:19 PM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh jeez, as a gay dude in my mid-20s I was all over this catalog. Yes, I realized that many of the outfits were so absurd as to be completely unwearable outside of the bedroom (or maybe a gay cruise, or a gay bar on Specials Night). It was like the phrase in the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" Literal Video:

"They gayest man on earth would call this over the top! (Over the top!)"

But still: hot, hunky guys scantily clad!

I haven't seen a copy of the catalog since maybe the mid-90s. And now, 25 years later, as a gay dude in my 50s with the experience of another quarter century of living, I'm seeing the models in a different light.

Yes, they're still unquestionably hot. But now their hotness seems so performative and shallow that it is almost off-putting. (Almost.) And my more cynical eye now sees something in these perfect bodies -- with their rock-hard abs, sculpted pecs, bulging swimsuits and chiseled faces -- arrayed row after row, page after page that, in the immortal words of the flawed Benny Hill, seems more like "a snare and a delusion."

There is a kind of shallowness of affect in their faces that is palpable now, that in my 20s wasn't even slightly perceptible. Or, if it was, could be overlooked without significant thought.

I'm not saying that these physical depictions of perfect male specimens don't turn me on. They definitely do. The lifeguard in the yellow trunks is...ahem.

But there is also a wistful sort of disappointment that overlays it all, knowing that the depicted ideal begins to unravel when encountered in the real world. And that, while men can be physically gorgeous captured by a camera in one perfect instant, they can be truly ugly in ways that matter far more.

I guess what I'm saying -- and this comes as a revelation to me as I'm writing this -- is that I've reached the point in my life that I would, in fact, kick one of these guys out of bed for eating crackers.

Still, it made for great eye candy when I was 25. And in a pre-internet-porn age, these sorts of depictions of unabashed beefcake were few and far between, and decidedly welcome.
posted by darkstar at 1:27 PM on June 4, 2021 [29 favorites]

Which has reminded me of another comment I made here on MeFi regarding my experience of buying a Playgirl magazine back in the '80s.

I had to search for the comment, but here it is, posted to the Blue a dozen years ago.
posted by darkstar at 1:36 PM on June 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

I saw the title and said, “please let this be about International Male”. Regardless of the target market, everyone deserves a fashionable cape.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:39 PM on June 4, 2021 [11 favorites]

Certainly Frank Costanza's lawyer does.
posted by praemunire at 1:59 PM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

We received one or two of these catalogues in the mail in the ‘90s. It was like receiving a transmission from deep space. Alien and compelling. I was a straight boy, and really, um, interested in the Victoria’s Secret catalogues, and my mind was kinda blown when it was presented with a world of sexuality that was not for me. I laughed at it, I’m sure, but I also, I think, respected the frankness and pride of a supremely fit man in a barely there unitard. I don’t know. Is that silly or pandering or insulting to say? I have fondness for IM, that’s all. It freaked me out, but in a good way. Not hate, but awe. Okay, some laughter too. I was a dumb, horny, and sheltered kid.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 3:18 PM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

A college friend of mine ended up on their list and I remember paging through a catalog and thinking it was a little weird until I turned another page. Everything was clear then. “How did you end up on this list?” “I don’t know, but I bought some underwear and it’s actually pretty good.”
posted by fedward at 3:29 PM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

I once somehow ended up signed up to international male catalog as a teenager. I think it was because I was starting to weight train and I had subscribed to a men's fitness magazine - which at those times had an awful lot in common with International Male catalog. My parents had slightly raised eyebrows for several months but never said a word as they waited for me to come out. Except I wasn't gay. I really should ask them what they thought at the time.
posted by srboisvert at 3:32 PM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

I ran across this in the 80s at a friend's house when I was in elementary school, maybe 7 or 8, in the suburban Midwest, and my friend and I were flipping through it, fascinated -- who would wear these clothes? All the men we knew were suburban dads who wore suits to work and polo shirts on the weekend.

We got to the bathing suits (we'd only ever seen men in trunks), and finally asked my friend's mom, "Why are these guys wearing such weird bathing suits?"

Her mom glanced at what we were looking at and replied, with remarkable sang froid, "They're European."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:32 PM on June 4, 2021 [33 favorites]

i'm just here to wear my zip-front twill shirt and pout.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:34 PM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

I knew what this would be before I even clicked the link. My college roommate (who, yes, is gay) introduced me to this catalog, although these men are very, very much not to his aesthetic taste. For years, we would raise an eyebrow and say, "International?" to indicate that someone was pinging our gaydar.

My memory of the catalog at the time, though, is more pirate shirt than smuggled plums, although I won't say that I don't recall any of the latter...
posted by uncleozzy at 4:12 PM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

“The Santa Monica Boulevard scene
Poodle hair and sausage jeans
The International Male store
The mannequins and customers are interchangeable”
— lyrics from Fluffy City by Pansy Division
posted by larrybob at 6:10 PM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

"How in the world did I ever get on this mailing list?!?"
-- many gentlemen in my dorm
posted by MrJM at 6:49 PM on June 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

Shemar Moore, and Cameron Mathison (All My Children's Ryan Lavery; Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight correspondent; Hallmark Channel habitué).

Like uncleozzy, I knew what this would be before I clicked the link. The 1980s IM catalog was a vivid introduction to male models styled, posed, and photographed in the same fashion as their female counterparts.
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:22 PM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

I ordered something from their catalog once, pretty sure that it would fit me. It did not remotely fit me, because I do not have an International Male bod. But I kept getting the catalog for a few years, and it became a source of a joke between my then-wife and me; she would do most of the driving on long trips, and sometimes didn't really listen when I'd give directions, and it became a source of contention between us, so I clipped out this thing from IM; it was a guy wearing what I could only describe as a male version of the white straps outfit that Leeloo wore in The Fifth Element, only in black leather--if not fetishy, then fetish-adjacent. The joke was, if that doesn't get your attention...
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:51 PM on June 4, 2021

My college housemate (and best friend to this day) was a subscriber. He had come out more recently than I... I had already found the shady places in town to acquire... erm... reading material. (Literally, I suppose, as I preferred stories to pictures.)

I once saw an IM outfit “in the wild.” I had moved to a big city for graduate school. The school gym at the time was very bare bones, where serious lifters went, mostly wearing ripped up no-brand blocky sweats. In comes this guy... he actually was an international student— Italian I think— wearing a scoop neck skin tight bodysuit with black-and-white vertical stripes. He had the body for it— it made him look vaguely like he’d be playing a circus acrobat in an old movie.

He made quite an impact on everyone, although most guys just averted their gaze. I remember thinking, this guy has incredible confidence. It made me rethink the “please let me be invisible” attitude that I took with me to the gym at the time. And I remember him clearly after all this time. International guy, I salute you (and International Male.)
posted by profreader at 9:26 PM on June 4, 2021 [11 favorites]

I was in it soley for the paper cologne inserts. Dad got GQ, Oh, say '1983. Naval History, Omni, Popular Mechanics and GQ on the coffee table so at D&D break while your cleric is rewinding The Hobbit, Sword and the Sorceror and Sinbad: 7 Tigers something, we'd roll a fat tater and thumb through paper. Noone touched the GQ and the Ranger asks; What's with .."Look".., tossing across the room in what where those plastic drum thlngs with the joint inside thing then picking up the magazine: "can you do that".
Rare, rare moment of laughter from my dad echos the kitchen.
posted by clavdivs at 10:03 PM on June 4, 2021

This article did not have enough pictures.
posted by amanda at 5:41 AM on June 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

Back in the early '80s when I was a young teen, my mom got an enormous amount of catalogs in the mail. I realized I was a straight male way before I ever saw one of her Victoria's Secret catalogs (those were my favorite), but somehow she also got IM. My brothers and I found IM to be pretty, um, "out there" with its obvious sexuality, but I did find it fascinating to look at those sculpted male bodies. I was hitting puberty and was tall and scrawny with a sunken chest (moderate "pectus excavatum" in medical terminology—This developed in my body before/during puberty and I still have it! I've seen photos of myself as a shirtless toddler or 5 year old and I definitely did NOT have it then) which made me very self-conscious of my body. For a while, I even stuffed kleenex in my shirts between my undershirt and overshirts (!!!) to disguise my mild deformity that I found so horrifying and debilitating—personally. I never took off my shirt even at the beach, and gym class locker rooms were hurried, quick-change hell for me. Now at age 50, I'm sure few even really noticed. But I did get some razzing about it a few times at school.

Not sure where I'm going with this. But that's an anecdote that shows even young males can suffer from shame and emotional pain based on body acceptance.

I'm happy to see how far acceptance of LGBTQ people has come within my lifetime.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:42 AM on June 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

This made me think of my dearly departed friend who handed me an IM catalog in an effort to figure out whether or not to put the moves on me. It didn't work because I never figure signals like that out until days or years later.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:52 AM on June 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Previously on MetaFilter: Adventures of an International Male.

Looks like it's the Internet Archive to the rescue.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:49 AM on June 5, 2021

I still have one shirt from them. Real high quality items, always. Very unusual clothing, to be sure, but if I picked my spots carefully (like, one a really conservative edge of their clothing) I found things I liked. One shirt I purchased had horizontal lines, which was great when I was in one of my skinny fuck phases but didn't work at *all* when I put on some weight, and I let it go bye-bye. Today I could wear it again; I've gone fat/thin for literally decades, *mostly* thin these past 5 years, give or take.

And I got a couple of belts from them also (long gone and who knows where) and a solid silver ring which I lost down on the boat dock here in my condo complex, I took it off when practicing yoga, somehow it got through a crack in the dock and gone gone gone -- damn shame, a very cool ring, always a lot of compliments on it.

Also two pair of pajama bottoms, once again very high quality stuff, still wear them today.

~~~~~

It's like the opposite of Eddie Bauer, for me, in that I have to really pick my spots; with Eddie Bauer clothing, there's a lot of nice items but *way* more East Coast Golfer Dock clothing that I don't want even in my zip code, much less my closet. International Male was the other side of the spectrum, lots of stylish, fun items but plenty more that I'd not want even in my zip code.

~~~~~

I'm pretty surprised and somewhat disappointed that no one has stepped up and filled that niche. They could keep their zip up underpants and most of their shirts (skin-tight gold sateen shirts with pictures of boats or space ships or aardvarks emblazoned upon them in some wild chartreuse color.) I'd just be on the lookout for clothing that would suit me, of which they had plenty.

~~~~~

Great post, a stroll down memory lane for me, thx for posting, OP.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:28 PM on June 6, 2021