Only Eye Candy? Original Plumbing Magazine’s Remodeling of the (Trans) Male Pin-Up

The participation of trans masculine models and photographers in the visual economy pin-ups is particularly evident across ten years twenty issues Original Plumbing (OP), helmed by coeditors Amos Mac Rocco Kayiatos. Steinbock proposes that as “eye candy” serves up a treat seems intellectually undemanding, these male have sweet-talked their way into hostile phallic economy, community seeing themselves sexually desirous. In doing so, notable invisibility eroticism men, FTMs, nonbinary folks, genderqueers, more has been reversed. pin-up, with its cheesy yet celebrity-chic conventions, can upend what summarizes “phallic gaze.” Trans much to teach culture scholars about arriving on scene visuality ways circumvent binary active/masculinized look passive/feminized gazed-upon body. Through comparisons cheesecake, beefcake, publicity shots, nudes, article demonstrates how OP remodeled conventions posturing, heterosexual assumption, pop grammars. Further, attends which masculinity imbricated whiteness, youth, muscularity, paradigm critically reframed collaborative labor models.