When I was flipping through magazines in San Francisco a few months back, I remember stopping dead in my tracks when I came upon this one. I'll never forget the look in that blonde's eyes. You see I had owned this mag once before. It ended up in the cosmic paper shredder that most porn ends up in ultimately. I don't remember if I threw it away in an effort reduce the mountain sized pile of porn under my bed (possibly) or to purge it of gay material (likely). I do remember buying it though, because it was my first.
I had seen the covers of gay porn mags before...after all I grew up in the west village in New York where some news stands had them on display next to the Playboys behind the counter. Even respectable stores often had Mandate or Inches stashed somewhere in the back. It was just good business. There was one particular news stand that was more risque than most though. It was across from the Waverly Theater on West 3rd Street, right by the subway, right by my house. Its showcased its porn by encasing it in the plastic that surrounded the stand on three sides. Sure most of it was Hustler or High Society, but mixed in were Honcho and Torso, and a few really hard core ones like Thrust and Stroke, which were contact mags. The cover pictured above was on permanent display, not hidden or obscured but displayed in all its glory.
I dont know how many times I locked eyes with that blonde as I walked by, only to keep on going lest someone see me looking and figure out what was going on inside me. Ultimately the hormones won out over the shame (as they usually do) and I finally bought a copy. Its funny, the guy on the cover isn't even my type--but back then I had no idea I had a type. I just knew that Thrust would probably give me something Playboy wasn't providing.
Flipping though it again was like looking though a yearbook at forgotten friends who never really left your mind. But I remember every corny caption, every photo, every ad for a 976 line. After all, these were the first images of gay sex I'd ever seen...my training wheels for my gay porn obsession.
The mag is kind of epic (84 pages) so I could only reproduce the highlights, including some classic ads which I found equally hot at the time. To this day I don't know many of the performers names, but the featured include Aiden Shaw, Wes Daniels, Rob Cryston, Steve Regis and Joey Stefano. Among the nameless is the hung blonde whose siren song led me down the path of wickedness.
