Beyond the Muscle
by Kate Wolf
A precursor to the hardcore pornography and the radical underground presses that erupted after Stonewall, photographer Bob Mizer's landmark "beefcake" quarterly Physique Pictorial was initially produced under the guise of an art and fitness journal. It is now considered to be one of the first, if not the very first of its kind: a widely distributed magazine that celebrated the male form for its aesthetic pleasures, and whose intended audience was gay men.