The Beefcake Boys

Aaron Thomas, Nightstand Books / Corinth Publications, 1967

Here is an exceptionally misleading cover and title: I cannot imagine spotting it in an adult bookstore and not assuming it was about the business of, well, beefcake photography. As in, hot guys on the hoof, showing off their manly assets for a quick buck. Fully-dressed photographer with a professional quality camera on a tripod? Check. Well-built, nude fellow posing on cloth-draped platform? Check. Enormous strobe lamp in the foreground, with the book’s title in the then-groovy, bubbly lettering that signified youth culture neatly tucked within its frame? Check. Second hunky and apparently naked guy standing behind the photographer, awaiting his turn in the literal spotlight? Yep,  there he is.