Hard Times

Today, Mavety Media Group pulled the buttplug on all of their gay magazines—charmingly referred to as "sophisticates" in old-school publishing parlance. Puns aside, I wonder if people will notice what a major development this is in publishing, in gay history and in the porn industry.

The titles affected include Mandate, Torso, Honcho, Inches (and all of its ethnic permutations) and Playguy. The oldest, Mandate, has been continuously published since April of 1975—just over 34 years. It was published originally by George Mavety, an apparently heterosexual man (I say "apparently" only because having known him, I wouldn't put much past him sexually—but his obsession with women is well documented) who was a former Sunday school teacher.

Imagine this: A straight dude from Canada peddling the first monthly gay-porn entertainment magazine (after his own, short-lived Dilettante) from the trunk of his car. Mr. Mavety was tenacious in his belief that there was a big market for big penises, and he was never one to discriminate when there was money to be made. He because an expert on distribution and launched dozens more magazines in his day, including perverted-household names like Juggs and Leg Show (titles that live on, but for how long?).

The gay titles were highly successful at times. Don't most gay men under 50 or so remember picking up one of those magazines and finding out something about ourselves, or about a vast, invisible community we were just beginning to realize existed?

Mr. Mavety's earliest publications mixed arts and entertainment (sometimes ridiculously) with nude photography (some of it ridiculous in its own right), but over time that gave way to most pornographic nudes peppered with "socially redeeming" articles to avoid obscenity prosecutions (they were only briefly hardcore) and finally to pure, 100% bare-naked men.

The photography went from great to terrible and back to highly professional once GT Wallace inherited the reins, took the titles seriously and did everything possible to make the magazines slick and able to do the trick.

The people who worked there were far more interesting and eccentric than the vanilla vagabonds who stripped for the publications' pages—the gruff-sounding gentle giant with the "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" sign on his desk (eventually, they didn't), the pigment-challenged spinster who kept her eye on everything but the dirty pictures, the Christian soldiers were morally opposed to the industry the employed them (including the ad lady who never sold an ad and swore a "wet shot" meant a picture of somebody in the shower).

Unfortunately, even though the quality of the magazines improved remarkably under the direction of Wallace and the world of pornography grew exponentially, the need for a printed magazine became lesser and lesser in the age of the Internet, where every fantasy is a click away. Mr. Mavety told me he couldn't grasp the appeal of online porn. "I want to hold a magazine in my hand while I masturbate—who would want to have one hand on a keyboard while you're doing that?"

As we can all attest, the keyboard isn't such a hindrance, and the limited number of images in a magazine became one. Things are tough all over.

I have a lot more to say on this topic, but I'm not sure when that will happen. But for now, I have to say I will miss the magazines in the same way I will also be missing all magazines when they finally disappear in the next few years. I also miss Mr. Mavety, who died unexpectedly on August 19, 2000, while playing tennis at one of his homes. Also surprising, his various mistresses didn't seem to know about each other, his will was out of date (vexing if you're one of his children, love- or otherwise) and he had Charlie Rangel at his funeral.

"Man Is A Many Splendored Thing" is the purple prose of the past of which I speak. But the guy was still hot, right?

He could be cruel, he could be petty (as when he would commandeer the intercom and demand that employees clear the lines of personal calls or stop hovering at the water cooler), but he was often quite gracious and engaging and cultured. He was an original and was a lot like the early incarnations of his gay titles—places where smut and popular culture met and mingled, where the banal and the shocking shared pages.

Now, just like Mr. Mavety himself, some of his earliest and best publications are suddenly history.

Ode to a dinge queen.

Comments

[Marty]

Who is that on the cover of the PLAYGUY???

[Matthew Rettenmund]

The man of my dreams. Latter-day PLAYGUY became (wisely, business-wise) a twink magazine—he would have been too old.

[Marty]

Yeah, it's a twink world. Even when I was chronologically in that age range, I always found them dull visually (and so many other ways). Now that I'm old enough to be their (chronological) father, I find that the men I lusted after back then would actually be younger than me now. Which is scary! ;-)

[Dian Hanson]

This is tragic, especially because George Mavety would never have folded them, even if they were losing money monthly. He was a big ol' pervert of the kind seldom encountered today, and those magazines were dear to his heart, whether he was straight, gay, or, as I well know, swimming the muddy waters between. My heart goes out to Mr. Wallace.

[a fan]

I find this very sad, but understandable. I used to love those mags (shoplifted a few in junior high).

Torso is dead - long live Torso

[ish]

Sad to hear. I used to work there, many MANY years ago. Such a weird place...the mix of gay porn, straight porn, and knitting magazines in Swedish was always a laugh riot.

[David]

Those magazines were such a rite of passage for me.

[David Ehrenstein]

It's the end of an era.

I'm not surprised but saddened. Everything is going into the web. Including life itself it seems. People should get out more. But they don't.

[Bobeau]

I think that's Jon King on that top photo

[Matthew Rettenmund]

It's not Jon, but he was one of my faves. I found out about him during his brief, er, cumback.

[J.P.]

I'll miss Honcho the most. That was my favorite!

[Gerald]

Wow Michael Lucas' black and white picture. He looks like a cute little boy- what a hot man he has become.

[Dave]

Before I came out, I would summon up my nerve, and buy Mandate or In Touch. I had the biggest crush on the young man pictured above on the color Mandate cover. What a beauty!

I have a mint copy of the first edition of Mandate - April 1975. Anyone have an idea what its worth?

[kathy]

ish--You must've been there when I was, early '80s, although the knitting mags were never published in Swedish (just French, Dutch, German, Italian and English, which was enough). This was also a time of "She-Male" magazine and the publication of "The Leatherman's Handbook." It was the Volume 1, Issue 1 of "Torso."

Dian--I think you're so right that George never would've folded the entire line of gay magazines. If anything, he probably would've tried to expand it even further.

It's a sad day when any magazine dies, and even sadder--and these days maybe even frightening--for the employees of those magazines. My sympathies to the staff, photographers, writers, models....

[Jared Bascomb]

I used to buy those mags near-religiously, so I was thrilled beyond belief when Inches actually paid me for a story I'd written! It was my first paid work as a budding porn writer, and it wasn't the last. The pay wasn't all that great, but at least I was in print!

[Don Hanover]

The first cover I had was on Mandate May 1976: the cover price was $1.25. George was my publisher - he published YEARLING for me and it did so well that he created PLAYGUY. I worked for him as he created Macho (and couldn't get the name so it became HONCHO. He was a big guy and had a big heart. Because I had a knack for making people look younger than they were he had me do some photos of him... rather than having him say cheese to get him to smile.. I told him to say "MONEY" which produced a huge smile. John Devere was the editor of all the mags in the early years and it was all about entertainment. I did nudes for entertainment. They were erotic but not exactly pornographic. Sad that this is the end of the end. Don C. Hanover III

[chijag]

Thanks for your 'obituary' of the printed page. No matter how satisfying holding the images in your hand may have been, the 'live' video images can and do supplant the flicking of pages. No matter how beloved the photographic images, the dynamic of streaming or downloaded video trumps them significantly.

[GiorgioNYC]

I'm surprised the mags lasted this long. I worked at Modernismo Publications myself, from '82-84, editing & writing for all 3 "men's sophisticates." The experience would make a good comic novel or play(hint to myself). Besides Mavety, whom I recall trolling around the office like the lord of the manor, trailing cigarette ash everywhere, there was an elderly Jewish couple that sold sex toys (I recall the wife sweetly asking one of the gay men, "Would ya like a dildo, hon?"),the Italian receptionist from Brooklyn, Renee, whose eyes practically popped out of her head one day while ogling Al Parker's basket, in person (he used to come in occasionally),Penny, a straight married woman copy editor who would only edit the articles, not the fuck fiction, two of the editors, who were very racist white southern queens (one of whom has since published a book about the making of All About Eve), and the two art directors, basically sweet but oh so dizzy clones. Years later I wrote about some of this for OutWeek, and Mavety even gave me an interview, reminding me of course that this was very gracious of him because he didn't like to talk to the media.

I have quite the stash of Mandates and Honchos, but not Playguy.

One other thing. The very first version of Michael Callen's & Richard Berkowitz's "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic" was published by Modernismo, in Honcho. Michael & Richard brought it to me, and I'm proud to have been the editor who got it published, in a "fuckbook."

[drumstick]

My dad actually bought me a copy of Mandate and Playguy when I was 14 so that I would "grow out of the phase faster" get getting it out of my system. - The images are still burned in my brain, but I can never seemed to find them. It would have been around 1980 or 1981...

[OldInNYC]

Yes, the mix of arts and body shots was remarkable in Honcho and Mandate. It communicated, and enhanced, gay culture. I remember being so proud, as well as surprised, when my partner and I were able to buy a copy of Mandate upon arrival at the airport in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and in it was a photo he'd taken of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus. It was 25 years ago and we were on our way to a family reunion, and suddenly a little bit of our home and lives was open and visible in the media "out there."

[Frank Decatur]

Sad to see this classic line of gay "soft core" magazines go down the tubes. I knew George Mavety and saw him last about a year before his death when we met on Lincoln Road on Miami Beach for lunch. He wanted me to start a magazine for him, but was vague about what he wanted...something sophisticated about the gay lifestyle but non-pornographic.
(He paid for lunch, but there was an embarrassing moment when the first card he presented was declined). I have often wondered what a 300 plus pound man was doing playing tennis in the hot sun after I heard of his death.
There are few gay magazines left on the stands (gay men do not support the magazine industry as they should). However, ALLBOY and BADPUPPY magazines are going strong...great magazines (catering to younger models) to take up the slack.
Frank Decatur

[casey]

wow. i've been a publications designer my entire career, 26 years although i'm basically retired from it now, and a magazine collector as well. this is an unbelievable development, but has it's roots not only in the current depression (call it what it is) but in the rise of the 'net. ALL print media is in trouble now, sad to say. i have books and journals dating to 1800, and if anyone had told me i'd see the end of print media in my lifetime, i'd have laughed out loud (before it was lol).

LOVE your play on words re pulling the buttplug too.

sad to see 'em all go, but perhaps all of my vintage ones just started escalating in value.....

[bearmuffin]

i've been writing stories for Torso/Honcho/Mandate since 1985. this tuesday my editor at Torso told me they were going under. too bad because that $150 per story came in handy and i think they paid the best for gay erotica. well, everything paper gay or straight is eventually going e-publishing I think.

[Alex]

Thanks for this wonderful report. I never knew about the person behind these magazines and finding out about Mr. George Mavety was a surprise.

I'm sure it was all a money making business for him, but I wonder if he knew just how many young gay men who was impacting?

I was about 14-years old when I came across a "Play Guy" magazine (back in the 80s) and of course I just assumed that it was a mag meant for women. Anyway, I was able to buy it (I guess the store clerk thought it was a muscle mag) and after I took care of business, I read the articles and realized that this was for guys like me. I was elated!

Just knowing that there was a market for gay-porn meant that there must be a large gay community out there for me to discover.

It was at that point that I knew I was not alone.

Thanks Mr. Mavety!

[William Lawrence]

It's so sad to see magazine after magazine fall prey to obsolescence. While the internet has certainly made porn more readily available, it has destroyed an entire income stream for writers, photographers and editors and has had a tremendous negative impact on the quality of erotica (much as videotaped amateur porn did to adult movies.)

Like others, I had lots of stroke fiction published in Torso, Numbers, Blueboy, In Touch, First Hand and the like in the early-to-mid 80's. I was delighted with both the paychecks ($150 or more per story) and with the notion that my writing could be inspiring guys all over the country to "get up and get off."

I just hope the folks who worked on those publications knew that their efforts were appreciated by the generations of gay men who eagerly consumed their tangible smut.

R.I.P. Mandate, Torso, Honcho, Inches Playguy and Playgirl.