Prowler Magazine

06/09/2025

05/09/2025

"Photographers hadn't captured the attitudes and gestures that women assumed, they seemed to freeze in front of the lens, as if posing for their portraits, whereas fashion illustrators would render them as they actually saw them in real life. Was there no way of achieving the same results with photography? "
George Hoyningen-Huene
– September 4, 1900

Baron George Hoyningen-Huene is probably the most important fashion photographer of the 1920s and 1930s.

Born in Saint Petersburg during the Russian Revolution, his family (German mother and American father) fled to Paris. By 25 years old, Hoyningen-Huene was head of the photography division of FRENCH VOGUE. In 1931 he met handsome Horst P, Horst, also a genius photographer, who became his muse, model, and longtime lover. That same year, the new couple visited Cecil Beaton, who was working for the British edition of VOGUE.

In 1935, the couple relocated to Hollywood, where Hoyningen-Huene shot glamorous portraits of figures in the film industry, including Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Charlie Chaplin, Johnny Weissmüller, Rita Hayworth, and Katharine Hepburn.
He worked in large studios with the best lighting. For George Cukor, he was a special visual and color consultant on A STAR IS BORN (1954), LES GIRLS (1957),, and the Sophia Loren vehicle HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS (1960), among other projects. He also became a good friend to Greta Garbo (he was trusted with taking Garbo's passport photos).

He was a notable figure in the French Avant Garde between the two world wars, when Paris was the center of artistic expression. His circle included Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and Jean Cocteau.

It must be because he was mostly a commercial photographer, but his work is never held up as Art the same way as his friends Man Ray and Berenice Abbott. In every way, he was ahead of his time, celebrating strong, independent, modern women, plus he was open about his gayness.

Hoyningen-Huene died in 1968. He left everything to Horst, who carefully curated his archives, and slowly releasing quality prints of his work.

1935 portrait

05/09/2025

02/09/2025

Two rugged fishermen fall in love in new drama ‘On The Sea,’ which explores masculinity & desire in remote Wales - https://www.q***rty.com/two-rugged-fishermen-fall-in-love-in-new-drama-on-the-sea-which-explores-masculinity-desire-in-remote-wales-2-20250901/

31/08/2025

This spring, Chris and I went to Paris for a book tour for my most recent novel, Mona of the Manor, or as it's called in France, Mona et son Manoir. I was asked to prepare a statement for a television show about what I believe. This is what I chose to write. Chris shot a video of me reading and commenting on this statement on my new site if you'd like to hear me reading it. Link below.

"Nearly half-a-century ago I created a fictional character, a landlady named Anna Madrigal. She was greatly loved by one and all, but she harbored a secret she had shared with no one. When I revealed this secret to my editors, all of them male and all of them straight, they reacted with horror. How, they asked, would my readers react when found out that their beloved Mrs. Madrigal had once been a man?

Looking back, these fifty years later, this all seems rather quaint. There are now transgender characters everywhere in popular culture, and Anna Madrigal, I am proud to say, has made the journey with them, the centerpiece of all ten novels in my "Tales of the City" series. Her most recent appearance was in "Mona of the Manor" in which Anna's beloved daughter Mona encounters transphobia in the English countryside. This was my fictional response to a certain British novelist who seems fixated on the wrongheaded notion that trans women constitute a threat to biological women in women-spaces like public toilets. I would respectfully suggest to her that a woman stands a far greater chance of being accosted by another woman in a toilet than the poor trans soul who just wants to get in out without trouble.

Toilets are especially susceptible to the fears of bigots. I remember when I was a boy in the American South how fiercely the politicians fought against the idea of desegregating p***c toilets. The races weren't meant to mix, they said, when performing such an intimate act. They said it simply wasn't natural or decent.

Anna Madrigal has sometimes been described as the first sympathetic transgender character in literature. If that's true, it's a laurel I'm happy to wear. I knew next to nothing about trans folks when I created this Anna, and the prospect was a little daunting as a writer. In the end I realized she was just another human being, someone with the same hopes and dreams and flaws as anyone else. I believe we should take that approach with everyone: try to find our shared humanity... and not focus on our differences."

30/08/2025

"I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know why I didn't."
Edward Carpenter
– August 29, 1844

Gay Rights Activist, Socialist, Feminist, Pacifist, Vegetarian, Nudist, Mystic, Poet, Essayist, Sandal–wearer, challenger of most values of modern Western Civilization, Edward Carpenter had an impact on the culture and politics of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He enjoyed friendships with Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, Isadora Duncan, and Emma Goldman.

Unusual for his day, he gave public lectures for the working-class. He practiced what he preached, giving away most of his money and earning a living as a sandal-maker, lecturer, and journalist.

In 1891, after a chance meeting on a train, he and George Merrill, an uneducated worker, became lovers. In 1898, when Carpenter was 54 years old and Merrill was just 32, they set up house together, unheard of in England which was profoundly anti-gay after Oscar Wilde's trials three years earlier. Carpenter and Merrill lived openly as a couple for the next 30 years, until Merrill's passing. Their love affair, crossing the classes, was the inspiration for their friend E.M. Forster's novel MAURICE.

Carpenter felt that it was natural for people to settle down into a single deep permanent union, but also normal that along the way they should experience a variety of relationships and s*xual adventures. He visualized a society with love and devotion between individuals without jealousy, eschewing social opinions, or religious and legal unions. Carpenter considered s*x a good thing and not a cause of human sinfulness. His opinions were revolutionary in his era, and they'd make MAGA's heads explode today.

Merrill died unexpectedly in January 1928. In May 1928, Carpenter suffered a stroke. He was taken in June 1929, exactly 40 years before the Stonewall Riots.

Carpenter managed to avoid scandal and disgrace like Wilde. He made no secret of his relationship with Merrill, he was discreet, but they lived in isolation in the countryside. His controversial books avoided prosecution despite having been investigated by the morals police many times.

28/08/2025

West Coast Eagles alum Mitch Brown has come out as bis*xual — making history as the first-ever male player in the Australian Football League to identify as an out q***r man.

"Very weird feeling knowing this is out in the world," wrote in a statement. "But I feel confident in who I am and have amazing support around me."

Full story—🔗 in bio.

📸: Paul Kane/Getty Images; Faith Moran/GC Images
🖊️:

25/08/2025

24/08/2025

Brazilian tennis player João Lucas Reis da Silva makes history as the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam 🎾

24/08/2025

23/08/2025

Happy birthday to Richard Armitage, who made headlines in 2023 when he openly confirmed he's part of the LGBTQ+ community and has a male partner after decades of keeping his personal life private!

What makes his story so compelling is how it flips the script on Hollywood fears. For years, Richard built his career playing some of the most commanding masculine roles on screen - from the brooding Thorin Oakenshield in "The Hobbit" to the intense John Porter in "Strike Back".

In the UK, he's become synonymous with tough guys, soldiers, and complex alpha characters with undeniable screen presence.

While American actors have long worried that coming out might limit their casting in "manly" roles, Richard proves that authenticity and talent speak louder than outdated stereotypes.

He's living proof that you can be authentically yourself and still command every room you enter.

23/08/2025

Have a wonderful weekend and be gentle with each other.