Beautiful Males

"If young men were entered as well as girls, the affairs might develop into what might be called a course or school for the real appreciation of the human body.

Taken as a whole such contests would be wholesome and helpful to society. To artists the introduction of men in beauty shows would not seem strange. . . ." So said said Dr. Thaddeus L. Bolton, noted psychologist of Temple University (Philadelphia). "The male figure is decidedly more decorative than the female figure," he continued, "thus proving that the male is a better biological specimen than the female. Throughout all the ages the form of the man has been more frequently used for the creation of things of beauty than the female figure."

Artists, remembering figures on old vases of boys holding the wild, light reins of hurrying chariots, marble men lounging on their pedestals in an effortless perfection, men behind plows or on top of girders shoving or straining in to a sudden rapid beauty, could not deny some element of truth in these remarks. Nor could they regard the term "beauty show" as applied to a procession of pseudonymphs kept decently warm by hairpins and the emblem of their hometowns as more than a misappellation, not to be corrected by the inclusion of seminaked gentlemen.