Mcular gay men hi-r stock photography and imag - Alamy

Contents:

• SUPER GAY (MCLE SHIRT)
• MCULAR GAY MEN STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG
• GAY OR STRAIGHT? HARD TO TELL
• GAY MCLE CLOTHG & SHO
• GAY MCLE T-SHIRTS & SHIRTS
• GAY MCLE PRI T-SHIRTS & SHIRTS

SUPER GAY (MCLE SHIRT)

It is late June, when many ci across the untry celebrate gay pri, and bare-chted he-men drsed very ltle are out the streets aga. As gay men grow more fortable shggg off gay-intified clothg and Schwarzeneggerian fns standards, straight men are more at ease flntg a gree of mcle tone seldom seen outsi of a Men's Health ver shoot. And they are adoptg looks -- mcle shirts, fted jeans, sandals and shoulr bags -- that as recently as a year ago might have read as, well, rult is a new gray area that is renrg gaydar -- that totally unscientific sixth sense that many people rely on to tell if a man is gay or straight -- as outmod as Wdows 2000.

It's not that straight men look more stereotypilly gay per se, or that out-of-the-closet gay men look straight. Call what you will: "gay vague" will do.

But the pol are meltg new nvergence of gay-vague style is not to be nfed wh metrosexualy, which steered straight men to a handful of feme perks like pedicur, scented ndl and prettily striped drs shirts. Gay vaguens affects both straight and gay men. It notably clus an attu of difference to havg one's sexual orientatn misread; hence the breakdown of many people's formerly reliable gaydar.

MCULAR GAY MEN STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG

"Some of the straight guys who e , I never would have thought were straight, and some of the gay men, I never would have gused eher. "A lot of guys thk I'm gay, " he said. He add that is his gay ctomers who need the most nvcg that he's straight.

GAY OR STRAIGHT? HARD TO TELL

"Have I been lled gay a gazilln tim? " He add, though, that do not happen as much lately, as he se ls difference between gay and straight men terms of how they exprs masculy outsi the bedroom.

C., " who is nstantly razzed by the straight jocks on the show for seemg gay, has bee the surprise heartthrob among as there are gay-vague televisn characters, there are gay-vague bands like the Bravery (which was photographed by Steven Kle for L'Uomo Vogue lookg like 1970's gay htlers).

GAY MCLE CLOTHG & SHO

"The other night I was at a dner stg next to someone who was talkg about how he uldn't tell anymore, that he jt didn't have any gaydar. I uldn't tell if he was gay or straight. For years gay men were the on to first adopt a style trend -- flat-ont pants, motorcycle jackets, crew cuts -- and straight men would pick up on more or ls as gay men tired of .

Now gays and straights are embracg new styl almost simultaneoly. "The lag time between gay novatn and straight appropriatn is nonexistent now, " said Bce Pask, the style director of Cargo magaze, who is gay.

"' Wh the g of the Inter, men, away om the scty of salpeople, are ee to shop plac they might not vis person and to buy cloth that, stripped of the ntext of a store, lose not only gay or straight meangs but also timatns about class, age and rult is a full-blown tegory of men's wear that draws equally om skateboard and surf culture, the preppy non and the nways of Prada and Marc Jabs, hot brands like Jam Perse, Rogan, Rogu Gallery, Trovata, Energie, Origal Pengu, Le Tigre and the once gay-oriented unrwear brand 2xist, now creds straight men, a spokwoman said, wh 50 percent of s roughly $40 ln annual bs, a statistic helped along by mentns on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and numero sightgs of the 2xist waistband on Jt Timberlake.

GAY MCLE T-SHIRTS & SHIRTS

"All the brands I rep are gay vague, " Mr. "Men are aware of fashn, and they're not aaid of anymore, gay or straight, " he Whe of Cosmopolan said that her teenage son and her hband, who ed to shop wh her, have been gog out stag and baggg some tertg choic. "It's fely gay vague.

"Some gay men are of like md.

As they shift their athletic tert om the gym to sports or bee parents and fd hard to work out as often, the classic gay gym body is beg jt one of several optns. The term "Chelsea boy, " notg a bronzed, buffed, waxed gay ial, has even acquired a pejorative tt.

GAY MCLE PRI T-SHIRTS & SHIRTS

"It's easier for gay men to e out of the closet as slobs, jt as 's easier for straight men to be dandi, " said Brendan Lemon, the edor of Out, the gay men's magaze. "One of the thgs that's breakg down how gay guys are seen is that people know more kds of men who are gay, nonstereotypil on like soldiers and athlet rather than stylists and fashn signers and rators.

" The lack of any one gay sensibily has meant that Out and other gay publitns have stggled to rencile a host of inti, while gay-vague magaz like Details and Cargo, aimed squarely at savvy, fashn-nsc men, are havg a Lemon suggted that for a generatn that grew up watchg "The Real World" on MTV, which the gay and lbian characters were no more or ls flamboyant drs or persona than their straight unterparts, beg gay rri neher the stigma nor the specialns once did. Pask agreed that many gay men, younger on pecially, don't want to feel, or look, that different. " Young men may associate the gay looks of the late 1980's and early 90's wh the anger and anguish that AIDS wrought on the gay world, a time they have ltle nnectn urse there are still plac that gay men will go that straight men will not.

The Speedo swimsu is still off lims to even the most va heterosexual Amerin men, as is knowg the words to Kylie Mogue's latt h Alice Eisenberg, who works the door at several New York gay bars, said her supersensive gaydar remas fallible. Last weekend she surprised onlookers when she stopped a gay-vague guy, plete wh a fedora, le at the Boys Room, an East Village bar, askg him, "You know this is a gay bar, right? A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn 9, Page 1 of the Natnal edn wh the headle: Gay or Straight?