Jan 9, 2011

[Technicolor Musings] Guilty Pleasures Of A Local Variety

We all have our guilty pleasures, especially among gay men. The whole homosexual attraction bit in itself always starts with at least a modest amount of guilt as we realize that we like other men and we start to identify those guys that we actually like. A lot. And that continues on into the future as we grow up.

Even as adult gay men out in the world (even those not quite out of the closet, mind you), we have our guilty pleasures for different reasons. Maybe we want to be perceived in a particular manner that we deem somehow better or more respectable. Perhaps our peers pressure us to adopt a particular mindset that doesn't look too kindly for what you happen to enjoy. Who knows really - we all have our reasons.


Enchong Dee - Bench Uncut


And as much as I'm a geek, I'm still a gay man who likes other men. And that includes local celebrities (although the photo above isn't for me, hehe) that I happen to find attractive. I don't talk about it much, but I then maybe I should - perhaps we all should. What's the harm, right? Just because we like a certain person from a physical sense doesn't change the kind of person you are as a whole. It's just a fun little side note that we can all laugh about some other time.

So here are a few of my guilty pleasures in terms of the local male celebrity scene. Please don't judge me! LOL

For some reason, I think that a number of my guilty pleasures were all together once in a single catalog of sorts. I'm referring to the 2003 Cosmo Bachelors - at least the Philippines set. It's an odd coincidence, but there it is.


Power Four (P4)


Once upon a time, some local music executive decided that we need to come up with our own local variety of boy band. With the success of the likes of the Backstreet Boys and N*N*Sync in the years prior, why not a similar group right here? And thus the Power Boy or the Power Four (with the horrible nickname of P4) burst out into the local scene. Finding initial fame in some campy Rexona commercial where they were all singing and dancing shirtless with only some fluffy white towels covering their privates, the group did get some attention. They were never truly successful, but at least they tried.


Greg Martin - Cosmopolitan


While I never really cared for the group, I have to admit that one of the guys caught my eye. Greg Martin a.k.a. Greg Filipovich. The now 30 year old man of Serbian-Filipino descent. I can't quite explain what drew me to him but I found him incredibly attractive. A big factor was probably the fact that I had only recently come to terms with my homosexuality back then and Greg was one of those guys who helped me start to define what I figured to be more attractive in other guys. I did my best to somewhat secretly follow a lot of the media coverage about him including his appearances on different shows like Sports Unlimited. Apparently his being a capoeira enthusiast really paid off.


Greg Martin 2007


We haven't heard much from him in recent years. After the whole Power Four thing, an appearance in the 2002 movie Berks and a few more TV appearances after that, he sort of dropped out of show business and went under the radar. A 2007 Philippine Star article included a short Q&A piece that he participated in. I turns out he and his family are in New York managing a real estate business and based on the photo above, he still looks as good as ever. Beyond that, the only other mention that I can link to him is this odd little piece, which may possibly feature some rather harsh statements geared towards defending his family in the comments section. Feisty indeed, but I never liked him for his personality or his dismal acting abilities - I just thought he was hot, hehe.


Brent Javier


Brent Javier didn't quite catch my eye when he first appeared among the Top 10 Cosmo Bachelor's of 2003, but I did eventually learn to appreciate him. I guess we could trace that back to about 2005 when he appeared in Icon feature and graced the cover of their third quarter issue. I guess it helped that he had gained a bit more mass by bulking up a bit and even looking a tad scruffy in some of the photos.


Brent Javier - Volleyball


There's no question that he's obviously quite pretty - he just has this tendency to look rather skinny. I suppose it's a model thing and while I appreciated the beauty of his face, his body could use a bit more consistency. While he's always defined, it really helps to have a bit more mass to add a bit more...dimension to his body.


Brent Javier - Bench


He still seems to be more on the skinny side these days and a lot of the allure is gone. While Greg Martin still does it for me on some level, Brent Javier quickly faded from my sphere of interest around the same time Icon Magazine went under. Well, probably before that. This is definitely one guilty pleasure that I'm glad to leave behind - I now appreciate more substantial game, in a manner of speaking.


Piolo Pascual - Old


My biggest guilty pleasure that continues on until today is definitely Piolo Pascual. When he first hit the scene, he didn't strike me in any particular way. I scoffed at him appearing in the 2003 Cosmo Bachelor's catalog since he was pretty much skin and bone (as seen above). He wasn't exactly bad-looking, but I didn't necessarily to find him to be handsome in any particular way. Plus his mole really bothers me for some reason.


Piolo Pascual and Girl


But over the years, something happened. I guess you can blame the need to keep up his celebrity image. Maybe this is all just about him wanting to live a healthier life by competing in marathons or triathlons. Maybe all the stories about him being gay are true and this is just your usual obsession with the physical that we see in a lot of gay men. Whatever the reason, he's gotten annoyingly hot despite still being the same annoying actor that I never got into. So damn it, I do think he's hot.


Piolo Pascual - Bench Ad


So now he's a major billboard model and he looks amazing in just a pair of jeans. I can't think of him posing in just his underwear, but I suppose that's not a part of his image. It's hard to find fault in his body (I'm a nipple guy, so sue me) and over the years he even seems to be becoming a bit more attractive to me just in terms of his face. So damn it, I'm turning!

But I'm still feeling guilty about this little pleasure for now, so sue me.



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2 comments:

  1. Brent is naturally thin that's why it's really an effort for him to gain mass.
    I think he's still with his long time girlfriend Karen Pamintuan, Patis Tesoro's niece.

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  2. Ikaw na ang Brent Javier expert, haha!

    ReplyDelete