Gay Icons: Cover Me

Attitude was launched in 1994 with Boy George on the front, and its cover remains a bastion of men in pants at a time when straight titles are increasingly coy about putting scantily clad women on theirs. The diver Tom Daley appeared topless after coming out in 2014, while the rugby player Gareth Thomas posed naked and nuzzling his boyfriend a few months later. Elton John and David Furnish celebrated their wedding on it in 2005, albeit fully clothed. Even Oscar Wilde has been inducted into the Attitude covers hall of fame.

Being chosen for it has become something of a status symbol among straight stars too. Where once the title had trouble recruiting hetero celebrities, now the Attitude cover has the power to define careers as well as cultural mores. There is a certain pride in being a gay icon...

The spot has become PR gold, changing perceptions of how even people who aren’t gay see those who appear on it. Justin Timberlake, George Clooney and Tom Hardy have all done it (in a wife-beater vest, lime green shirt and silken pyjamas respectively). Ed Miliband was a pin-up in May 2014, although he only removed his tie.

“There’s a sincerity test you have to conduct, so that you don’t just become part of people’s marketing strategy,” says the cultural commentator Paul Flynn. “Some readers are against straight men with their clothes off on the cover, but the men in pants aren’t going anywhere — they sell better.” ...

The Times.

I've often argued that any journalist that uses the fatuous term 'gay icon' knows nothing about gay culture.

It's a term no gay man ever uses in conversation, just an extremely elastic media fiction.

This journalist confuses 'Has appeared on the front cover of Attitude' with being a 'gay icon'.

Needless to say it was not written by a gay man.

And that graphic is so hideously unsexy, it can only have been designed by a straight man.

PS Ben Cohen a 'gay icon' still - LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!

PPS And in another tribute to gay fuckwittery BBC News magazine have got an article about rainbow tossing flags.