Throwback Thursday yesterday reminded me that I haven’t crushed on hot newsmen in a little while. For those who are just tuning in, I have long argued that mainstream news media outlets have conceded that sex sells, and the really adept newsrooms have been promoting hot hunks to give us something sweet to make the medicine of today’s events go down a little easier. I first started hitting on this subject when Good Morning America put their then-newsreader Chris Cuomo in a dunking booth and made sure we got to see his tight white t-shirt soaked to the skin overtop his bulging pecs.
There was a time when I played with the homoerotic male news tease as a “what-if” concept. I’ve written homoerotic wrestling stories exaggerating the theme for you and me in particular. I’ve intentionally allowed myself to “read into” the subtext of big, beautiful, beefy boys nailing positions in front of the news cameras as a device for sexing up and turning on the portion of their audience titillated by male beauty. But somewhere along the line, I think reality overtook my imagination. It doesn’t take much imagination at all to recognize that hardbodied hotties behind the news desks and on assignment are a thing. No longer are we turning to grey haired, grandfatherly types with jowls and expressionless faces to convey trustworthiness. In these post-structural days of impossible-to-escape subjectivity, the old boys, later replaced by the not quite young pretty girls, are now giving way to young, pretty, conventionally handsome hunks with big muscles.
So for today’s news break, let’s get caught up on a few of my newsboy infatuations who have been dropping more and more pretense and proving more and more explicitly that they know why we’re tuning in. They know what we’re looking at. And I’m confident that they’re getting just a little turned on by being exhibitionist hunks squarely in our crushing gaze.
The newsboy hunk I’ve prattled on about longest is, as I mentioned, Chris Cuomo. Now with CNN, formerly with ABC, Cuomo is, yes indeed, the younger brother of the current (and a former) New York State governor. A reader once mistook my infatuation for the Gov, but rest assured, I’m all about the younger Cuomo. Chris has owned a special place in the homoeroticization of news in particular for his frequent shirtless fishing pics he posts.
These days, there’s less and less merely implied about our cravings for his hot, bulging bod. He writes a column for a fitness mag. He posts videos of gym workouts. And I came across (pun intended) these video clips that prove Chris both knows we’re noticing his big, juicy muscles and he’s more than happy to stoke those fires with muscle teasing. This first clip is a little hard to see, but it’s Chris videoing a close up of his big, flexed bicep staring us in the face as he imitates James Earl Jones’ deep throated voiceover introduction to his network.
Tell me, would you have wanted to see Walter Cronkite role up his sleep and muscle tease his audience? No, Chris is a big, hardbodied newsboy hunk of the 21st century, when we like them not only ridiculously good looking and sexy fit, but showing it off. Then there’s this second clip I came across from his reporting from the World Cup from last year. I’d noticed his hot, bulging muscles squeezed into that jersey in still frame, but I’d missed this video of him. I’m not exaggerating so watch this now, because, no shit, Chris Cuomo is explicitly taunting us by bouncing his big, meaty pec.
Yes, that’s what I tune into the news for! Frankly, Chris can’t stop flexing. Sure, there are fresh new fishing shots (iconically Chris Cuomo) in which he rolls up his sleeve before he holds up his catch, to show off those peaked biceps. But he’s also showing off his sexy goofy hotness flashing a gasp-worthy double bicep in celebration of his 45th birthday this past week.
Hell, yes. Just try to stop me from imagining that heavy artillery pounding some other news hottie in the ring.
The top echelons of national news are rife with industry intrigue. Not everyone was expecting young David Muir, who always looks ripped from the pages of a last-decade Abercrombie catalog, to land the evening news anchor desk. He did though, and I’m not ashamed to admit I tune in more often just to soak in his dazzling hotness. David has been a little more coy about showing off his bod than Chris Cuomo is. But he does it. And clearly, it’s his chiseled triceps he’s most proud of.
Strip them down to speedos and lets see how painfully pretty Muir stacks up against 6’2″ Italian stallion Cuomo. David is long, lean and strong. If it were a marathon match, he’d be slapping on a front-face sleeper on a gasping, exhausted Chris before it was all over. Which is why Chris would make sure this doesn’t go the distance, with one high impact move after another, body slamming, clothes-lining, and suplexing David’s magnificent body all over the ring. I predict Cuomo takes the match with a rag doll full nelson submission, but Muir would make him work for it. Hard.
And speaking of working it hard, Gio Benitez has certainly been my biggest newsboy crush in recent months. His desk colleagues at Good Morning America have openly called out Gio’s bulging, hot bod, and producers keep insisting he cover “features” that require him to get soaking wet. There’s been a ton of speculation about where Gio’s lustful gaze lands (okay, I’m sure I’m projecting there, but I know I’m not the only one), but I’ve not been able to find any confirmation one way or another whose team he bats for. However, checking out his online pictorial archives, I’m noticing a certain sky blue-eyed slice of beefcake heaven appearing more and more frequently in his Instagram feed, including being featured prominently in Gio’s recent beach vacation photos. If he doesn’t play for our team, or at the very least is a switch hitter, he’s the most sexually secure straight Latino man on the planet.
I’ve speculated long and hard on the fireworks that a Cuomo v Benitez ring battle would incite. Fuck, Cuomo and Benitez have explicitly been comparing fitness and muscle fans. As for me, I’m sure muscle daddy Chris would demand face-to-crotch headscissors forcing Gio to suck on the agony while staring up at the Italian stallion flexing his biceps and pecs back at him. Gio’s blue-eyed, hotly muscled beefy “friend” would interfere from outside the ring, because no homoerotic wrestler wants to see his lover tag partner getting completely owned by a domineering muscle beast. Sooner or later, though, Cuomo’s got them both stacked into the corner and spearing the fuck out of them with shoulder blocks. A figure-4 sleeper putting down Gio and one of those coiling pythons choking out baby blue-eyes at the same time, and Cuomo is left flexing in victory atop both of them.
My other low boil newsboy hunk crush is Mr. GQ, Matt Gutman. This son of a bitch is downright stingy with his beefcake shots, which I guarantee you is a factor in why he’s been struggling for airtime at ABC with Gio’s dazzling star on the rise. But ABC news producers have also treated us to making Mattie get wet, many times, including one segment in which we get a glimpse of his fabulously furry, ripped, sensational bare torso. Of his more recent postings, one thing is for sure. That lush head of hair and sexy as fuck furrowed brow can make any terror fade into the background for me.
Here’s where things get seriously interesting in my homoerotic wrestling imagination. Mattie’s got some ice in his veins and heartless mystery about him that make me think what he gives up in sheer brawn to Cuomo, he may just make up for elsewhere. I picture him a smooth operator, chill. A graceful flyer who can plant a flat footed standing drop kick squarely into the Italian juggernaut’s collarbones. Chris muscles him around because, fuck, this is Mr. Muscle we’re talking about. But I say Gutman is the man with the plan, crippling the Italian stallion with a knee-snapping figure-4 and then exploiting a masterful ground game and, sure, some illegal use of the ropes, to wear Cuomo out. He submits to a reach from behind nut claw that the hairy correspondent uses to make Chris crawl on his hands and knees around the ring in weeping humiliation.
My thanks to the postmodern era for delivering newsboys who would have been muscle mag coverboys just 50 years ago.
Sidelineland 