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Post by philodendron on May 7, 2022 5:38:28 GMT -5
Lee Harvey Oswald is waaaaaay hot. So glad to see SOMEONE online with some sense about this topic. Of course, to try and look at him objectively, we have to gently set aside "all that" which occurred two days after I was born, in November of 1963, which is difficult for most to do, understandably, and go with the assumption that since Lee was never given a chance to talk, let's try - just try - to give the fellow a great big benefit of a doubt. Next, forget many (but not all!) of those terrible, unflattering mug shots and whatnot, featuring the black eye and the wounds, all colored over with merchurachrome, or whatever that funky pink stuff moms used to paint over cuts and scrapes back then. (Betadine? I don't know). DO observe, please, the clear eyes, which were blue/grey, the highlights in them. The rest of the features we will study later, as most are marred in the mug shots, however! The stubble! Ohhhh the stubble, running down onto his neck even, SO sexy, and the chest hairs, the few strands we see poking out above that ratty white tee shirt (which he ROCKED, by the way, Marlon Brando may have Rocked it in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' but as far as I'm concerned, Lee Harvey REALLY Rocked it. And for day after day after day he continued to Rock it...).
Now if we can go back, go back and look at the slew of passport and visa pictures, of which there are so, so many, He is honest-to-God CUTE. His face is gentle and relaxed, the eyes are calm and inviting, the highlights even brighter, his brows, fanciful and wildly arched at times, settle into a softer look as well, and that lovely, curious mouth of his. It is SO peculiar, I have never seen a mouth like Lee Oswald's. I used to be not so fond of it, and the way it appeared he was "always pursing his lips" as many haters would say, but no, that is just how his mouth WAS. And it appears more strained or "pursed" in some pictures more than others, sure, but when you see the gentler, relaxed photos (in some he is wearing all black, there is a three-quarter view of him that is absolutely dreamy, I mean we are talking 1950's/60's teenybopper magazine fare, like "Girls! Look! This week! Tony Perkins! Elvis! Lee Oswald!") his mouth is relaxed too. It's as if he were on a doll, like someone got him in front of the camera, and he was feisty and squirmy and someone said "Alik, take this," and handed him a coupla dolls and a glass of water, and poof he is floating. And the shudder goes *click* and there is one of the prettiest boys of that era on celluloid. (Okay prettiest boys IS subjective, as is my whole narrative here, but this is coming from someone who REALLY REALLY digs him).
And as I look at these photos, as I have for the last fifteen years as of this writing, I think once again about some of the real mysteries behind Lee Oswald. Those being, WHAT was his chest hair like, and when did it come in?
I have a theory...
There is that well-known shot of Lee and some vague male, with a woman in between them. She is delighted and wearing something like a bikini, the vague male is in something skimpy, and Lee is topless, wearing only jeans, barefoot, smiling in the sun, eyes closed, and NO CHEST HAIR. Whether it is the sun, because they are all a bit overexposed, or if it's because he is only 19 I don't know. But then, speed ahead to 1963, and we see those stray hairs below his collarbone in the arrest photos, we see hair curled in his suprasternal notch beneath his Adam's apple, and, in a VERY startling aerial shot I found recently, a VERY distinct, dark whorl of fur in there, up out of the white tee shirt like some tiny, fleeing animal. YES he was hairy and WOW it was there, more than I thought even. Many other photos of him being paraded up and down the DPD hallways show that his forearms are very pleasantly furred, with very fine dark hairs that swirl around the forearm, and lay close to the skin. His pelt is more silky as opposed to wooly. In yet other shots where we see his bicep/tricep, diminutive as it is, fur is creeping up past his elbow (very sexy on any handsome gent). They are very fine hairs. I suspect Lee had a lot of hair simply not visible at a distance or in blurry black and white photographs.
On a horrible note, as far as the autopsy photos, I rule them out as unsatisfactory and insufficient, as they shave areas prior to an autopsy before doing their cutting and digging and re-stitching. There is evidence of chest hair up top, on and above the sternum, and a seriously amazing armpit but I simply can not regard those photos as something to be seen PERIOD. I like Lee a lot and I feel like those are sad and invasive and do not belong in public circulation, much like Marylin Monroe's or Sharon Tate's tragic death photos. Again, that is perhaps a sweeping opinion because history should not be suppressed, I know, I know, and Lord knows there are enough post mortem photos of John Kennedy for everyone to see, but, people study those (and study them and study them). No one cares about Lee Oswald's. Unless they desire the sensationalist, morbidly-curious, "Find-a-Death" aspect about such things. So out of respect, no matter how much you may hate him, don't sensationalize those pictures.
That said, as far as trying to figure out WHEN Lee's fur came in, I am going to guess he was a "late bloomer." It is a well known fact that a lotta guys don't get chest hair and other secondary sex characteristics fully realized until after their teens. One friend told me he did not get his chest hair until he was 30! I kinda think he might be lying, but maybe it just took its sweet time. There are studies that can easily be found online about when it comes in, why it is late for some guys and early for others, just like, well, p*nis length variance and whatnot.
I would like to put forth that Lee Harvey Oswald's chest hair came in in perhaps 1960 or 1961, when he was back in the states, after his Russian experience. I can't think it ALL came in in the fall of '63, I mean who knows, but logically it would have been gradual, and when he was 22 seems like the age some serious hormonal stuff should start happening. Goodness knows he and Marina went at it like rabbits depending on what books you read, they were barely out of teenhood when they were wed, so. Hormones raging asunder. And not letting up.
YET. Young Lee's hair was thinning. Like, a lot! Of course I am biased and think it's adorable, that little widow's peak he has there, but I mean really, THAT much hair loss at only 24? And again, the Oswald Mystique at work - look at his mugshot - he has a PILE of thick healthy hair atop his head, yet other photos, from the side, etc., show a matted mess clinging to his scalp unflatteringly. It could be that those photos were taken as time wore on and he was not allowed to shower, so his already thin hair was getting further misshapen and flattened down. I just don't know, and cannot find any order in all those photos, where his brown button down shirt is on, then off, then on again, then GONE - the continuity gets blurred. So. The thinning hair. This would be in keeping with the hair on his forearms, triceps, and chest (what we can see of it) being so fine.
Now- something really neat I think - Lee Harvey's Treasure Trail! Yes, that lovely line of hair that often works its way down from beneath the sternum, connecting to the navel, and then continuing down below the beltline...
Some fellows. particularly hirsute ones, get more than just that Trail, they get an entire belly-full of hair. While that's okay, I prefer a more modest, but full, Treasure Trail, thick and defined, with finer hairs fanning out gently giving the whole thing the look of a long feather.
Did Lee Oswald have a Treasure Trail? YES. Years ago a photo finally appeared online, IN color, and NOT cropped. I had only every seen it in terrible black and white, high contrast, and cropped. But here was this lovely, wide image, a very well known image, I think by now, of Lee being dragged out of the Texas theater. He is glaring and squinting and has his mouth open. Cops are all around, a motorcycle cop behind him, and another in a white hat holding onto Lee. He is being "escorted" into a police car by the cop with the hat, and a gruesome figure in a suit chomping on a cigar and grinning proudly - he seriously looks like an idiot gangster stereotype out of a movie. Well. The only redeeming thing about this character is that he is grabbing Lee Oswald in such a way that both his button down shirt AND his white undershirt are being pulled with force up out of Lee's slacks. And guess what, there is a LOVELY area of pink flesh exposed, a wan little tummy, and, a distinct grey-brown line running a few inches above Lee's navel, and, below it and into his slacks. WOW. I mean WOW. Seeing that for the first time was like pornography, I may as well have been looking at an X-rated Nudie featuring Mister Lee Hairy Oswald. I mean. WOW.
I did not have a working printer at the time, so I emailed it to a friend who lived nearby, called him, and said "PRINT THAT OUT. I will be over in five minutes."
Total Oswald Porn.
So, wow, a trail, which SOME interpret as the outline of abs, but, I think not. While not doughy, Lee was not ripped. Toned, perhaps, as his forearms are VERY shapely, perfect almost. But he is often referred to as "wiry." I would like to see a "wiry" person to fully understand that, I know Lee was small (again, ADORABLE-button flashing, ADORABLE) and wore size small jackets and shirts, but I am not positive I understand wiry. My ex husband was exactly Lee's weight (145 - 165), height, general size and shape, although of course when we were together Lee was but a glimmer in my eye and I never thought about it until I started digging on Lee and realized the similarities. So maybe my ex was wiry and I just didn't know it...
So yeah, a Trail. Again there are forums - many of them - where men, women, gay men, all discuss "is a treasure trail (or happy trail) sexy on a guy or not?" - and of course opinions are mixed, but many follow with my take on it, in that YES it is hot, it is like a blatant ARROW pointing STRAIGHT to "the goods," and, like chest hair, it just compliments the male physique, and "makes the man." When a male - a foxy male - is topless, sure, there's the biceps and the pecs and the abs, perhaps, but the chest hair, HOT, the Treasure Trail, the ICING ON THE CAKE.
Again, subjective, but. I found this post, this "Oswald was HOT" post, and, well, I am responding...
Then there are the armpits - something most would NOT want to even consider contemplating, the armpits of Lee Harvey Oswald - but - he was a man, a YOUNG man, but a man, and if he had stubble and forearm hair and tricep hair and all of that, well of course he'd have...
How cool he must have looked topless, and he was, often, for in reading all the books I have, he was taking out the garbage in only "ill fitting gold gym trunks," he was mowing the lawn shirtless, he was out on the porch just wearing jeans building flowerboxes...
In New Orleans, where he was from, he'd whip off his shirt to catch crabs in the water.
In Russia, he and his good friend Ernst would drive to a mountain top for a picnic, and young Lee would "peel off his shirt."
And let's not forget his time in the Marines, a LOT of toplessness and social nudity there. But he was so, so young I tend to discount all of that. Not interested, still a boy. The Lee Oswald I dig didn't really take shape till the middle of his Russian episode and the beginning of his life back in the states. But ALL those visa and passport photos though, they must have been taken earlier than that, and he is SO sexy in most of them. There is one I call "007 Lee" because his expression is so - dashing? When really maybe he was pissed, but it's hard to say - he is wearing a white shirt and a tie, and the angle is odd, but he COULD almost pass as a Secret Agent Man. (Wait - but he WAS a Secret Agent Man wasn't he -? Oh well, we are talking about his physique and body hair and eyes and why he was HOT, here). (But you know what, the Secret Agent Man-thing IS kinda really cute, that he is so young, so small, and yet so keen and sneaky and able! I can go with that.)
And of course, HIS VOICE. There are the interviews with William Stuckey done in August of 1963 for radio WDSU, and, interestingly, some film footage, a short little bit, actually showing Lee with kind of sad flat hair but maybe it is just Brycreamed, and he is in an ADORABLE dark suit and tie, and SO tidy and Smart. He speaks, as Mr. Stuckey (out of camera range) asks him about the difference between a communist and a Marxist and other topics, and Lee discusses socialized medicine at some point, and he is very well spoken, calm, and his voice is like.............
What IS his voice like? It is not what I expected it to be, but, I have never been able to describe it. Maybe if there IS a New Orleans accent to it, that is what I am hearing, but, tonally, it's certainly not a deep voice. But not high, either. I guess, a middle tone? Words fail me, but I LIKE it. The ENTIRE interview, which is terribly tedious and dry and boring as sin, is on Youtube, and Lee is at times mechanical in his sentence structure and delivery, but the few times he gets stuck on a word or chuckles, well, that is just gold.
IF YOU REALLY want to hear Lee being Lee...PLEASE seek out the rare, reel-to-reel recordings made by that Russian friend Ernst. They were "besties" when they met up, and Ernst (Titovets), who is Russian, agreed to teach Lee Russian if Lee would teach him English. Too, Ernst was fascinated by Lee's accent, and wanted to record it. What happens is a fantastic series of role-play games between the two of them, that are quite funny. In one, Lee tries to sound like a lofty college professor reading Shakespeare (and gets stuck on a word, "matriculate," totally cute), in another sequence they are pretending to be a radio call-in show, with Lee as an esteemed guest and Ernst as the radio host fielding calls. Lee is ADORABLE in his silly answers to caller's questions, and his quick wit is quite evident, and, there is a lot of laughing. THAT is Hot. Sure they were both teens, MAYYYYYBe 20 at the latest, but either way it is Lee being himself, his guard down and relaxed.
As an artist, I do an insane, INSANE amount of work about Lee. Drawings, digital art, dioramas with 12" action figure likenesses of him I have made.
I wrote Ernst, after reading his fantastic, endearing book about Lee, "Oswald: Russian Episode."
I sent Ernst some photos of my work, including some of the "action figures" (because "dolls" sounds girly I guess?)
He thanked me for my praise of his book, and complimented me on my artistic take on Lee, which is giving him a new life through my art that is positive, tasteful, humorous, whimsical, and just plain kind, but with a bit of an edge, because of course the individual I am depicting...
His letter began,
"Dear Paul,
Thank you for giving your opinion about my book. You have a good eye for details that tell better about a man’s character than so many words.
Your sunny vision of reality is amazing. Oswald in your presentation is a happy man and I like it. It is in contrast to the official view of the man that rather encourages a character of a morose mentally disarranged loner.
Sincerely,
Ernst Titovets"
I of course was delighted he wrote me back and was pleased with my take on Mr. Oswald.
But then...
He added a P.S.:
"P.S. If I may make a suggestion. Oswald did not have much hair on his arms and the chest as seen in some of your pictures. However, this is only a reality while you are absolutely right to have your own artistic view of the man."
Of course massive giggling occurred when I read that, that for as short of a note he composed, HE ADDRESSED LEE'S BODY HAIR.
He would have known Lee when that photo was taken, the one way in the beginning of my narrative here of Lee and a vague make snuggling with a vague girl, and Lee with not a hair visible save for on his head. So of course Lee would have been very smooth, and again this supports my theory that Lee's fur, VISIBLE in the arrest photos, came in LATE. He must have been a wee little GOD standing in boxers in front of a mirror.
A wee little God.
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