As Magmozine.com continues full steam ahead into its first year on the web I will continue to bring you new features, articles, interviews and endless photos featuring the male body at its very best. Today I present the newest Gentlemen Interview [with more soon to follow] for Magmozine.com. The interview subject(s) are men who are 40 years of ago and older. They are the Genltemen I respect, the Gentlemen that intrigue me and the Gentlemen that entice me. Magmozine readers, let me introduce you to Andy & Bill of BigMuscle.com, the creators of a popular free profile website for men with "fine physiques". Of course you're own definition of "fine physiques" is quite acceptable and valid over another man's opinion. Let's get started.
1. Tell us how you enjoy life.
The small stuff. We have been told by a few that simple little things seem to get us excited. It could be shopping for a new keyboard, or car, but we try to enjoy those little perks in life. Outside of that, we enjoy the island of Maui in Hawaii. We try to get there 2-3 times a year to unwind from computers. We have been there enough that all we look forward to is answering e-mails in the morning and lying on the beach in the afternoon.
2. BigMuscle.com, BigMuscleBears.com & NormalGay.com. Describe the effect these websites have had on your life as well as the gay community.
I can only say how it effected our life, how its effected the gay community is only second hand from the e-mails we receive. Prior to the sites, both Bill and I worked other jobs in the computer industry. I Andy was in technical Sales and Bill was a manager in an IT department. So I would work all day and at night and weekends, I would work on the web sites. Once it took off, Bill became more interested, for a couple of reasons, one he wanted a new job so doing sales and advertising on the web sites gave him that opportunity. We figured the donations from the members were paying the internet bill and that anything he could get from selling ad space he could live off of, and my full time job would cover the rest. It was a slow start, but we managed.
In July of 2005 we re-ran the numbers and figured I (Andy) could leave my full time job with a paycut, but the quality of life would offer us so much more. So what started as a fun project, turned into a full time job for both of us. We manage the sites 7 days a week and answer e-mails 7 days a week. But we enjoy it immensely, and I think the community it has built is really from the guys on the site that welcome new members and makes the site what it really is. Bill and I are just the janitors keeping the site clean and sparkling.
3. Give us your take on why online profiles continue to exist and grow in sizable numbers. Also, do you have any advice or guidance for those looking to build their online profile(s) on BigMuscle.com, BigMuscleBears.com and/or NormalGay.com?
Our sites are what we would call vertical or boutique markets. We are not trying to be everything for everybody. Though we have created sites for those guys that like to hang out with other members like themselves. It's just like the bars in San Francisco, you have leather bars, bear bars, young guys, old guys, you name it. The bars tend to cater to an age demographic to keep the guys coming in.
As for guidance on how to build their profile... Well that is easy, keep it simple and be honest. Everybody has their own reason for posting or adding what they want. I've heard comments as to why do we allow headless profiles, why do we allow people to lie about their age, employment, service.... We figure everybody has their own reasons and provided the follow the simple rules for each site, then its all good.
I tell the guys, if the headless profile is of a ripped guy, don't be sad that they didn't post a photo, just know you now know you have 1 less thing in common with them because you want the guys you meet on-line to show everything. We remove the fake profiles, but validating the other information is just tough and figure that's really the excitement of meeting somebody on-line where you get to ask those questions and find out more about them.
4. Gay Marriage, Voyeurism & San Francisco. Talk freely about each subject.
Gay Marriage - Bill and I have been together 15 years now. We want it for the tax breaks and medical breaks. We are self employed now, so instead of being able in the governments eyes to have a family account, we still have to buy separate accounts. There are just too many little got-ya's that we have to keep paying extra for. We did get married when they were allowing us to, but the state annulled it. One day soon we hope.
Voyeurism - Hummmm, are you talking about what goes on in the steam room at the gym or on the web sites :-) I think voyeurism is what makes BigMuscle work in some ways. Guys that would be afraid to shower in a gym will show off all on the sites. I think that working hard in the gym, then heck - why not show off what you have accomplished.
San Francisco - Well Bill loves it, I will always be an east coast - New Englander. I'm OK with it here, but will always dream of a country house in New England holding my cup of hot chocolate watching the snow come down. I lived it, and miss it. I'm like a 3rd grader who went out for recess and never came back in. Every snow storm was exciting to me (Andy).
5. The Bear Community. Tell us about your experiences within this community and why it currently has your heart and devotion.
For the record, Bill and I are squirrels. It's a quick story, of when we lived outside of Boston. We planned a bear weekend in Provincetown in the dead of winter, so a few months before we drove out to see what we could offer for the package weekend. One bar owner told us to meet her at the bar. We showed up around 11:00am on a Saturday. She already had a few on us. When we introduced ourselves, she said "oh yeah, you are the guys from the squirrels". Since then Bill and I joke about being Squirrels.
The Bear community. well we don't get out much so what we get from BMB is the community that we see/have. Heart and devotion - well I wouldn't say that, the managing of all the servers has that. When Andy started BM, Bill took the code and created BMB. Just figured it was needed because each group has different eating habits :-) We tend to to have BM and BMB meet and greets and on and off the record, I have had fun at both crowds. Its all about having that little something to start a conversation with. The sites gives us both.
6. Educate us about sex. (from your life experiences)
Monogamy - heck it's what works for Bill and I. I'm not saying others need to do it or they are "bad people" if they don't. That is not us. What has made us last together for the 15 years is just being true to each other. And a good sex life doesn't hurt.
7. Educate us about love. (from your life experiences)
Love, I read someplace that everybody has a different definition of love. And after I read that I looked at all of our friends in relationships and figured that was true. I can say both Bill and I adore each other. Bill is there when I'm sick, be it 2:00am driving to the drug store or me making him homemade bread and soup when he has a cold. Like we said before, it's the little things, that is the sum of the big picture.
8. Voice your opinion(s) on pop culture, politics and/or religion?
We could go on for a very long time about this, and I'm not about to get in a frenzy about any of this, Let just say, Politics are very scary now. We are not religious. We like the ShowTime show Bullshit with Penn & Teller. When they tried to find Elvis Presley's fried chicken recipe, they couldn't, there where too many differences about how to go about it, and that was only 20 years ago. So we are suppose to follow a book that nobody knows who wrote it that was written many many years ago. I don't think so.
Pop culture, as we get older we understand that advertisers are not so interested in our ad dollars, its the young that get solicited to. We are fine with that.
9. What's the best thing about being 45 & 48 years old?
Our credit cards are paid off, we only have 10 years left on our home mortgage, and we are both healthy. Life is good.
10. What's next from the creators of BigMuscle.com? Another online communal website? Or maybe a web venture into the pornography side of the net?
Well, we will be staying away from the porn side of things, with the government going after pornography in the name of protection of children, we won't be looking that way anytime soon. The most we might do is allow video on the site, provided it's video of themselves and not stolen content.
As for web sites. The next two in our target is a BigMuscleCollege and BigMuscleLeather sites. One for the 18-25 year olds, and anything to do with leather. The leather site might be more on hard x content, but we would need to figure out how to handle the 2257 reporting law to make sure that everybody in the photos were 18 and that we have the documentation to prove it. The college site we figure are for the up and coming BigMuscle guys. We know that many would be coming out at that time and maybe might be intimidated by some 45 year old hitting on them. Or when they are talking music they will find other guys that actually know the groups they are listening to.
Look for BigMuscleCollege in the next few months followed up by BigMuscleLeather sometime in September.
Any Last Words:
Last Words - well we have been very busy, we lost a test server at our home, so I have been working the last week to recover it and getting it working again, Nothing exciting, but doing what we have to. I'm not a blogger so really don't have much outside of the questions that were asked.
Actually thought of one thing. I do have a site that I have been running on the web for over 10 years. http://www.qod.com It's Question Of the Day. It's a site that runs itself, people submit questions and we have a fun set of people that come everyday to answer it and post funny and silly comments to the answers for the day. I think the wayback machine has some very funny old graphics of the site when I really didn't know about HTML coding. Not that I do still, but have learned a few things by now.
BigMuscle.com
BigMuscleBears.com
NormalGay.com
Tom Bianchi . Big Muscle
GGreg . Photo Gallery
Fleshbot . Big Muscle of the Week
Hairrison . Photo Gallery
Magmozine.com Editor writes: Thank you Andy & Bill for your time and this entertaining & informative interview. I look forward to BigMuscleCollege the most as I am not into leather as others are but I do expect many, many and many anonymous college profiles as many still feel the pressure to stay in the closet. As for videos on your websites, that seems like it will be quite the ordeal to take on. I hope someone lends a helping hand in your direction on how to get this new feature started. Thanks again guys!
While flipping through my latest issue of Muscle & Fitness, I came across a magazine ad for Animal Pak. The ad featured a larger than life man sitting on the bed as a nearly naked woman lies sleeping just behind him. The image alone grabbed my attention as ads are intended to do, so I started reading the text. This led me to Animal Pak's online "Journey". 
