Meet the publisher of the meat ICONS calendar 2023

Publisher Adrian Lourie writes about his enthusiasm for self-publishing and all the men featured in meatzine, meat ICONS and the meat ICONS 2023 gay calendar.

I published meatzine for ten years, 56 issues and photographed over 600 men. I took a shot at photographing as many different men as possible.

My initial boast was that I could make any man a pinup, and I don’t think I did too badly. Sure, I gave you the muscles and the beards, but my main focus was on the guys I wasn’t seeing so much in gay media. The truth is I photographed the men I fancied, and I pretty much fancied every man I photographed over that decade.

meatzine gay calendar — Neil – Mr July (Image supplied)

meat went through so many fashions and phases from bears to East London hipsters and right the way to the gender fuck/non-binary/queeries of today and beyond. It was successful. Some say it was ‘cult’.

meat icons — The latest edition of meat ICONS – Issue 9 (Image supplied)

This year I’ve started to self-publish again, mainly because I love that I can. I also secretly still enjoy photographing guys in their undies (and less). My friend gave me the idea for meat ICONS. To shoot the best-looking, sexiest men I could find. The real hunks.

I was intrigued by the idea of making regular guys icons. However, I wanted to push aside the traditional stereotypes of what makes men sexy, which are still far too prevalent in our ‘community’. So, I decided that my icons would be in the true spirit of meat and as diverse as I could make them, the only constraint being finding the guys who were brave enough to put themselves out there.

gay calendar meat icons 2023 — Christos – Mr February (Image supplied)

The result is 12 zines over the year, each featuring a sexy 20-page portrait of just one man. I’ve recently gathered these 12 outstanding men for a 2023 calendar. For many reasons, I provocatively sub-titled the zine ‘A pictorial on modern masculinity’.

I think masculinity gets a bad rap. In many of its forms, deservedly so. However, I don’t think there should be any shame attached to the idea of masculinity and what it means to us as men, whatever our pronouns or preferences. Of course, it can be an attitude, a hairy chest, or muscles but also much more. It can also be the flick of eyeliner or the refusal to label or be labelled. It’s about modern men with all our egos, insecurity, faults, and flaws. It’s ultimately the ownership of our sexiness.