Body Beautiful: Studies in Masculine Art, November 1954

Both Body Beautiful and Adonis magazines were published by Joe Weider, the entrepreneurial Canadian bodybuilder and founder of the Mr. and Ms. Olympia bodybuilding contests. Weider was a rare heterosexual among physique publishers

Beefcake magazines of the 1950's and 60's allowed men to explore their interest in body building a fitness. The publication had a secondary purpose for men interested in men. This set of Body Beautiful magazines from the late-50's and early-60's are filled with strapping young men moving their bodies. 

Their unstated primary purpose was erotic imagery, primarily created by and for gay men at a time when homosexuality was the subject of cultural taboos and government censorship.