Newton Arvin: Beefcake Magazines and an Immoral Witch Hunt

In 1960, Professor Newton Arvin and three of his colleagues from Massachusetts Smith College were caught up in a scandal that's almost hard to imagine today.

After failing to confiscate and destroy some of the greatest literature the world has ever known, the Postmaster General began a crusade to target and arrest gay men around the country who received "obscene" materials through the United States mail. The "obscene" materials were muscle magazines with images readily seen on cable television today.

You would be forgiven for asking what the lives of three men living and working in the rarefied air of academia have to do with the average gay man, but the details of this story happened to gay men across the country.

This is my love letter to Newton Arvin and the men and women who came before and after him.

I've uploaded a letter Arvin wrote to Capote in 1946. To read the letter, visit the Smith College link or check out the community tab.

https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/...